The Voice Bearer

2009-04-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

The Resurrection is like High School Prom
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. Gees, I hate it how that happens. I never did finish the political commentary. Maybe something like that can happen in bits and pieces along the way.

I’ve decided to try a different kind of post tonight. As I was sitting in our weekly “small group” meeting (for Baptist readers, that’s Wednesday night church, which Ashley and I ironically host on Thursday nights at our house), it crossed my mind that we sometimes get into intriguing discussions, some of which would be suitable to discuss on a platform like this blog. Of course, some information shared at small group is personal, and some is sensitive, so I’ll try to be discerning in what I share here.

Today is Maundy Thursday. (Well, yesterday was, if I don’t get this posted until after midnight.) Having attended a Southern Baptist church nearly my entire life, I haven’t been privy to a lot of the ritualistic or liturgical traditions that may accompany this observance. I would expect that typical Maundy Thursday observances would take a somber tone; I’ve even heard the term “tennebrae service” floated around to describe the attitude of mourning that is to take place beginning on Thursday of Passion week. Of course, we remember the Last Supper shared by Christ and his disciples, which may be expressed through Communion. Communion (or the Lord’s Supper) was, in fact, initiated by Christ at the Last Supper. In I Corinthians 11, Paul explains that believers should remember Christ’s death and proclaim his death until he returns with each sharing of the Lord’s Supper.

At small group tonight, we read Paul’s passage in I Corinthians, and we also read John 13:1-17, which contains the account of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. The first point I brought up was Jesus’ emphasis at the conclusion of the passage that his act of service in washing feet was performed as a blatant example for how his followers should conduct themselves. It’s not always that Christ explains his actions fully for us, but here, he does a deed and immediately points out the “application” that we should make. Josh furthered this point by observing that since Jesus was the “teacher” in the room, the highest position, his act of service was likely all the more shocking to his disciples. The example echoes Jesus’ earlier teaching that whoever desires to become great among us must first become our servant.

Ashley mentioned the beauty that she sees in Christ’s sense of community in this passage. In verse 1, we learn that Christ is aware of his approaching death. With a few short hours left on the earth, his preference is to gather his closest friends together and share an intimate meal in honor of the Passover. These are the folks that he has surrounded himself with during years of ministry. These are the folks he has invested his life into. These are the folks who he wants to spend time with during the final fleeting moments of peace. The setting is hence already one of love and graciousness. Then we realize that Judas, the betrayer, is also present. That ought to stun us. Judas, according to the passage, has already agreed to the betrayal; Christ is cognizant of the future hours; and Christ still counts Judas “worthy” of joining him for this event. I guess none of us are truly worthy. As a brief aside, I saw that a footnote in my Bible claimed that the word for love (agape) or its verb equivalent appears only eight times in John before this passage; however, it appears 31 times within chapters 13-16, which demonstrates its significance to the events of Christ’s Passion.

As a final point of our discussion, Ashley commented on the struggle that she often has (and as it turns out, we all have) in engaging Holy Week on an “appropriate” level. As she put it, our entire faith relies on the factuality and grand implications of the events that we observe this weekend. Without Easter, Christianity is dead. Why do we often fail to get excited about this time? Why do we often feel emotionally, or psychologically, or even spiritually detached? Josh commented that with time, we all tend to get used to the big events—Easter, Christmas, etc. We know they are significant, but we are accustomed to observing them. Nothing is new anymore, so it is difficult to become thrilled. Ruth Ann likely coined the catchphrase of the evening (again) when she suggested that observances like this are kind of like high school prom in our eyes. Yes, I’m serious. It’s an event that a lot of people build up in their minds; if you’ve never experienced prom, everything leading up to it makes it feel like it’s going to be a pivotal event in your life. Then, it happens...and the next day comes. You realize that it wasn’t that big of a deal. With events like Easter, for someone who has been a Christ follower for awhile, things are a little reversed. We’ve been to this prom before. We’ve seen the excitement. We’ve seen the next day and discovered that, believe it or not, life goes on after the event is over. The problem is that unlike high school prom, the Resurrection really is pivotal. In fact, it’s so pivotal that we should be striving to live each day of the year in the light and spirit of the Resurrection. It’s funny how humans approach things backwards. We frequently treat earthly events as if they’re eternal, and we treat eternal events as if they’re earthly.

We’ve got a few days until Easter Sunday. Let’s use this time to start righting our perspectives. Let’s focus on the eternal for a few days and not allow the earthly demands of the holiday continue to numb our souls. Let’s celebrate the Resurrection each day that we live and not treat it like one of our normal human events.

2008-11-04T11:36:00.000-08:00

Election Day Evangelism
Honestly, I couldn't have made this up if I tried. Last night, after much thought and prayerful consideration, I made a decision to vote for a particular candidate for president. Afterward, I posted a widely distributed prayer that Ashley and I used last night to pray for our country. This morning, another prayer showed up in my inbox. I'm copying it below. Notice the differences between it and the prayer from last night. It presents some intriguing insights for Christians.

"Please pass this prayer on right now on behalf of John McCain. Please start prayer chains immediately for the election. This election can be turned around for the glory of God if we will stop worrying and get on our knees!!! How many people can you pass this on to??? Let us pray.

"Father, in the name of Jesus, we come to You right now asking for a miracle in this election. Lord, we lift up to You right now Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin. Lord, we ask that You would just wrap Your arms around them and their families at this critical time. Father, we ask for miracle upon miracle in this election. We know that only You can turn the tide of evil in this election. Father, as we await the final days of the election, we ask in complete faith that You would allow the truth to be known across this land.

"Lord, we ask for forgiveness for putting You last. Father, please heal our land and homes, allow us to have another chance to love You the way you should be loved. Lord, we ask specifically for John and Sarah’s health, wisdom, words, actions, and their campaign staff. Lord, we lift them all up to You now. Father, we also specifically ask for the voters in many states who are battleground states. Lord, please convict the hearts of voters in Florida, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, North Dakota, Virginia, Nevada, and Colorado.

"Father we beg for every electoral vote. Lord, we lift all of our needs up to You now. In the name of Jesus we claim victory in Your name. Lord, we pray for Your will to be done in a mighty way...we know that this election can and will glorify You! Father, place the man you would have to lead our country in a Christian way on November 4. We love You, Lord. We await Your holy miracles...

"In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

"Send this on to as many people as you can think of.....let it reach every corner of America. Get on your knees for this election....Pray for God to send a REVIVAL across this land. Christians, its time we get on our knees....talk to people, speak up....we've been silent too long."

I'm not sure that I need to explain anything, but for starters...who was it that decided God wants McCain to win? It has been quite a long time since I have been audacious enough to put words in God's mouth, or to pretend to know his ways.

Also, I wonder why this writer is praying for the swing state voters to be "convicted." Convicted for exercising their God-given right to vote for Obama? Things are getting hazy for me.

One final point: the prayer implores God to "place the man [God] would have to lead our country" in office. Embedded in a prayer for McCain's victory, this point can become problematic because if Obama wins, either the prayer was not heeded by God or Obama IS the man God appoints to lead our country. Interesting. Prayers like this one really scare me. We'll see what happens next.

2008-11-03T21:24:00.000-08:00

Election Day Eve
The last two or three days have been refreshing for me spiritually and socially. On Sunday, Ashley and I babysat three kids all day long--an act that for "newlyweds" turns the whole world on its head. I was so tired on Sunday that I actually allowed myself to rest for a change. Our pastor provided an encouraging message on the significance of Tuesday's election...an event about which I had almost resigned myself to complacency. After much thoughtful consideration, research, and journaling (as well as watching another successful Steelers' Monday night game), I have finally decided who will receive my vote for the presidency tomorrow morning. I may share a little more about that decision later on, but for now, I'll only leave the prayer that Ashley and I shared tonight after all this soul-searching.

"Almighty God, who has given us this good land for our heritage, we humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogance; and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought here out of many nations and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

2008-10-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

We Know How to Spend Money

Over the past year, I’ve tried to enlighten myself a great deal on the topic of personal finance. Sadly, my interest probably started when a buddy from church gave me a copy of Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover book as a “wedding gift.” I say “sadly” not because I don’t like Dave Ramsey’s advice. On the contrary, his down-to-earth, traditional, blue-collar approach to personal money managing appeals to me greatly, but the way he presents his advice reminds me of the way my middle school basketball coach tore into me one time about attempting a chest pass when I should have used a bounce pass to avoid an interception. So, I’m a little ashamed that I like Dave Ramsey so much...the same way I’m ashamed that I like Uncle Kracker’s music. (Please don’t tell anyone I like Uncle Kracker.)

Now, a year later, Ashley and I operate on somewhat of a strict budget, we’ve got our money spread around in different accounts here and there, and I receive an e-mail each week from Morningstar to try to keep abreast of the dynamics of the stock market. I’ll never be an expert in all this junk, but I do want to take advantage of some of the great information that’s out there...especially at a time when our country in enduring this “financial crisis.”

I don’t want to rehash this whole market meltdown thing. Plenty of websites do that already. The main points are that some of our largest financial institutions have made a series of horrible investment decisions and that these unwise decisions are going to take a toll on the entire populace through trickle-down effects. Some examples of these effects could be guessed at quite readily. Because loans have been defaulted on, people who give out loans are going to tighten up on their qualifications for giving them out. Because there’s not as much money being exchanged, the Fed will lower interest rates to try to encourage borrowing. Because the government has decided to bail out multiple financial institutions, Americans will feel some increased tax burden. Good luck to McCain or Obama, whoever has to deal with that situation next year.

As a side note to this whole breakdown, I believe, as I thought from the beginning, that the bail out package is a mistake. It is a quick fix to stabilize an economy that’s gone down the wrong path for far too long. It’s like trying to repair an established psychological disorder through coercion instead of through counseling and medication. We're treating the symptoms, but the causes are deep and ingrained.

America has nearly made an Olympic sport of consumerism. Indeed, I think our habits of getting and spending are a psychological disorder. The condition extends from inner city ghettos all the way to ritzy suburbanites, from rural Mississippi to Wall Street. It may take repeated attempts, a new try with each new paycheck, but we simply must learn to live within our means. Until we do that, as individuals and as a society, we will be victims...victims of greed, of unscrupulous businesspeople, of false investment hopes, of the lure of consumerism.

No winners exist in our current financial cesspool. But the ones who are going to weather the storm the most comfortably are those who have established an adequate amount of funds in conservative investments—savings accounts, bonds, and some money market accounts—and who have not entangled themselves inextricably in debt—car notes, bad mortgages, and credit cards. And, of course, these individuals will need to have already learned some of the habits of living within their means from paycheck to paycheck. If they haven’t learned that yet, they will soon enough when they’re in over their head and don’t qualify for the next loan.

Until the economy heals itself (which will take much longer now that we’ve voted to bail out these corporations), perhaps we can take time to help heal our lifestyles. Maybe we’ll put off getting the iPhone even longer until the student loans are paid off. Maybe the old tv is fine for right now, but we’ll definitely take some time to work toward getting a new one. Our financial wounds won’t heal until we learn to live within our means. Our means can rarely buy us everything we want, but there’s rarely an end to everything we want anyway. Unlike our wants, our funds are limited

2008-10-18T23:46:00.000-07:00

"Life Changes"
I checked out this blog a few weeks ago and realized that I'm approaching the one-year anniversary since my last post. That's really pathetic. Since last fall, I've undergone several "life changes," as I've heard other people call them. The phrase strikes me as pointless because the core things that make us who we are aren't essentially going to be changed by our circumstances--even when those circumstantial changes are dramatic.

Since my last post, I've gotten engaged, gotten married, moved to a new place (3 times), and changed jobs. Sounds like a lot of life changes. However, I only wish it were that easy to change our lives. For the past several days, I've been dealing with feelings of guilt, the sort that have cropped up from time to time in my life, over my general outlook on life--lack of motivation and purpose--or over some of the things I do, things that probably everyone struggles with from time to time but things that I should no better than doing...they're just not ethically or morally right. The fears that grasp me sometimes even today are not unlike the fears that grasped me when I was single, in school, or living in an old, tried-and-true apartment. Challenges are the same for me. Vision is just as important. And discipline is still essential. And I find myself struggling with all of the above. Fortunately, I am still surrounded by those who encourage me. I still receive satisfaction after a job well done. And I still have a God who loves me despite everything I've mentioned. It's odd how "life changes" don't really change your life all that much.

I'm going to try posting more. And it won't usually be this heavy.

2007-10-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

Reality and our Best Intentions

Before I begin, I must warn you that these thoughts are quite rough. I haven't really even given them a quick proofread. Just one of those times that you find yourself writing before you even meant to.

What is your intent? This question, I’m beginning to believe, could contain an array of answers for many of life’s quandaries and disappointments. It’s a question that I’d like to begin asking myself each morning as I fling the covers off myself. We have certain pictures of ourselves and roles that we believe we should be filling. We have purposes, we have dreams, we have goals...but we also have a sense of “reality.” Reality has come to be thought of as that thing that dashes our hopes, that pummels our self-image, that defaces our property and leaves us shaking our heads in confusion. How frivolous we were to have pinned our hopes on something. How futile is our striving our excellence. How hopeless it is to hope.

Others may look on with mock pity. They shake their heads too, but they say among themselves, “Well, it’s about time he got his head out of clouds and faced reality.”

I propose that we take another look at “reality.” Reality is the understanding that today has twenty-four hours in it and that I can use that time as I choose. Reality is the ability to choose virtue rather than vice. Reality is the promise that even though I’ll screw something up today, tomorrow is still going to happen. Reality tells me that if I set the standard high for myself, I’ll reach a lot farther than I would have if I had set it low.

This is why I ask what our intentions are. Do I intend to make the best of the job, to continue in my studies, to be more Christ-like today than I was yesterday, or to have even a Christ-like attitude during my daily events? Sadly, I usually don’t. The ideas sound nice to me, but I’ve got to face “reality.” If I can begin to see “reality” as those higher, more noble intentions, chances are I’ll get there much faster. Next time you see me, ask me what my intentions are. I’ll ask you the same.

2007-08-15T21:09:00.000-07:00

The Battlefield of Self
During the past year, I’ve become keenly aware of a “tragic flaw” in my character. Oh, I knew it was there long ago. I would never have denied it. If you had pointed it out to me, as several folks have done, I would have agreed heartily, laughed about it...and then continue in my enslavement to it. It’s one of those traits that’s so wrapped up in your personality that to try to do away with it seems like suicide because you don’t really know how much of yourself you might kill with it. Besides, it’s something that only manifests itself under certain circumstances and in certain company and it certainly doesn’t hurt anyone. That last point of defense is probably the most misleading because I’m beginning to recognize that the one it does in fact hurt is myself.

I’m speaking of a nasty strain of perfectionism that has rooted itself deep within my interior. Maybe that’s disappointing for you to hear...you thought I was going to confess truly foul sins. If that’s the case, you must not be a perfectionist. If you were, you’d know the burden of trying to live your life while constantly engaging a nagging, perfectionist mindset. Nothing is good enough to truly satisfy, no task is ever completed to the standard you have set, and—for me, this is the worst—the disappointment and letdown of not exceeding expectations comes with a heavy dose of guilt...guilt for not achieving and guilt for being such a blasted perfectionist. It’s inescapable.

I haven’t done much research on perfectionism—we’ll leave that to the psychology folks—but I have come across a few interesting viewpoints. One writer, whose name I cannot identify because I only have a photocopy of a single page within a larger work, associates perfectionist traits with conditions such as chronic anxieties and irrational phobias. I can see how this works. Perhaps many perfectionists have a fear that they won’t do “good enough.” So they’re always anxious, walking on eggshells, wondering when the hammer will fall. Likewise, as a phobia, perfectionism may affect some as a fear of failure. Hence, we see people working themselves into a panic over seemingly trivial situations. It’s hard for me to see myself in either of these places, however, because frankly, I’m also pretty confident in myself. A lot of the tasks in which I involve myself are things that I think I’m good at. I don’t expect failure at my job because, honestly, I think I’ve got a good handle on what I need to do there.

The book that I’m currently addicted to is called The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. He’s a great, contemporary Christian thinker, and he’s a tenured professor of philosophy in California. Those two things add up “major credentials” in my estimation. In chapter four, Willard sneaks in some commentary on “the perfectionist” during his examination of the Beatitudes. It caught me off-guard, and I’m still deciding whether I completely agree with the interpretation, but it intrigued me nonetheless:

“And then there are the pure in heart, the ones for whom nothing is good enough, not even themselves. (‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.’) These are the perfectionists. They are a pain to everyone, themselves most of all. [...] They endlessly pick over their own motivations. They wanted Jesus to wash his hands even though they were not dirty and called him a glutton and a winebibber.

“Their food is never cooked right; their clothes and hair are always unsatisfactory; they can tell you what is wrong with everything. How miserable they are! And yet the kingdom is even open to them, and there at last they will find something that satisfies their pure heart. They will see God. And when they do they will find what they have been looking for, someone who is truly good enough.”

But until the kingdom comes, here I stand with my unquenchable inner drive toward...who knows? Toward something better than the last time, I suppose. And, you see, this is where perfectionism takes us. Because it is unquenchable, unsatisfied, always reaching with clenched fists, it is a psychological equivalent to greed.

We usually think of greed in terms of wealth, the Scroogian propensity for wanting more and more things—not for need, but for desire. If I take something simply because I want it rather than for any value that it could give me, I am not bettering myself or anyone else. Additionally, the thing that I have taken is now serving no practical purpose to accomplish good tasks. Greed is so devilish because it strips good things of their goodness and because it exercises that thing inside me that must have.

Though perfectionism does not normally involve wealth, it most certainly exercises the same must have reflex. As task after task and project after project are completed for the sake of completing something well, we perfectionists are continually unsatisfied, and sure enough, our good tasks are even stripped of their goodness in our own eyes.

I don’t have a final answer to perfectionism. If it were that easy to solve, there wouldn’t be so many of us walking around with the problem. I do like the Willard commentary, especially in context of his overarching theme—that the kingdom of God is among us. Maybe we perfectionists don’t have to wait for the kingdom of God to come...maybe it’s already here. After all, that’s what Jesus proclaimed. And if we take his word for it, maybe we’ll start to see that there are more important things to be concerned over than our next project.

2007-06-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

The Funniest Invention
I think one of the funniest 20th century inventions is the leaf blower. All of the other "air devices" that come to my mind right now achieve much more useful tasks. For example, a hair dryer dries your hair very quickly. An air compressor inflates your tires in a timely, convenient manner. A vacuum cleaner helps you clean a large area in no time. That dentist air-sucker tool disposes of all the junk that accumulates in your mouth during a teeth cleaning. But a leaf blower? It's purpose is to push things around.

Instead of gathering leaves and other yard debris into a pile for disposal, the blower scatters it indiscriminately across the property. If there were aliens observing leaf blowing from space, they would certainly be confused at the spectacle. "Ah, the atmospheric winds deposited those leaves in Bob's yard. Bob doesn't like it. Now, he's using a wind machine to blow the leaves away from the yard. Now, he's going back in the house...and the wind is blowing the leaves back into the yard. Here comes Bob again..." The process could go on infinitely.

I'm all for keeping a clean yard. I think leaves should be disposed of, sidewalks should be swept off, limbs should be picked up, etc. But there's a guy who lives two doors down from me that tries to take care of all this with his leaf blower. I've watched him from my porch several times. He starts at his house and at the back of his driveway and pushes all the debris he can find down to the street. When he gets to the street, he sometimes seems unsure of how to proceed because he now has a row of debris in an arc formation just on the edge of his property in the street. Well, you've gotta get it farther away than that! If not, it'll blow back up when a car passes. So he pushes it farther into the street. And farther into the street. Until it's about halfway across the street. (The streets in my neighborhood are surprisingly wide. You can park cars along both curbs and still have enough room for two lanes of traffic.) I've always wondered how funny it would look if someone came out of his house at this point and saw my neighbor in the middle of street blowing leaves.

But the dumbest leaf blowing incident I've seen yet happened at work a couple weeks ago. The landscapers who are hired by the office owners were doing their typical summer work. Obviously, they have to come by much more frequently in the summer than during the rest of the year. At one point I heard loud machine noises coming from the parking lot. I looked out the window and saw two of these guys walking around with leaf blowers. I think they were attempting to blow some debris into the wooded area off the backside of our parking lot, but the formation that they were using to corral the debris in that direction seemed ineffective. After about three hours of walking around aimlessly, they managed to clear of the lot pretty well. Thirty minutes later, a summer thunderstorm hit and blew more limbs, pine straw, and pine cones into the parking lot than you could imagine. Did I mention that the landscapers' leaf blowers were the gas powered kind? You know, the kind that strap to your back like the Rocketeer? Or, as Metts suggested, like Ghostbusters. I'm glad in our 21st century world, we've decided on some really responsible ways to use our fossil fuels.

Does anyone else have a suggestion for our funniest modern invention?

2007-05-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

Birds and Beaks and Fossils
I cling to some beliefs like a ledge on a rock climbing wall. I know that if I let go of them, I’ll fall. I’ll try to hold my grip no matter how painful it is. These are the basic principles of my faith and my assumptions about how life works, and if one of them becomes shaken somehow, it really takes a toll on me by affecting my mood, my state of mind, and the way I think about things. You’ll know that I’m wrestling with that sort of belief when you see me looking a bit shell-shocked or pensive. As you could probably guess, examples of these beliefs would be my view of God, my perception of close relationships, the greater purposes of life, etc.

I cling to other beliefs like an old pair of tennis shoes. I like them, and I know they’re comfortable, convenient, and useful to me. But I also realize that some people may object to my wearing them on certain occasions, and I would agree that there are some places where they are just not appropriate. I’m not so closely connected with them that I would not be willing to part with them for some time (or even forever) if it’s for the common good.

My belief in Creation would, for me, lie in this second category. I believe the literal seven-day Creation account that is recorded in Genesis, partly because I have no reason not to. If I believe that God has the power to raise Christ from the grave and that He has some sort of vested interest in my life, the prospect of a seven-day Creation account seems like child’s play. (Pardon the pun when speaking in light of Christ’s teaching that we should have faith like a child.)

Yet, while operating in the politically correct world of 21st century American education, I find that childlike perspectives of the world, such as the seven-day Creation account, are often glossed over by academics as, at best, ignorant, and at worst, fairy tale. As an individual, being faced with such an attitude does not bother me in the least; call me a believer in fairy tales. What does bother me though is when the assumed evolutionism is propounded in educational resources through faulty reasoning. I recently read the following explanations in some science material that I was editing. And I’ll say from the outset that I am not particularly familiar with the intricacies of this argument, so the information that I have gleaned from these 8th grade level resources is admittedly probably watered down.

First, a set of illustrations called attention to the beaks of about four different species of birds. The beaks were uniquely shaped and obviously well suited to accommodate the particular feeding habits of the birds. The question was posed: “Why are the beaks of these birds shaped differently?” My childlike mind immediately screamed that God had created the birds with a beak that would easily allow them to feed properly on the organisms that would sustain them. However, the answer as it was explained in the text was that after millions of years of evolution, the beaks had taken these different shapes in response to the environments and feeding habits of the birds. Stop there and consider those two perspectives. In one, the bird does what is natural to it. It has a beak that is conducive to scooping fish, so it finds water and scoops fish. In the other, the bird hammers away at some food source unnaturally until after millions of years of trying, its body catches on and adapts to this unorthodox method of survival. It seems amazing that the bird survived through those millions of years until the transformation happened. To use a modern human example, Nolan Ryan was one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history because he was good at throwing fastballs. In fact, he threw them professionally until he was over 40 years old. That’s why he threw fastballs for a living instead of selling insurance. Sure, he may have survived trying to sell insurance, but he might not have been a great salesman and he certainly would have been missing out on using some of his natural ability. It is not backwards thinking to say that creatures adapt to their environments, but it is backwards to say they continually do something unnatural to them...especially for millions of years.

Second point that irked me. Through natural processes such as erosion, plate shifting, and water displacement, we have layers upon layers of earth underneath us, each layer representing some specific amount of years. We’re talking a lot of years. Throughout these layers of earth are scattered specimens such as civilization remains and fossils and, in Mississippi, arrowheads. The arrowheads are by far the coolest thing down there, so there’s no real debate about that issue, but the fossils present a particularly curious case. Apparently, scientists can primarily identify how old a fossil is by determining in which layer of earth it is found. If it’s from the layer that’s 500,000 years old, the animal died about 500,000 years ago. And once your numbers are up that high, a few centuries missed either way aren’t a big deal. Sounds reasonable. Here’s the catch. You may ask, “How do we know how old each layer of earth is?” And any scientist will tell you flatly, “We know how old they are because of the age of particular fossils that are found in each layer.” At this point, your head should have just spun around twice. We know how old the fossils are because of the layer of earth in which they are found, and we know how old the layers of earth are because of the fossils that are found in each layer. What I’d like to know is which fossil is talking to these scientists. Granted, there is also apparently a categorization of fossils called “indicator fossils” whose ages scientists have determined by some other means apart from the whole earth layer thing, but I think our schoolchildren have right to hear about that method as well...not only the circular reasoning that I saw presented in this resource.

Obviously, the end answers to these debates are beyond me, so it's much easier for me to look at the biblical account of "world history" and say, "God just made it." But hear me now. If I arrive at the Pearly Gates and the Father meets me there simply to inform me that He did, in fact, use three million years of evolution to "create" the world, my dumbfounded response would probably be something like, "No kidding. Man...I was wrong about that one."

2007-05-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

Springtime in Jackson
At work yesterday morning, we were putting together the weekly company newsletter, "Friday Facts." The girl who does the final layout emailed the entire office and asked if anyone would like to add a springtime haiku. I immediately threw something together for the newsletter and thought that I would share it with you here on my blog. It's called "Springtime in Jackson."

Pollen on the cars,
Yard man sayin', "How 'bout it?"
Hand me a Kleenex.

I smirked gleefully as I saw my impromptu haiku appear on the company newsletter...and maybe you did the same just now as you were reading. But then, my curiosity got the best of me. (And here's where some of you might wanna stop reading because I went into "research mode." If you do stop reading, skip down to the last paragraph where there's a homework assignment.)

I've been reading a book called Encountering God in the Psalms, which attempts to teach modern English readers how to interpret more precisely the truths of biblical Psalms, since they are after all translations of Hebrew poetry. Since I've had poetics on the mind, it struck me as highly presumptuous that some of us would sit around at work in 21st century America and attempt to construct an accurate English variant of a centuries-old Japanese poetic form.

As we know, a haiku is composed of 17 syllables, normally in a 5-7-5 linear breakdown, and since it is unrhymed, we assume that writing haikus is easy. The problem is that when we focus on nothing but the form of a haiku, we have lost any connection to its purpose or appropriate content.

I've consulted a few sources, and here are some points of interest. In the Japanese tradition, haikus are composed in one continuous vertical column of writing--this means, no line breaks. The line breaks in English haikus represent natural pauses or divisions in the thought progression of Japanese forms. Also, because Japanese syllables are on average much more condensed than modern English syllables, some scholars suggest that the brevity and essence of the Japanese haiku could probably be better captured in English through an 11-syllable structure, 3-5-3. Yet, even for the Japanese tradition, the syllabic count does not seem to be the most important thing.

Rather, the essence of haikus lie in their deeply profound mood in observing normal, everyday objects. One researcher encourages English haiku writers to focus on describing a single object or a single mood within the confines of the 17 syllables. After becoming more proficient in this activity, writers should try to portray two images within the same amount of syllables, which forces a comparison or contrast between the things that maybe we haven't thought about before. Cut out adjectives, adverbs, articles, and prepositions; allow the reader to make these semantic connections themselves. In such a way, haiku masters can describe normal things in brief, creative ways.

As a sidenote, Harmon and Holmon's Handbook to Literature lists several Western poets that capture the essence of the haiku without necessarily following its form. The first one listed is William Wordsworth. I've been aware for some time that Wordsworth has a strangely large Japanese following. Perhaps this is why.

Your task for this week...write a haiku and post it on this blog. It doesn't have to conform to the true spirit of the Japanese form, but see what you can come up with in our typical 17-syllable format. (This could be particularly amusing, especially if you're sitting at work with nothing to do.)

2007-04-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

Health Care Workers
I promise I actually saw this happen today around 9:45 a.m. I was standing outside the front door of my company's office building, talking to Ashley on the cell phone when I noticed some activity in the parking lot.

First, a mother exited our building along with two small children and headed for their vehicle, which was parked in the very first parking space against the sidewalk. Around the same time, a white Toyota 4-Runner entered the parking lot searching for a parking space. I must inform you that our office building, like the parking lot, is not very large; it accommodates three separate businesses--my company (JBHM), a dentist office (of which these people were clients), and a company called Du Puy. (None of us in the office can figure out what Du Puy's business is, but I think they have artificial hips in there someplace.) The parking lot is rarely full, and even the farthest space from the building would only require about a 200-ft. stroll to the front door.

Because all of the sidewalk parking spaces were occupied at this point, the 4-Runner was forced to park across the parking lot against the trees, about two spaces down from where I park every day. As the passenger, a woman in her mid thirties, stepped out of the parked vehicle and began walking across the parking lot, I saw her spy the mother loading her kids into the car at the sidewalk. She exchanged some words with the driver of the 4-Runner and continued across the parking lot as the mother began backing out of her parking space. No sooner had the mother cleared the turn of her back-out, the 4-Runner quickly backed out of its own space and made an awkward, swiveling circle to capture the prime sidewalk parking space. (Of course, this whole ordeal took place in less than two minute's time.) The driver of the 4-Runner then turned off the engine and stepped up on the sidewalk to join her passenger, who had been waiting for a little while for her friend to finish parking after crossing the 12-ft. parking lot. According to a license plate tag on the 4-Runner, one or both of these women were health care professionals of the nursing persuasion.

Draw your own conclusions.

2007-04-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

Playin' the Race Card
I spend more time than you would think pondering race relations in this country. Racial prejudice and bigotry is something that's odd for me because it infuriates me on the inside, but on the outside, I have yet to figure out what my appropriate response should be. As an American white male in his mid twenties, I fit the bill for pretty much any "domineering, majority group" that comes to mind. At first, this sounds pretty cool...except that, as I've read recently, I am the most likely of any demographic group to be the victim of a random violent crime...not so cool. Of course, none of us can take credit for simply existing within our own demographic group. It wasn't our decision, so the best thing we can do is strive for equal opportunity and mutual respect across demographic boundaries.

Today, I read the report on the broadcasting faux-pas of Don Imus, the latest white man to cross the line of racial decency. By referring jokingly to the Rutgers women's basketball team as a group of "nappy-headed ho's" or something of the sort, Imus has come under the scornful glance of Rev. Al Sharpton and even sacrificed his dignity further by appearing on Sharpton's radio show. Of course, I cannot condone Imus's comments; from the looks of it, they were inappropriate, unecessary, and ignorant. However, we've seen in the past that visits to Sharpton's media Mecca do not lead to racial reconciliation even though it has ironically become the proverbial principal's office of high-profile African-American slanderers.

I wonder who I should complain to when I feel that I am the object of racial bigotry. It's happened to me at least twice in the last three weeks. That's right...even American white males in their mid twenties endure those strange encounters in our own neighborhoods. I hate that it pans out so frequently in Mississippi that the tension is a black/white tension. But, you know, when I was living in France, the tension was there between the traditional "Christians" and the minority "Muslims." And if you look in the history books (or in today's headlines) the same tensions exist everywhere in the world between different groups. Again, I guess the only thing to do is to play out respect and equality across these gulfs...man-woman, rich-poor, etc. (See! Even now, I'm privileging man over woman by placing it first in the dichotomy! It's inextricable. Dang that logocentrism.)

Perhaps I've said too much. I probably have. That's the main pratical problem for me, you know? Maybe I know how to act after all; I can build relationships with people no matter how different they are from me. I just don't know how to express my opinion on these things. I know that I can get fired up on these issues, but I don't know what's safe to say. I think that's because I'm an American white male in his mid twenties. It's assumed (is it?...I don't know) that I have the majority power, so I have to be careful about stepping on others' toes. I can't appear to have any shade of male chauvinism, any racial prejudice, any homophobia, etc. Maybe I can handle that. After all, the appearance is all that really matters.

2007-03-30T16:23:00.000-07:00

The Free Donut Idea
Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about the power of ideas. What got me started was an article that I read about the benefits of visualization. For all of you who are not acquainted with modern psychoanalysis or various New Age practices, visualization is something of a meditation exercise where a person sits quietly while imagining himself or herself to be in a particular situation. Different people practice this activity for different reasons. Perhaps they have an unhealthy phobia and imagine themselves successfully defeating that fear in a situation that really could present itself in the near future. Perhaps they simply lead a stressful life and imagine themselves to be in some peaceful, exotic location where the stress cannot touch them. Another common example is that athletes may imagine themselves playing their specific sport better than anyone else or winning the championship they desire. Yeah, I know. It’s mental thing. It’s a trick. It’s a game that you play with yourself. Imagining certain situations does not necessarily make those situations true. However, one truth that I keep coming back to in my life is that the way I see a thing somehow does change the way I respond to it.

Reportedly, people have overcome irrational phobias by learning to defeat them in their mind first through visualization. People have learned to deal with stress better (and have even recorded physical changes) by practicing "away time" in their minds. Supposedly, visualization has even assisted athletes in delivering top-notch individual performances—regardless if they have won the championship or not. Ideas are powerful.

I remember a day in college where a similar concept played out with me and some friends, though its effects were quite inconsequential in view of the examples I’ve already cited. One evening, my roommate, Chase, and I were walking into the dorm when we noticed a sign hanging in the lobby: "Free Donuts in the Lobby Tomorrow 6:00 a.m." Of course, the first thought for both of went something like, "Alright! Free donuts!" But later on in the room, the idea could not really take root in my mind. I had things to do the next day, it was late, and I was going to bed...and I was not going to wake up at 6:00 a.m. to get one lousy donut. Chase, on the other hand, continued to nurture the idea. Even though he normally slept later than I did, I watched him set his alarm clock—God help me, his foghorn-wake-me-up-screaming-and-pee-your-pants alarm clock—for 6:00 a.m. "So, uh, you’re gonna get up for a donut?" I asked. "Yeah, it’s a free donut," he explained. "Besides, I’ll probably just go back to sleep afterwards."

Sure enough, several hours later, the cock crowed, the alarm screamed, and Chase stumbled incoherently out of bed to muffle its sound. After just a brief moment of determining why he was awake at 6:00 a.m., Chase brightened up and said, "Dooooh-Nuts!" He then scampered out the door into the hallway with his bed clothes still on and his hair still shaped like a cone. (Chase and I always thought it was funny that two of us who suffer from morning cone-head syndrome ended up rooming together for three years.)

Several minutes later, he reappeared at the door, having eaten a donut, and filled me in on the rest of the story. He had walked down the hall, into the stairwell, down the stairs, and across the lobby to where the donut table was located. The resident director was there and was very surprised to see a few faces that had never appeared in the lobby before midday. As Chase stood eating a donut, the stairwell door opened again and in walked two of our other friends, Brian McCollister and Brad Freeny—both wearing their pajamas and stumbling across the lobby. While none of us were "morning people," Brian probably stands as the epitome of a late sleeper. (Two years previous to this incident, he had slept nearly until noon on move-out day, disregarding the plethora of boxes and large furniture that was being hoisted all around him, until the dorm’s resident director yelled at him to get up at a volume that startled even those of us who were already awake...and two doors down.) Yet, somehow the promise of a free Krispy Kreme donut was enough to inspire the same actions that had formerly only been prompted under the bellowing of a red-faced residence supervisor who later went on to become a Washington railroad lobbyist.

In retrospect, I still can’t understand why a donut was worth this trouble. In fact, Chase and I recently reminisced on that morning, and he admitted that the prospect of the donut probably shouldn’t have merited a special sunrise journey to the lobby. It was just the idea of that donut...it was free! It’s the same reason we buy Route 44 drinks at Sonic at happy hour.

2007-03-01T13:07:00.001-08:00

An Addendum
Since I have some free moments in what I thought was going to be a thoroughly busy day, I’ve decided to take this opportunity to post a bit of an appendix to my most recent entry on the “cussing Christian.” From the fact that I have received no written comments on these thoughts, I surmise that one of two things has happened.

1) It’s been a busy week for everyone, so no one has read the entry.
2) I have successfully offended all five of my readers and am now being shunned.

I guess either case is fine with me, but if by chance anyone has an opportunity to continue reading this blog in the future, I do want to clarify a few things. Most importantly, I realize that the comparison between cussing and other “questionable activities” is quite an unfair analogy and does not hold water (figuratively). It was intended to be a bit tongue-in-cheek and exaggerated. After all, even with morality aside, how could we seriously associate the repercussions of using a “swear word” with those of sexually indiscriminate behavior, excessive alcohol consumption, and poor church attendance? The activities are obviously in entirely different ballparks.

Looking passed that ridiculous comparison, the question at stake is one that seeks the line between freedom in Christ and license to sin. And I think this question, whether or not it regards the language of a Christ follower, is one of that demands some consideration. Where does our desire to be “relevant” (to use the current terminology) to the world begin to conflict with our desire to be disciples of Christ, to sacrifice ourselves, to be called out and set apart?

In my own experience, I recognize that my language is one area that I can easily make myself distinct from, yet relevant too, the world. This is done, of course, by trying not to use foul language but by accepting and loving those who do. Whether foul language is a “true” sin in the biblical sense or simply a social taboo of the American South is not my concern or even something that I’m prepared to argue. I do know that one of my former pastors was asked to step down from his position because a book that he published included profanity spoken by a fictional character. I do know that I was once a part of a college Bible study group that began to dwindle in number because of the distracting “cussing” habits of the teacher. I know that although television censors are rather lax these days, many words are still not permitted on network television. And I know that the MPAA still considers foul language as a factor in its Hollywood movie ratings. We see that “society” still recognizes foul language—within the church and within secular entities.

To be tolerant of the cussing Christian and the cussing non-Christian is a good thing. I’m sure that Christ would be. Yet, it’s difficult for me to imagine that if Christ were here today, he would be walking around using vulgarities and muttering, “Sh*t,” every morning like I used to do. Fortunately, a big part of me craves the challenge of being a non-cussing Christian and a non-vulgar Christian. But the line between freedom and license exists everywhere, so it often doesn’t feel logical to dwell on the language factor. For what it’s worth, I’m still curious what you guys think…

2007-02-25T15:12:00.000-08:00

Cussing for Christ
I remember going through a phase a little over a year ago where I would consistently wake up in horrible spirits. I don’t know if it was because I was teaching an 8:00 a.m. class and knew that I had to get out of bed before the sun did on those mornings or if I was simply stressed out about starting my thesis. Whatever the reason, I was waking up in less than favorable moods, and I am not lying when I tell you that each morning, the first rational thought that passed through my brain was the word, “Sh*t.” Again, I want to emphasize that I have no conscious idea why this is the first thought that presented itself. I’m not even the “cussing” type, which makes the occurrence all the more staggering. Sometimes the word would simply appear in my mind as the first cognizant thought, and sometimes I would mutter it under my breath as if it were my initial reaction to waking up. At the time, I was leading a Wednesday night Bible study group for my church, and I shared with those folks this strange trend that had developed. Their reaction, like mine, was that it was partly comical that I would be prone to early-morning tourettes, but still a little sad. “Sh*t” truly is a crappy way to start your day. After all, how good can a day turn out when the first thing you have to deal with is sh*t?

Thankfully, I no longer deal with early-morning tourettes though my mornings are often crappy. Reminiscing on that period of life got me thinking about a similar topic—the cussing Christian. I know a lot of folks who are very committed Christians but also feel the liberty to cuss and use other forms of vulgar language frequently, especially around other Christians. I believe that this is occasionally done jokingly, in order to get a reaction, and sometimes done out of a genuine sense of liberty: “These people here know that I’m a Christian. We all know that language is not the most important thing, especially in being a Christ-follower. So, I should be able to use this sort of strong language and not offend anyone.”

To an extent, this is a valid argument. I would agree that cussing does not automatically send a soul straight to hell. I would agree that language is certainly not the identifying mark of a Christ-follower. And I would even agree that other Christians, if they are mature in their faith, should be able to overlook a few vulgarities in conversation to see the person beneath the talk. But here’s why I don’t buy the argument of the cussing Christian.

Christian fellowship is a gift from God. It’s given for our encouragement, for our strengthening, and to bend us toward a common vision. Why should that gift also give us license to speak in an un-Christ-like manner? Such a license works against our common vision of showing Christ to the world. In fact, using the Christian community as an excuse to develop worldly habits, equips us to be more like the world and less like Christ. Why should Christians do, in the privacy of their own walls, exactly what the world does on the outside? And why should Christians embrace behavior amongst themselves that they would not embrace among non-Christians? Imagine if we indulged in other questionable activities simply because our salvation didn’t depend on us being perfect in those areas. We could sleep around with each other; after all, there’s so much impurity in the world that even Christians could not possibly remain sexually pure. We could drink all weekend long at wild parties; after all, it’s been a hard week for us Christians too, and a little bit of drinking won’t keep us out of heaven. And we can also stop going to church altogether; after all, church attendance doesn’t really count for anything spiritually, and I can worship God in my everyday life. Yet, the everyday life is composed of cussing, drinking, and sleeping around. Hmm. What’s happened here? Another case of Christians using biblical truths to permit sinful lifestyle.

These sorts of actions might be described as the parading of liberties—I can do this because I can. And the problem with parading liberties is that it values the freedom of the individual over the grace of God. It is a good thing to know that redemption brings us freedom. But when the freedom is valued more highly than the discipline and obedience owed to God, the gift of redemption stands abused.

Of course, I don’t intend to make this generality true of all believers who cuss. Some of my brothers (and sisters) in Christ have lived hard lives, have grown up in non-Christian homes, or are simply terribly prone to foul language. And guess what. There’s room at Christ’s table for the cussing Christian. I just hope and pray that those of us who do not fit this description and thus parade our liberties through our language realize that grace is best understood when it is not abused. And, having posted this entry, I hope my brothers and sisters in Christ hold me accountable to a high standard in this area.

2007-02-12T22:14:00.000-08:00

Wishing Fountains
It's a quarter after twelve...or somewhere thereabout. You may ask yourself why I'm still awake after midnight on a work-night. I guess they're called work-nights when you're out of school. Either that or just "weeknights." Anyway, I have no strong pull to go to bed at this moment. Nothing on my mind. Just blogging.

I intended to write about a current land controversy that's taking place north of Jackson. You know how these successful business people are. They just don't have any sense, and I'm sure I'll get around to writing about that later...by which point some other prominent community member will probably be in the news for some stupid reason, giving me more headaches about which issue is more important to address. I'm sure all three of you who read this blog will sit on the edge of your seats waiting for it.

Tonight, as I sit on my couch listening to the rain through the window directly behind me, I don't feel particularly crafty. I always like hearing the rain as I go to bed. It has a soothing sound to it, and somehow, I feel even more at home than normal in my own bed when I know I am indoors protected from the storm outside.

Last night, a friend and I were talking about wishing fountains. Do you remember being a kid and asking a parent for a coin to toss into a fountain? We were told simply to make a wish and throw the coin--usually a penny or a nickel. No sense in using a whole dime for making a wish. The fountains that were the most fun to throw coins into were the ones that had multiple layers of running water or shelves stacked up where the water could flow down progessively to the bottom pool. That bottom pool was always layered with coins already from the hundreds of folks who had made their wishes previously. I didn't like the idea of throwing a coin into the bottom pool because I thought it would be really easy for someone else to come along and steal my wish later on. Somehow the coin and the wish were one and the same. The best thing to do is to see if you can toss your coin into the very highest level of the fountain. That way it would have a more elite position, and it would be really hard for someone to take it back. So you take a coin in hand, make a wish, and toss it. The funny thing is, sometimes you can't even tell where it lands when all's said and done. It looks like you got it in the tiny bowl in the center of the fountain, but with all the moving water and the reflections of light, you can't really tell. Regardless, you still hope that the wish comes true.

I don't know why I'm thinking about wishing fountains. Maybe the sound of the rain reminds me of the running water. What I do know is that it's been a long time since I've thrown a coin into a fountain. In fact, I can't remember when I last did it. I wonder what that says about my wishes. The time's long overdue for me to try to land one in the top level again.

2007-01-25T20:15:00.001-08:00

Weighty Matters
It's January, which means that everyone in America is on a diet. According to a recent video on CNN, that's especially true for the children of a certain school district in Anytown, USA. The said school district--I can't recall the location, but it can most likely be located through seismograph activity during recess--has begun including a BMI rating on its students' health screening records. This means that along with providing the traditional screenings, such as the one for scoliosis, that schools have performed for some time, they are now sending home a weight notice for parents: "Your kid is fat." Of course, all the parents that were interviewed for the video were in an outrage...because their kids are "fat."

The parents of the skinny children did not seem to be upset about the decision and stood silently in the background as the parents of the fat children wondered aloud how such a label could be assigned to their young ones. One fourth grader was interviewed while struggling to hoist himself into his mother's Hummer. "I'm excited about my report card and health screening because my parents buy me one Big Mac for every A," announced the hefty hellian, while biting into a Twinkie.

I'm always amused at the way we decide to go on diets after New Year's but that we make this decision sometime around the end of November when we're about to endure a Thanksgiving feeding. I can't figure out if we're genuinely discouraged about our holiday habits and are trying to recover or if we are simply delaying the inevitable so we can justify gorging ourselves for a month and a half. Either way, the scenario plays out like an extended version of Mardi Gras (sans the beads), where you allow yourself a period of debauchery because you know you'll have to repent soon enough during Lent anyway.

With all the "weighty" matters that are being discussed, I like the approach that has been taken by the company I work for. A few weeks ago, we were all supplied with a free pedometer. For me, the thing has become more of an experiment than a health apparatus. The e-mail that we received accompanying the gift informed us that "you will be surprised at how many steps you actually walk in one day." After using the pedometer for a couple weeks, I can say that I am surprised. I am surprised at how few steps I take. According to my pedometer reading, you would think that I was actually rolling to the bathroom during breaks rather than walking because I take fewer steps each day than a Civil War veteran. Don't be surprised if you see me being interviewed one day on national news because of my fat kid.

2007-01-20T16:04:00.000-08:00

God's a Lot Smaller than He Used to Be
My girlfriend and I were in New York for New Year’s Eve this year. As you may expect, the trip was indescribably exciting. Neither of us had ever visited the city before, and if the sights themselves weren’t enough to keep us thrilled, the view of several security helicopters constantly weaving in and out of the Manhattan skyline on December 31 provided a reminder that we were probably in the most important place in the whole world at that moment. I won’t go into the details of the weekend in this entry, except for one observation that got me thinking.

The flights into New York and the train ride into Manhattan went rather smoothly and without incident. Even finding the correct subway line and purchasing the proper tickets into town occurred without any hitches, and Ashley and I found ourselves very quickly taking an escalator up from the station on 5th Avenue. Suddenly and without warning, New York hit us. This was the evening of December 30, and it seemed that at least half the world had the same idea that we had—to stroll down 5th Avenue, buy a hotdog, and look at some buildings. After a lazy day of traveling, we were suddenly in the middle of a mob of people and were fighting to get across the sidewalk, to buy the hot dog, to take a picture, to throw away the hot dog wrapper. I’m not sure who uttered the phrase first vocally, but it resonated with both of us: “These people aren’t going anywhere.” They’re going. But I don’t think they had anywhere to be. I don’t think there was a pre-determined destination. Wherever they saw other people going, they were following. If someone pushed them, they pushed back. I’m not implying that there was any rudeness being displayed by all the tourists or that we were somehow more entitled to be in Manhattan at that time. I was simply amused by the way that so many people were rushing around within that five-block radius.

Looking back, I wonder how many of us live in this same manner. Is there any intentionality with the decisions we make, with the places we go, or with the people we spend time with? Too often I feel like I have to fill my life with things—every ounce of it—so that time is not “wasted.” And I feel like I’m compelled to do this more and more because the people around me are doing the same thing. You may ask, “What’s the problem with being industrious or active?” The problem does not lie in being those things. However, if we are nothing but industrious, if we book up our schedules so that we’re always looking ahead to the next thing, how can we honestly examine what we’re doing right now and realize its significance? Or, how can we make time to help someone in need if we leave ourselves no time to sacrifice? I’m convinced that we manage our time backwards. We fill up our schedules and see what thing we have to give up in the end instead of opening up our schedules and seeing what needs to be done

If God is to become the dominant force in our lives, we must allow him some time to use. This goes beyond the traditional “time with God” that we learned to practice in Sunday school. It means to live each day with an awareness of our place in God’s redemptive plan. It means to live more simply. It means to stop seeking self-significance in others, in activities, and in status and to acknowledge something greater than our own lives.

Two centuries ago, a poet was concerned that we may be getting too wrapped up in the minor concerns of society:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

William Wordsworth was most likely not spouting off some Christian rhetoric or calling readers to “come back to God.” However, he did realize that there is some power in this world greater than ourselves, and by consistently ignoring it, our perceptions grow more and more self-centered. Ancient Greeks could look at the ocean and see a myriad of supernatural workings. It gave them a proper sense of self and a proper sense of the universe. It seems that our modern world has an explanation for everything—or more than one explanation for anything. If it’s not this it’s this. As a result, we see nothing supernaturally. This poses a major problem for Christians, for God is supernatural. And if we fail to see God as such, we have lost a proper perception of the universe.

Writers such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien lamented their observation that the fairies seem to have disappeared from England. It used to be that you could find one under any rock or behind any tree. Today, we hardly notice the trees. If we do, it’s likely because one’s gotten in the way. “Better cut this branch. It’s getting too close to the power line.” Our lack of vision for the supernatural makes me realize that God’s a lot smaller than he used to be. We figure we’re doing well if we slot off twenty minutes to read the Bible in the morning, yet we sometimes do that and then live the next twenty hours without an awareness of his indwelling Spirit. It’s my hope that today and tomorrow and the next day this Spirit will dance more freely in me with its counterpart in Creation so I will not be unaware that a dance is taking place. In the meantime, I’ll try to see where I'm going in this city and pay a little more attention to the trees.

2007-01-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

Housecleaning at the Capitol
During my daily internet-clicking this week, I came across a few articles of interest concerning national politics. I claim no real understanding of the political process except for acknowledging the significance of voting to "exercise one's rights," although I'm still not entirely sure why our rights need exercising. And I try not to align myself with any political party in particular...this is because I feel like outright loyalty to a party would somehow alienate me from the other half of the nation's population, with whom I am equally trying to establish a relationship. Thus, I do not normally comment on political matters.

However, I was intrigued this week when I read of Nancy Pelosi's first "major" decision as Speaker of the House. Pelosi has flexed her newfound political muscle to forbid smoking in the famed Speaker's Lobby, which is an ornate hall located just off the House floor, somewhat of a lounge in which our legislators can relax, discuss, make shady agreements, etc. (In other words, it's an informal version of the House chamber itself.) Apparently, the hall has been renowned for its hazy appearance and even the House Minority Leader, John Boehner, has been instrumentable in adding to its infamy by puffing on a cancer device within its walls at nearly every recess.

According to the CNN article, Pelosi triumphantly declared, "The days of smoke-filled rooms in the United States Capitol are over." Thank God our legislative branch has come under the leadership of such a liberator. Pelosi has also vowed to continue "getting this Capitol into shape" by making sure the legislators get the dishes cleaned right after dinner and by not allowing anyone to go out and play before these clothes are put away. "This house is a wreck, and I'm not busting my butt or wasting my time any more until these folks learn to appreciate the things I do," said Pelosi. She then plopped down on the sofa and watched "Days of our Lives."

2007-01-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

Talking Trucks

As I was driving to work on Friday morning, I pulled to a stop at a traffic light just behind what appeared to be a delivery truck for our local McDade’s grocery store. Since McDade’s was only a block away, I figured the driver had just made a morning delivery, and I didn’t plan to give the vehicle a second thought. (I do remember briefly reflecting on the irony that the advertisement on the back of the truck was for McDade’s produce and that I am never impressed with McDade’s produce selection. It seems that the bananas are the only items that I’m continually satisfied with.)

Anyway, shortly after drifting off into another thought, my attention was abruptly forced back to the delivery truck because as sure as night follows day, the advertisement for McDade’s produce transformed before my eyes into an ad for some New Age-looking kitchen appliance. I stared in amazement for a few seconds wondering when McDade’s started carrying fancy appliances before realizing that the back of the truck was not a pull-up cargo door but a solid wall of rotating triangular prisms. Once again, the advertisement transformed—though I cannot recall at this time the name of the business that was privileged to receive the third spot in the rotation, or first or second, depending on when the rotation started.

Admittedly, I was a bit overly curious at this vehicle since I had never seen one before, so I purposely drove behind it for a few blocks before pulling beside it at a later traffic light. The ads on the sides were constantly changing just like on the back. Perhaps the most surprising ad came when it advertised itself: “Admobile.” As if McDade’s advertising fresh produce weren’t ironic enough, here we have an ad company making advertisements. Moreover, can you imagine the commotion this will cause drivers if such practices become common? Not only must drivers now keep themselves from being distracted by the millions of billboards that interrupt the shoulders of highways—they must now beware of those billboards jumping onto the road and dancing around their vehicles like some deranged elf, coaxing them to rush to the nearest exit to buy produce and the New Age-appliances for processing it.

Of course, this isn’t my own embellishment of the situation. I checked out Admobile’s website just to see it says about itself. Its declaration? “Admobile advertising cannot be ignored, tuned out, crumpled, recycled, or thrown in the trash. Guaranteed.” I see their reasoning. After all, look at the effect it made on me the first time. However, if I were Admobile, for the future, I would seriously rethink this strategy for affecting drivers in Jackson, Mississippi, who have a propensity for ignoring virtually anything on the road that they should be aware of...including large delivery trucks that are trying to talk to them at 80 miles per hour.

2007-01-05T10:56:00.000-08:00

The Weather Radio
I haven’t posted anything new for awhile—a bad habit in my case, which normally means that I’m finding some other psychological outlet for my inane thoughts, some method that may or may not include talking to gummi bears. Anyway, I’ve decided that instead of waiting until something really gets at me, causing me to pour out some isolated essay on a given topic, I’ll try to begin posting some shorter amusing observations…the sort of thing that really keeps me going day after day. So, here we go.

My roommate, Ben, has a weather radio. Before living with Ben, I had never actually seen a weather radio, and I’m still a little confused over how it works and how its listeners are supposed to respond to it. Previously, when I had a third roommate, the two of us would take turns unplugging the thing whenever it went off because it disturbed our studying, working, television watching, and video game playing…or because it simply annoyed us. When Ben would return to the house, he would have to plug it back in if he wanted to hear the latest report.

Probably most annoying about this device is that it doesn’t just alert us to local area severe weather; no, it may interrupt us on some days just to let us know that it’s drizzling in Oklahoma. “Thanks Mr. Robot Voice. Do you think you could wake us up again to advise us of the current humidity reading in Taiwan as well?”

Last night, however, we were experiencing severe weather all across the state. The Weather Channel reported that heavy thunderstorms would be moving across the Louisiana border in the early afternoon and that the rain would most likely last, with varying degrees of severity, until 2-4 a.m. The typical flash flood advisories and tornado watches were in effect. Of course, these conditions are nothing out of the ordinary. We’ve seen storms that are far worse, and I certainly wasn’t going to worry about going about my normal business. So, I met some friends for dinner in Clinton and went bowling afterwards.

When I arrived home around 11 p.m. the weather was still somewhat inclement and the weather radio was in full operation. Mr. Robot Voice was giving all the Doppler radar details that anyone could notice for himself by just looking out the window: “Severe weather advisory for areas of central Mississippi with [beep] periods of heavy rain [pause] and possible tornadic conditions [static] are expected until 2-4 a.m.” Sometimes the voice stops talking, and a nerve-shattering squeal comes out of the speaker, apparently to make everyone within hearing range pee their pants.

After several intermittent slices of non-information from this thing, its alarm sounded again and I heard Ben mutter something and promptly turn it off. Chuckling to myself at this prospect—an alarm device that we consistently turn off instead of taking to heart—I asked Ben explicitly, “So, what’s the point of this weather radio anyway?” He said, “To wake you up.” I laughed. He must have taken issue. “I’m serious. It’s to wake you up in case there’s a tornado.” Although I didn’t laugh anymore, I thought this prospect was even more humorous than the first one. Do we sleep so heavily that a tornado, which is often described as sounding like “a freight train,” cannot stir us? If so, I guess it’s a good thing that we have Mr. Robot Voice to sound his alarm when the tornado comes so we can pee our pants in bed right before we are killed tragically by the freight train tornado that we somehow failed to hear amidst all of the flash flood advisories and tornado watches. I think I’d rather chunk the radio and die in my sleep.

2006-10-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

The Last Crusade: Arby's Metrocenter
Well, it’s been quite a long time since I’ve posted. That’s always a scary thing for me because it makes me curious as to what I’ve been doing with the thoughts and emotions that have undoubtedly occupied my heart and mind during that time. Anyway, I figure it’s a good time to let out some of those observations, and a recent e-mail I received at work has given me the appropriate topic. A friend forwarded me this message last week—not as another link of an e-mail chain or in order to spread this sort of propaganda but out of a concern that this sort of story might be circulating mainstream and causing a lot of hurt. He was right to be concerned because I’ve since learned that this e-mail has permeated the Jackson region and is being read by many Christian churchgoers. In fact, I actually located the below text on the Snopes website, so now individuals around the nation have the opportunity to comment on our Southern Christian ethics…and most of them are completely appalled, as they should be. You can read it for yourself if you’d like. I’ve removed all personal identifications and replaced them with my comments [in brackets].

Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:53:33 EDT
I just wanted to take a moment to let you all know about a situation that took place today: [My husband] and I had met for lunch at Arby's on Highway 80 by Metrocenter (I know...not the greatest place for lunch). As we began to walk in the front door I noticed a homeless man (early to late 60's) sitting on an old paint bucket.

He wasn't asking anyone for money or food, he was just enjoying the shade. He looked at us and said "Hello, how are you." I got to thinking about the pocket bible that Dr. [Theologian] gave us a few weeks in Sunday school. For some reason I remembered seeing it on my front seat before I got out of the car, so I turned around and went back to my car and got the Bible. As I was there I remembered that I didn't eat my snacks from school that morning either, so I grabbed those too. As I walked towards the door I made my way to the man and I handed him the Bible and food. I have never in my life seen someone so appreciative and grateful for so a small gift.

[My husband] and I placed our order, went to sit down and began to eat. I could see out the window by the cars, a man in an SUV pulled up and was handing the guy some money and as this was happening the owner ([Bob]) ran out the door of the kitchen and then outside and threw the homeless man to the ground and proceeded to kick him. Everyone that could see what was happening was in total shock (as anyone would be)--you could hear a gasp across the whole eating area. He yelled at the man and then walked back inside. At this point there were tears in my eyes. I yelled "Excuse me, what is your problem?" He said "Mam?" as though nothing had happened. A woman behind me piped up and said "That was just cruel." I told him "that was plain ruthless". He said "If you knew how much business this man has cost everyone to lose around here you would have done it too." I said "No Sir, what you just did to that man lost you business, we will NEVER eat here again." Everyone agreed and told him this was their final visit to Arby's also. He ended with saying "That's fine, I have plenty of business."

To end the story, a policeman drove up about 5-10 min later and I met him outside and explained everything that had happened. [My husband] and I tried to find the man so that we could buy him some lunch and hopefully give him a way to talk to that policeman. We could not find him, he must have been long gone.

We wonder why some people don't believe in God. This man was given a Bible by a total stranger and in a matter of 10 minutes was shoved to the ground by another. If you were lost and confused about a relationship with Christ, wouldn't something like this put all sorts of doubt in your mind? Like, how could God create such crude people if he really loves us?

I urge you to boycott Arby's. The owner is [Bob] ([physical description of Bob goes here]) until all of this gets sorted out. He is the owner of the Arby's on Highway 80 and the Arby's in Pearl. Also, I urge you to be in prayer for the man that was mistreated so badly. He may not have been the greatest person in the world, the cleanest person, the wealthiest person...but haven't we all been told...we never know how God is going to come back?

**PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!

In Christ,
[Mr. and Mrs. Former Arby’s Patrons]

It has been brought to my attention that this man, [Bob], also owns the Arby's at 804 Lake Harbor Drive, Ridgeland, and probably still owns the Arby's in Vicksburg.Might as well boycott them all!!!!!!!!!!

As you can see, there is a lot that could be said of this e-mail. Without sounding as biting as the bloggers at Snopes.com, I would like to bring up two aspects. For starters, there’s the question of what actually happened at Arby’s that day. I have been a patron of this particular Arby’s location for nearly six years and have had countless exchanges with the owner in question, “Bob.” The writer’s portrayal of him in the e-mail disturbingly clashes with everything in my experience with him. In the neighborhood of the Metrocenter Mall in West Jackson, businesses are prone to move out of the area because of crime rates and lack of revenue. Arby’s is one of the area’s few establishments that has managed to not only operate a successful business but a rather impressive one. The restaurant itself is spotless, the environment is friendly, and it’s the only fast food establishment that I know of that filters soft classical music through its sound system. By the way, these characteristics have occurred under Bob’s leadership and are not true of all Arby’s restaurants. Hence, my first instinct about the e-mail is that it is either fictional or somewhat embellished. (Look again at how the writing simply stacks the tables of “good” and “evil.” We have a pleasant and hospitable homeless man, a pair of Bible-toting Sunday school goers, and a generous act of gift-giving…albeit, leftover snacks…contrasted with a cruel, insensitive, and violent villain of a restaurant owner. It’s the same allegorical stuff Pilgrim’s Progress is made of.)

So, there’s that aspect of my response, which is admittedly a more personal one since I think highly of this particular Arby’s. But having accepted that this is a forwarded e-mail message with all sorts of questionable claims about the nature of truth in Jackson, MS, let’s assume for a moment that the e-mail is entirely true. Because there lies the most disturbing quality of its composition.

Here we have the Christian church, a community of believers and Christ-followers who are banding together to…stop criminal activity in West Jackson? I doubt it. Most of them won’t be going there. To…protect and care for the homeless? Definitely not. We don’t even know where the homeless character in this story disappears to, and we’re not really concerned with finding him or others like him. To…spread the good news of Christ’s love and mercy? Well, maybe to that one homeless guy to whom we gave a mini-Bible, but we’re not sure if he can read anyway. The answer is…we’re banding together to put a restaurant owner out of business. What a substantive goal for Christ followers.

If that restaurant owner hates homeless people, but I hate the restaurant owner, I’m the same as him. And though I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this e-mail propagates a mindset of “hate” in our community, I would say that it does not propagate love and mercy. A boycott can often be an effective thing; however, the only reason that one should participate in a boycott is to bring about change in that thing that is being boycotted. In this situation, we have no change that we are fighting for. The e-mail vaguely explains that we will boycott “until all this gets sorted out.” Who’s checking up on that? And what are we sorting out? If the owner of Arby’s is a villain, he will not be changed by our avoiding him. If he’s not a villain, then we’re inflicting unnecessary damage on a regular human being who is, just like us, flawed.

This reasoning begs yet another question. What if the restaurant owner is actually a Christ follower like us? What if he simply lashed out without thinking and regrets this action? In this case, we are seeking to wound a brother who needs our forgiveness. Meanwhile, as cyberspace continues to inhale this message, more and more individuals are exposed to the unlove and unmercy that ironically consume the Christian organism of our community.

If you’re thinking that this is a call to become tolerant of or apathetic toward wrongdoing in our community, please don’t miss the greater point. It is a call to become deliberately loving, intentionally merciful, and uncomfortably proactive toward the godliness and the ungodliness that surrounds us. In fact, I believe it is the call of Christ.

2006-06-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

Seeking Death
A good friend of mine was killed tragically in a car accident about three weeks ago. I hadn’t actually spoken to this girl for several months, and I can’t remember the last time that we saw one another. Yet, we attended college together, and upon reflecting on those short years I realized that her passing would certainly administer a profound effect on the lives of many. She was one of these folks who is involved in everything, and somehow appears to be fully committed to everything—not for the approval of others or for self-glorification but out of a genuine concern to make life better.

My purpose here is not to compose an exaggerated eulogy of her virtues but to articulate how death has suddenly become a real thing to me again. The most sobering moment for me during this time did not occur at the visitation when I met her parents, or at the funeral service where friends and family gathered to pay our final respects, or even at the subsequent informal gathering at a friend’s home where a small group of us reflected on her life and the fluid give and take of life and death. No, the incident that touched me most deeply occurred several days later when I taking a break at work, searching for a particular phone number in my cell phone directory. It was then that I unexpectedly came across Rebekah’s name and phone number.

As that contact information gleamed brightly at me from the screen, I was gripped by several emotions that I honestly was not in the mood to experience on my break from work. I became frightened—maybe because I realized my own mortality. Nostalgic—maybe because my college memories of Rebekah are such fond ones. Pensive—maybe because I became immediately aware of the trail of memories that all humans (for better or worse) leave behind them on this earth. Saddened—probably because I understood the personal repercussions of this death, that a person in my private phonebook had left this world. Torn—and this is the strange one, at the prospect of either retaining Rebekah’s contact information in my phone, or deleting that information, thereby severing my last personal connection to this life that had been taken.

While “penning” this entry, I’ve done something that writers are wont to do...or at least should be wont to do...I’ve reviewed some of my earlier ramblings on a similar topic. I once considered the idea of home and irony that any home on this earth is not really a home because we are constantly wanderers in this transitory world. Along with that idea comes the observation that we consistently use terms of bondage and deliverance metaphorically, a habit which perpetuates our inability to see ourselves as real wanderers.

I have also been considering a different sort of metaphor—one that is overwhelmingly more true than the modern Christian verbality of which I formerly wrote. That metaphor is the Christian conception of dying to live. St. Paul speaks of this figurative death consistently in his letters to the church, but his teaching is actually no more than an echo and reverberation of Christ’s message that any man wishing to follow must die to self daily and “carry his cross.” I’m constantly perplexed at what Christ actually means by taking up my cross daily and dying. It’s become one of those catchphrases that preachers can say really easily, but it does not seem to carry much water when applied to daily living. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean making decisions that are the best for me only. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean complaining about others. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean worrying about the potential of being harmed by others. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean getting even, or staying on top, or having the upper hand. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean seeking respect at all costs. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean looking impressive, or being comfortable, or becoming established. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean having time and space to oneself. In fact, it must mean complete reckless abandonment of my own needs. How such a proposition actually plays out in day to day situations is personal and circumstantial; however, the spirit is inescapable. Any thing that is done for my own benefit may not necessarily be wrong, but it should certainly be held suspect and viewed in light of Christ’s call.

More interestingly though, it occurs to me that Christ’s language is problematic because it is figurative. He uses the image of death—something that is very real and concrete to mankind—to illustrate the spiritual transformation that is to occur in a person who follows Christ in the sort of lifestyle noted above. Somehow, Christ means to argue that true life is found in this sort of “death.” Yet, if we view Christ as God incarnate, it seems odd that he would apply metaphoric speech to an issue as paramount as individual salvation; he obviously wouldn’t want us to miss his point.

In considering Rebekah’s death, I have become convinced that Christ’s language is less metaphoric than we initially realize. For the Christian, along with “spiritual life” comes the tangible reward of eternal life; hence, the spiritual life that a Christ-follower receives by “dying daily” is paralleled by the real, concrete life that follows real, concrete death. The idea of Christian conversion here becomes a reflective image of God’s eternal purposes. It is as if Christ takes God’s eternal truth and compresses it into the basic step of faith so that human beings, as shortsighted and as prone to experiencing life in momentary spurts as we are, can grasp an idea that is humanly ungraspable. Christ’s choice of figurative language, we now see, presents us with the eternal truth in the only way that we can understand it, and though it is metaphoric in a sense, it differs from the real only in degree—exchanging one sort of life for another, the physical for the spiritual.

You may be interested to know that I didn’t delete Rebekah’s phone number from my phonebook. I suppose that I wasn’t quite ready to sever those ties completely. If nothing else, the existence of that contact information has spurred me on to dwell more on these eternal truths. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is often quoted from his book The Cost of Discipleship: “When Christ calls a man, he calls him to come and die.” I am somehow comforted by the thought that Rebekah has preceded me in dying both kinds of death…and in knowing that each kind leads to life.

2006-06-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

The Spiritual Function of Nostalgia
I was struck this week by the power of nostalgia. On Tuesday, I moved to a new house, which is always a time of excitement and anticipation. For some reason, a change of environment seems to signify new things, a new outlook, new opportunities...maybe I can even be made somehow new on the inside. Yet, as things calmed down after the initial adrenaline rush and I considered the immense work that still must be performed to make the new place habitable, I found myself longing for home--that is, for my bed and desk and nightstand at my old house--and realized that the place no longer existed for me. The thought seems ridiculous to me even as I write this because there is nothing about the old house that I rationally should be missing. It has perpetual foundation issues, the air conditioning unit is a money pit in cahoots with the power company, the locks on the doors can only barely be called locks, and I swore continually for a year and half that I would get out of that place at the earliest opportunity. Still, an overwhelming sense of loss crept over me as I recalled the countless memories that are tied to the old place.

Human nostalgia is intangible yet powerful. It is like a mist--it cannot be contained but trails behind, blurring our vision and making us susceptible to abnormal impressions. As such, it points to the spiritual dimension of mankind. Man is such a spiritual being that he can create intangible perceptions of objects that are purely physical. That concept is striking and fills me with fear. How am I using this power?

If I myself am a largely spiritual being, it means that other humans share this characteristic. If other humans share this characteristic, it means that there are things happening all around me that I seldom take time to notice. I wonder how my decisions are impacting the spiritual beings that comprise my community. I wonder if my impact is positive or negative. Most importantly, I wonder how the decisions I make resound with the greater spiritual entity to whom I am tied. Though my spiritual perspective is a Christian one, followers of other religions may ask the same question, which makes the question an appropriate one for humanity in general.

If two functions of nostalgia are to bring the past into the present and the physical into the spiritual realm, I believe that the progression can be continued from God's perspective. God, an eternal being, cannot exist in time as we understand it; there is no distinction between past and present for such a being. Similarly, the future cannot be properly distinguished from the present. Nostalgic feelings then provide a god-like perspective for humans where time folds over on itself. I wonder if these times additionally provide a glimpse of future glory, a longing for the future, since all are the same to God. Also, if humans are able to "spiritualize" the physical things that they have created, such as houses, it is an encouraging thought that God can do the same thing with his creation, mankind. How much greater would our transformation be than that of our houses when it is God doing the transforming?

2006-05-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

Poetry and the Art of Melancholy
In the past, I have sporadically tried my hand at writing poetry. I figure that since my eye for the visual arts isn’t the keenest and since I’m usually fairly effective in conveying my thoughts through words, poetry would be the one art form in which I have an opportunity to excel. As I look back at some of the poems I’ve composed in the past year, however, I’m struck with two distinct observations. 1) My poetry stinks. 2) It’s all annoyingly depressing.

Seriously, if someone were to break into my “secret poetry stash” (which is located in a safe behind a wall in my bedroom and is only accessible by removing a framed painting of J. Edgar Hoover), they would most likely give up reading somewhere around the third page, begin wearing black shrouds, and pour wine and dead roses all over the manuscripts.

It is surprising to me that most of my poetic endeavors depict a strong tone of sadness. I think that I’m generally an optimistic person. I love laughing. Even my harsh critiques of certain circumstances are mostly enveloped in humorous sarcasm, so it’s a scary thought that my private moments, my personal soul-searching, would yield heavy, hopeless emotion. I wonder if my optimistic outlook is a ploy and my humorous nature a false pretence. If these words illustrate my “true self,” I wonder if I’m one of those folks that will just “snap” one day, that people will look at on the news or in the paper and say, “That boy was always so nice. You never would have thought that he was a…” (You can complete that sentence as you will.)

As I’ve considered these possibilities, I’ve been comforted by a few thoughts that may indicate I’m not a lunatic. First, I’ve perceived that at the times in my life when I have been driven to compose poetry, I have been driven by very strong emotion. It’s this restless stirring that if I do not compose, I’ll certainly drive myself to insanity. If poetry is to Wordsworth an overflow of powerful emotion recollected in tranquility, it is to me the release of that powerful emotion…tranquility comes afterwards. In that sense, I’m glad I’ve composed lines of sadness because it has allowed me to vent my emotions without becoming the nut that you would see on television. Simultaneously, it affirms that I am a human being who is prone to the far-ranging effects of human emotion. Though I would consider myself predominantly an optimistic individual, I am composed of a much fuller range of perspectives than simply happiness.

Additionally, I’ve recalled some of the thoughts from Edgar Allan Poe’s “Philosophy of Composition.” Yes, I realize Poe would be an unlikely source from which to derive comfort, but this is where I am. According to Poe, Beauty is the particular aim of poetry, and Beauty is most strongly felt through tones of sadness: “Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.”

The reasoning may seem convoluted, but I think the process can be recognized when it is put into action. Personal reflection during times of turmoil affords us a rare opportunity to look analytically upon emotions. Any deep feeling that can be effectively translated into words has the potential to strike a kindred chord within the reader. Because the commonality of all human society is a tension between what is and what could be, a feeling of discontentment, of longing, sadness is an appropriate response to reflection in times of emotional turmoil.

What must be remembered is that while sadness may certainly represent my “true self,” it does not define me any more than the other emotions to which I am prone. Try to follow this one. The beauty of being human, like the beauty of poetry, is that Beauty can be achieved through diverse avenues. Perhaps tones of sadness capture our condition most fully because it is in these times that we are forced to look at that condition the most intently. So I take heart in this realization and can now look at my poetry with a new sense of confidence, knowing that even if it stinks, it is somehow tied to the soul of who I am.

2006-04-04T15:33:00.000-07:00

Negotiating Morality
Another buzzword has recently filtered into use in American society—particularly in academic circles—and is an appropriate expression for the manner in which virtually any decision is made in this “postmodern” world. The word is negotiation. While the traditional connotation of this term conjures images of opposing factions coming to some resolution on a matter of dispute, the new sense of the word assumes no degree of resolution. Instead, it implies that a true decision on any issue may not actually be possible...and will certainly never be correct.

A feature dealing with global warming in the latest issue of Time magazine pictured a polar bear attempting to make its way through the half-solid, half-watery terrain of the Arctic. (Apparently this particular landscape had once been completely and unmistakably glacier-solid before humans’ discovery of hair spray in 1948.) The caption underneath the photo indicated that the polar bear was “negotiating” the icy terrain. And I’m sure the bear was completely cognizant of the fact that it was participating in a discourse of postmodern subjective interpretation...as it hunted a trout.

Because our culture truly is one that says we must come to terms with issues of the day individually, forging our stances within a system of multiple and often contradictory “truths,” the term negotiation is a particularly suitable denotation. Simultaneously, its use is disturbing. When we are forced to negotiate a stance that is to have any bearing over the other individuals in our community, that stance is naturally going to contradict some aspect of another’s negotiation. Because each negotiation has received validity by nature of its being a negotiation, our search for truth has become a stagnating subjectivity, and the issue at hand is not so much addressed as it is pondered separately by a community of individuals.

A negotiated position, in the newer sense of the word, assumes that all positions hold equal value. If I can come to terms with my own stance on a matter, my stance is just as valid as anyone else’s; likewise, anyone else’s stance is just as valid as my own. This assumption forces us to abandon the concept of absolute value to the uncertain shifting of popular culture or to the loudest voices that scream at any given moment. If we give in to this scheme of questioning, we will fail to realize that our questions are wrong to begin with. Pretty soon we are faced with polar bears with rational interpretive skills.

Christian doctrine appears to contain an element of negotiation in its method of interpreting the events of the world—the idea of personal conviction. If a subjectively-negotiated position is ever attributed to personal “Christian” conviction, the postmodern would most likely write off the stance as close-minded. Personal conviction alone is discredited, although, even for a postmodern, it is personal conviction that drives the everyday decisions that each of us makes. The difference between the Christian concept of conviction and the postmodern state of subjective negotiation is the fact that in Christianity, individuals assume an absolute value. The stance is in fact a “divine negotiation” that by which an individual may receive transcendent knowledge in any given situation.

In this sense, the answer to any given question will not necessarily be an absolute one, but the question does demand a right answer. I think the only way followers of Christ can effectively maintain their positions as authentic aliens on this earth while engaging themselves in the negotiating opinions of postmodern American is to seize St. Paul’s advice to “live in the Spirit” at all times. We will slowly learn that absolute right and wrong can exist in our society, yet these labels can only be applied individually as Christ leads.

2006-03-20T22:02:00.000-08:00

Take Me Home Tonight
I was speaking with my mother on the phone recently, and she made the observation that I use the term "home" rather loosely. I think the specific context of this reference was that I had mentioned that I would be going "home" to visit her and my dad during spring break. Of course, the strange thing about calling Tupelo my "home" is that I haven't lived there for any substantial period of time since the summer of 2001, which was the summer after my sophomore year of college. Since then, "home" has been the dorm on campus, the cabin where I lived as a summer camp staffer, my petit logement in southwest France, and now, the duplex that I share with two roommates in Clinton. I think my mother has trouble accepting my liberal use of the word--as she has the right to do, being my mother--but I'm pretty sure such a mutable context for the word is appropriate to the manner in which we are to live as participants in the shifting scheme of life and in the ever-seeking state of the mind and soul.

In case you haven't caught on yet, I'll just let the proverbial cat out of the bag now and admit that I'm a student of medieval literature, particularly medieval British literature. Far from being an authority in the field, I consider myself more of a spectator at this point, looking on with a great deal of awe for the remnants of this culture and respect for the society that produced them. One thing that I admire about Old English literature is its inescapable awareness that things are coming to an end:

"So this middle-earth each and every day declines and falls...the wise warrior is able to perceive how ghostly it will be when all this world's wealth stands waste." --the wanderer

"Thus the joys of the Lord are warmer to me than this dead life, transitory on land. I do not believe that earthly happiness will endure eternally." --the seafarer

"There I must sit the summer-long day, where I can only weep about my exile, about many hardships; because of this I cannot ever rest from the sadness of my heart, or from all the longing which takes hold of me in this life." --the wife's lament

"I will have need of friends on that journey, when alone I have to seek a permanent home, an unknown dwelling; have to leave behind my body, this portion of earth, the spoils of death , to remain as a treat for the worms." --the fates of the apostles

The tone of these verses is frank and startling. A coldness pervades the actions of earth because of the knowledge of death. Yet, as elements of Christianity begin filtering into Anglo-Saxon culture, the acknowledgement of death becomes an ambiguous hope. This world is full of exile. I often find myself alone, hopeless. With the truths of Christianity come the glimmer of a promise that things may not always be this way. It is just a glimmer because it does not wholly change the situation at hand. The writers are still in exile, still alone, but there is now some hope.

The problem with Christianity in America today is that we don't really need deliverance from exile. We speak of exile and deliverance metaphorically: "I was delivered from my addiction to pornography." "I was delivered from my bondage to alcohol." "Jesus rescued me from the exile of my own ways." (I am not saying that these are not real problems for folks today or that "deliverance" from addictions cannot be attributed to divine intervention. I am simply noting that where bondage once referred to an actual, physical restraint, we have applied this language as an image of invisible states of being.) Since we view the exile and deliverance metaphorically, I think we become more prone to viewing the hope of Christ metaphorically. Christianity becomes a language that we use, a society that we create, a program that we adhere to. It's not that Christ does not change lives anymore...it's just that once lives are changed, they now have a tendency to conform to pre-assigned slots in the church body so that deliverance becomes a new kind of bondage.

We've got the metaphor backwards these days, and we wonder why Christians become disillusioned and non-Christians refuse to believe. The exile and deliverance--those are the real things. The homes of this world and the systems of our Christianity--these should be the figures of speech. I wish we could live in a manner that more accurately depicts our roles as wanderers on this earth. I wish we could make evident the truth that we are never really home in this world so that anywhere we play a role, or fulfill a function, may equally be referred to as our home in the figurative sense. Because in the course of the divine, any use of the term home that is not in reference to Christ is an ironic application of the word anyway.

[By the way, the Old English quotations/translations came from Elaine Treharne's first edition anthology. As an English major, I know you've gotta give credit where credit is due.]

2006-03-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

Do Not Touch My Stuff
I'm convinced that one of the root causes of evil in the nature of man is the disposition of selfishness. Early thoughts of my childhood ferry in memories of altercations about which toy belongs to whom and adherence to an imaginary line across our car's backseat that acted as a boundary between my area and that of my sister. (If either of us crossed that line with any part of our bodies, that body part was liable to be slapped, squeezed, thumped, bitten, or whacked with a foreign object. And you couldn't really voice a valid complaint about it...you had crossed the line.)

Being now in my mid twenties, I do not find myself in many disputes concerning the rightful ownership of a particular toy, but I am still all too aware of the responsibility of "protecting my stuff" and of the acknowledgement of certain imaginary boundaries of personal space. I will go ahead at this point and confess one of my most embarrassing sins: I have a 60-gig i-pod with my name engraved on the back. The thing has twice the memory as the laptop that I'm using to type this blog entry. With all the music I "own" (how can one own music?) I barely come close to putting a dent in the thing's capacity. Yes, I use the thing quite often to play my tunes--in the car, working out, around the house--but it seems that the pleasure of having this device stems more from my knowledge of a status label than from its convenience or practicality.

Furthermore, my coming into possession of this status device was accompanied by an unexplainable paranoia concerning its well-being. I'm afraid I'm gonna drop it. I'm afraid I'm gonna scratch it. I'm afraid it's gonna be stolen...in which case the thief would probably enter some identity crisis since my name's in full view on the back...

How have we become so tied to the things that we have that the prospect of something happening to the things affects us personally? How can we deny the fact that all around us, things are slowly corrupting, breaking down, becoming useless, even ceasing to exist? It is imminent. The longer I live in this house, the more the foundation corrodes. The longer I drive my car, the more I have to replace its parts. The longer a human lives, the greater the possibility that the body will begin to shut down. As the sun rises every morning as an image of the resiliency of life, or the faithfulness of its Creator, the setting sun reminds us of our transience.

The reminder should not be a shocking one or even a sorrowful one, for such has been the cycle of life since the Fall, yet the realization should spur us on to operate out of a different scheme of values than we did in our selfish childhood--one of vulnerability. I could use the word "selflessness," but that choice would pose a problem because it is itself a negative term, being defined by what it is not. (I think Lewis wrote about that in "The Weight of Glory," but I'd have to check my reference...read "The Weight of Glory" anyway if you haven't done so.) Moreover, living "selflessly" is, I think, too narrow a description for what I'm talking about because it carries the association of us dealing with "things"; living "vulnerably" expands the meaning to put us at the disposal of others regardless of whether or not we are speaking of "things." It means that our time may be monopolized by others, it means our privacy may be invaded, it means we must sever our attachment to our stuff...in all cases, it means that we may be hurt. Fortunately, we're all going to be hurt anyway, so to operate out of such a mindset does not alter our fate but prepares us to face it more assuredly and to live in the manner that requires us to encounter our fellow man (and woman).

At my office job, I sometimes see signs posted on peoples' cubicles: "DO NOT TOUCH MY STUFF." (The all caps is evidently how you indicate that you are serious.) I've been tempted to put a similar sign on my cubicle wall and add to it, "AND DO NOT EVEN LOOK AT IT. IN FACT, DON'T TALK TO ME EITHER. I WILL NOT BE TIED TO THE HUMAN ORGANIZATIONAL CONSTRUCT OF WHICH I AM A PART. I REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SOCIAL CONVENTIONS OF THIS COMMUNITY. I AM AN ISLAND."

2006-03-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

Why Blog?
As I set out to create this profile, the question occurred to me, "Why should I blog?" Besides the obvious personal response to this question ("because I like writing"), a more practical answer came to mind that I have heard from time to time...because writing releases me from my own subjectivity. I'm not sure if I buy that completely. The simple translation into words of the thoughts and feelings that I am experiencing cannot really, in itself, connect me to others that surround me--and it certainly cannot force others to see as I see. I guess William Wordsworth came closest to achieving this in some of his verse, but I still feel that his accomplishments were more sleight of hand, relying too fully on passion and emotion, which are far too easily manipulated in people like me. Yet, even if writing does not completely release us from our individual perceptions, from our absorbment into self, from the prison of our own minds, there remains a particular value: the fact that words can make concrete our temporal experiences in some regard (even to strangers like our selves). In such a capacity, words are certainly powerful.

Human society has always been established on the story, or more specifically, the shared story. Even as I sit in my bedroom this morning, I can look around and see the trappings of others' experiences, the artifacts of truth, simply thrown about in bits of narrative. One of my roommates enjoys keeping us updated on the newsworthy events that occur in our area--the new cigarette tax being debated by the legislature, the semi that turned over on I-20 leaking some sort of dangerous gas/liquid (I still don't know what that was all about), or the brick wall of a prominent area night club that collapsed into a busy downtown road during rush hour traffic. When he starts off on one of these updates, he usually begins with, "Basically..." and proceeds to condense the event into a few short sentences that can best depict the primary significance of the occurrence. The process is one of storytelling, of taking a remembrance of particular narrative events, translating them into words, and making the events relevant to the listener. Similarly, my other roommate is frequently the bearer of "strange" news. He enters the room and begins straight into a tale of what happened to him on any particular day with no introduction: "I was driving on I-20, saw a wreck, and can you believe that no one there had a cell phone? The one guy was probably from Simpson county, and he was wearing a wife-beater..." The technique is a bit different--no overt relevance except for the entertainment factor--but there always comes some sort of self-evalutation at the end: Am I like that guy in the wife-beater who was driving after having too much to drink? Probably not.

But taking these two techniques of storytelling hand in hand, we find that in relating narrative, in putting into words that which we experience, we can help others to experience. The goal is not some transcendent sort of subjective connection...it is the experience. Though the experiences may be distinct and subjective for each teller, language gives us a common arena, a community. This is why storytelling is such an indispensable part of cultures. Consider the prominence of myth for early societies, the classic epics of Greece and Rome, the banquet settings of King Arthur's court, or even the "story-time" feature of any American pre-school or kindergarten or grade school that brings the class together to hear a single narrative. The hearing unites us, but it cannot take place without the telling.

Hopefully, the stories that are told here will help others see the society around them and to see who they really are, or are not. Words, then, do not so much change the state of the writer but impact the state of all parties involved. By attempting to allow words to only benefit our selves, we narrow their potential. Words are a lot more powerful than we give them credit for. What we thrive on is the experience of the telling, the thrill of the discussion, and the energy of a common culture that language allows. So let's start bearing our voices.