Saturday, January 26, 2008

Reflections on Hope.

"Hope prevents us from clinging from what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter unknown and fearful territory. This might sound romantic, but when a man enters with his fellow man into his fear of death and is able to wait for him right there, "leaving the safe place" might turn to a very difficult act of leadership. It is an act of discipleship in which we follow the hard road of Christ, who entered death with nothing but bare hope."
Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Heart


I read this exert the other day and it struck a cord. Probably because Hope is something that seems to allude me at times. I have the great ability to get so discouraged with the way that the world has slid into desperation. I would even go as far to say that I have the great ability to be discouraged with the way life has seemed to pan out but I know that there is really no truth in this statement.

Partly because the way that life has turned out has nothing to do with me in a large way, and partly because life can only come from Christ, which makes the first statement ultimately true. When I say then that I am discouraged with the way life has turned out, I am actually saying, I am discouraged with the way that sin has encroached the way that I perceive life to be.

If I had a pure and realistic view of life I would be so encouraged that discouragement probably would not be able to sink it's teeth in me.

But if I were to see life in a pure and realistic way hope would not be as necessary. It would still be necessary because one needs to hope that the end will come and that Christ will play the last encore.

In the light of purity and realism hope does not seem as urgent as it does when I am at the bottom of the pit waiting for the lions to rip my skin off.

Hope is something that seems to be one of the redeeming qualities that ring through the story of Christ.

Just as we hope in Christ to defeat death, Christ hopes in us to share in the celebration of life.

Just as we hope in Christ to live again, Christ hopes in us to live out His resurrected life.

Just as we hope in Christ to forgive us of our sins, Christ hopes that we forgive ourselves and others.

Just as we hope in Christ to save the world, Christ hopes in us to partner with him in the fight to freedom.

We have this great capacity to take our position in the kingdom of God and lower it. Instead of taking our rightful seat we feel the need to be the servant outside the banquet hall eagerly waiting for it to be over so we can pick the scraps off the floor.

If we do not have any expectation in life. If our life is not held in hope that Christ is going to change our lives and the lives of the people around us through us than we have missed a large portion of the life story itself.

For expectation is the essence of hope. And hope is the essence of anticipation for something to happen.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Lost and Dry.

My soul is really dry.

Actually I don't really feel my soul.

Eugene Peterson finds that the Hebrew word for soul is actually a metaphor for neck. It is the part of the body that connects the mind with the rest of the body. It is the part of the body that brings the air from the mouth into the lungs.

That kind of soul seems to be missing. I guess I could easily give a plethora of reasons for it but I can't pin point one down.

I have often been in the dry desolate desert but I have never felt absolutely lost before. This feeling leaves me grasping for something.

It's like I was thrown out into the desert and I so long for someone to come and give me some direction. I came to Bible College clothed in a specific plan which has been ripped away and thrown in the fire. So I find myself where Adam and Eve found themselves. Completely vulnerable in a place that is absolutely terrifying.

A place that leaves my soul in a state of alarm. I am asking questions that I have never fully grappled with.

I was reading Hosea last week and God was talking to the Israelites and describing their adulterous behavior. But later on it says that God tenderly speaks to them and brings them back to Himself.

That image is literally burned in my mind. That tenderness in God's character is something that I so long to encounter. Collision is out of the question. If I collide with anything I will fall very far and very fast into something that I don't know I will ever crawl out of.

I need the tenderness of God's voice to echo into my soul. That living water would sure taste good right about now. I need to be refreshed and revitalized.

So I go on knowing that God is good. That Christ is alive. That the Holy Spirit is active. I trust that God is working in the details.

I trust that there is light somewhere and that I will eventually get to see it again.

Father let your light shine down on me,
Father let your light shine down on me,
No matter what the day or night may bring,
Father let your light shine down on me.

Oh Jesus you became
What was my deepest shame
That at your very name
My calloused heart would change.

How could you perfect one
Love me when I have done
Nothing that's worthy of
My freedom you have one.

Oh wonderful love, you died for me
A power of you life is in me.

Father let your light shine down on me
Father let your light shine down on me
No matter what the day or night may bring
Father let your light shine down on me

Open up the Heavens
Pour on down your spirit"
"Love is watching someone die

So who's gonna watch you die?"

We are all slowly dying. Every single day we lose more breathe, we lose more stamina, we get older.

Our skin starts to droop, the bags under our eyes become more apparent, wrinkles pop up around our face.

While we are clinging to our youth through plastic surgery, pills, and new jeans we are all falling. Slowly falling apart.

So who's gonna watch you die?

Who is going to be there when you pass your last breath?

Will it be your education? Will it be your salary, or your car or your house? Will it be those whom you have loved all your life?

Or will you be completely alone?

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Pure Enjoyment.

So, I came back to Lincoln today with a frustrating week and weekend behind me. I decided to watch a pretty depressing movie, so my mood wasn't the best.

But then my roommate came back. We did some chatting and I vented a little and then we did something that will remain in roommate history for as long as I live.

I just happened to turn some music on and I started a new game. I would go through a mixed list and every song would get played only fifteen seconds. In that fifteen seconds my roommate had to make up a dance for every random song.

Now not only was this enjoyable for me but it also got my roommate laughing. I finally could not stay seated and turned it to a dance song and got off my bed and started dancing. Now if any of you know me well you know that I am the best worst dancer. I am the best because I can dance in perfect beat. I am the worst because...well let's just say you would have to see it to believe it.

So my roommate and I are now both standing up dancing like crazed maniacs, and our shade is open. Wide open for the world to see.

I am just glad we don't go to a baptist school or we might have been kicked out for dancing. We ended up closing the blinds and having a great time.

Lesson learned; that one truly should enjoy oneself in a state of pure enjoyment while dancing with one's enjoyable roommate.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton

"Nothing could be more alien to contemplation than the cogito ergo sum of Descartes. "I think, therefore I am." This is the declaration of an alienated being, in exile from his own spiritual depths, compelled to seek some comfort in a proof for his own existence(!) based on the observation that he "thinks." If his thought is necessary as a medium through which he arrives at the concept of his existence, then he is in fact only moving further away form his true being. He is reducing himself to a concept. He is making it impossible for himself to experience, directly and immediately, the mystery of his own being. At the same time, by also reducing God to a concept, he makes it impossible for himself to have any intuition of the divine reality which is inexpressible. He arrives at his own being as if it were an objective reality, that is to say he strives to become aware of himself as he would of some "thing" alien to himself: "I am, therefore some thing." And then he goes on to convince himself that God, the infinite, the transcendent, is also a "thing," and"object," like other finite and limited objects of our thought!" pg. 8

I have recently discovered the theologian Thomas Merton this winter break. The passage above comes from a book that is all about realizing who God is through contemplation. When I first read this the first thing that I thought about was the "Secret" that has been so popular this last year or so. My best friend and I have talked about this reality and whether it has the ability to apply to life or not. I first heard about it through Kelly who said that the founder of "The Secret" was on Oprah. Ronda Byrne, the recent founder of this idea "defines The Secret as the law of attraction, which is the principle that "like attracts like." Rhonda calls it "the most powerful law in the universe," and says it is working all the time. "What we do is we attract into our lives the things we want, and that is based on what we're thinking and feeling," Rhonda says. The principle explains that we create our own circumstances by the choices we make in life. And the choices we make are fueled by our thoughts—which means our thoughts are the most powerful things we have here on earth."

Basically if we think one thing and react to the natural order around us we are actually creating our own "fate/destiny/best lifestyle" While I think there is some truth to this I also realize that if this is your full and only philosophy on life you are ultimately going to be disappointed when the things that you cannot control end up causing every single reaction that you display. It's funny because while we can say, we can control our thinking and make our lives better we still are reacting, which in turn shows that we are not in control and that we are not truly thinking first and acting second.

Also this idea actually stems from the statement that Merton describes above. The idea from Descartes that we think first and so then we have a created identity. However, if we base our identity off what we think then we find ourselves to be completely based off of conceptual reality. We then create our own God and create our own savior and mask the reality and the gravity of sin in our own lives.

Because if we think one thing we are ultimately correct. And if we base our thinking off of ourselves and our success, we then destroy morality in the basis of our own society. Our social constructs become useless because our thinking is completely and utterly individual. We then find ourselves to be back in a place of illusion. Without any real grasp on reality and on community.

So the question is do we desire for the ultimate life that is masked in illusion and a preparatory death sentence? A life that is completely individualistic and has no marking of influence and impact? A life where God is defined as a crutch and is not truly needed to intervene and save us?

Do we long for a life that is conceptual and based on the illusion that we are free?

Or do we long for a life that is fully aware that we are not free by our own consolation prizes and that we long and desperately need something to create the moral and the real fiber within our own being?

The choice is yours. Masked bondage? Or a freed reality?