A Sobering Awareness

Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
1 John 2:6

My days in junior high were the most unhappy in my whole life.

It was a time of great malaise for me, this I was certain of -and I was very right about that. I blamed my circumstances, my school, my family, and some of the things I am now the most thankful for. Occasionally I suspected my own attitude had something to do with it, but I sent the suspicion away -calling myself the victim.

We studied the Bible in school. I considered myself to be a Christian, but I questioned whether or not I was actually living in the way God had commanded me to live.

The Bible readings were required, and not a matter of personal choice. It would have been easy to let the passages go in one ear and out the other, but I was full of questions. I didn't really want to know what happened to Noah's ark, or who the Nephilum were (although these were the questions I asked out loud).

The real questions I had about the Bible were really questions I had about myself.

With every command I read from God, I wondered to myself, 'Is this something I am doing? If I stood before God, if my appearances were as nothing as they are before Him, would He say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant'?'

One day the teacher introduced three verses we would be memorizing from 1 John. I had never seen these verses before. I remember the exact way that he wrote them on the green chalk board thirteen years ago:

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
1 John 2:15-17

I wondered how I could memorize a verse which seemed impossible to even read. Do not love anything in the world?

Really?

There were a LOT of things in the world I loved.

I loved cartoons. I loved the cheap pizza my mom would buy for my sister and I at Costco. I loved going to the movies. I loved pop culture. More than all of it, I loved video games.

And could it be that here in this very place, John was telling in the full authority of the Bible not to love these things? If I did love them, would the love of the Father not be in me?

It sounded like I would go to hell, except that it was worded in the present tense. 'The love of the Father is not in him.'

I didn't care that the Bible did not forbid these things. I could stop doing them. I could stop watching my favorite shows. I could stop eating cheap pizza. I could (maybe) stop playing video games. But how could I stop LOVING them?

The second verse in the passage -the one about the cravings and the lust of the flesh and boasting about what a person has and does- that sounded just like me, just like my style.

It was like I was singled out and laid bare.

After digesting this verse for some time, I gave this messy region of my heart over to God (at about the time I was baptized).

These days I don't struggle with loving video games. There are moments where I get to do fun things and sometimes I struggle with loving those moments.

Then I teeter-totter about it and say to myself, 'Well, I don't love those things that much.'

And then I think back and I remember the chalk board on that day. I remember the verse that God commissioned John to write to me ... to give me a warning.

I remember how serious that moment was. How terrified I was at the choice I had to make and how seriously God takes my actions.

Father, keep my heart from the idolatry of the world. Spare me from loving the things here. Guide me into the fullness of your ways. As you prepare a place for me, prepare also that place for you in me.

Amen.

A Sound Mind

The day has come for those with clear and straight-thinking clarity to present to us -to everyone who is ready to listen however great or common- a firm account of the exact difference between a sound mind and insanity.

The history of the word 'sane' is of no help to us. It derives from the Latin word for 'health', sanus. Mental health is too ellusive to derive from eating correctly, exercise, or getting enough sleep -the things we normally associate with health. The word 'sanity' has taken on a transfigured role in language to portray for us something for which we simply have no word. If we intend to understand sanity on the historical basis of its shaping through the years we shall fail.

And what of that German physicist who so generously left the high towers of science (and those who point at the height of those towers as a means of certainty and assurance) to offer us a definition of insanity? Should we say insanity is simply "Doing the same thing and expecting different results"?

Einstein, it will be remembered, was a genius in many affairs but he had his failures also. He failed to recognize the absurdity of quantum physics -what he called 'spooky action at a distance'. And, although the man seemed to be as sane as the next person (though who can say the next person is sane or even if sanity is common?), he failed to understand sanity in the same way.

If one is to know true human greatness -to not only recall it from stories of old but also to find it in one's own life alive and healthy- one must acknowledge the power of those who have failed, and failed, and failed still a hundred times more only to try once again and succeed.

The realm of science is a strapped-down world. We are told that if the conditions are in place and the controls are in order the same thing will always happen in the same way as a result of the same measures. The very thing science rules out as a complete and total rule is the Absurd.

Science can acknowledge that Joshua walked around the city of Jericho six times and nothing happened. It can acknowledge that the city stood or that it fell (for indeed it can be verified that cities have fallen and stood many times throughout history). What science cannot accept is that the seventh time the walls which had stood six times collapsed on the seventh.

And yet Einstein is remembered for his words about sanity. After all, there is something sound about them -something which even the most studied critic can accept about them. Einstein places the focus of his words on the expectation of those who act.

Now, it must be noted, that the common man has some notion of general relativity since people have become more educated (although perhaps they have also become more insane). The common man has also contended with his expectations and putting them into action -something simple and often overlooked by those who write in science journals.

There is something hard to bear about laboring to achieve something one never expects to have. The story of Pandora was told by the Greeks with dreadful tones -not in spite of the hope at the end, but because of it. The ancient Greeks, like Einstein, wanted nothing to do with a hope that outlasted tragedy and misfortune. They considered it more sound to strive thinking their efforts would come to nothing, and for this reason the Greeks loved their tragic heroes who worked hard, who perservered, who gambled their life in a few undertakings, and lost everything.

Perhaps the greatest hero in antiquity, Achilles, is best remembered for sulking among the ships of the Achaians after he gave his captured woman Brisies away to king Agammemnon. The Greeks listened to bards like Homer and thought, 'Yes, that's exactly how it should be! That's how life is!'

This is exactly the perverseness of the world we live in. When a child hopes to receive a bicycle for his birthday and instead receives a sweater he is not only sad but also ashamed for having hoped for the bicycle. We remember the stories of failed marriages because we wish to justify ourselves for not having believed in something as serious and wonderful as marriage. When we are punished for a wrong-doing we expect only hell for the disappointment of losing heaven.

If I could dare to offer a definition in words for the kind of sanity and sound mind which cannot be organized or formulated into words, I would venture to say it is having a clear picture of exactly the things or thing which one values most and believing that they can have it.

For reasons that hardly need to be said, this kind of sanity may be too daring. For every angel that whispers into a young man's ears: 'You can surely find an honest vocation and live an honest life' There is an unclean angel who whispers: 'Do you want to hope for the heights only to be sent to the depths? Take what you can get because only the cheaters and hopeless get anything in this life.'

Healthy thinking is a daunting path. It is far, far easier to believe that salvation is too inaccessible for us and so we must confine our expectations to half-salvations and hopelessness. In the end it has nothing to do with the intelligence of our minds which makes us sane, but our daring to believe and accept good things.

There is also a kind of half-sanity. A voice which says, 'I do not believe a good thing will happen to me, but if -in my doubting- something good does happen to me, it will be just as well as if I had expected it.' If a man listens to this voice too long, it will become his voice.

But however true the voice may sound it is wholly a lie.

This is a voice that points its bitter finger against God and accuses Him of injustice as a way of condescending God into handing something over. But God does not give into the demands of those who take hostages, even if such a man has taken his own mind hostage.

The child who clearly recognizes his dreams and secures a false contendedness -a contendedness which says he shall never meet his dream- is a child who carries with him a heavy burdern. This is why the wise Solomon warned that a hope deferred makes the heart sick.

In the same way a mind that no longer expects to find what it truly desires is an unhealthy mind, and when the health of such a mind becomes completely unhealthy it is insanus, or insane. With the death of the spirit, the mind is also dead even if it goes on thinking.

If a person is to accept this view of sanity, they must also accept that a healthy mind is not too far from them. The alternative is mentally unbearable.

So let us dare to believe that good will be extended to us and not evil. Let us dare to believe that what is ours may be healthy, and that what is sick may be healed. Let us expect to see good things in our own lives and in the lives of our neighbors. And let us rejoice in the good gifts we receive.

Dreams And Fantasy

Episodes 7, 8, 9 ...








Episodes 1, 2, 3
Episodes 4, 5, 6

On A Bench At The Mall

I sit on a bench at the mall,
Between two stores there stands a wall.
Before the wall the people pass,
And in my brain the forms let dance.
Looks to concept, a distant jump
The self still weeps in a clump.
As I watch them pass the store,
Who watches me? Behind my door?
Thickened veils and painted masks,
Still closed if they had the chance.
So quick to visit distant shores,
What blood escapes their pores?
I sit still here upon the bench,
It has become a wretched stench.
A perfect place above the trees,
Yet the angels all watch me.
A massive stairway to the clouds,
But up itself is coming down.
My eyes will search to watch it fall
Down to a bench at the mall.


To err is human, to forgive divine.
Pope

Real Worship

Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
Matthew 5:23-24

Here we have a brief passage from Scripture which I never hear mentioned by preachers or theologians.

Perhaps the passage is too difficult to derive doctrine from ... or perhaps everyone who reads it comes to fear it in such a way that it is seldom remembered.

The command is deceptively simple. If you are giving something to God in His house and realize you have wronged someone, then you should leave the service and make things right and then come back.

Sounds like a casual, easy-to-follow command, right?

Perhaps the command would be easy to follow if we didn't cling to our reputation as a god over us.

In some ways, the command could be heard as, "That part of you that wants others to think highly of you even though you've wronged them ... that's got to go if you want to worship me."

I can't say I have perfectly followed this command, but I can remember obeying the command at least once ...

I had said something about someone at a party that made someone sound a little "scandalous" if you know what I mean. This person was a young man, let's call him Greg, serving in active ministry.

The day after the party I remember waking up and thinking, "I'm going to worship God today ... with the same mouth that I said that terrible thing about Greg ..." And the verse was emblazed like fire on my heart.

So I tried sitting down to play some video games before the service ... but really I was thinking about the verse.

I kept thinking about how if I tried to be reconciled to Greg he would misunderstand, or I would make it sound a lot worse than it was, or he would think I was an very untrustworthy fellow, et cetera.

And then the theological justifications came in ...

'If I put reconciliation before worship, it means my earthly relationship is more important to me than God.;

'If I leave the service to work it out with Greg, it just means I haven't trust God's finished work on the cross to make things right for me.'

The more theological gymnastics I went through the closer the verse stayed with me. It was like ... it didn't matter if everyone in the world was breaking this command of Christ ... it was still right there in my face and it said:

"Hey! You've got to decide whether or not you're going to obey me!"

Phew!

I am glad to say that this is one of the few times where I followed the leadership of God's Spirit and apologized to the guy.

Yes, it was VERY awkward, but it was real.

Of all the things to happen, Greg respected me for the apology and told me never to worry about the incident again!

I can't describe how beautiful it was to hear that. It was like heaven opening up and everything becoming good again.

It wasn't an achievement I could take credit for, it was mostly like the walls I had erected to protect myself from obeying God came tumbling down.

Part of the reason I bring this up has to do with a disagreement I'm having with a teacher at my old Bible school. The professor claimed that we shouldn't examine our own lives to see if we have faith because that would involve self-examination, which is narcissistic and a failure to focus on the complete work Christ has done.

As I learned in my apology encounter, God's goodness doesn't mean we can ignore what He has called us to.

The theologian (inside me) wants to respond to Jesus and say, "Why should I leave my sacrifice to make things right? Isn't God so perfect that it doesn't matter how I live?" Or as Dr. Jenson could have put it, "Isn't God more important than my issues?"

The answer is that God would rather have the earnest praise of a true follower over the false praise of a hundred million followers.

Just because I put authenticity before worshipping God does not mean I have more value to myself than God. In fact God demands that we 'get serious' about our choices before coming to Him.

And this is precisely the difficulty of the commandment.

God offers the forgiving work of His Son to all, but that doesn't mean that a half-serious seeker will find it.

Paul writes that a man ought to examine himself to determine if he is in the faith. This is the true (and daunting) task that Christ wishes for His disciples.

Boasting In My Weakness

Matthew Anderson, a friend over at Mere Orthodoxy invited me to post 8 random stories about myself.

1) When I was three years old my father pulled me aside and said, "Son, I love you." After a moment I said, "I love you too, father." And he said, "Do you really?". I remember thinking to myself, "What is love? Is it a feeling? I don't think it is. Is it a giving? But I have nothing to give? Is it merely a word? I believe it is more than that." Eventually I told my father I did love him, but I feared I had lied because I couldn't explain to myself what love was, so how could I love?

2) In highschool I spent a long time in the mornings reading the Bible. First I would notice the Bible on my nightstand. Then I was head off to do some other task. Then I would come back to the edge of my bed and sit. Then I would stand up. Then I would sit back down again. Much, much later, I began to read.

3) As a little boy I used to wonder about how many people there were on the earth. At least a hundred -which was more than I could imagine. "And how strange," I thought, "That I am the only one I have control over." After thinking about this I grew very afraid, and I didn't understand why.

4) During my early days in college I began studying the works of those who used philosophical and scientific evidence to defend the Bible. It was at this time I went to the hospital for an appendectomy. My roommate was a Mormon. I thought I had all the answers. The more certain of this I became, the more foolish my own words sounded to me. Eventually the mormon told me, "Look, I'm not just going to put my hands over my eyes and ears and shout until you go away. The thing is I live by faith." To this day I believe he was in a sense full of lies, but at the time I thought to myself, "Simple faith? How wonderful!". When I returned to college I tried to forget the whole incident.

5) One time as a young child I found a penny on the carpet. I was delighted and hid it in my hands. My father easily saw me do this and asked me what I had. I showed him reluctantly. He told me to give it back, but I refused. He told me again. Although the penny seemed like a lot of money to me at the time, I had this odd sensation that it was actually worth almost nothing and that he would give it back to me if I just handed it over to him. And the more I considered this, the tighter I held the penny. "What kind of man demands to have money handed over to him, so he can give it back?" I was also (painfully) aware of how unhappy I was in my stiffness.

6) In junior high I decided to get baptised. Afterword I was faced with two voices. The first voice said over and over again, "It was a nice ceremony. The people in your community all expect it of you and now it is over with." The second voice said, "This is your chance -maybe your only chance- to change your ways and become a different person. You have set off on a total life commitment, and that is where you should continue." How slow I was to accept the latter voice!

7) While studying philosophy at Keble College in Oxford I cherished the complexity of my studies and how I was (slowly) mastering them. At the same time I had this sinking feeling that all my efforts were to no avail -that my studies promised me everything, but instead gave me nothing. I began to let go of my strenuous efforts at understanding. I feared I had failed at school and also at life. It was then that I began to spend time with a young girl about my age. She was very intelligent, but did not consider her learning something to be grasped. And with what joy she lived! "Surely, this woman has found the true Jesus," I thought. A year and a half later I married her.

8) In highschool we had a large auditorium where we met three times a week for morning assembly. Someone would recite a speach or perform a dance. Then the faculty would get up, face the audience, and yell loudly their announcements. Some mornings it seemed like they were in competition with each other to see who could shout the loudest to get the most attention. I remember often sensing that God was trying to get my attention, but His voice was so quiet!

On The Works Of Munch

"Christianity is not melancholy. It is glad tidings for the melancholy."
Kierkegaard

Perhaps the most enigmatic artist of the 19th century was Edvard Munch.

From the 17th century on, Europe began to host a number of intellectuals calling for the perfection of society through education, philosophy, and government. These intellectuals gave rise to the period known as the Enlightenment, followed by the utopian ideals of Napoleon, followed by continental revolution, followed by the totalitarian governments of Lenin and, later, Hitler and Stalin.

During the quest for societal perfection, a number of artists, poets, and writers became disillusioned with the magnificent plans of the future. Hegel, the philosopher who described the Absolute Idea in historical terms of dialectic became profoundly disappointed when Napoleon lost at Waterloo. One also recalls the industrious dreams of the first World War and its subsequent lost generation with writers like Hemmingway and Fitzgerald.

Perhaps the best expressions of disillusionment found itself in the paintings of a Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch. Munch's pieces often express the strange sorrow of existing as well as the anxiety associated with making choices in the modern world.

Hegel and the intellectuals before his time had much to say on the topic of societal progress. In their minds society was continually lending itself to newer and better methods of interaction. While happiness was generally very high or very poor in individuals, the intellectuals emphasized that the historical significance had more to do with the public in general and not with single individuals.

While Hegel and the new intellectuals emphasized the metric of societal progress they also portrayed society as the mechanism for progress. An educated society would be able to judge and recognize universal goods in ways single individuals could not -or so the intellectuals claimed.

Munch's pieces examine the so-called public. They go beneath the surface. Instead of finding noble intentions, sincerity, and confidence, Munch found self-deceit, restlessness, and anxiety.

His art is not photo realistic. It takes artistic license in broad strokes. You can't make out the details because they pull the audience into the mood and gloom of the subjects in the paintings.


A common theme in the paintings of Munch is sexual frustration.

The communists of the era, such as Karl Marx, were beginning to make great promises about liberating men and women from the capitalist institution of marriage. By removing this historical artifact passed by tradition, the communal enjoyment of free love and sexuality would benefit society in ways never before imagined. Or so Marx claimed.

Munch's paintings reflect the way one can fail to recognize oneself by means of sexual interaction. The sexual turmoil of his subjects express horror perhaps to the extent of suicide.


My take on Munch is that he was a wake up call to the people of his day. His works cried out, "Beware those who promise a perfect society here! Society will never be perfect because society is essentially imperfection!"

His most famous work is probably The Scream. If I may take some liberty in offering an interpretation, the subject seems to cry out in an expression of dred and trembling, though nothing seems to be chasing him.

This nothingness, as Kierkegaard noted in his On the concept of Anxiety is the origin of dred. The subject in the Munch piece may marry or remain alone. He may lie and cheat, or he may pursue the ethical life.

No one else can make this decision. When he looks to someone else (such as society and social opinion) he finds nothing. This fear of nothing in the subject is his dred.


Munch's contributions must not be overlooked. In a lifetime of painting he accomplished far more than the revolutionaries and intellectuals of his day ever promised, but to call Munch's perspective the truth in its disillusionment is to regard life with contempt.


Munch showed that sex, society, and an ambitious, revolutionary attitude will not give anyone meaning in life, and I say as solemnly as I can that in this single regard he was totally, totally correct.

This however, is so very far from suggesting life has meaning or that it can be meaningful to someone.

When a doctor writes a prescription he takes the symptoms of his patient into careful consideration. Munch sets out to make us aware of our own symptoms, but he leaves us with the task of accepting the prescription.

If we look for someone else to accept the prescription for us, we are left with the chilling glimpse of how alone we really are.

If Munch will allow for such a cure, it can only be a prescription if one can take it without hesitation, without another secret longing, without evasion, in short, without duplicity. In this regard I understand the call to devotion.

"The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, because he trusts in You."
Isaiah 26:3

Sayings of Pascal

Faith is in the heart and obliged to say not Scio [I know] but Credo [I believe].
II.41

Men despise religion, they hate it and are afraid it might be true.
II.46

The knowledge of outward things will not console me in times of affliction.
III. 57

Man's condition. Inconstancy, boredom, anxiety.
III. 58

Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. And so who does not see it, apart from the young who are preoccupied with bustle, distractions, and plans for the future?

But take away their distractions and you will see them wither from boredom. Then they feel their hollowness without understanding it, because it is indeed depressing to be in a sate of unbearable sadness as soon as you are reduced to contemplating yourself, and without distraction from doing so.
III. 70

We never keep ourselves to the present moment. We look forward to the future as too slow in coming, as if to hasten its arrival, or we remember the past to hold it up as if it had happened too quickly. We are so undiscerning that we stray into times which are not our own and do not think of the only one that is truly ours, and so vain that we dream about those which no longer exist and allow the present to escape without thinking about it. This is because the present usually hurts us. We hide it from sight because it wounds us, and if it is pleasant then we are sorry to see it pass. We try to buttress it with the future, and think of arranging things which are not in our power for a time we cannot be at all sure of attaining.

Everyone should study their thoughts. They will find them all centered on the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do it is simply to shed some light on the future. The present is never our end. Past and present are our means, only the future is our end. And so we never actually live, though we hope to, and in constantly striving for happiness it is inevitable that we will never achieve it.
III. 80

We know the truth not only by means of reason but also by means of the heart. It is through the heart that we know the first principles, and reason which has no part in this knowledge vainly tries to contest them.
VII. 142

...That is why gaming and the conversation of women, war, and great offices of state are so sought after. It is not that happiness lies in such things, nor that we suppose that true beatitude comes from the money we can win at the gaming table or hunting the hare; no one would accept such things as a gift. We are not looking for this soft, peaceful existence which allows us to think about our unfortunate condition, nor the dangers of war or the burden of office, but the bustle which distracts and amuses us-The reason why we prefer the hunt to the kill.
IX. 168

Philosophers. All very well to shout out to someone who does not know himself to make his own way to God! All very well to tell it to a man who does not know himself!
X. 174

Pity the atheists who are searching. For are they not unhappy enough? Revile those who boast about it.
XIII. 188

Atheism, sign of strength of mind but only up to a certain point.
XIII. 189

There are few true Christians. Even as far as faith goes. There are many who believe, but through superstition. There are many who do not believe, but through licentiousness. There are few in between

...

I do not include those who lead a truly devout life, nor all those who believe through a feeling of the heart.
XIV. 210

There is nothing so consistent with reason as the denial of reason.
XIV. 213

The metaphysical proofs of God are so far removed from man's reasoning, and so complicated, that they have little force. When they do help some people it is only at the moment when they see the demonstration. An hour later they are afraid of having made a mistake.
XV. 222

Just as Jesus Christ remained unrecognized by his fellow men, so his truth remains hidden among ordinary thinking, with no outward difference. Just like the Eurcharist and ordinary bread.
XIX. 258

Those we see to be Christians without knowing the prophecies and the proofs are no less able judges than those who do know them. They judge with their hearts, as others judge with their minds. It is God himself who inclines them to believe, and it is this way that they are most efficaciously convinced.
XXVIII. 414

Evil is easy, it appears in countless ways: good is almost unique.
XXXIII. 454

But is it probable that probability brings certainty?
XXXIV. 496

Nothing is so intolerable for man as to be in a state of complete tranquillity, without passions, without business, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nothingness, his abandonment, his inadequacy, his dependence, his helplessness, his emptiness. At once from the depths of his soul arises boredom, gloom, sadness, grief, vexation, despair.
XXXIV. 515

Vanity is so anchored in the human heart that a soldier, a cadet, a cook, a kitchen porter boasts, and wants to have admirers, and even philosophers, want them, and those who write against them want the prestige of having written well, and those who read them want the prestige of having read them, and I, writing this, perhaps have this desire, and those who will read this ...
XXXIV. 520

Man is neither angel nor beast, and unhappily whoever wants to act the angel, acts the beast.
XXXV. 557

What is the self?

A man who sits at the window to watch the passers-by; can I say that he sat there to see me if I pass by? No, for he is not thinking of me in particular. But someone who loves a person because of her beauty, does he love her? No, because smallpox, which will destroy beauty without destroying the person, will ensure that he no longer loves her.

And if someone loves me for my judgement, for my memory, is it me they love? No, because I can lose these qualities without losing myself. Where is the self, then, if it is neither in the body nor in the soul?
XXXV.567

Nothing is so difficult from the world's point of view as the religious life, and nothing is easier than leading it from God's.
XXXV. 572

I take it as self-evident that, if everyone knew what was said about him, there would not be four friends in the world. This is clear from the quarrels which are occasioned by the indiscreet remarks which we sometimes make.
XXXVIII. 646

It is right that so pure a God discloses himself only to those whose hearts are purified.
XXXVIII. 646

We are not satisfied with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being: we want to lead an imaginary life in the minds of other people, and so we make an effort to impress. We constantly strive to embellish and preserve our imaginary being, and neglect the real one. And if we are calm, or generous, or loyal we are anxious to let it be known so that we can bind these virtues to our other being, and would rather detach them from our real selves to unite them with the other. We would happily be cowards if that gained us the reputation of being brave.
XXXVIII. 654

Nothing more surely underlines an extreme weakness of mind than the failure to recognize the unhappiness of someone without God.
XLVI. 681

Before examining the proofs of the Christian religion, I find I must point out how wrong men are who live their lives indifferent to the search for truthfulness of something which is so important to them, and which affects them so closely.
XLVI. 682

Quality of Life

I have strong views on a certain topic which has entered the political domain: abortion.

My interest here is not in debating the issue. My concern is in overcoming the deceitfulness of public opinion in order to understand how to live a devoted life.

Although I believe there is room for parents to discuss before God cases where a mother's life is at stake, I am convinced that the vast majority of abortions are murder.

Just as the serpent presented Eve with a number of confusing facts to consider before she made a choice she would greatly regret, the world presents mothers with information that entices many but is detestable to God. Eve had a desire to obey her Lord and her husband, Adam, but in the moment of temptation she forgot what mattered the most to her. In the same way women are naturally inclined to love and nurture their children ... but the world always has a different plan.

Learning to see through the deceit of the world is an important responsibility which heaven gives to every pregnant woman -and also to each of us. The difficulty lies not in recognizing how one ought to live, but in making this method one's own.

Here are some aspects of the issue to consider:

1) Despair does not justify wrong-doing; despair is the essence of wrong doing, and it confirms that there was a wrong doing.

To me it is clear that killing an infant because a person "needed" to pursue a career, relationship, or education is a desperate act. It is precisely the element of despair that makes it murderous.

In the case of an accidental death it is very different.

Sadly some couples accidentally have a part in their infants' deaths -perhaps the baby is left with a toy and suffocates. As far as I am concerned, the parents are not murderers because they (presumably) did not leave the toy with the infant in a desperate attempt of some sort.

The element of desperation is the essential factor in all crime and all sin. To explain the act by referring to one's despair is to confess to one's true guilt.

2) No environment can give anyone meaning in life.

Ungodly men have supposed that if a child is to grow up in an environment where they are unloved they are better off removed from the world in their infancy. They foolishly suppose that -if an unwanted child were brought into the world- they would lead a life of crime and unrest.

Such folly is exposed by Christ's assertion: "It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean."

Everyone -let me repeat it again- everyone has a choice about how they are going to live their lives. To quote the athiest philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, "Man is condemned to be free." If a person chooses evil -as we all have in one sense or another- they are made ineligible to fault their circumstances.

The world is always in the business of explaining its actions away, but the obedient life has no need of justifications.

3) Quality in life comes from love and not from external circumstances.

Suppose a single mother decides to abort her unborn child. Suppose she says to herself, "Now I can find meaning in life because I will have a career or more money to spend elsewhere or time to spend with my friends...". Would such a woman have more quality in life?

Now suppose this woman is prevented from getting a better career or education (which often turns out to be the case because desperate acts tend to lead to more desperate acts). Would the possibility of having a better education or career give a person more quality in life if they had to murder their own unborn son or daughter?

If a person chooses to find their meaning in life through their career or reputation or money, at what point does their life become meaningful? How many friends do they have to have? How much money do they have to make? And is their life worth living before they gain such things?

Measuring the value of one's life in terms of one's external accomplishments and possessions is unlawful in the sight of heaven. The fact that we all do this does nothing to excuse this fact.

The world continually preaches that people should live in a way they can boast about. This is another way of saying that a person's life should first have meaning in the eyes of other people. The result is always, always that the one who lives for the world's approval fails to find approval before God or even their own approval.

Love is the only way one may find quality in life. Paul wrote that if he had the gift of prophecy and could fathom all mysteries and all knowledge and if he had a faith that could move mountains -but he had not love- he would be nothing.

God does not stop loving us when we make choices that are pleasing to Him. In the same way, He does not withold from us the responsibility of loving our neighbor when an easier life is at stake.

I hope I have made my own views on the matter clear. Again, the important part is avoiding desperation by living a life of faith. This is a task for all of us, not only would-be mothers.

Indirect Faith

I am a fan of Calvin's writings. Though I am not a Calvinist myself, I am drawn to his style and the way he subtly zeros in on the spiritual truth. He is a much stronger writer than many who consider him to be an ally.

Although Calvin is making doctrinal points in this passage, he is not without attention to the task of edification. Consider the following passage:

We grant, indeed, that so long as we are pilgrims in the world faith is implicit, not only because as yet many things are hidden from us, but because, involved in the mists of error, we attain not to all.

The highest wisdom, even of him who has attained the greatest perfection, is to go forward, and endeavour in a calm and teachable spirit to make further progress. Hence Paul exhorts believers to wait for further illumination in any matter in which they differ from each other (Phil. 3:15). And certainly experience teaches, that so long as we are in the flesh our attainments are less than is to be desired.

In our daily reading we fall in with many obscure passages which convict us of ignorance. With this curb God keeps us modest, assigning to each a measure of faith, that every teacher, however excellent, may still be disposed to learn. Striking examples of this implicit faith may be observed in the disciples of Christ before they were fully illuminated.

We see with what difficulty they take in the first rudiments, how they hesitate in the minutest matters, how, though hanging on the lips of their Master, they make no great progress; nay, even after running to the sepulchre on the report of the women, the ressurection of their Master appears to them a dream.

As Christ previously bore testimony to their faith, we cannot say that they were altogether devoid of it; nay, had they not been persuaded that Christ would rise again, all their zeal would have been extinguished. Nor was it superstition that led the women to prepare spices to embalm a dead body of whose revivial they had no expectation; but although they gave credit to the words of one whom they knew to be true, yet the ignorance which still possessed their minds involved their faith in darkness, and left them in amazement.

Hence they are said to have believed only when, by the reality, they perceive the truth of what Christ had spoken, and not that they then began to believe, but the seed of a hidden faith, which lay as it were dead in their hearts, then burst forth in vigour.

They had, therefore, a true but implicit faith, having reverently embraced Christ as the only teacher. Then, being taught by him, they felt assured that he was the author of salvation: in fine, believed that he had come from heaven to gather disciples, and take them thither through the grace of the Father. There cannot be a more familiar proof of this, than that in all men faith is always mingled with incredulity.

The Institutes. Book III. Chapter II.

Here are some aspects of this passage that caught my attention.

First, Calvin writes: "In our daily reading we fall in with many obscure passages which convict us of ignorance." A key phrase here is "fall in". This phrase accurately expresses the gravity of the word and how it desires to pull us into it. Calvin is telling us the Bible should be read daily and we should pay attention to the way it intends to speak to us personally. An honest heart reads the Bible saying, "Hey, that sounds like my life."

This is in direct contrast to his opponents, the scholastics, who held the Bible at arm's length. They did this so they could pass it around easily in the form of rhetoric and ideas without needing to bother with the details of examining how to relate to it. They made it easy to look down on the disciples for their shortcomings while forgetting their own.

Second, consider this enigmatic sentence: "... Faith is implicit, not only because as yet many things are hidden from us, but because, involved in the mists of error, we attain not to all."

The word implicit means 'implied' or 'indirectly expressed'. When Calvin calls faith 'implicit' he means that it doesn't happen as a direct result of outward events. It is rather an inward thing that we cannot see in another person directly.

Calvin asks, 'Why doesn't faith happen directly? Well it's not just because we don't know everything. It's also because we live by pathetic expectations.'

Jesus explicitly told the disciples he would be handed over to sinners and die and he would later be brought back to life again. When Jesus died (and even as early as his capture) the disciples seemed to give up on Christianity.

What's important here is Calvin isn't shaking his head saying, "Those selfish turkeys." And he's not saying, "If only they had been more educated like those scholastics ...". He's saying, "Those guys had trouble accepting the beautiful message of the gospel ... just like all of us."

Thirdly Calvin notes at the end of the chapter: "In all men faith is always mingled with incredulity."

In other words Calvin is saying, 'Show me a person who faithfully trusts God and I will show you an unfaithful person living with doubt.' Faith is not a trite thing to be easily won over. As one Danish writer once put it, it is not a thing easy to gain and surpass but a task for a lifetime.

In conclusion -and I do believe Calvin is with me on this one- the command to have faith is so foreign, so alien to our human understanding that we need God to come into our hearts and win us over to the life of faith. Although I do not believe God forces His faith upon us, it is something we need to be on board with Him about.

Also faith is not something we can 'show off' and boast about. No one else really knows how much faith we have (and how much we don't have) except God. So we should strive to trust God in the way that is pleasing to him and to often examine our hearts.

Laughing With The Joker

"It is the minor characters that make up the cast of life -for they are life."
Bob Kane

Somewhere in Gotham city a business man is driving home on the freeway.

He's in a hurry to get home because he's had a long day. He wants to relax before he has to eat his wife's meat loaf. He's had a long day at work and he has no patience for bad drivers.

Suddenly a car cuts him off.

The business man lowers his window and shouts, 'Hey who do you think you are, buddy?!'

The other car changes lanes and slows down. Its window lowers and there behind the wheel is the white and green smile of the Joker.

And he laughs.

...


What a coincidence. This man thinks he is thoroughly bad and tough - or atleast enough to learn the identity of the man who cut him off. And this man discovers the smile of the Joker. He is an extreme character, but I don't think it is hard to laugh with the Joker. I think we laugh with him all the time.

This businessman thinks that if he can make it home a little sooner, if people treat him a little more fair, if he can eat roast beef for dinner, his life will be meaningful.

Ha!

With every laugh the Joker seems to say, "Someone forgot to tell this outstanding fellow just how meaningless this all is."

And it is meaningless. At least Solomon says so.

"'Meaningless, meaningless,' Says the preacher, 'Everything is meaningless.'"

The businessman tries to apologize on the road, but, again, the Joker is an extreme character and his stylized extremeness is also his greatness. The Joker stalks the man into a park and places a gun to his head.

"No," The man says, "Don't kill me ... I'll do anything!"

The Joker's curiousity is aroused. "Anything?" He asks.

To kill the man or not is a meaningless choice -or atleast it is as much to the Joker. But experimenting with a man's boundaries ... testing the limits of his sanity ... well, somehow the novelty of such an opportunity is somehow ... meaningful.

The Joker begins to question Solomon. He wonders, 'Maybe there is something new under the sun'. Something new to laugh at ...

So the Joker sets up the business man to be an accomplice in one of his criminal acts to embarass the commissioner.

Of course Batman is not far from the scene, and he exposes the facade of the Joker for what it is: petty human infatuation with appearances. The Joker wants to be seen as a fearsome and terrible person -a person he could care less about actually becoming.

Batman is the true glimpse of an extreme lifestyle. The promises of the world: to be admired by the crowd, the allure of the opposite sex (particularly catwoman), the luxuries of the millionare lifestyle ... all are meaningless to him. He finds them so meaningless he becomes an ethical superhero -an alien to the rest of the world.

One person to catch such a glimpse is the business man.

Batman breaks in on the Joker's plans to ruin the commissioner's party. The exploding birthday cake is removed just in time. The Joker and his female assistant, Harlequin, escape. The businessman runs away.

As the business man runs he catches the attention of the Joker.

The Joker holds him at gun point, but the business man asserts he is no longer afraid of what the Joker can do to him. The business man's appearance does nothing to intimidate the Joker, but he catches a glimpse of the businessman's willingness to lose everything and not care.

The Joker's psychological curiousity -crafted for the sake of a comic effect- detects the contours of something great and unmovable. Perhaps he is reminded of someone.

Batman watches from behind.

The Joker fumbles and the gun drops. "Don't hurt me!" He shouts out. "You! You're going to let him hurt me?!".

"Who's the one afraid now?" The business man asks.

The Joker is taken to Arkham Asylum and the businessman returns home. One person stays the same, but the other person is different.

"He's crazy!" The Joker shouts -pointing at the businessman- as they take him away.

Suddenly the prospect of eating his wife's meatloaf doesn't seem so bad after all. The business man has learned something about the tenuousness of existence ... the futility of choosing between roast beef and meat loaf ... and in a meaningless world he has found something meaningful: gratitude.

The Joker is an extreme character, or presents himself as such, but easy to laugh with. Who can understand the businessman?

Can you?

Parable of the Letter

I had it all set in my mind to post another passage from one of Peter's letters, but I've been reflecting lately on how one hears God's voice. SoulFoodDude had some questions which I believe everyone needs to answer.

At any rate I came across this passage in Either/Or this week and I find it relevant to the same task. Kierkegaard frequently writes on three or four levels at the same time, and there have been several times in my life where this passage has been on my mind:

If someone possessed a letter which he knew or believed contained information concerning what he had to consider his life's blessedness, but the written characters were thin and faded, the handwriting almost illegible, he would read it and reread it, with anxiety and disquiet certainly, but with passion.

At one moment he would get one meaning out of it, the next another. When he was quite sure he had managed to read a word, he would interpret everything in the light of that word.

But he would never pass beyond the same uncertainty with which he began. He would stare, more and more anxiously, but the more he stared the less he saw; sometimes his eyes filled with tears, but the more that happened, again the less he saw. In due course the writing became weaker and less distinct; finally the paper itself crumbled away and he had nothing left but his eyes blinded with tears.

Either/Or. Penguin Classics. p. 187

Life presents us with difficult choices.

As humans I find we tend to lean on outward observation, general opinion, and the so-called assurance of the experts. In this confidence I often feel like something is slipping away. It's something difficult to describe, and like everything valuable it is seldom appreciated until it is gone.

On Ghosts And Roles

When ghosts are depicted in stories and film, they often continue to do in death the same thing they did in life.

For example, if you visit the Haunted Mansion at DisneyLand, the last thing you see as you go up the escalator is a dead bride standing in her wedding gown. "Hurry back!" She calls out, as if you might miss her wedding.

It's almost like finding a husband was her only identity in life. When eternity stripped her of this task (for certainly the dead become like angels and do not marry and they do not give in marriage) there was nothing else to her. So she continued to wear the gown waiting for an infinitely delayed wedding.

An hour north of where I live there's an excellent magic show my wife and I attended once. The magician was a living, breathing human being, but the pianist was (in the story) a female ghost.

We read about her life on the back of the brochure. Her fiance had hunted foxes, and before he left on what was to be his last expedition she had told him she would sit at her piano and would not stop playing it until he returned.

The fiance had a hunting accident and passed away before he could return home. The young woman continued to play the piano until one day she passed away and (the legend says) she continued her sorrowful songs even in death.

I'm not into ghost stories. They tend to creep me out.

The frightful thing to me is the way the ghosts do not give up their roles. It's almost like they don't know who they are anymore and so they cling tightly onto their job perhaps because that's all there is to them.

"Without the mask, where will you hide?"

There is something about these ghost stories I can relate to. At times I wonder to myself, "What if I lose my job?. What if I don't get accepted to grad school? What if I do something my parents strongly disapprove of?"

These are all questions I have worried about or been tempted to worry over. And they are all role questions. The role of a husband to keep a good job. The role of a student to be accepted into a good school. The role of being a son.

But what about the role of being oneself? Or is that a role?

At the hour when death comes for a person, will they be able to accept themself as they are? Or will they cling tightly to the rules of their role?

When Jesus cast the demons out of a man among the Garasenes, the demons asked to be sent into a herd of pigs.

One could speculate why they made this strange request. Perhaps they desperately wanted to dwell inside something so they won't have to be all alone in who they were. Or perhaps I am mistakenly reading human behavior into the realm of unclean spirits ...

The unclean spirits often use any pretext they can find to be in a person's life. Jesus, on the other hand, stands at the door and knocks. On the one hand we have restless desperation in pursuit of an earthly goal. The other option is to recognize the choice one has in his or her short time on earth.

Jesus described the generation at the time of Noah as people who were marrying and giving in marriage and knowing nothing of what was going to happen to them. They were following their roles in search of distractions -unaware of the judgment waiting for them.

Ghost stories are often based on the lives of people who lived their lives in the words: "If I could just...". And to accomplish their aim they employ calculation, shrewdness, and often times anxiety.

But however often they tell themselves, "If I could just ...", there is one thing the unhappy spirits avoid: accepting themselves as they are. Unlike the world with its fleeting desires eternity asks very little: to love God and to love thy neighbor as thyself.

However urgent a task may seem in this life, it is far better to remember the task eternity has prepared for every person.

The Spinning World

Consider two aspects of the world.

First the world is continually spinning at a speed of four hundred sixty five miles per second at the equator. Every city travels entirely around the planet earth in a period of as little as twenty four hours.

And so a person wakes up in the morning, goes to work, goes to sleep at night, and then wakes up again in the morning. A man hungers so he eats, and when he is full he stops eating.

Is it a wonder that no one feels dizzy? Or perhaps they do in a sense.

A woman feels inclined to be with a man and they begin a relationship. She feels disinclined to be with that same man, and the relationship ends. A man finds a woman youthful, interesting, and beautiful and he initiates a relationship with her. Then the same woman no longer appears this way and the relationship is soon over.

This is the way of the world. One side of the earth is warmed by the sun while the dark side cools. Nothing in the world lasts, and it has two sides to everything.


The second thing about the world is the high speed it travels in an elliptical path around the sun. It travels one hundred and eight thousand kilometers per hour.

That means when the forward side of the earth reaches a certain point in space, the distance part of the earth is already there after seven minutes.

So-called enlightened thinking has gone so far as to claim that as time passes we are getting somewhere because of the great speed we are travelling.

Let us suppose a benevolent dictator decrees women may not be physically beaten by men. So much for the better for women.

There is however the question that lingers (even after no woman has been physically abused for centuries). The question asks, "Does anyone care about a particular woman any more as a result of this law?".

If not, the law may still be helpful, but can we really call that progress? In the same way, the world travels at great speed and always returns to the same place in its path around the sun.

And as Solomon writes, nothing is new under the sun.

The Bible says we are to be like Jesus: we should live in the world, but we are not to live of the world. John the apostle tells us everything of the world -the cravings of sinful man, the lust of the eyes, the boasting of what a man has and does- come not from God.

The physical world spins and is always changing temperature, but we are not to be this way in spirit. We are not to be tossed around by our circumstances -blessing those who bless us and cursing those who curse us.

Love is eternal and has all it needs to love in itself. Love is not a passing fancy changing with the tides, but a commitment that lasts through the changing world and its hardships.

The physical world travels at great speed but always ends up where it started. In the same way people invent new fashions and new rules all the time, but they're just as corrupt on the inside as when they began.

Obedience to God means a total life commitment from the beginning. Jesus tells us that if we seek first the kingdom of God the other things will be given to us as well.

"In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
John 16:33

Bertrand Russell on Confidence and Evidence

Bertrand Russell was a philosopher, logician, and mathematician.

I want to consider two quotes attributed to him. The purpose is to identify the voice of devotion, especially as it relates to the words of men who ask to be taken seriously.

Bertrand Russell was asked what he would say to God after he died. The question was something along the lines of, "Why didn't you believe in me?"

And Bertrand Russell responded:

"Not enough evidence, God. Not enough evidence."

In my opinion Bertrand Russell was making a very strong equivocation ... one so common that it is hardly noticable in our world today. When Bertrand Russell said "evidence" what he really meant was "external evidence".

If he would have responded more clearly, I could easily picture God asking, "Did you want to believe I was here, Bertrand? That I was right here around you all along?"

But of course, this question is totally irrelevant and biased in the mind of a mathematician or philosopher.

Suppose the question is asked, "Does 1 / x converge as x approaches infinity?". To a mathematician it may be of some significance to ask if "he thinks" it converges. Intuitions are occasionally valuable to mathematicians. To ask if "he wants" it to converge is outright heresy.

As Soren Kierkegaard is quick to point out in Philosophical Fragments a mathematician can say 'true' things all the time about formulas - by definition their truth has nothing to do with the mathematician.

But falling in love is totally different.

If you approach a man and ask, "Do you, sir, love this woman?" An analytical philosopher or mathematician might start out saying, "Well, the nature of women ..." Or "The essence of love is ...". But the question, "Do you, sir, love this woman?" Is not a question about the nature or attributes of women or love.

The question is about something inside the man. Isn't the question about believing to God identical to the love question?

Blaise Pascal -a mathematician himself- once noted that a convert who became a Christian on the basis of classical proofs was likely to be enthusiastic at first but soon to start checking and rechecking his logic. He concluded such a basis was often shaky at best.

And this brings us to the next quote from Bertrand Russell:

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

Bertrand Russell's observation lends itself to the age-old paradox that fools fall in love while the shrewd and crafty often become worse than criminals.

Why are the intelligent so full of doubt? Perhaps because they have so many ideas that as soon as they accept a view, a new idea comes along and pulls them in a different direction.

Why are the fools so confident? Perhaps because there is little to distract them from considering primarily what they want.

In some ways this latter quote is a sad reflection on who Bertrand Russell was. He was in some sense an intelligent man full of doubt. Perhaps his intelligence afforded him many things, but it could not -by his own admission- give him the clarity of a fool.

Jesus praised God because He had hidden His good things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Children don't need college degrees to "find out" if they love their parents.

Devotionally speaking, a person need not consult with philosophers and mathematicians to discover what his longings are: the true priorities deep inside him.

This is the evidence God wants us to find, and the only evidence which demands a verdict.

My God, My Tourniquet

I recently received the Evanescence Fallen album for my birthday. The mood of the songs are the strongest I have ever heard. Amy Lee has developed a tremendous ability to portray intense spiritual struggles.

Consider the lyrics to her song "Tourniquet". The words of the song present a spirit in serious self-examination. The song is in some ways like a dark hymn. It could almost be sung by a Moravian or perhaps a Baptist congregation.

The voice is edgy like a person standing on top of a building looking down. Whereas most people have one foot in 'despair comforted by distraction' and 'committed love and devotion', this voice is ready to go all the way -but it has yet to decide which direction to take.

I'm dying,
Praying,
Bleeding,
Screaming.
Am I too lost to be saved ?
Am I too lost ?

Most people who call themselves Christians believe God has saved them from their sin. Or Adam's sin. Or the doctrine of sin. "Well, that good man has saved someone from something...". Finding a person who confesses they were lost is not easy. I hear so few testimonies these days to say as much.

But here is the voice of someone asking, "Am I too lost to be saved?". And so everything is on the table -the confession is full-blown, and the stakes are infinite.

The singer is strangely present to herself. She isn't saying highly, "One day I'll do such and such and become this and associate with these people ...". She isn't saying, "I was once this person ...". She is saying, "This is me ... this is who I am! Aaah!".

Do you remember me ?
Lost for so long.
Will you be on the other side ?
Will you forgive me ?

This is not a voice that says smugly like so many, "Of course God could forgive me." This voice has trouble accepting that God has forgiven her. This promise of God is not like a forgone conclusion to her, but a profound mystery.

It is something incomprehensible to her.

If I had to choose between listening to a theologian who could describe forgiveness in the blaise terms of systematic theology and listening to an alternative rocker describe something unexplainable, indescribable, and mysterious -I would gladly choose the later.

When I turn up the volume of the music and let the words drown out the world around me it seems perfectly clear to me that this is the question that is extended to me -and to all of us. When one has examined the depths of the evil in ones heart, does one believe they will find God on the other side of death?

My God! My Tourniquet,
Return to me salvation.
My God! My Tourniquet,
Return to me salvation.

My wounds cry for the grave.
My soul cries, for deliverance.
Will I be denied ?
Christ! Tourniquet! My suicide.

I admit I struggle with the last two words. The tourniquet metaphor gives me the image of something painful that brings healing. In what way does healing produce (or require) suicide?

Is the singer so deceived as to see suicide as a rescue from the anguish of her soul? As she struggles to confront the supreme chill of eternity, does she think that in death the eternal part of her -judging and evaluating her actions- will somehow go away? Is she deliberately forgetting that eternity goes on and is only transfigured by mortal death?

I am not sure.

Or is it that the tourniquet -the painful healing of God she asks herself about- demands for her to die away from everything in order to find the life God has in store for her? Is she looking decisively at her cross and saying, "I am taking this up!"?

Hard to say. It is as Paul says: we cannot know the thoughts of another. We only see glimpses. The rest is often a reflection of who we are.

I have never heard a voice with the gravity of Amy Lee. It expresses profound sorrow and yet is never willing to abandon hope. It longs to believe God is watching and He has not given up on her.

Isn't she a lot like you and me?

I tried to kill the pain,
But only brought more.
(So much more)
I'm dying,
And I'm pouring, crimson regret, and betrayal.

I'm dying,
Praying,
Bleeding,
Screaming.
Am I too lost to be saved ?
Am I too lost ?
My God! My Tourniquet,
Return to me salvation.
My God! My Tourniquet,
Return to me salvation.

Do you remember me ?
Lost for so long.
Will you be on the other side ?
Will you forgive me ?

I'm dying,
Praying,
Bleeding,
Screaming.

Am I too lost to be saved ?
Am I too lost ?

My God! My Tourniquet,
Return to me salvation.
My God! My Tourniquet,
Return to me salvation.

(Return to me salvation)
(I want to die!)

My God! My Tourniquet,
Return to me salvation.
My God! My Tourniquet,
Return to me salvation.

My wounds cry for the grave.
My soul cries, for deliverance.
Will I be denied ?
Christ! Tourniquet! My suicide.

Sin And Self-Deception

When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown gives birth to death."
James 1:13-15

Desire ... sin ... death. All three are often described in purely external terms.

Suppose someone steals icecream on a hot day. "It was a hot day, and the icecream was good-looking. God allowed it to be here. How could I not desire it?". Since one has no freedom whether or not to desire the icecream, one presumably has no freedom whether or not to steal the icecream either.

Then the gravity of the act begins to sink in. One considers stealing bad, but one is also a thief. One says, "I do not approve of those thieving low-lifes. How could I accept them?" And then, "I am a theiving low-life." And then, "I do not accept myself." This is the process which James describes as something that grows. And then what we have is a person with a healthy body, a beating heart, a fully-functioning brain, but the person is -in an alternative understanding of the word- dead. Soon, all their will is going into forgetting the choices they have made or ignoring their priorities.

Is the sinner deceived by desire, sin, and death? Or do we have something much harder to understand ... is the sinner deceived by the sinner?

James is suggesting that the self is deceived by the self, but this is a hard thing to understand.

If a woman comes by my house looking for her dog, and I know the dog is inside my house, and I say, "I do not know where that dog is!" then I deceive the woman. But how is it that I can ask myself, "Where is that dog of my neighbors?" And then to respond falsely, "I do not know where that dog is!".

But this is what James is saying that we have all done.

James is not afraid to tell the person looking at the icecream, "The desire is not in the icecream! It is your own desire!". He is not afraid to approach the one who stole the icecream and say, "You stole the icecream, and God did not make you do it!" He is not afraid to find the person standing on the edge of the bridge and say, "You are the one throwing yourself into death!"

Part of the problem is blaming others and the external world. In order to stop running from oneself, one must be vulnerable and transparent to oneself. No one makes us sin. We throw ourselves into it.

A life lived by excuses ends in suicide of one form or another, but a life that admits its wrong-doing finds life abundantly.

Jesus is standing at the door and knocking. Sure enough, we can hide our heads under the pillows and say, "How would God want anything to do with me? I have no choice but to believe He could not!". Or we can recognize that we have a choice to make.

We can say, "I don't know how God could love someone like me, but I believe He does!". We can say, "I am allowing myself to be tempted, and I will choose to say 'no'." And we can say, "I'm not going to desire that."

As soon as we realize what we can do, the choice is as simple as recognizing what we want and who we want to be.

Calvin's Decision

My favorite book in the forth grade (courtesy of Mr. Winningham at Carrol Elementary) was Wayside School is Falling Down. In Chapter fourteen Calvin is turning a year older. He explains to his friends what he values as a birthday present. His explanation is particularly interesting as it relates to time:

See, I usually get toys ... but they break, or get lost, or something happens to them. But this year I'm getting something I'll never lose. I'll have it for the rest of my life.

Calvin is a boy who looks at the way immediacy is overshadowed in the possession of a lifelasting gift. Unlike most children, this longing is stirring inside him, and it is a powerful force. In the story it brings him to an absurd possibility.

When Terrence asks him what he's going to get, he replies, "A tattoo."

Then come the suggestions from his classmates.

Steven tells him to get a snake. Deedee tells him to get an eagle, saying, "They're the best!". Kathy emphatically suggests Calvin get a tattoo of a dead rat. Jason tells him to get a naked lady.

Calvin responds to his peers with one of the most profound reflections I have ever heard in my life:

I just don't know ... I've never had to make such a tough decision. Nothing else I do matters very much. It's not like choosing jelly beans! If you pick the wrong color jelly bean, big deal, you can always spit it out. But once you get a tattoo, you can't change your mind. You can't erase tattoos. Whatever I get I'll have for the rest of my life!

Calvin describes in some sense a mood he feels in light of making a lasting choice. It is a choice he intends to be committed to. The effects of his choice will be with him while he is glad to have made the choice, and the effects will be with him when if he regrets it too.

Although getting a tattoo has nothing to do with devotion per se, Calvin's choice shows the anxiety of standing before the rest of our lives with a choice to make. The devotional life is similar in this way, and I often find myself in a similar state when I hear God's words as He speaks them to me: "You shall love ...".

Calvin's friends are in the light-hearted world where amusements are here today and thrown away the next day. But Calvin desires to approach life with a certain kind of seriousness. An approach that he can seriously live with.

In this light the fun, (and in Jason's case) erotic aspects of the choice are transfigured by its permanence.

It was easy for the others to make suggestions. They wouldn't have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

So Calvin returns to school the next day, and everyone is curious about what he got. He recalls a provoking conversation with his father:

It was a real tough decision ... I almost got a leopard fighting a snake. But then my dad told me to think about it. He said it was sort of like getting a second nose. You may think you want another nose, because that way if one nose gets stuffed up, you can breathe through the other nose. But then he asked me, 'Calvin, do you really want two noses?'

The father's counsel is wise (as the teacher is quick to point out), but in a peculiar kind of way. He makes a foolish suggestion and then argues in favor of it, and then says, 'But do you really want to make this foolish choice?'.

In a way, the father's advice is not to lean on our 'thoughts' about what to choose, but to instead look at making the choices we can live with ... to look at our priorities and notice instead the things we want, and not necessarily the things which have the most easily recognized value.

Calvin shows off his tattoo. It's a potato.

Everyone groans. They start telling Calvin all the things they would have gotten: a kangaroo, an eagle, a lightning bolt, etc. Bebe tells Calvin, "It's a pretty potato ... I wish I could draw potatoes that good." But the narrator tells us: "But even Bebe thought it was a dumb tattoo."

An important consideration for living a life of devotion is that when attains a personally impassioned understanding of what one wants, one will often find that few others are also interested in that thing.

And the ones who say they do are usually liars.

The end of the chapter is magnificent. I will quote it in entirity.

All day everyone told Calvin what they would have gotten: a fire-breathing dragon, a lightning bold, a creature from outer space.
None of them said they would have gotten a potato.
But Calvin knew better. He knew it was easy for his friends to say what they would have gotten, because they really hadn't had to choose. He was the only one who really knew what it was like to pick a tattoo. Even Mrs. Jewls didn't know that.
He looked at his potato. He smiled. It made him happy.
He was sure he had made the right choice.
At least he was pretty sure.

How I Came To Despise Apologetics

Apologetics can be defined as the practice of using evidence to defend Christianity. A few years ago I was keenly interested in it.

I labored for a long time investigating philosophy, forensics, and science, but at one point my interest died suddenly and completely.

How do I begin?

Over a period of three or four years I had read a number of non-Christian materials and some apologetics material with the express intent of having a ready Christian response. I read the Book of Mormon (cover to cover), Farewell to God by Charles Templeton, The Case for Christ, an intro to Derrida, The God Who Is There by Schaeffer, and lots and lots of Plato. I read a lot more than that, and I'm not even counting the ones I had to do for class!

At some point in my reading I began to do devotions less often. I couldn't fit the words of Christ into any system described by an apologist, and I began to favor the message of the theologians and scholars.

One day I had to go to the hospital in Lafayette for an appendectomy. I was reading Strobel and I came across an interview with a professor who said faith was more important to the Christian life than reason. How I hated those words! In my spirit I demanded he have "justification" for his claims. He quoted Jesus saying:

"Blessed are those who do not see and still believe."

And so I spent hours and hours doing mental gymnastics with myself trying to explain Christ's words.

While I sat in my hospital room they brought in a Mormon who I got to know. He was a youth group leader and his kids were so devoted to him. They brought him all kinds of cards and even made a giant postcard, which they all signed.

I considered myself an expert in witnessing to Mormons. I spent hours discussing the Bible with a certain bishop who (I believe) still lives a few blocks from my house. I also spent a spring break in Utah witnessing to the Mormons at BYU and St. George.

I shared my faith and I was very careful to sound as intelligent as I could about it. The more intelligent I tried to sound the more futile my words sounded to me. Part of the problem was a voice in the back of my mind saying: "You can say anything you want because you are so superior to him!"

This was my flesh speaking to me. The voice my apologetic training had cultivated.

The Mormon man said, 'Look, I was going door-to-door in England and I met a guy who covered his hands over his ears and shouted as loud as he could. Then he slammed his door in my face. I don't want to stop listening to people, but to me faith means trusting God even when things look different.'

At that moment I considered the Mormons to be full of lies. I still do.

But I thought about how he had resolved to trust God even when everything seemed to demand the opposite response.

Logic, reason ... even objectivity itself.

The anesthesiologist came in and said, "Now listen ... strange things happen in the operating room. People get attacked by Zebras in the streets. It's terrible, but it's very rare. Don't worry about it."

As silly as it probably sounds this was one of the first times in my life I had seriously considered dying. I looked at Stobel's book and asked myself if the materials I had read had given me one proof that there was going to be an afterlife if I died during surgery.

I thought and thought.

I considered many persuasive arguments, but nothing convinced me. They started to pull me into the operating room and I thought to myself, "Wait! Stop! This is madness! I could die here! I need to do something!"

As my thinking slowly gave way to sleep I thought about the Mormon believing without seeing and I envied him. In the secrecy of my thoughts, nothing seemed more beautiful to me. In a moment of infinite clarity, I found it was the most wonderful thing I had ever considered (and to think I would have despised it a few hours earlier!).

The surgery was successful and I went back to school three days later, but even as I left the hospital I distracted myself with the expressed intention of forgetting everything that had happened there.

The task at hand was convincing teachers that I understood Boethius and Aquinas. I hid my reflections in a distant, dark corner of my mind. I told myself never to go looking there again.

Now it so happened that one day I decided my work load was so small (15 units) that I could be studying more non-Christian material to bring people to Jesus.

In highschool I was introduced by my philosophy teacher to an obscure Danish writer who a lot of unbelievers were reading. And so I decided to read some of his material for myself.

So one day at the university library I looked up 'Fear and Trembling' in the card catalogue. I spent two months reading the book looking for a way to bring these people to Jesus. After all, he was writing about Abraham. I thought I knew a lot about Abraham.

Instead of finding a way to bring them to Jesus, I instead found that not only (1) did I not understand Kierkegaard's arguments (2) I did not even know what he was trying to say! But my spirit was drawn to his writings.

I forgot about the strange writer for a while.

One day I found myself in the philosophy section of Borders. I saw a book titled, An Introduction to Kierkegaard. I was glad to find a simple explanation of what this man was saying. It was here that I read this sentance:

"All decisiveness inheres in subjectivity.
To pursue objectivity is to be in error."

My first thought was, "No wonder these people need Jesus! They're nuts if they think like this!"

I was enraged as I walked toward the exit. "How could anyone think this way?!".

I stopped in the aisle and thought, "If I'm going to tell these people about Jesus, I need to know what is driving them to accept this absurdity. But when have I ever viewed anything in this way?"

My eyes widened as I recalled a distant memory. When was it?

My devotions.

And so I began to rethink my relationship with reason and evidence.

I considered that there were a number of Bible verses which seemed to categorically oppose apologetics. "If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not know as he ought to know." "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding." "Knowledge puffs up but love builds up". Etc.

For my purposes here it is enough to say that they weighed heavily on my thoughts and the more I tried to reason them the more it felt like I was really trying to explain them away.

My roommate in college, Christopher, had a large collection of DVDs. One day I went through them and saw a movie called Meet Joe Black. This seemed like a movie that was trying to say something, so I figured it would be good to have a Christian response to it. The movie blew me away.

Here was the story of a man, Bill Perish, who was trying to live an honorable life. Early in the movie he encounters death, and this encounter changes his entire perspective on everything.

He suddenly learns the importance of being honest about his priorites ... even if they cost him everything. About listening to that inner voice the rest of the world cannot hear. And it is only by finding this inner strength that he is able to oppose death, which he does. He wasn't trying have a valuable life in the eyes of others.

If that description seems a little funny, I understand.

I simply cannot explain it.

After watching the film I was a different person. The person who pushed play to watch the movie was not the same person who pushed stop. When it was over I sat on the couch and I wept.

I wept and I wept and my other roommate, Eric, had no idea what to think about it.

I decided right then, that very night that my relationship with God was going to be under completely different terms. I didn't have a secret stash of marijuana or a party lifestyle, but I was certain of this: my spiritual life was a big lie.

Except I wasn't lying to my parents or my friends. I found that I was lying to myself and to God.

I decided I was going to do it for real - even if no one understood what was going on.

To sum up my change in perspective: there are only two domains, the world everyone can see (the external domain) and the heart that only God can see (the internal domain).

In the world everyone runs after two things: the acceptance of other people (which is external) and distractions (which are also external). What are they distractions from? They are distractions from simply this question: "Is MY life worth living?"

... A question the theologians have hardly any interest in answering ...

In matters of spirit things are different. Here the important person isn't necessarily the one with the most popularity, the most money, the most good appearances. Here the question is not how "good-looking" a thing is, for the spirit knows exactly what it finds good - and if it finds itself to be good. This is the only place a person can find to exist as themselves.

Consider the merchant who found the treasure in a field. He buried it, and he then sold all his possessions to buy that field. To the world around him he must have looked crazy. Why was he spending so much money on this piece of property? Who could understand it?

Perhaps only the merchant could understand before he could show off his physical treasure. As believers we cannot show the riches God has in store for us right now, and so who can understand us here in this life?

So much for explaining subjectivity - to live as a single individual. You either want to live that way or you do not - I can't make that choice for another person.

To me apologetics is a great evil - a betraying of Jesus with a kiss - a supreme slander against God - a total failure of expressing devotion to Him.