"The Federal Husband"

Douglas Wilson’s The Federal Husband is much more technical than Reforming Marriage. In the latter he seeks to lay out responsibilities of husbands and wives to one another according to the Bible and to give practical instruction as to how this works out in daily living. In The Federal Husband, he examines the technicalities between Complementarianism, giving special attention to the responsibilities of the husband in his role. Much of this book can be boiled down to what it means to be a husband: a husband in the marriage relationship is tasked with husbanding his wife, in the sense that—with great care, sacrifice, and tenderness—he is tasked with cherishing her, nourishing her, and helping her grow in her beauty, in her calling, and in her Christlikeness. Here are a few quotes worth pondering:

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Men are to love their wives as Christ loved His wife—self-sacrificially. They are to do so knowing that love, scripturally understood, is not a sentiment or emotion, but rather a series of actions which transform. Biblical love is efficacious. They are to love their wives, knowing that this is going to have an effect on the quiet realm of the spirit. As a wife cultivates a gentle and quiet spirit, she becomes increasingly beautiful. He treats her in the way of Christ in all things, both great and little. She grows in beauty, and this beauty is alluring to her husband. But it is not the same thing as the infatuation they both felt when they first got together—it cannot be. It is far more mature than this. It must therefore not be confused with romantic love; it is far, far better.

Our generation has a pathological hatred of the womb… The alternative understanding [of the goodness of children] should be set forth in Christian homes where a man honors his wife with child, her waiting breasts full of grace thinly disguised as milk. When a woman has “gotten a child,” the radiance of her complexion given to her by the Lord should be noticed and praised by her husband. Her husband must honor her fruitfulness and the beauty therein… Men must learn to see pregnancy as an honor bestowed, and they must themselves honor those to whom it has been given. Men must do this generally, and husbands must do it particularly. The point is to see pregnancy as more than good, more than a duty, more than important; this condition is lovely.

A husband’s top priority to his wife is to keep her encouraged, to promote her spiritual and emotional contentment. She should be in his prayers, and she should know that she is. She should be frequently held, comforted, counseled, and taught by her husband from the Word of God. While some in the world may despise her calling and vocation, she should be praised in it by a grateful husband. Instead of a bedraggled appearance and a large number of children demonstrating to the cynic how often she makes love, her beautiful appearance and well kempt children should demonstrate how much she is loved. 

a *brief* history of early Cincinnati

On the cusp of the American Revolution, Great Britain recognized the Ohio River as a boundary between native American lands and lands up for white settlement. American victory in the War of Independence meant that Great Britain’s claims to the land were rendered null and void, and the American Congress made sure the Americans knew that fact: because they allied with the British during the war, they were the losers, and as such they had no right to claim the land north of the Ohio River as their own. King George III betrayed his promises to the native Americans, acknowledging in the Treaty of Paris 1783 that the lands belonging to the natives now belonged to the United States. As the Ohio River boundary line dissolved, white settlers poured across the Alleghenies, settling not only in Kentucky but also on the Ohio side of the river. The natives—primarily the Shawnee and Miami, who dwelled closest to the Ohio River—saw the encroaching Americans not only as unwelcome pests but as unlawful intruders. The United States government sought to appease the Indians by a series of treaties that ceded certain lands to the whites and certain lands to the natives. The lands of the Shawnee and Miami were ceded away in these treaties, and the U.S. government coyly invited only the Indians of the upper Ohio to the meetings, so that those living on the lands had no say in what happened to them. The deceit only intensified the loathing felt on the part of the Shawnee and Miami, and such war chiefs as Little Turtle and Blue Jacket vowed to do all they could to stifle the American settlements. They assembled what has been known as the Western Confederacy, an alliance of various indigenous nations, which sought to retain their lands, lands exploited by the Americans and unlawfully seized. The formation of the Western Confederacy inaugurated the Northwest Indian War, a war in which the early settlement of Cincinnati found itself a locus.

In December 1788, a settlement by the name of Losantiville was established. The original surveyor of the land, John Filson, named it Losantiville, which meant “The city opposite the mouth of the (Licking) River.” The “L” was for the Licking River, the “os” is Latin for “mouth,” “anti” is Greek for “opposite,” and “ville” is French for city. Thus incorporating four different languages into the name, the future Cincinnati was born, encompassing also the two other settlements between the Little Miami and Great Miami rivers, Columbia on the former and North Bend on the latter. In 1789, construction on Fort Washington began, bolstering the small town that at the time consisted only of two small hewed log houses and a handful of cabins, with a population around 150. General Josiah Harmar, a man noted for his drunkenness and failures in expeditions against the Indians north of the town, described Fort Washington as “one of the most solid substantial wooden fortresses… of any in the Western Territory.” The fort’s walls were two stories high with blockhouses located on each corner. (the fort sat on the current location of the Guilford School Building downtown)

Fort Washington

Fort Washington became the principal staging point for expeditions against the native Americans in northwest Ohio. In 1790, Harmar led an ill-fated expedition against the Miami city of Kekionga (which looked a lot like any other city in elegance and splendor; don’t buy into the idea that the native Americans were “primitive”) at modern-day Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Miami Indians had ample warning through British traders, and their Shawnee allies joined them in springing a trap against Harmar’s extended forces. Harmar burned a lot of corn and ransacked abandoned Miami villages, but when push came to shove, the Miami and Shawnee won the contest: the Indians, led by the Miami chief Little Turtle, sprung not one but two ambushes against the Americans, and Harmar’s forces high-tailed it back Losantiville, suffering 183 killed and exacting against the Indians only 75 casualties. Later that year, the Miami and Shawnee retaliated. Shawnee war chief Blue Jacket and 300 allied Indians attacked a recent fort built at a new settlement called Colerain Station. The Colerain settlers fled into the fort and fired at the Indians with rifles and cannon. The Indians captured a surveyor, and outside the fort they made a public spectacle of him: they tied him to a tree, gouged out his eyes, disemboweled him with tomahawk blows, and then set him afire. The Indians weren’t able to take the fort, and they fled before reinforcements from the nearby Fort Washington could be launched between them. The Shawnee and Miami continued attacking various settlements sprouting up around Losantiville (including Columbia, North Bend, and Losantiville proper). At the end of spring in 1791, John Van Cleve, a blacksmith of Fort Washington, was stabbed in five places and killed by the Indians just outside Cincinnati, near the present site of Music Hall and Washington Park.

Cincinnati: the early years (Fort Washington in the upper right)

Losantiville’s name changed in 1790: Arthur St. Clair, the governor of the Northwest Territory, was a member of the Society of Cincinnati. The society named itself in honor of Cincinnatus, a Roman general and dictator, who saved the city of Rome from destruction and then retired to live a farming life. The society sought to help Revolutionary War veterans return to civilian life. These veterans were allotted land as a reward for their services, and St. Clair saw that Losantiville could easily become one of the biggest cities on the Ohio River. He renamed it to Cincinnati and encouraged veterans to begin settling there, and to this day numerous families of Ohio can trace their lineage back to veterans of the War of American Independence. Cincinnati’s connection with Cincinnatus is kept alive not only by a statue of Cincinnatus down by the riverfront but also by the nickname of “The City of Seven Hills” (Legend states that the settlement was named Cincinnati because its geographic location mimicked the geography of Rome; this is simply coincidence, but what a wonderful coincidence at that!)

In 1792, with the Northwest Indian War still raging, and attacks by Indians against the growing city of Cincinnati continuing unabated, U.S. President George Washington relieved the drunk and inept Harmar and sent Arthur St. Claire to clean up his mess. St. Claire failed, and the battle known as St. Claire's Defeat is the greatest American defeat against Indians in history. The Americans lost just under 850 men to Indian losses of 66, making it the worst one-sided battle in American history up to that point., and the survivors fled in a rout and straggled into Fort Washington over a series of several days. Infuriated, Washington searched for a replacement, and with those he truly wanted either too old or too ill for the task at hand, he chose “Mad” Anthony Wayne to bring the war to a victorious conclusion. Washington questioned Wayne as a drunkard and womanizer, but the British in Canada knew they would do well to fear him. A veteran of the War of Independence, he served at Fort Ticonderoga, suffered through Valley Forge, and participated in such keynote battles as Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth Courthouse. Wayne led his new army north to just outside present-day Toledo, Ohio, and he attacked the 1500 Indian forces led by Blue Jacket’s Shawnees and bolstered by Delawares, Miamis led by Little Turtle, Wyandots, Mingos, Ottawas, and other assorted tribes that were a part of the Western Confederation; they also had assistance from British-Canadian soldiers. Wayne’s forces pressed against the Indian line and attacked with a bayonet charge, and the American cavalry outflanked the Indians. Blue Jacket’s warriors retreated towards the British Fort Miami, but the British commander refused to open the fort to them, knowing to do so could ignite an official war with the United States (the British were itching for a renewed war to punish their “insubordinate children,” but Great Britain was embroiled with conflict with France at the time; in 1812 war would again erupt between Great Britain and the United States). Wayne’s army won the victory and went about burning Indian villages and crops, and the Western Confederation came to the bargaining table.

The Battle of Fallen Timbers

The Treaty of Greenville in 1795 following the Western Confederation’s defeat at what became known as “The Battle of Fallen Timbers.” The United States government offered the natives blankets, utensils, and domestic animals valued at around $20,000 (a large sum for the time), and the Indians ceded to the U.S. government large part of modern Ohio, the future site of downtown Chicago, and the Fort Detroit area, among other locations. Thus the Northwest Indian War came to a close, and white settlers were able to settle relatively unhindered. Cincinnati boomed, Fort Washington was torn down (the command was relocated to the Newport Barracks across the river), and a relative peace ensued for two decades (with the outbreak of the War of 1812, the treaty was renewed, garnishing support for the U.S. from the tribes involved).

Cincinnati, 1802, seven years after the Treaty of Greenville

All this to say, Cincinnati is a cool little city, with lots of history. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't sometimes walk to work imagining the land littered with cabins and settlers, the woods thick all around, and Fort Washington glowering in the background over it all. 

[books i've been reading]

The Ohio River, a principal route for pioneers pushing westward along its 981-mile course from Pennsylvania through Kentucky and Indiana to Illinois, was the scene of fierce battles between… Native American tribes and white settlers. Tapping journals, letters, diaries and government memoranda from 1768 to 1799, and fleshing out his panoramic chronicle with reconstructed dialogue adapted from primary sources, historian-novelist Eckert has fashioned an epic narrative history of the struggle for dominance of the Ohio River Valley… Eckert emphasizes the sudden, overwhelming movement of whites into Native American lands and the Indians’ initial restraint and tolerance, followed by furious raids, wars and expulsions. – from Publisher’s Weekly

Allan Eckert’s That Dark and Bloody River is by far one of the best books I’ve ever read—and it’s also one of the most gut-wrenching. The summary on the back of the book tells readers that this narrative history reveals the heart of the American pioneer—and as the Bible tells us, the heart is deceitfully wicked indeed. Reading this book, I was overwhelmed with waves of legitimate shame for what my ancestors did two hundred years ago. Our savagery and deceit made possible Manifest Destiny, and “from Sea to Shining Sea” became a reality through perverse manipulation and downright murder. Andy Waugh puts it quite poignantly: “How do you pull off a genocide without anyone noticing? Do it slowly, and do it against people who are so outwardly and culturally unlike you that you can buy into the devil’s lie that they aren’t human.” I sympathize with modern-day native Americans who remain deeply wounded by what happened. We the Perpetrators think, “Why can’t they just let it go?” But if MY heritage were bloodily deceived and exterminated, if MY culture’s future had been wiped out in the name of God, if MY beautiful lands were replaced by factories, strip malls, and subdivisions, would I be any less wounded?

What strikes me the most is the portrait of these events we find in the high school history books contrasted with what actually happened. The Indians are portrayed as bloodthirsty savages, whites as the civilized pinnacle of society, and westward expansion is seen as the United States claiming what is rightfully hers. The reality is that the Indians were far more tolerating of us than we were of them; we were far more eager to get bloods on our hands, and the Indians restrained themselves with much patience and dignity as our white ancestors stole their lands and killed them for fun. When the Indians had enough, then indeed they became “savages”—but their savagery only mirrored our own, and indeed, ours was worse. It is an interesting note of history that the “savagery” of Indians wasn’t a concrete part of their culture but a reaction to the savagery they faced from white settlers. Savagery begets savagery. And it just so happens that the Indians—well-versed in hit-and-run tactics, better sharpshooters than we were, and adept at fighting in the land they called their own—happened to be better at savagery than we were. Because we were the victors, they have retained their “savagery” but ours has been replaced with God-fearing dignity. That’s how history works.

of dragons & worms

this makes me want to read The Hobbit again

Another Tuesday evening finds me in Blue Ash as the guys rock out downstairs to Katy Perry and Rihanna. Yesterday I finished not one but two books I've been working on (Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster and That Dark and Bloody River by Allan Eckert), and I got to spend some time catching up with Ams and watching The Walking Dead. Needless to say, it felt like a rather productive day. So productive, in fact, that I accidentally passed out around 9:00, only to be wakened by the Wisconsinite an hour and a half later. My call log says we talked for about forty minutes, but I can hardly remember it. I do remember her telling me that I slur my words when I'm half-awake, and that it was "kind of" cute. "Kind Of" is pretty classic, so I'll take it.

Celebration of Discipline is one of the best books I've read when it comes to the practice of some of the "classic" spiritual disciplines ("classic" because they have been disciplines since the birth of Christianity). For those who wish to study the mechanics of the disciplines, Foster's book is a goldmine. For those who wish to study the theology behind the disciplines, I recommend Dallas Willard's The Spirit of the Disciplines. You should even check out Willard's Renovation of the Heart, which takes some of the main points of his former book and stretches them out. Renovation of the Heart is rather technical, but he has a "student edition" which loses none of its value in the "dumbed down" version (and that's the version I prefer). That Dark and Bloody River is a phenomenal book about the first decades of the settling of the Ohio River Valley, focusing on a variety of conflicts with the Indians and culminating in a great recounting of the Northwest Indian War. Reviews of the book on Amazon can be pretty critical, claiming that Eckert's work is a shadow of his Wilderness series, and that the latter are far more intriguing and spellbinding. This only excites me, because I am planning on delving into the Wilderness series soon, and if I liked That Dark and Bloody River so much, I'm sure I'll be enthralled with his other works.

So what's holding me back? My reading queue is pretty long, and I've got a couple "good ones" up next on the list: two books on the French & Indian War, and another book which I stumbled upon all about the early beginnings of Cincinnati (up through 1799). The book was published in 1880, and I found a PDF of it online, and I'm pretty stoked to delve into more detail regarding Cincinnati's birth and all the conflict surrounding it (the Shawnees were not fond of the settlement, to put it lightly). 

Now they're singing "Wrecking Ball" downstairs.

It really doesn't get any better than this.

To close off this not-too-exciting post, here's a freaky picture of a worm:

"Reforming Marriage"

Reforming Marriage looks at the institution of marriage through the lens of Ephesians 5, and Wilson teases out what that marriage looks like in a world bent on self-fulfillment, sexual expression, and self-gratification. The majority of this book lies in application; i.e., “This is our theology of marriage, now how do we live that out?” There’s so much commendable about this book, but the chapter I liked the most was the chapter on “Christian sex.” I’ve read lots of different works by various people regarding sexuality in Christian marriage, and I appreciate Wilson’s exposition of 1 Thessalonians 4.3-5 and the way he draws that out in practical ways. While most Christian books say something along the lines of, “Sex is a gift from God to be enjoyed only in marriage, so enjoy it as much as you can when you’re married,” Wilson takes it a step further, asking, “What does sexuality within marriage look like if it is to be God-honoring and God-pleasing, since sex itself is an expression of the church’s union with Christ?” Such a question begs the thought that Wilson may be a Victorian prude, but he argues hotly against those who wish to “snuff out” sexuality, making it only about procreation and rejecting any sort of sexual enjoyment and discovery of your spouse. Here are some quotes from that chapter:

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1 Thessalonians 4.3-5: Each one of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God. This expression of the will of God is one which many Christian men need to learn. Many have not learned how to take a wife in a pure and honorable way. They come to the marriage bed with the same kind of passionate lust which is characteristic of unbelievers. But Paul tells us here that Christians are to be different in how they love, not just in whom they love.

Modernity has sent us all off on a frustrating search for the perfect sexual experience, and this vain quest, this sexual snipe-hunt, has even ensnared many Christian married couples. We are told, and not just by non-Christians, that we have an obligation to have “dynamic sex lives.” This has (at least) two results: It can lead us into a frenzied hunt for the ultimate sexual experience, and it can lead to an acquiescing frustration and dissatisfaction with “normal” sex.

If everything is special, then nothing is. If everything is ‘dynamic,’ then the dynamic becomes ordinary. We must continue to seek some new thrill in order to keep up with the ‘dynamic imperative’. Christian men have not learned how to take a wife in a pure way; they do so with the passionate (and frustrated) lust of the nonbelievers. This frustrating search for the Perfect Orgasm Every Time has ensnared many Christian marriages.

We are finite creatures and, consequently, our capacity for sexual pleasure has set limits. But lust, by its very nature, is incapable of realizing such limits. Lust demands from a finite thing what only the infinite God can provide. Therefore, when someone in the grip of lust comes up against the wall of his finitudes, he demands alternatives. This unwillingness to submit to the finitude of sexual pleasure has produced all manner of sexual perversions. Consequently, Paul tells us to guard the marriage bed against the philosophy of such lusters. Everything about sexual lust is futile and grasping after wind.

The central problem with lust is the steadfast refusal to tolerate limits. Lust is the desire to receive from a finite thing what only the infinite can provide. It seeks to elevate the created (sexual activity) to the level of God. Because we are indeed finite, our sexual pleasures are also finite. This means that there has to be an end to it. But lust is incapable of saying “enough.” There must always be something else, something more. There is pleasure—but never satisfaction. It is for this reason that lust will always lead to various perversions. Once all the possible pleasure has been squeezed out of the finite sexual limits given to us by God, lust demands new territory. The fact that this territory is hostile to true sexual pleasure does not deter the person controlled by his lust. He charges ahead, little knowing that he is destroying the things he worships. For those in the grip of lust, the created thing they idolize is sexuality. And the fate of this created thing is the same as all other created things promoted to ‘Deity.’ Incapable of becoming God, it only becomes a twisted creature, which is then worshipped and served by its devotees—other twisted and bent creatures. But this idol, like all idols, will then topple and fall. It will have eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear, and hands that cannot love.

Frustration with finitude, seeking to supply sex with a continual ‘high octane kick’, will ultimately destroy sexual pleasure. A man and woman who accept their finitude and who seek to honor God in how they love each other will of course enjoy themselves sexually. But that enjoyment will have the normal range that is to be expected from any physical pleasure. Sometimes they will enjoy a “steak dinner,” and it really will be extraordinary. Other times it will be quite ordinary—macaroni and cheese—but still enjoyable. Should they enjoy extraordinary sexual experience? Yes, of course! But at no time should they accept the lie that sexual pleasure is subnormal unless it matches the standards set by humanistic sexual therapists.

While sexual pleasure is threatened by the unbelievers who would stampede through it, it is also unfortunately threatened by “decent” people who, frankly, are afraid of it and run away in the other direction. We must not seek to be “liberated” by the world and its lusts, and we must not be “disciplined” by vestigial Victorian prudishness in the church. BOTH are anti-scripture.

Sexual pleasure is limited, whatever those who are dominated by lust may say or demand. But this is not to say that our capacity for sexual pleasure is small. The rejection of the frenzied pagan rush after a constant sexual high does not exclude a disciplined Christian cultivation of sexual enjoyment. The Bible teaches us that lovemaking is to be honored among Christians; to honor something means to esteem it highly. Those Christians who have reacted to public immorality by retreating into a blue-nosed prudishness in their own bedrooms are very much a part of the problem.

“What do we find in the erotic love poem The Song of Solomon?” The lovemaking in the poem is pervasively sensual, meaning that it involves more than just the sense of touch… The woman does not just say that her love is like tasting; she says that her lover is tasted. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, this tasting does not occur with pursed lips. Neither the woman nor the man are drinking this wine through a straw… The man knows the same pleasure in tasting her as well; he knows that her mouth is a well of delight… The woman is a garden, but there is an inner garden within this garden. This is what her lover is drawn to the most, and she is eager for him to come and enjoy himself fully… The woman’s lover is drawn to her entire body. It is obviously lawful for a godly husband to admire, kiss, taste, and caress his wife wherever he pleases, and vice versa… The lover speaks openly about his admiration for her. He compares her to a palm trees, and her breasts are like the clusters of the vine. He resolves to climb the tree in order to reach that fruit. He ascends her body in order to reach and taste its clusters. He comes to her mouth which has the fragrance of apples, and then tastes and drinks the wine which is there. The woman is clearly pleased to be such a tree, and for her mouth to be a goblet.

The liberated modern, with the furrowed brow of a frustrated technocrat, wants to talk about the various positions of sexual engineering, accompanied by charts, diagrams, and technical manuals—along with stern and graphic lectures to all of us repressed Puritans. As Christian lovers, despite what the world might think, our enjoyment of lovemaking is to be deep and lasting. The joy of sex, about which the world talks much and knows very little, is a gift to us from God. Because God is good to us, the man gives and receives, and the woman receives and gives, tremendous pleasure.

along La Belle Riviere

This afternoon I braved the somewhat-blizzard-like conditions to explore along the Ohio River down on Route 52. I pretended I was an 18th century frontiersmen, perhaps a land surveyor scoping out the newly-acquired Ohio shoreline. I must admit, I fantasized about finding a Shawnee skeleton, replete with tomahawk and musket, in the bole of a tree.

Is that weird? Sure.

Is it disturbing? I think that qualifies.

But it'd be an historical landfall.

As I paraded through the flooded grounds in my waterproof cowboy boots, I contemplated a quote from this morning's sermon at U.C.C.: "Jesus promises an abundant life to those who commit themselves and surrender themselves to him--not to those who commit themselves to the church, or a particular brand of theology, or a certain mode of living, or even Christianity itself."

That's something American Christianity often fails to remember. 

And, to be honest, that's something I often fail to remember. 

It's so easy to be committed, for example, to a certain systematic theology, to the point that you ostracize or even condemn those who disagree with you on various points. It's so easy to be committed to a certain denomination (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox) or to a certain expression of the faith (right-wing Church of Christ is radically different than charismatic Pentecostals) that we experience a sort of "superiority complex" over those who are different than us. It's so easy to be so committed to a ministry that we can't envision our Christian life outside it. Indeed, it's so easy to be committed to Christianity, as a certain set of beliefs or as a worldview, that we come to see it simply as that. 

Come to Me, Jesus says, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. He invites the weary and burdened to go to him, not to church, not to a prepackaged theology, not to a spit-and-polished worldview. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. These are life-giving words, but we have become skeptical: "Life doesn't actually work that way," we say; "Faith doesn't even work that way!" Jesus says elsewhere, I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I think one of the reasons so many Christians fail to experience that abundant life is that they have committed themselves to something that looks like Jesus, something that may even claim to be Jesus, but not Jesus the Person. 

Jesus died and was raised back to life.

Jesus ascended to Heaven, and sits at the right hand of God.

Jesus is REAL, he is ALIVE, he is a PERSON. And he invites.

I'm a skeptic at heart. Sometimes that's a good thing, and I like to focus on all the "pros" that come with such a manner of examining and believing in this world. It has its "cons" too, of course, and I often envy those who can feel and believe. Yet for all my analytics, for all my skepticism, what has convinced me of the gospel truth more than anything else hasn't been fine arguments for the historicity of the resurrection or the existence of God, but the experience of the person of Christ. There have been moments in my life when I have felt him, when I have been at my lowest, on the verge of despair, and I have experienced him taking me by the hand and holding me up. There have been moments when tears of pure grief have turned into tears of pure joy. There have been moments when I've heard the voice of One speaking to me in a way I can't explain or reason away despite all my analytical faculties. I have experienced the real, risen, and reigning King, and those experiences have left me beautifully and wonderfully scarred.

Yet for all of this, I can be a dunce sometimes.

Well, let's be honest: a lot of the time.

A buzzfeed quiz told me I'm most like the Apostle Peter. I'm not sure how me choosing baby seals as the cutest animal factored into the algorithms, but I've often felt a sort of affinity for Peter, so I didn't retake the quiz (plus I started browsing baby seals on Google images, and that took up a lot of my time). Peter's one of the most human of the apostles, his weaknesses and failures showcased for all the world to see not only in the gospels but in the letters of Paul. To put it quite simply, he's a dunce. But he's a dunce who loves Jesus. Peter excitedly stepped out of the boat into the raging storm, and he took his eyes off Jesus and began to sink. Sometimes I feel I do the same thing, but not intentionally. Peter didn't take his eyes off Jesus and start looking at a half-naked woman standing on-shore; he took his eyes off Jesus because he was overwhelmed with the turmoil all around him. It was a reasonable thing to do. He was standing on water outside a boat in a raging storm. His eyes should have been on his predicament and how to get out of it. But the moment he began to rethink his plight, the moment he started focusing on the problem, his eyes went off Jesus, and that's when he began to sink. Likewise, I can so easily become absorbed by the "turmoil" around me, stress and anxiety so commonplace in life, that I focus on that rather than on Jesus, and I begin to sink. At other times I focus so much on theology, or on certain aspects of the faith, that my eyes begin to drift away from Jesus to peripheral matters of Christianity. Now, I'll admit: this paragraph is neither here nor there, and not at all where I intended to go. But sometimes that happens, and I'm learning to roll with it, rather than seeking to make every blog post somehow coherent. Coherency is not how my mind works.

The point of all this: we must keep our eyes on Jesus. Period. As Hebrews puts it, Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. 

[sunday meditations]

1 PETER 1.8-9

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

We, like the Christians in Asia Minor, haven’t seen Jesus. We weren’t there to see him teaching the crowds, or performing miracles, or hanging from the cross. Our eyes haven’t yet beheld him; and though we haven’t seen him, we, like the Christians in Asia Minor, love him. We have devoted ourselves to him, surrendered ourselves to him, and we have made him the Master of our lives. The Christians in Asia Minor turned to Christ after hearing the gospel proclamation, the declaration that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, crucified and resurrected, the King of the World, who reigns from heaven and who will one day return, and who demands everyone’s loyalty and allegiance. Having heard the preaching of the gospel, the Christians put their loyalty in Jesus, repenting of their sins and being baptized into God’s family. We in the 21^st Century who walk the same path don’t see him; but we believe in him and, with the Christian hope before us, and let come what may, we can rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of our faith: the salvation of our souls.

Having written so much about the living Christian hope that belongs to those born again, a hope centered upon our coming inheritance, which is kept in heaven for us, and which will be delivered at the apocalypse of Jesus, when Jesus appears and does what only God can do (consummating the kingdom), Peter now shows us where knowledge of our hope should lead: to an inexpressible, glorious joy which causes us to shout from the rooftops. Such rejoicing (even such joy!) is often unheard of in a world consumed with pain, suffering, and hardship.

“St. Peter is too much of an optimist,” we might say; “Is he blind to the way the world really is?”

Let’s not forget from where Peter writes: Rome, where Christians are being hunted down like feral cats, slain in the arenas and lit as torches to light Nero’s palace parties. Any thought that Peter is blind to the hardships of the world falls broken in the sand; and any thought that St. Peter was immune to all of this (as if he were locked in some grandiose tower contemplating theology day-and-night) likewise breaks apart: not long after the writing of this letter, St. Peter died an agonizing death hanging upside-down on a Roman cross. It isn’t that Peter is ignorant of the way the world works; it’s that he isn’t focused on the present evil age; rather, his focus is on the future, on the Christian hope, and in the darkest and most difficult times, this hope, sustained in community and through the scriptures and prayer, draws forth within God’s people, including St. Peter, abounding joy.

This isn’t the Joy of Ignorance but the Joy of Recognition: recognizing the world as it is, with all its darkness, corruption, and decay, and recognizing, likewise, the world for what it shall, one day, be: a world filled again with beauty, justice, peace, prosperity, and life; a world where God is all and in all.

Some have mocked the Christian hope, comparing it to the outlook of an ostrich, which, according to fabled legend, sticks its head in the sand and ignores the world all around it. The New Testament, however, paints a stark portrait of the current world, confessing to the reality of pain and suffering. And while the New Testament acknowledges that the present evil age continues, with its classic trademarks of death, decay, and suffering seeming to flourish, the New Testament also looks beyond this current reality to the consummation. It is in both the recognition of the present and the recognition of the future that true joy and hope is found.

The lack of joy among Christians finds its source in many different streams, but at the top of the list is both ignorance (failing to understand that for which we hope) and nearsightedness: some Christians, rather than putting their hope in their inheritance, put their hope in the passing world which is present with us now.

The old saying goes, “Don’t put your eggs all in one basket.” Yet we often fail to perceive this wisdom and put all our hopes in the current present age. Those things many Christians hope for—the acquiring of our greatest dreams, the accumulation of wealth, filling our lives with all sorts of material and experiential goodies, trying to become popular and well-liked—are indistinguishable from what many non-Christians hope for. And just as non-Christians find themselves, in the midst of these pursuits and hopes, consumed with uncertainties, fears, anxieties, restlessness, and depression, so Christians, too, find the same.

This is because the current state-of-affairs in our world isn’t kind to such hopes. Focusing on the current world, and placing all our hopes within it, is a ridiculous thing to do: it’s akin (if I can be so bold) to a Jew hoping for fame and fortune while riding a cattle car into Auschwitz. While this comparison may offend some, the point can’t be missed: focusing our hope in this life is futile, because reality as it is now doesn’t allow many of these hopes to come to pass; and if we are one of the lucky few who actually attain these selfish pursuits, we’ll find not eudaimonia but a greater hunger, a greater deprivation, a greater emptiness, so long as our hope remains centered in this present evil age.

A glorious and inexpressible joy comes only by an acknowledgment of both the current state of affairs and the future state of affairs, and within this acknowledgement, putting our hope where hope is due: in God and what he’ll accomplish at the consummation. And as we do this, St. Peter says, we are in the process of obtaining the salvation of our souls. But before tackling that beast, a word should be said about joy.

* * *

A Word on Joy. This word carries all sorts of baggage, and what we mean by joy should be laid out in some detail. If we don’t know what joy is, how will we know we have it? Or is it something we just know we have, even if we can’t pinpoint how we know we have it? And is its lack always fixated on the two reasons above (ignorance & near-sightedness)?

It’s cliché to go to the Dictionary and look up the meaning of a word to define it, and sometimes such a route isn’t the best to take (such as now). Webster’s dictionary makes joy synonymous with happiness, gladness, cheerfulness. Turn to a Thesaurus, and we find that its brothers-in-vocabulary include exultation, pleasure, and contentment. Harking back to Webster’s, we find it defined as “a very glad feeling; happiness; great want, and all its pleasure; delight.” In a world caught up on an emotional bandwagon, it’s easy to pigeonhole joy into such categories. Obviously joy is something we want, and synonyms and definitions make us crave it more.

But nailing down joy to an existential experience is to do an injustice to what joy, as we find it in the New Testament, really means. Are the emotional elements lost? Not at all, though they may be misleading. When we imagine having joy, perhaps we imagine wading through life’s trials with an overwhelming sense of happiness. Actually going through life’s trials renders such an amateur understanding invalid. Here’s something we often miss:

The New Testament commands Christians to have joy.

The New Testament commands believers to rejoice.

Joy is almost always wedged within the murky morass of our world, in the trials and troubles that assault us; in these times, the New Testament tells us, joy is to be ours. As we shed tears and even blood, joy is to be in our hearts, and this joy is to manifest itself in rejoicing.

But how does this work? It involves the reorientation of our minds, the twisting and contorting of our worldviews, a manipulation of the way we see the world in light of the cross and resurrection. Joy isn’t something that just comes, something that God just gives us the moment when we become Christians, a gift that can never be reclaimed. Does God grant his people joy? Absolutely. In my darkest moments, in my prayers and tears, there have been divinely-wrought episodes of nauseating joy, moments when my tears of sorrow become tears of gratitude and thankfulness, moments when the troubles of the world seem to fade under the growing light of God’s love and his determination to make things right. But this isn’t always the case.

Joy remains something that must be fought for at times, especially in this present evil age, and it’s characterized, I think, not so much by a feeling but a mindset: “I will be joyful, I will rejoice.” And as this happens, we begin experiencing joy. As we reorient our minds around what God has done in Jesus, we find that while the troubles of the world don’t necessarily “grow weak”, we have new sustenance, new energy, and a new determination to see this thing through no matter the cost. It isn’t that trials become easier, it’s that we become stronger; and this is God at work in us. Rejoicing is rejoicing regardless of whether it comes from a heart bursting at the seams with good feelings or from a heart weighed down under the trials of our world.

Ignorance and nearsightedness definitely play a role in why many Christians fail to experience joy. Think about it: joy, producing rejoicing and characterized by gratitude and thankfulness, is something in the mind. This works on two levels: (I) Joy is intimately connected to the way we perceive the world. We’ve been riding this horse for quite some time, but a reminder never hurts (if only to cement it in the gray and sloppy folds of our brains): the way we perceive the world influences not only how we behave and how we make decisions, but also how we feel. We can try to force ourselves to have joy as much as we want, but the reality is that so long as our minds aren’t renewed by the Spirit, aren’t molded around the stark and bloodied cross and the empty tomb, joy will be something remaining eerily distant. Close, as if it could be touched, but just out of reach. Perhaps our fingertips brush it from time-to-time, but that is all. Joy finds its source in the mind. (II) “But we’re called to have joy in our hearts,” you might say, “and not in our minds.” True, true. But what does it mean to have joy in our hearts? Neurologists have known for a long time that all the feelings we have, the good and the bad (joy included), stem not from some super-spiritual realm but from physiological chemical reactions in the brain. There are some people who seem to have an overwhelming sense of joy, and oftentimes we look to these people with envy, and we try to figure out what they’ve got figured out that we’re still missing. It came as a shock to many that there is such a thing as a physiological disorder affecting the brain’s chemical and their interactions, producing overly joyful people. It works the opposite way, too: some folks, having no joy, will question their beliefs or faith, without realizing that the root cause of their lack of joy may stem from a brain failing to operate correctly. This is, of course, a result of the curse, of entropy and decay, the Fall making its home in our own physiological brains.

All this to say, having a lack of joy doesn’t necessarily reflect negatively on us as Christians: some people simply have the privilege (if we can call it that) of living with brain chemicals that act more like drunkards in a rustic bar rather than flocks of geese flying in unison. While some people seem to have the “gift of joy”, a joy that comes easily and without much effort, the vast majority of us must work for it. Not that its acquisition is bound entirely in what we do or don’t do: true joy finds its source not in our human efforts but in God, who works in our hearts and minds.

* * *

The outcome of our faith is salvation: the complete rescue and renewal of our whole selves, our restoration to genuine Human being status and living. God saves human beings precisely as human beings; we will do well not to forget this. Our future salvation is intricately tied to the Christian doctrine of glorification—being made, fully and finally, completely Human—and it is within glorification that our future resurrection (when we will receive new, incorruptible, physical bodies) finds its home. That is the goal. How, then, can Peter say that we are currently obtaining it (as the Greek implies), when it remains a future reality to be experienced by the Spirit at Jesus’ appearing?

In the present we obtain this by putting our destination into practice, living-out what it means to be truly Human in every aspect of our lives: in our speech and behaviors, in our thoughts and habits, in our relationships with both God and with one another. As we do this, we are bringing our future resurrection to bear on the present. Peter is ultimately writing about progressive sanctification, giving us a new angle upon which to view it: it is the process whereby we live-out, in the present, what we will be in the future (and what we already, at least in part, truly are): restored Human beings.

* * *

Joy & Hope. Leafing through the New Testament, one can’t help but see that more often than not, joy is tied to hope. In Romans 5 Paul says that through Christ “we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” In Romans 12, Paul tells the Christian in Rome to “Rejoice in hope!”

This isn’t a polite suggestion or recommendation: it’s a command.

Rejoice in hope!

1 Peter, as we’ve seen, is littered with the idea of hope, and the entire letter structures the Christian life around focusing on the Christian hope. Christians are to have joy in hope; and as they come to understand their hope, and mold their lives around it, joy comes as a byproduct.

It’s so easy to become distracted from the Christian hope, to set it on the shelf and focus on things “that really matter.” The new heavens and new earth, glorification, the consummation of God’s kingdom, all of that will be completed in the future, but we’re here, in the now, so why focus on all that?

Peter, of course, has a different approach: focus on that hope, mold your life on that hope, let that hope saturate you and fill you and spill out from your life, to the point that people take notice. Why else would he tell the Christians to be prepared “to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you”? As it says in Proverbs 10, “The hope of the righteous brings joy.”

* * *

Joy & Genuine Humanness. The Bible talks a lot about having “the mind of Christ,” or “the attitude of Christ,” of conforming to “the image of Christ.” Jesus stands as the Perfect Human, the model of what God intended humans to be all along. Because of sin, our image as human beings is marred; but Christ, absent sin, stands as the image of genuine humanness. In this sense, Jesus was far more human than we give him credit; as much as the Gnostics may have tried to reduce his humanness to an illusion, the New Testament seems to say that we are the ones whose humanness is all but an illusion: we have been dehumanized, scarred by sin, but Jesus is what Human was to be all along. The focus of sanctification, becoming like Christ, isn’t about becoming like a 1^st Century Jewish fellow; it’s about being made fully and completely human.

The work of Christ does lots of things, but the point of it all is restoration: the restoration of human beings to a right relationship with God, one another, themselves, and the cosmos as well. A better word would be new creation: in Christ, God remakes us into genuine human beings, and then he tells us to start living like it (with some much-needed help from the Spirit, of course). Understanding the point of redemption to be just that—redemption!—enables us to look at the Christian life not just as a different way of living that we need to adopt but the appropriate way of living for genuine human beings. The Spirit works in us and with us to transform us from self-seeking, self-loving people into God-loving, kingdom-loving people. The point of transformation is to take us from dehumanization to full-fledged genuine human living (and we note that transformation doesn’t culminate until glorification, and that’s a complete and utter work of God: until then, we won’t be perfect, and we won’t fully radiate our true identities as redeemed human beings).

All those New Testament descriptions and lists of how we should live serve as signposts to what genuine human living looks like. The Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is perhaps the greatest signpost, a panoramic vision of what a fully-flourishing human life looks like. Joy, being a key component of the fruit of the Spirit, is thus a facet of genuine human living. As we grow in Christ, as we come to experience him more and more, as we experience his change in our hearts and minds, we’re fitting more comfortably into the clothes of genuine human living. When we’re out-of-sync with who we are, there’s often a feeling of disconnectedness, or emptiness. But in Christ, we’re being brought back to who we truly are, who we’re meant to be. As we conform to the image of Christ, to what it means to be truly human, joy seeps through our lives.

Joy is certainly something given to us by God, but it’s more than “just another gift.” There’s a lot more to it. When we come to embrace who we really are as human beings, and live in a manner that’s appropriate for genuine human beings, joy follows. This may be what the New Testament’s hitting on when it talks about the law of liberty, or our liberty in Christ. “But how is conforming to a wholly different manner of living anything close to freedom and liberty?” Sitting on my desk right now is a half-finished model of the U.S.S. Constitution, an 18^th century Navy vessel that didn’t enjoy such things as engines. The ship had to use its sails in different patterns to use the wind to its advantage. When a ship’s sailing with the wind, it’s been said to have a certain liberty in its sails; but when it moves against the wind, it stalls or bobs around listlessly. It’s the same with Christian liberty: when we move in rhythm with how we’re supposed to live and who we’re supposed to be, we’re not stalling or bobbing around like a bobber in an empty pond. We’re moving in conjunction with the wind, filling our sails with the Spirit and genuine human living, and that brings us the truest kind of liberty, that liberty of being who we are in the first place. And as we fit into the skin God had set out for us since Day One (or, rather, Day Six, if you’re a literalist), we find joy leaking out from our hearts, since joy is a facet of genuine human living.

from blue ash (II)

I'm relaxing on the sofa in Blue Ash while Jason and I watch Jumanji for the third time in a row. I really used to like this movie. It's only 9:00 and already I'm feeling pretty exhausted with three more hours to go before I get to go home and crash in the warmth of my Hobbit Hole. I'm greatly looking forward to it.

We've had awesome warm weather these last few days.

Wednesday was in the 60s.

Today's high: 66!

The cold weather returns next week.

*Grrrr*

Mandy is on a "Winter Retreat" in the Wisconsin hinterland, virtually out-of-contact. She did call me for a bit today while looking for a student who lost herself in the woods while skiing, and it made me perk up more-so than the coffee I was sipping at The Anchor. It seems crazy, but even though she's always "out of town" 497 miles away, I especially feel like she's out of town this weekend. It seems my heart is already in Ripon even though my body continues to function here in Cincinnati.

Speaking of Mandy, we're going to be hanging out this time next week on the fringes of Chicago. I'll be meeting some more friends of hers, as well as her brother and mother (whom I've already met back in 2009, but it's been a while...). I don't yet know any of the "details" beyond that, but that's okay: I'll be glad just to be with her in person again, to sit beside her, to hold her hand, to kiss her forehead. Those are small things that may seem trivial to some, but they mean so much to me. 

I would write more, but I'm just so tired.

I'm going to close with an epic photobomb:

on country living

Every Thursday, Ben, Jason and I volunteer at Gorman Heritage Farms in Blue Ash. The farm’s pretty awesome, and not least because of the history: it was founded in the early 17^th century, and John Morgan’s Confederate raid during the Civil War swept through the farm on Morgan’s rampage through Ohio. At the farm, Morgan and his men took shelter in the barn and “acquired” two fresh horses from the Gorman family before continuing on their journey. History seeps through the fresh tilled fields, history stretching far beyond Morgan to the days when Shawnee war parties crossed the lands on their way to attack settlers around Losantiville (modern-day Cincinnati).

I’m a country man at heart (as if my cowboy boots didn’t give that fact away). I’ve enjoyed living in Cincinnati, and if I had to choose any city to live in, Cincinnati’s a good choice. We’re a very green city, sporting lots of parks and thick woods. A ten minute drive in almost any direction can find you breathing country air and escaping the sirens, traffic, and smog of city life. Any aerial photo of Cincinnati will show this to be the case. But to be honest, I look forward to leaving Cincinnati and starting another chapter in my life in Wisconsin. It isn’t just that the Wisconsinite and I will physically be together, not separated by 497 miles (though that’s a big part, if not the biggest part, of it). I look forward to small-town living, to knowing the people in my community, to being part of the fabric of the town. I look forward to leaving Ripon and exploring the nearby parks, trekking through the woodlands, looking at the blanket of stars at the dusk of twilight. I’ll actually live somewhere where cowboy boots won’t make me look weird! Maybe, if I’m persuasive enough, I can talk Mandy into getting a house absent electricity like this one:

There’s sadness, of course; I’ll be “leaving behind” a great network of friendships here in Cincinnati, friendships I value more than most: John & Brandy, Amos, Blake, Andy, Corey & Mandy, the list goes on and on. And who could forget Ams? It’ll be hard being so far from her, and it’ll take an adjustment. Thankfully I’m with a wonderful woman who knows the difficulties that I will face, a woman who is eager to share them with me and support me through them all. I really am blessed to be with a woman as great as the Wisconsinite.

Some say they thank their lucky stars.

Not me. I thank God. 

on the cusp of a texas hooker

I’m so sick of snow. The last straw was my return drive from Wisconsin on Monday. I left on the cusp of a blizzard, and the drive past Milwaukee took me three hours, during which I kept having to pull over, get out into the blinding ice and snow, and peel ice from the windshield wipers of my dad’s car (which he so graciously let me borrow for the long weekend). I told myself I would get as far as I-65 past Chicago and into Indiana, but when the Vibe spun out on the highway, I decided to call it a night and pulled off the nearest exit. I cocooned myself in a motel and sat eating Subway and watching “Duck Dynasty” with the snow raging outside. Thankfully the morning drive went far better, and I was able to make it to Cincinnati in time for my shift in Blue Ash. Now the air’s warming up (a brief respite, but not the beginning of spring), and I’m enjoying the pleasant air, the warmth of the sun on my face, and the melting snow and ice. I’m hoping the thickly-packed ice laid down a week or two ago by the sudden death ice storm will melt, because I’m tired of learning about glaciations as I consequently learn about gravity. This cartoon depicts my attitude over the last couple weeks in regard to the face-blistering (not a metaphor) cold:

And I'm moving to WISCONSIN???

As I write this, another super storm is bearing down upon us. They’re calling it a “Texas Hooker,” a pan-handle storm that’s hooking northeast from Texas. The name’s pretty classy (is that the right word?), and memes are already blowing up all over the interwebs. We’re fortunate here in Cincinnati: the most we’ll have to put up with is tornadoes. Those far to the north have a bitterer deal (and, yes, “bitterer” is a word): an ice storm followed by six inches of snow in Chicago, and up to two feet of snow in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I’m really hoping the weather will be more forgiving next weekend when I make the five-hour drive north to spend a few days with the Wisconsinite in the Windy City.

I’ve been contemplating Grad School a lot more lately, and I got to talk with my doctor Joe (who’s an elder at my home church) about future schooling some last night. I told him different options, and I said, “The main thing is getting my degree in something with which I can get a good-paying job to pay back on the degree, or else the degree isn’t worth it.” He made a really good point: “Sure, unless you feel led by God to get a certain degree.” And he doesn’t take “being led by God” lightly. He added, “If you feel led by God to pursue something, don’t let your own attempts to control the future, or your own struggle to trust in God’s providence, keep you from moving forward.” I’ve always enjoyed my talks with him, and I don’t count it ironic that his words cut into something God’s been putting on my mind a lot as of late: trust in Him. I call it my “manly nature,” trying to control everything to bring about the best possible outcome, always weighing decisions based on pros and cons. Really, it’s just my sinful heart and residual doubts of God’s providence, despite the fact that He consistently takes care of me, even in ways I don’t expect. A lesson I’ve been learning (or “relearning,” if you will) is to rest in His providence, to not be consumed by the stress of having to have it all figured out and make it all work. The truth is that I can’t figure it all out. I can’t make it all work. I’m simply not that good. But God is that good, and He’s in control, He’s sovereign, and I need to trust in that and rest in that.

On a lighter note, here’s a comparison of the R.M.S. Titanic and a modern cruise ship:

"The Way" (I)

May your behavior and your conversation be such that everyone who sees or hears you can say: This man reads the life of Jesus Christ.

Don’t waste your energy and your time—which belong to God—throwing stones at the dogs that bark at you on the way. Ignore them.

Will-power. A very important quality. Don’t disregard the little things, which are really never futile or trivial. For by the constant practice of repeated self-denial in little things, with God’s grace you will increase in strength and manliness of character. In that way you’ll first become master of yourself, and then a guide and a leader: to compel, to urge, to draw others with your example and with your word and with your knowledge and with your power.

Get to know the Holy Spirit, the Great Unknown, the one who has to sanctify you. Don’t forget that you are a temple of God. The Holy Spirit is in the center of your soul: listen to him, and follow his inspirations with docility.

Don’t hinder the work of the Holy Spirit. Be united to Christ in order to purify yourself, and together with him experience the insults, the spit, the blows and the thorns… Experience with him the weight of the cross, the nails tearing your flesh, and the agony of a forsaken death… And enter into the pierced side of our Lord Jesus until you find secure shelter in his wounded heart.

You seek the friendship of those who, with their conversation and affection, with their company, help you to bear more easily the exile of this world—although sometimes those friends fail you. I don’t see anything wrong with that. But how is it that you do not seek everyday, more eagerly, the company, the conversation of that great friend who will never fail you?

You don’t know how to pray? Put yourself in the presence of God, and as soon as you have said, “Lord, I don’t know how to pray!” you can be sure you’ve already begun.

Et in meditatione mea exardescit ignis.—“And in my meditation a fire shall flame up.” That’s why you go to prayer: to become a blaze, a living flame giving heat and light. So, when you don’t know how to go on, when it feels as if your fire is dying out and you can’t throw fragrant logs on it, throw on the branches and twigs of short vocal prayers, of ejaculations, to keep feeding the blaze. And you will have used the time well.

You don’t know what to say to our Lord in prayer. Nothing comes to you and yet you would like to ask his advice about many things. Look: take some notes during the day of the things you want to think about in the presence of God. And then go with those notes to pray.

When you go to pray, let this be a firm resolution: Don’t prolong your prayer just because you find consolation in it, nor curtail it just because you find it dry.

Don’t tell Jesus you want consolation in prayer. But if he gives it to you, thank him. Tell him always that what you want is perseverance.

Your mind is sluggish and won’t work. You struggle to coordinate your ideas in the presence of our Lord, but it’s useless: a complete fog! Don’t force yourself, and don’t worry either. Listen closely: it is the hour for your heart.