[ill with want]

I am sick with wanting, and it's evil and it's daunting,
how I let everything I cherish lay to waste.
I am lost in greed this time, it's definitely me.
I point fingers but there's no one there to blame.

I need for something, not let me break it down again.
I need for something, but not more medicine.
And everyday is worse than the one before.

The more I have the more I think, I'm almost where I need to be.
If only I could get a little more.

Something has me (something has me),
oh something has me (something has me)
acting like someone I don't want to be.
Something has me (something has me),
oh something has me (something has me)
acting like someone I know isn't me.

Ill with want and poisoned by this ugly greed.
Temporary is my time, ain't nothing on this world that's mine,
except the will I found to carry on.
Free is not your right to choose,
it's answering what's asked of you,
to give the love you find until it's gone.

I need for something, but not more medicine.
Oh something has me (something has me),
oh something has me (something has me)
acting like someone I know isn't me.
Ill with want and poisoned by this ugly greed.

the importance of being foolish (III)

Chapter Three: Diversions

In this chapter Brennan Manning looks at three desires that stifle movement towards Christlike transparency: the desires for security, pleasure, and power.

Security

"In trembling insecurity, the believer pleads for and even demands tangible reassurances from the Lord that his affection is returned. If he does not receive them, he is disheartened, frustrated, maybe even convinced that it's all over or that it never really existed. If he does receive them, he is reassured, but only for a time. He presses for further proofs--each one less convincing than the one that went before. In the end this false trust dies of pure frustration."

"Peace and joy go a-begging when the heart of a Christian longs for one sign after another of God's merciful love. Nothing is taken for granted and nothing is received with gratitude. The troubled eyes and furrowed brow of the anxious believer are the symptoms of a heart where trust has not found a home."

"Insecurity not only paralyzes our relationship with the living God but has a devastating effect on interpersonal relationships. It is the starting point of all social estrangement. It breaks down openness, which is the bridge to the existential world of the other. It undermines real communication and causes a kind of rupture in the evolution of authentic personality."

"The church of Jesus Christ is a place of promise and possibility, of adventure and discovery, a community of love on the move, strangers and exiles in a foreign land en route to the heavenly Jerusalem. But the security seekers are the enemies of openness."

"Living dependent on 'security' defeats carefree trust in God's wisdom and love, hurts interpersonal relationships, thwarts ongoing community renewal and Christian reunion, and handicaps the serious Christian who seeks to have the mind of Christ Jesus."

Pleasure

"When forms of pleasure, leisure, and recreation refresh mind and body and revitalize the spirit, they bring a sense of balance, rest, and wholeness. But sought after for themselves, they send us on a roller-coaster ride during which each sensation must be greater than the last one for the thrill to continue."

"[Many] Christians practice an ambivalent 'prudence of the flesh' that seeks a sort of gilded mediocrity: the self is carefully distributed between flesh and spirit, with a watchful eye on both. Paul calls this 'imperfect spiritual vision.' It is the vision of those who have received the Spirit but remain spiritual infants because they do not subject themselves fully to the domination of the Spirit; they yield to their passions, thus letting their drives confine them to an infantile spirituality. Paul compares them to babies unable to take food."

Manning quotes Jean Mouroux: "The perfect Christian is he who does not normally yield to the demands of the flesh, and who is normally docile to the impulses of the Spirit."

"We Christians are as prone to chemical dependency, affairs, self-serving friendships, and risky behavior as those who don't claim to hold Christ in their hearts. We seek and search for ways to fill up the gaping hole in our lives, yet come away from these experiences with little more than a temporary sense of completion."

Power

"[The] quest for power is not limited to material gains or the drive to rule a personal empire. The pull of power is the force behind the desire to acquire knowledge as a means of achieving recognition as an 'interesting' person."

"[Still] we persist in our efforts to contradict God, crazily choosing death over life, stasis over dynamism, domination over submission, power over surrender. But God refuses to let us have the last word in anything. And that is God's prerogative."

"Life driven by our desire for security, pleasure, and power dims the Light within us and introduces unnecessary mental and emotional sufferings, which are misconstrued as spiritual trials or the inevitable growth pains of the Spirit. This is erroneous discernment."

"The anxious striving for security, the vehement pursuit of physical and spiritual pleasure, and the desperate bid for power banish peace and joy, serenity and self-possession, gentleness, patience, and the other fruits of the Spirit. The gospel of Jesus Christ promises no relief, deliverance, or fulfillment for these self-inflicted maladies apart from full submission to the mind of Christ. They must be surgically uprooted in their very center, and the power to perform the operation is ours. It is not the stuff of circumstances that steals our Promethean fire but our incessant addictions, needs, and desires."

the 22nd week

Brandy, me, and my hideous excuse for a beard

Monday. I dreamt that the Wisconsinite and I were drunk with love for one another. I fight these fantasies by day but am helpless against them at night. But even if I had control over my dreams, I don’t think I’d have it in me to end them when they came. I like them too much. A taste of what I want but can’t have. How can you miss what you never had? I’ve made out, fooled around, had sex; but nothing made me feel the way her hand in mine made me feel. Is that normal? Am I sane? I look back through my journals since 2009, and she’s there AGAIN and AGAIN. I’ve never been able to forget her; will an increased effort change anything? On that haunted trail with her in my arms, I thought God was FINALLY answering my prayers. It seems he wasn’t. Another disappointment, another scar; all I can do is keep hoping, praying, waiting. God says he answers our cries when we’re persistent. I’ll put that to the test. I’m going to badger him until it’s torturous to keep listening. My prayers is that God will crush all my love for her and bring me someone just as awesome as her (not better than her, because, come on, let’s be realistic).

Tuesday. I worked 6:30-1:00. On my way to The Anchor I stopped by UDF and ran into Ams. I handed her the house key and went on my way. They’d waxed the floor, so I couldn’t sit in “my” booth. I almost left! But the other room was empty, so I made do in the corner. When I got home I found Ams doing homework. We played Call of Duty and watched episodes of SVU and I made chicken and a baked potato for dinner.

Wednesday. I covered Sarah’s Food Prep shift, and we were crazy busy all day. I spent a hot minute at The Anchor after work, then headed over to Amos’. We played Mario-Kart and watched Doctor Who. Ferocious rains came, and I headed home in a dark and eerie downpour.

Thursday. Eric & I opened, and I spent the afternoon reading: finished both Stokesbury’s A Short History of World War One and Shaara’s To The Last Man. I went to The Anchor before picking up Amos for Small Group. Tiffany fixed a dinner of hot dogs and mac-&-cheese, and Amos and I contributed a veggie tray and a roasted chicken from Kroger.

Friday. I opened with Isaac. Sarah brought in some homemade oil to make the day easier. Bob’s truck was towed and Brandon scrambled with a catering order. We closed the shop at 2 PM and had a Store Meeting, talking about all the renovations happening this weekend. We were going to “volunteer,” but Bob wisely hired professionals to do all the work. Hammering rains swept downtown, and Amos and I retired to his place for a night of grilling out with John & Brandy, Andy & Ams, and Blake & Traci.

Saturday. I’m writing this in a crouched position not unlike that of a World War One soldier writing love letters on his last day alive. My day was spent deep-cleaning and doing laundry in Dayton. Driving around my old hometown, I was overcome with nostalgia for those days with Jessica and Carly. Jessica’s dating an Air Force guy now, and they’re pretty serious, cohabitation and all. Carly’s doing who-knows-what. It struck me that all those memories were two years ago. I sent Carly a message on Facebook to see if she wanted to hang out sometime. That was two weeks ago, and no reply. I don’t blame her: a lot has happened in the past two years, at least for them. My group of friends remains virtually the same (a testament to the durability and quality of such friendships), and I’m doing the same old thing. I can’t keep letting nostalgia get the best of me, and Facebook doesn’t help: it’s all too easy to ruminate, and rumination gets the best of me nine times out of ten. My life can’t be wrapped up in my past. It’s one of my biggest weaknesses.

Mother’s day. I went to The Anchor before grabbing lunch at Dusmesh with Amos. Ams joined us at his place for Mario-Kart, and then she followed me home. We hung out with Blake, did some grocery shopping at the Kroger down the street, and had baked potatoes, corn, and pasta for dinner while watching SVU. Mom cancelled our Mother’s Day plans.

on historical fiction (III)

The last time I had an historical fiction update was way back in October. I haven't done much fiction reading as of late, have been plowing through books on the French and Indian War. However, I've staked out some decent leisure time and have allowed myself to indulge reading without underlining or note-taking. I can actually get through a chapter a night instead of a chapter every week! I'm still running with the scheme from October, pairing historical fiction with historical nonfiction. I've been reading up on the Great War (a.k.a. World War One). It's a fascinating war for all sorts of reasons, and bloody, too. Although the death toll seems not-so-bad in comparison to the war that would come two decades later, it was still a damned bloody war with the death toll in the millions. World War One marks the beginning of submarine warfare and the use of aeroplanes in combat. 

The historical fiction I chose was Jeff Shaara's To the Last Man (the mystic monk Rasputin commented that if war were to break out in 1914, it'd be a war down "to the last man", which I'm positive Shaara's referencing). Shaara writes almost strictly from an American point-of-view, so the first half of the book follows the war through the exploits of the American fighter pilots in the Lafayette Escadrille. The second half of the book follows the exploits of the American soldiers on the western front; the war was almost over when the United States leapt onto the scene, and grudgingly-so; Wilson ran a presidential campaign based on the slogan "Too Proud to Fight" (whatever the hell that means) and with his achievement of keeping the United States out of war. Reelected, what does he go and do? Join the war. He's a lame duck, who can blame him?

The second book is Stokesbury's A Short History of World War One. Stokesbury's little book takes the wide sweep of the war and condenses it to a mere few hundred pages. He examines different aspects of the war in different chapters, zeroing in on things such as submarine warfare and the emergence of aerial combat, but overall he simply gives a chronology of the war through the biggest battles. It's a great starter, I'd say, for anyone interested in the war. The next few books I have on the lineup go into more detail, and I'm looking forward to reading them paired with fictional novels (and I may or may not read All Quiet on the Western Front, just because it's so damned cliche).

the importance of being foolish (II)

Chapter Two: Transparency

"To have the mind of Christ Jesus, to think his thoughts, share his ideals, dream his dreams, throb with his desires, replace our natural responses to persons and situations with the concern of Jesus, and make the mind-set of Christ so completely our own that 'the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me' (Galatians 2:20), is not the secret of or the shortcut to transparency. It is transparency."

"The endless struggle for enough money, good feelings, and prestige yields a rich harvest of worry, frustration, suspicion, anger, jealousy, anxiety, fear, resentment. These powerful, emotion-backed desires cause 99 percent of the self-inflicted and unnecessary suffering in our lives. They continually focus our attention on self and keep us from being transparent, dimming the light and obscuring 'the glory of God in the face of Christ' (2 Corinthians 4.6)."

"It is the ego-dominated self that keeps us locked in a series of competitive moves and countermoves, that induces us to manipulate people and control situations, that for most of us destroys inner peace and serenity in our lives. Trapped in the quest for security, pleasure, and power, our moment-to-moment thoughts are concentrated on the dark pursuit of illusory happiness, and we are thus inattentive to the Lord of Light. Our eyes are not fixed on Christ Jesus but on ourselves. We settle for a roller-coaster ride of exhilarating peaks and vertiginous valleys, interspersed with long periods of driving, pushing, and suffering in various degrees."

"The anxious, darting, filmy eyes of many Christians are the manifestations of a heart beclouded by the worries of the world. The translucent eyes of others radiate the simplicity and joy of a heart fixed on Jesus Christ, the Light of the World."

"[Jesus] pours out the Holy Spirit to form the holy People of God, a community of prophets and lovers who will surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who will live in ever greater fidelity to the shattering, omnipresent Word, who will enter into the center of all that is, into the very heart and mystery of God, into the center of that flame that consumes and purifies and sets all aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant love."

"The church-at-large still scans the horizon awaiting the fiery glow of the new Pentecost. The Communist who accepts Karl Marx but not his doctrine is scarcely different from the Christian who accepts Jesus Christ but refuses to shape his life according to Christ's teaching... Paul's cheeks are still streaked because of the tepidity, rank insincerity, spiritual adultery, indifference to prayer, and apostolic sloth that dapple the Christian life in America today."

"[Jesus'] message is not a reassurance to keep right on doing what we've been doing, but, writes Edward O'Connor, 'a summons to the labor of eliminating from our lives, faithfully and perseveringly, everything in us that is opposed to the work and the will of his Holy Spirit for us... Whenever faith is accepted merely as a closed system of well-defined doctrines, we lost contact with the living God. The faith that saves is a surrender to God."

"The gospel presses us to painful honesty. If nothing else, we ought to be sincere. Get out and pant with the moneymaking street, become hedonists, and 'eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we will die,' or repent and turn to the spirit of the gospel."

"'What the gospel of Jesus Christ offers us,' Thomas Merton observes, 'is not a false peace which enables us to avoid the implacable light of judgment, but the grace to courageously accept the bitter truth that is revealed to us; to abandon our inertia, our egoism, and submit entirely to the demands of the Spirit, praying earnestly for help, and giving ourselves generously to every effort asked of us by God.'"

"Saint Augustine complained, 'Many who had already come close on the way to believing are frightened away by the bad lives of evil and false Christians. How many, my brothers, do you think there are who want to become Christians but are put off by the evil ways of Christians?' If the searcher after truth finds Christians to be just as self-absorbed, guilt-ridden, hopeless, unsure of their foundations, and haunted by the same fears as he is, just as much at sea in an alien environment, and just as perplexed generally, it is small wonder that he feels no attraction to the church."

Manning quotes a 23-year-old woman doing graduate work in Paris: "To me a Christian is either a man who lives in Christ or a phony. You Christians do not appreciate that it is on this--the almost external testimony that you give of God--that we judge you. You ought to radiate Christ. Your faith ought to flow out to us like a river of life. You ought to infect us with a love for him. It is then that God who was impossible becomes possible for the atheist and for those of us whose faith is wavering. We cannot help being struck, upset, and confused by a Christian who is truly Christlike. And we do not forgive him when he fails to be."

"We will never move people to Jesus Christ and the gospel merely by making speeches about them. Edward Schillebeeckx is blunt: 'People, to put it bluntly, have had their bellyful of sermonizing. They want a source of strength for their lives. We can only recommend this strength by making it actively present in our own lives.' Contact with Christians should be an experience that proves to people that the gospel is a power that transforms the whole of life. Instead, our presence in the world is often marked by rank insincerity, a dilution of grace, and a failure to act on the Word."

"'It is not uncommon,' as Ralph Martin notes, 'for many Christians to have a seriously incomplete idea of what the Scriptures say about Jesus Christ. Many have a vague idea of Jesus as 'a good guy' who helped the poor and told people to love one another. They operated with a fuzzy, almost symbolic notion of Jesus as the symbol for a liberal's idea of goodness.' Those who say, 'Jesus would never hurt anyone,' often mean to rule out the possibility that he would ever ask someone to repent or go through the pain of recognizing his brokenness. To believe that all Jesus calls us to is to be nice to each other is to substitute the Christ of Christian humanism for the Christ of Saint Paul..."

"[The Christ we see in Hebrews] is no Christ the humanitarian, Christ the master of interpersonal relationships, or Christ the buddy. It is Christ the Lord and Savior who calls us to repent, change our lives, and strike out in a new direction... [When we see Christ as Christ the humanitarian, a] loose goodwill toward the world replaces the radical conversion and explicit death to self that the gospel demands... The tone of the Christ of God is not always sweet and consoling. The gospel is the Good News of gratuitous salvation, but it does not promise a picnic on a green lawn."

"There is nobody in the Christian community who is not called to continual conversion. There is no one who does not still have before him the labor of building up the image of Jesus Christ in his life by the steady practice, day by day, of Christian virtues."

"[Christianity] comprises more than involvement in human rights struggles, environmental causes, or peace programs. Fullness of life in the Spirit is more than finding Christ in others and serving him there. It is a summons to personal holiness, ongoing conversion, and new creation through union with Christ Jesus."

"Jesus does not say, 'Come to a day of renewal, a retreat, a prayer meeting, a liturgy,' but 'come to me.' Is this the self-flattering superiority of a religious fanatic? Yes, if he is not the Savior of the world. He is either an egoist or the Risen Lord who must be proclaimed as the world's only hope."

"The Christ of Paul was not merely a great teacher, an example of a great man, or a symbol of man's noblest aspirations; he was Lord and Savior. To reinterpret Jesus any other way is to bleed Christianity of its point."

[locomotive breath]

I heard this come on the radio while driving downtown.

Ams and I used to take tennis rackets and play them like guitars and sing this song.

We looked about as awesome as you'd think we looked. 

In the shuffling madness of the locomotive breath

runs the all-time loser, headlong to his death.

He feels the piston scraping, steam breaking on his brow.

Old Charlie stole the hand and the train won't stop going,

no way to slow down.

He sees his children jumping off at the stations one-by-one.

His woman his best friend, in bed and having fun.

He's crawling down the corridor on his hands and knees.

Old Charlie stole the handle and the train won't stop going,

no way to slow down.

[Kickass Flute Solo]

He hears the silence howling, catches angels as they fall.

And the all-time winner has got him by the balls.

He picks up Gideon's Bible, open at page one.

God stole the handle and the train won't stop going down,

no way to slow down.

the new legalism (II)

My greatest dream (barring even paleontology!) is to get married and raise a family, to be the best husband and best father I can be. Thanks to the New Legalism, that isn't good enough, and I've been made to feel bad about it. I can't help but wonder why such a dream, to stay with my wife and raise my kids to love God and to be good human beings, isn't good enough in a world littered with fractured families and neglected children. I can't help but wonder what Paul, who urged the Christians in Thessalonika to "live quietly, mind their own affairs, and work with their hands," would have to say about all this. 

The New Legalism is wrong.

You don't have to do radical things for God.

You don't have to change the world for the kingdom.

You don't have to become a missionary to Africa.

"Fear God and keep his commandments," Ecclesiastes 12 tells us, "for this is the whole duty of man." There it is; we can stop supplementing. God's told us what he requires of us in Micah 6.8: "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God". How many peoples' lives have been stained with guilt because they weren't doing radical things for God, changing the world for the kingdom, or digging wells and preaching the gospel in sub-saharan Africa? How many of us bible college graduates who went on to work ordinary lives have felt guilt when we hear of our former colleagues baptizing dozens, preaching at church conferences, and recording studio albums? 

Some time ago one of my friends got married. He'd gone to bible college for urban and intercultural ministry. He found a girl, they fell in love, and she didn't want to go to Africa. She wanted to settle down, have kids, be a mother. He decided to marry her, and she got pregnant, and he compromised with God: "I'll get around to Africa someday. Once the kids are grown up and out of the house, maybe then I'll be able to do what you want me to do." He confesses guilt for getting married and settling down; he fears he's strayed from the path God set out for him. How is marriage and raising a family in the faith any less radical, difficult, or exciting than ministry in Africa? How is the ministry of the head of the household sub-par to relief work in Africa? One of the most precious gifts of God--a loving spouse and a family--is charred with guilt and subtle shame. Something to be cherished and enjoyed for all its worth and richness becomes a hindrance to one's spiritual growth and love for God. 

It's bullshit.

Plain and simple bullshit.

And yet it's preached all the time.

I heard it SO OFTEN in college. 

It was practically gospel.

But, unlike the gospel, it's pure bullshit. There's no reason for my friend not to enjoy what God has given him, no reason for him not to embrace what he's been given as a divinely-orchestrated purpose, no reason for him to not dedicate his life to being a husband and a father. Likewise, there's no reason for me to feel like I'm living outside God's favor simply because things my life doesn't look like I thought it would. I thought I'd be married, have a kid or two, and be working at a church by age 26. Instead I'm single, co-running an independent coffee shop and getting paid far less than I should be, and I'm not involved in "church" anymore than once or twice a week. When I went to bible college, I assumed that if I stayed on track with God and what he wanted from me, things would pan out as I wanted: he'd bring me wife, he'd bless me with a family, he'd get me into a church. Because none of that came to pass, it's easy for me to assume that I have indeed gone off track, that I've fallen short of God's will for my life, that I have a lot of work and striving to do before I get where I need to be. When I'm finally pleasing God again, he'll bring all those things to pass. He'll bring me a wife. He'll bless me with a family. He'll get me into professional ministry.

But, again: that's bullshit. Perhaps those years where I was constantly involved in church, stretching myself thin, barely able to breathe but loving every minute of it, perhaps that season has ended and another has begun. This season is different, but it doesn't mean it's any worse. I don't have to keep striving for God's approval, measuring his displeasure against contrasting what I hoped life would look like with what life actually looks like. There's no reason for me to feel like I've "fucked it up," because I haven't. Things just look different than I thought they would. Life has its seasons, and this is one of them. The past, that was another. And the future will have all its own seasons; I can't begin to imagine that I can predict what will happen (I don't have a good track record). 

What is it that God desires of me?

"To do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."

God desires that I believe in him and grow in him.

God desires that I become the person he wants me to be.

And that "person" isn't characterized by accomplishments or resumes.

It's about the kind of person I am.

That's God's number one concern.

When I visited C.C.U. before deciding to enroll my freshman year, Mom told me that a wave of peace came over her, that she heard God telling her that this was where he wanted me to go. I was comfortable with it enough, not too excited about the fact that I'd be around people all the time, but it was smaller than Cedarville (and the square-shaped classrooms had lots of corner seats; I checked). I assumed that God's "stamp of approval" meant that he wanted me to go to C.C.U. because it would be there that my life would really get rolling: I'd find "The One," we'd get married and have some babies, and with my degree, I'd become a pastor. None of that happened, and the degree's been worthless so far, so I'm asking, "Why would God want me to go there?" I wonder how things would've been different had I gone to Cedarville, my original plan. But perhaps that wasn't God's point all along: I went to a school where I learned a lot about him, had my carefully-wrapped faith unwrapped and torn apart and turned into something fuller, more beautiful. Most of my friends are fuckshows like me, and I know most of them from college. Maybe God was like, "You're too weird for normal people, and this school has a lot of weirdos, so you'll make lots of great friends." Maybe God knew that there would be some hard years ahead, and he wanted to make sure I didn't go through them alone, so he directed me to C.C.U. where I'd meet and love so many great people who would get me through so much: John, Monica, Caleb, Emily, Jessica, Jessie, the Wisconsinite, just to name a few. Or maybe Mom just wanted me 45 minutes away. Really, I'll never know.

The point of all this being, just because life doesn't look like I thought it would doesn't mean that I've gone "off-track," that I've somehow screwed the pooch (is it weird that I just thought of Clover?). Although I don't always see it, I'm surrounded by blessings. One of the things Mo couldn't believe was the sort of family and friends I have: "You guys really, genuinely love one another. You're like the only group of friends I know who are unconditionally loving and caring towards one another." She couldn't get over my relationship with my sister: "No one else I know is like that, you guys hang out like every day!" Really, I'm immersed in blessings; the evidence of God's love is all around me; and the more I think about it, the more thankful I become, the more I feel praise welling up inside me. 

My greatest dream remains what it's always been.

I can't change that. I've tried, and repeatedly failed.

It's part of who I am, and, I hope, part of who God wants me to be.

But the absence of what I want doesn't indicate that I'm displeasing God.

So long as I'm faithful and growing in Christ, I'm pleasing God.

And, in that, there's both freedom and relief.