english

I once heard a speaker at the James Robison Bible Conference give a talk called Power, But Not Power, which was essentially about experiencing the power of God in its foolish simplicity without taking up power over others. O that those words would be heard! But I digress. This man's speech began with saying several graceful greetings he'd received in each of several languages he spoke, capping it off with, "but in heaven, we will all speak one language..." and then he spoke something so beautiful in Spanish that I remember wanting to cry even though I didn't have any idea what he'd said until he translated it.

Of course when I was in Spain I told Lucía and Nicolás that I agreed that Spanish would surely be the language we all speak in heaven, and how I particularly like the way they greet each other with kisses and leave each other with Adios which literally translates, To God. But ever since 1992 when I got stuck on the idea of Spanish being such a heavenly language, I have been on a quest to find something I'm proud of in English. I have found one thing: you're welcome. In Spanish when you thank someone—which is said beautifully as gracias (literally grace), they answer de nada (literally of nothing). But that just seems cheap to me. Now, we do that, too. We say, don't mention it or even it's nothing or no biggie. But you're welcome is such a beautiful phrase. You're well come. Don't those words make you feel like you're a long lost friend that someone has been expecting to show up so that he could finally do the good in his heart towards you? Well come. I sometimes think that's what God says when we say grace. You're welcome. I like it anyway.

What I don't like is stupid junk like this. If you speak English, please read the following words aloud:

thorough
through
trough
cough
bough
bought
thought
fought
ought
tough
although
borough
sought
drought
dough
rough
enough

Not only is it idiotic to have four letters when one would do. Not only what do g and h have do with anything? Not only is it stupid to prounounce the same letters so many different ways. But worst of all, it doesn't exactly welcome anyone who would learn our tongue.

So anyway, I'm back to trying to learn Spanish again. My kids will probably learn it first, seeing that they have a private tutor who just left from her weekly afternoon with the Coans.

as we were saying yesterday

Fray Luis Ponce de León entered the University of Salamanca at the age of fourteen and in 1544 joined the Augustinian order. In 1561 he obtained a chair in Theology at Salamanca; in 1571 he attained the chair of Sacred Letters as well. While at the University, he translated classical and biblical literature and wrote on religious themes. He was denounced to the Inquisition and was consequently imprisoned at Valladolid from March 1572 until December 1576; the charges against him were then abandoned, and he was released with an admonition. The first day after returning from four years’ imprisonment, all eyes were on him, waiting for what bitterness, what railing, what grudges were four years imprisoned in his heart, waiting for public vindication from his seat of power, his lectern. He began that lecture with, “As we were saying yesterday…” and continued with the sublime voice of his calling, which was to impart young intellectuals in this Spanish university we visited with truth and virtue.

I feel like I’ve been unable to speak for some time now on this blog, unable to write or even converse. But today I am back, and for me it was just yesterday. I would start with something very short, a simple thought that maybe is (or isn’t) profound. And this one is for my conservative friends. It’s actually more of a question.

The opposite of justice is _____________________.

(see comments for the answer)

hope

I’ve been talking with some friends lately about Christian music. Part of that was sparked by what Bono said about God preferring Rock & Roll to Gospel (it was basically that God prefers truth to happyclappy).

I really don't like the "Christian" label. Partly, I have the same problem as Rob Bell, like I'm supposed to accept bad art because it's got my team's mascot on it? But for me it goes even deeper. Most songwriters going for that Christian label feel like their audience demands happiness, utually a "victory chant" or maybe a minor song that ends with a major chord in the last measure. That doesn't feel true to me, to my life experience.

What feels very true to me is a sort of "cursed assurance". I have all these really great promises in the Bible but I don't see them working out, and I have no guarantee on the timing, and I really have no guarantee that they apply to me personally. I've seen the dead end of Name It And Claim It Boulevard, and yet I still have this trust for the heart of God. I've given up on a story that is supposed to make me happy. I wake up every day and things change. Good stuff happens, bad stuff happens, but all with an ambivalence to me and my happiness. Each day is like an invitation to go deeper no matter if it looks better or worse. It's like God is saying, "If you're having trouble looking too far ahead for the happily ever after, just close your eyes." I know that God has given me his very great and precious promises. The only thing is that it seems like God's best promises have to do with making me one with him, and taking me where he is. And when I think about how that played out for Jesus, it seems there was very little God was doing FOR him and a lot God was doing TO him and THROUGH him. He had that "cursed assurance" thing. He was made a curse for others so that they could enjoy the blessing of God. And John even had the gall to say that the same fate is ours, "Christ laid down his life for us, so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." I want to change the words to this old hymn:

CURSED ASSURANCE, JESUS IS MINE
OH, WHAT A FORETASTE OF GLORY DIVINE!

So that’s what hope looks like to me these days. I spend a lot of time with my eyes closed watching clouds roll in and others break. Most of the things I hoped for I don’t anymore because they’re gone and I’m changed by their going. I hope for different things now. But I’m more careful, or less, depending on how you want to look at it. The hope I now have is more like Frodo’s or Jesus’. In his heart Frodo began to understand his quest would claim his life. Same with Jesus. My life will be consumed one way or another, and I hope that something good might come to me, either before or after. It’s a less personal hope, but a more certain one I think.

Aragorn’s line keeps rolling around in my head, the one from the movie when Elrond brought Andúril to him and said, “I give hope to Men.” He responds, “I keep none for myself.”

But there is good reason to hope. Because really, I am not waiting for my world to all come together. I am waiting to let my world come undone.

In Rob Bell’s Everything is Spiritual tour, he talked about the poem of creation, the one found in Genesis 1. He spent a good deal of time talking about the about the beauty and truth of its lyrics, meter, rhythm, and symmetry, and that was interesting. He also pointed out something that has always fascinated me—that with God evening precedes morning. Night gives birth to day. And I have always taken that as hopeful, because in this dark night of the soul I am in the beginning, not the end of God’s cycle.

But there is one more thing in this poem, something I had never seen before. It was the way of God separating and then filling, separating and then filling, separating and then filling. The first three days are God separating. The second three days are God filling. A matched set. In the same order. The first day God separates light from darkness with space, and the fourth day he fills them with stars. The second day God separates the waters with sky, and the fifth day he fills them with fish and birds. The third day God separates the seas with land, and the sixth day he fills the land with all sorts of animals, saving the best for last: Man...and then Woman.

But how is this hopeful? I used to be presented with faith as a sort of victory march where I am supposed to get closer and closer to God, believe more and more, obey more and more, understand more and more, win more and more, have more and more, and essentially by moving “from glory to glory” be promoted, ultimately to the very image of God. Faith was “Onward Christian soldier marching as to war / With the cross of Jesus going on before”, and God was waiting atop his holy hill for me to finally get it right, with his help of course. But what if the writer of Genesis truly had a revelation of God, truly captured in those verses the essence and nature of Creation? If so, then the rhythm that is found in those first six days (and the seventh) explains a lot. If the way of God is to separate and then fill, then this separation I feel is a portend of a refill.

I get this image of God exhaling, and then inhaling, exhaling, and then inhaling. I get this image of God quaking the earth, splitting it asunder, and then a river of life rushing through to fill it. I get this image of people being separated by sin, evil, misunderstandings, and then reconciliation rushing through to fill it. I get this image of a God being separated from his Creation, and then a Messiah rushing in to fill and restore all. And somehow it’s all happening like it’s supposed to because it’s all part of the life of the Creator who separates, and then fills.

And so I have this dark hope that maybe would be called despair because I am simply doing nothing about it. And I have this upside down view of God that maybe would be called falling away. In truth, I am still hoping to fall, waiting for the world to fall, waiting for everything to come undone, because only then will the season change, the color return, and this wide canyon of hope be filled.

And this is why that seventh day is so intriguing to me. The Seventh, the Sabbath, the Rest. The activity of hope is the most torturous of all activity. Do nothing. Rest. Let. Allow. Accept. Die. In the book of Hebrews it says, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-Rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest.” And what an effort it is. Everything is screaming, Touch it! Do something! Work it! Fix it! Save it! Fill it! And hope comes along and whispers darkly, Wait. Rest. Sleep. Trust. Believe. Watch.

That’s my hope. And I can’t say that I found it through brilliant application or by mustard-seed faith. I can’t say I found it at all. It found me. I didn’t even want it. It threw itself on me as the crack began to grow and my world started coming undone.

This hope whispers to me that three days hence space will be filled with stars, that three days hence sky will be teeming with fowl, that three days hence earth will be covered with feet, that three days hence the Grave will be filled with the Life, and that somehow three days hence I will see all that was separated, filled.

Somehow.

Someday.

There is always hope.

one

Have you ever got one person stuck in your head and it’s like they’re the only one in the world? And it doesn’t matter who else comes along, or how perfect they are. It’s like your eyes, as good as they are, can only see one person. Or maybe it’s your heart.

I just saw Superman Returns for the second time, and I have to say it’s one of the best movies I have ever seen. So many allusions to God and Jesus and the gospel. I found myself in tears several times. I’m sure I will have to write more about it, but the thing that’s been rolling around in my head since the first time I saw it (in fact since the first time I saw Superman I) is Why Lois Lane? Lois was never the prettiest. She was not the smartest. She was not the wisest. She was not the bravest. She had some issues that would drive anyone nuts, she smoked, she was self-absorbed, and she was terribly farsighted (not to see that Clark was Superman despite his antics). You would have to say she was stuck somewhere between plain and unimpressive, which is right where Superman was stuck. I mean, Superman was Superman! Superman could have had any girl he wanted. Any girl. But it was Lois. And there was nothing for it. To him, everything she did was beautiful. Kind of like,

Something about you now
I can't quite figure out
Everything she does is beautiful
Everything she does is right

Cause it's you and me and all other people
With nothing to do, nothing to prove
And it's you and me and all other people
And I don't know why I can't keep my eyes off you

You and Me, by Lifehouse

Have you ever got one thought stuck in your head and it’s like it’s the only thought in the world? And it doesn’t matter what other thoughts comes along, or how perfect they are. It’s like your mind, as good as it is, can only see that one thought. Or maybe it’s your heart.

I’m around people all the time that have issues. Do you know anyone like this? For the most part they are perfectly normal and have so much going for them, but they have one issue and it’s like kryptonite for them. They love God and quote the Bible and care for people, but then they say that they don’t believe in God because they cannot believe in a god who would send someone to hell. Or they can’t believe in a god who would wipe out entire civilizations because of their systemic sin, or would wipe out a lot of people because their king sinned. Or they’re sure God hates them. Or they can’t forgive God for not healing them. And the list goes on. I mean the list is as long as there are people. Except of course that I don’t have any issues. When people leave me they don’t say, “Wow, Steve is really a great guy, but what’s up with that one thing?” Yeah, right.

Or it could be the other way around. Someone lays hold of a dream and there’s nothing for it. The facts don’t count. Then we hear their incredible story, like Mark Inglis, the double amputee who climbed Mount Everest!

It’s like every human being has this uncanny ability to get stuck on one thing, or on one person, and nothing else matters except their one.

And lest I think it’s a fallen humanity thing, I read Song of Songs or Hosea or John 3:16 and come away thinking that God himself has this same weakness. He gets you stuck in His head, and then it doesn’t matter what you do or how bad everything gets messed up, He is going to pursue you. And He will continue to pursue you and rescue you because “The king is enthralled by your beauty” (Psalm 45).

But to suggest that God the All Powerful has a weakness? If this must be called a weakness, this ability to get stuck on someone and forget the facts, even to the point that you would die for her, then I guess I am saying that. We must have inherited our weakness from God. It’s part of His image.

It really doesn’t make any sense, but it’s really sweet how Superman loves Lois. And honestly, it’s not the incredible special effects or our worship of a super-man who is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, or leaps tall buildings in a single bound that keeps us coming back to this story. It’s not that he fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice, or the American way. It’s the love he has for the world, and the special love he has for Lois Lane. And He goes all the way. He loves her enough to let her go, to change his identity and hide, even from her, to protect her from those who would hurt him by hurting her. She's the one.

That’s the most endearing thing to me about Superman and about God. It’s like he’s got a world to save, but he’s always around for me.

psyche

“The fable of Cupid and Psyche is usually considered allegorical. The greek name for buterfly is Psyche, and the same word means the soul. There is no illustration of the immortality of the soul so striking and beautiful as the butterfly, bursting on brilliant wings from the tomb in which it has lain, after a dull, grovelling, caterpillar existence, to flutter in the blaze of day and feed on the fragrant and delicate productions of the spring. Psyche, then, is the human soul, which is purified by sufferings and misfortunes, and is thus prepared for the enjoyoment of true and pure happiness.” – Bulfinch’s Mythology

I think that is beautiful.

Psyche is the word Christ would have used for soul if he talked with Greek audiences. It was the word his followers used when writing what are now the scriptures. For example, Peter wrote, “Beloved, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from fleshly cravings, which war against your psyche.” And I think Christ accepted the butterfly as a good avatar for the soul. Yet, I think Christ saw the human soul’s condition differently. It is not that the caterpillar is imperfect and weak, and must be made to suffer, and must be purged of her vices and learn virtue, and must somehow appease the gods who will then accept her and allow her to come up. Christ seems to think that the suffering and death is to release the life and beauty and truth of the caterpillar that is within, trapped under a veil of fleshy caterpillar skin. To the Greeks the caterpillar’s flight was an act of achievement by it. To Christ it was a liberation that happens to it. Any suffering and ultimately death of soul is about letting go of all she’s held on to.

Another thing about the realm of Psyche is jealous gods. The gods of Greece are jealous. If a soul dared to be proud or vain or was honored in some way that a god wanted to be honored, one of them would afflict that soul for trespassing until they had their revenge and seized their glory back. The God of Christ is also jealous, but in a different way. His jealousy is that of a jealous lover, ruthless in his pursuit of the girl whose true beauty he is smitten with. The Bible talks about God being a “consuming fire”, and that this fire is his jealous love for his girl. (Dt 4.24, Heb 12.29) That’s why it says not to mess around “for jealousy arouses a husband’s fury, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge; he will not accept any compensation; he will refuse the bribe, however great it is.” (Prov 6.34)

It’s an altogether different butterfly for the God of Christ.

The story of Psyche and Cupid (Eros) is beautifully retold by C.S. Lewis in what is now my favorite of his works, Till We Have Faces. That book changed me like no other. It changed me because it did not address my mind at all. It would only be consumed like truth nectar, like milk and honey for the soul, and it began working its way through to every part of me, reviving all of my members, and restoring sight to the eyes of my heart. The story begins with a soul crying for justice against the gods, to have her complaint of unfairness heard and answered. It ends (I don’t think I will give too much away) with her being answered in a different way than she expected, and being both undone and done. Kind of like a butterfly.

Lewis said he read the original story in one of the few surviving Latin novels, Metamorphoses (which would translate I suppose changes or transformations). And I think that’s appropriate for the story of Psyche, the beautiful girl who was metamorphasized from a creeper below to one who took up wings and graced the heavens. And I think that’s why I like this song more than most “worship” songs I have ever heard, because it gives voice to my soul and expresses what is so frustrating about this earthbound existence whose end is a cocoon and what is so exhilirating about pursuing (or is it being pursued?) by a jealous God.

Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
Chasing after you

I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you

Forgetting all I'm lacking
Completely incomplete
I'll take your invitation
You take all of me now...

I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you

I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you

There's nothing else to lose
There's nothing else to find
There's nothing in the world
That can change my mind
There is nothing else
There is nothing else
There is nothing else

Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
Chasing after you....

Hanging by a Momemt, by Lifehouse

everyone gets fired

Why do I allow myself to waste in anxiety? Either something has happened that I want to change (regret) or something might happen that I want to avoid (worry). Either anxiety has the same effect—sleeplessness, mental exhaustion, depression, fear, isolation, acid indigestion—it’s like there’s this fireworm eating my insides away, burning and burning and burning, never tiring of burning.

It’s kind of like being in hell.

I was lately thinking that my problem may not be weak faith or “sin in my life” or lacking spiritual gifts or negligence to take up authority by naming and claiming the fireworm’s demise. My problem may be that I need to die.

It’s like there are these arrows that are shot into me or that I can see coming in, and I am trying like heck to push them away or pull them out. Maybe I should love the arrows for what they are killing in me, piece by piece—first a hand, then an eye, then a foot, and so on, until only I remain.

I think there are two ways to avoid anxieties: sudden deliverance or sudden death. Either someone stronger than me has to rescue me, or I have to be killed. And I can sum up my part in both of these in two words: LET GO. Neither worry nor regret can accomplish sudden deliverance or sudden death. Only letting go can.

Surely God in his mercy does not want me anxious. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Be anxious for nothing”, and Psalm 127 talks about the vanity of being anxious because God gives sleep to those he loves. Now it comes to me that sleep is a metaphor for death. Hmm. Let go.

Tomorrow I’m going to a memorial service for my grandmom who went to sleep Sunday morning and won’t be waking up in this world. When I called my aunt, she said, “Granna was just exhausted.” But the fire is quenched now. She let go.

Jesus said it’s better to enter life maimed than to enter hell with two hands, better to lose an eye and a foot than to be tossing and turning in one piece where “the worm doesn’t die and the fire isn’t quenched”. And Jesus promises that everyone gets fired, it’s just a matter of whether the fire will be quenched or not. I have experienced both. I really think that I could have enjoyed peace and beat that worm if I had let go.

Something that helps me let go of stuff is accepting that the fireworm is from God. George MacDonald said,

I believe that justice and mercy are simply one and the same thing. Such is the mercy of God that he will hold his children in the consuming fire of his distance until they pay the uttermost farthing, until they drop the purse of selfishness with all the dross that is in it, and rush home to the Father and the Son, and the many brethren—rush inside the center of the life-giving fire whose outer circles burn.

Everyone gets fired. (Mark 9:42) The question is will we let go? The question is when?

in the rain

It is said of God that he makes it to rain on the just and the unjust. I wonder if rain is not a metaphor of forgiveness. How Jesus left was—he was taken up and hidden behind a cloud. Every now and then the clouds come down, and then I see clearly.

My friend Jon says that sin is whatever comes between two people. Somewhere in the bible it says that if we confess our sins we will be healed, and somewhere else it says that there is no condemnation for us. It seems to me that the God treats sin like clouds. They can easily blow away or come down, but that doesn’t mean they’re light—think about how much water floats above the earth in one of those massive thunderclouds. But when it rains, when we get that glorious “storm of perfection” as Andy Andrews calls it, it’s like everything is right and good, and God is with us.

I remember what seems like a lifetime ago when we were having a draught. Some friends and I were down at our neighborhood clubhouse when the rain started coming. We heard it on the windows and opened the door to smell the wonderful aroma. As it began to rain harder and harder we finally couldn’t stand it. We went full outside and threw our arms up in the air as if to worship, threw back our heads with our mouths open, and soaked up the goodness. We didn’t earn it. We couldn’t turn it off. We just enjoyed it and thanked God for it. We needed it so desparately.

I wonder if rain is not a metaphor for forgiveness.

I could stay in the rain forever.