from Blue Ash

Just because.

In these twilight days of 600 Vine, I've been picking up as many hours as I can at Walk of Joy. After this coming Friday, I won't have any days off until early May (unless the cafe shuts down earlier than that, which is a distinct possibility). Although it's exhausting, I don't mind working so many hours, for three reasons: (a) the extra money will pad my "Wisconsin Fund" quite well, (2) I have a job where I make peoples' lives better, and (3) work is a joy. I find it funny that back when I worked at I.G.A. "in the days of my youth", I would find any and every reason to call off work. Now such a thing is unimaginable to me, and I cover peoples' shifts and work extra hard simply because it's the right thing to do. I don't know if this is a bad thing or not, but I'm proud of my work ethic. I remember an old friend pointing out that the hand of God was seen in Joseph's life as he kept getting more and more work piled on his shoulders; my friend quipped, "God often blesses men and shows them His favor by giving them more work to do." God has indeed blessed me, and He's shown me favor, though I so much don't deserve it. (It's called grace)

I've finished two nonfiction books on The French & Indian War:

The War that Made America and (an unoriginal title) The French & Indian War.

Now I'm starting Allan Eckert's Wilderness Empire.

Guess what it's about? You guessed it! The French & Indian War.

Speculating "What If?" when it comes to history can be fun. After the Treaty of Paris 1763, France retained New Orleans and Louisiana. Since Spain came to France's aid in the war's last moments and ended up losing all sorts of territories and gaining nothing, France threw Spain a bone and gave them Louisiana and New Orleans. About forty years later, Napoleon Bonaparte set his teeth against Spain and convinced them to give Louisiana and New Orleans back. Napoleon, in turn, sold the territory dirt cheap to the burgeoning United States since the Americans were ancy along the Mississippi and wanted to move west. The speculation comes here: during the formulation of the treaty, Great Britain had to give something up to France in order to get back Minorca, the Mediterranean island stronghold France had taken early in the war, an island which largely determined who ruled the Mediterranean Sea. Great Britain desperately wanted the island back, and they knew they'd have to give up either their conquests in Canada or the sugar-rich West Indies. Thus it became a matter of "Do we give up land? Or do we give up trade?" Great Britain decided to return West Indian conquests in order to get Minorca back in their hands. Now: following Great Britain's victorious war, which truly turned them into an empire, the nation found itself HUGELY in debt because of William Pitt's extravagant spending. Great Britain had to start paying on the debt, and so they jacked up taxes not just in England but also in their American colonies (and they did this absent assumed legitimacy from colonial legislatures). Much of the unrest leading to the American Revolution fermented over these taxes; because France had been expunged from the continent, the "check" of New France no longer remained in the picture (when New France had been in Canada, the colonists knew they needed redcoats to protect them from any imperialistic leanings of Catholic France to the north). Thus both colonial unrest over taxes and the absence of the French to the north propelled the colonists to rebellion (this is simplifying it more than a bit, but still...). But, what if Great Britain had chosen to keep their West Indian conquests and hand back Canada? The lucrative sugar trade from the Caribbean could've helped pay back the war debts, perhaps keeping the colonists from being so heavily taxed; and France's presence in Canada would've served as a bulwark against revolution. It may very well be that Great Britain's choice to keep Canada and return to France the West Indian conquests set itself up for revolution. This isn't just my own speculation: even the royal governor of Massachusetts made such a deduction long before war in the colonies broke out.

I'm sure every one of my readers skimmed that paragraph.

That's totally okay: it was more a rambling than anything else.

Mandy may have read it, but just to be nice.

Speaking of the Wisconsinite, I got to see her twice yesterday! IN PERSON! It really is noteworthy. Every time I see her face-to-face, I'm still to this day stricken by her beauty, as if I somehow forgot how beautiful she is. It feels like we've been dating a lot longer than we've technically been together, and I think it's because I've known her for years, and my affection, care, and love is as if we've been together half a decade. Even when we weren't together, even talking about being together, I was more open and honest with her than anyone else, confiding my feelings and fears, opening my life to her, sharing myself with her. Those are all aspects of what "dating" is about, and though we didn't have the title, or the intention of dating, nevertheless we grew close in that way. I think that's why it's so easy for me to talk about marrying her and spending my life with her when we've only been officially together for two months. Marriage isn't something I take lightly, and my exes know me as the one who wouldn't say "I love you", much less talk marriage and children of all things. But with the Wisconsinite, it's an entirely different story.

We're going to be hanging out Thursday.

And Friday.

And Saturday.

And even a little bit Sunday!

I can't wait till we get to hang out every day.

I'm at Blue Ash and my replacement just arrived.

So I'm calling this posts quits.

#ttyl

[books i've been reading]

The French & Indian War doesn’t stand on its own, but is the North American theater of the epic Seven Years War that all but tore the world apart at the seams, taking just under 1.5 million lives in its duration. Samuel Eliot Morison, awed at the Seven Years War’s global scope, remarked, “This should really have been called the First World War.” The Seven Years War would span the globe, comprising four different theaters under their own names: the Pomeranian War (fought in Sweden and Prussia), the Third Carnatic War (fought on the Indian subcontinent), the Third Silesia War (fought in Prussia and Austria), and the French and Indian War (fought in North America). Every major European power took up arms across four continents: North America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Tensions between the European powers hadn’t been resolved at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle terminating the last war, and the tensions only broiled. The eruption came in the Pennsylvanian backcountry due to the inexperience and ineptitude of a relatively-unknown Virginian provincial named George Washington.

Because the French had retained Fortress Louisbourg following the conclusion of the War of the Austrian Succession, Great Britain countered its presence by building a fortified town and navy base at Halifax in Nova Scotia. The French countered this move by building two new forts of their own at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. Simultaneously, to the west beyond the Alleghenies, Virginian land speculators coveted the rich and fertile Ohio River Valley. The colony of Virginia claimed the land belonged to her; New France adamantly insisted the land belonged to them. The land, of course, was already taken by vast numbers of native Americans, and both the French and English wrestled for the benefits of trade with the indigenous peoples. As English traders flooded the Ohio River Valley, the French began erecting new forts in the interior, the biggest being Fort Duquesne at the Forks of the Ohio. The British interpreted this as a French attempt to strangle English trade and stifle British expansion beyond the Alleghenies. In 1754, the governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, sought to expel the French from the Forks of the Ohio. He sent a small detachment of colonial troops, led by a young George Washington, to force the French to abandon their pet project at Fort Duquesne. Washington blundered by ambushing and wiping out a small French patrol which, as it turns out, was actually a peace envoy en route to deliberate with Washington. Washington, realizing with horror his mistake, retreated with the main French force hot on his heels. He hastily constructed a wooden fort, dubbed Fort Necessity, to try and repel the French assault. The French, aided by their Indian allies, were too much for Washington’s small force, and he had no choice but to surrender, and he did so on July 4^th of 1754. In his capitulation he signed a French document in which he admitted to “assassinating” a French peace diplomat. At this time, such a declaration was a causus belli for war.

Tensions between the European powers had been in delicate limbo since the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and Washington’s blunder in the dark forest of Pennsylvania served as the catalyst for the eruption of the world’s first true world war. The next year, 1755, the British sent troops and supplies across the Atlantic to seize the interior from the French. The British were successful in taking the forts at the head of the Bay of Fundy, and they deported the Acadian French still living in Nova Scotia, hardening the resolve of the sympathetic Canadians. British victory in the north was offset by disaster in the west: an expedition to destroy the French at Fort Duquesne, led by General Edward Braddock, was all but annihilated in an ambush orchestrated by the French and their Indian allies. Braddock lost his life, and Washington took command, executing a hasty but orderly retreat. The expedition had only come within ten miles of Fort Duquesne before being waylaid. Braddock’s defeat emboldened the Shawnee and Lenni Lenape, and these natives began attacking colonial settlements in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The frontier rolled back to within 100 miles of Philadelphia as Indian savagery forced thousands to flee towards the coast to escape the tomahawk and keep their scalps. In 1756, the French captured the British fort on Lake Ontario, and they followed up that victory with another in 1757, seizing the British fort on Lake George.

Thus far Great Britain had been humiliated by the French, and a politician by the name of William Pitt swore he knew how to turn bitter defeat into sweet victory. The English people listened, and he focused on “America First” in the Seven Years’ War, redirecting the bulk of Great Britain’s efforts on ousting the French from North America. His program thrust Great Britain into massive debt, but he was able to turn the tide of war. In 1758, 45,000 British troops (half regulars and half colonial volunteers) set their teeth against 6800 French regulars and 2700 provincials, aided by their Indian allies. The French were even worse off than numbers tell, for the last year had been a bad one for crops, and they were on the brink of starvation; and as Pitt turned Great Britain’s focus onto North America, France expelled her energies on the war in Europe and in protecting her islands in the Caribbean. New France was virtually left on her own, and the war shifted as the spring of 1758 blossomed.

The French at Fort Duquesne were abandoned by their Indian allies. Unable to withstand the massive onslaught of British troops marching their way, the French blew up the fort and fled north. The British rebuilt the fort and renamed it Fort Pitt after William Pitt. That same year the British captured Louisbourg, opening the St. Lawrence for the capture of Quebec in 1759. With Quebec and Louisbourg in the sack, the British marched on Montreal in 1760, and overwhelmed by enemy forces, the Governor-General of New France had no choice but to surrender. The Seven Years War lasted for another three years, but the war in North America had all but reached an end (Indian uprisings following the surrender of their French allies waged on, but the colonists rejoiced knowing France’s grip on the continent had been expelled, and they were confident that nothing but good years lay ahead of them as English subjects). They were right… for a time.

But the war was expensive.

Someone had to pay for it.

And that meant taxes.

missional musings

One of the things I love most about my relationship with the Wisconsinite is how we're striving after being missional. The foundation of our relationship isn't shared interests, our abiding friendship, or even our deep and growing love. The foundation isn't anything as elementary as "feelings" but a shared mission. Our aim, to put it simply, is to reflect God's love in our love for one another; to pursue Christlikeness together; to live not for ourselves but for God's praise and glory; and to advance God's kingdom together in the spheres of life in which He has planted us. Because our relationship is, at the moment, constrained by distance, much of the nitty-gritty details of what this looks like and entails in day-to-day life remain to be explored, but that hasn't kept me (or us) from thinking, praying, and talking about what it will look like. 

At the same time, distance doesn't mean that we can't be missional now: we're not just missional in the fact that we pray together often, but we're missional, too, in that we encourage one another and promote one another in the ministries in which God has placed us. I seek to be a strength and support in her college ministry, and she has been that for me in my work with those with developmental disabilities. My ministry is stronger because she's a part of my life, and that's what you want in a missional relationship.

Mandy and I talk a lot about what we want life to "look like" when I finally get up to Wisconsin. I'm a "list" person, and topping my list of what it looks like, fleshed out, to be a missional couple--now as boyfriend and girlfriend, in the future as fiances, and then in marriage--has some key components. Prayer is a huge one. I'm a big advocate of prayer; I believe in "the power of prayer"--or, rather, in the power of the one to whom we pray. I envision Mandy and I not just praying together like we do now, but taking it to the next level--carving out time to spend together in deep, rich prayer, not just a couple-minute prayer before we go to bed. Hospitality is another big one; I want our future home to be one where people feel welcome, a warm home filled with friendship and laughter. Ministry is another big hitter. I don't know what ministries we'll find ourselves in as the years go by, but no matter where God has us, it's so important to me that we minister together. I'm excited about participating in her college ministry in whatever ways are appropriate, and I expect such participation in ministry to continue throughout our lives. On that note, the first ministry, when we get married, will be to one another; and then to our children; and then, and only then, to "vocational ministry." To invert that order is to transgress the will of God. The foundation of all this, of course, is a relationship centered on Christ; I see us reading scripture together, praying together, growing in Christ together. As the man it's my job (my mission, if you will) to be the forerunner in all this, and I'm excited to take on those responsibilities.

It all sounds very beautiful.

And it really is beautiful. 

But it won't be easy.

It'll be hard as hell.

Temptations will come at us. The world will try to throw us off course. Our own selfishness and sin will get in the way. Relationships expose our selfishness, our sin, the evil in our hearts. Mandy and I have both seen this. I study Ephesians 5, I envision my future life with Mandy in Wisconsin, I see the ideal and strive after it. I've always known the skeletal ins-and-outs of what it means for a husband to die to himself for his wife, but I've never been excited about it, at least not until Mandy came into the equation. I'm not excited about 'dying to myself'; I'm excited about serving and sacrificing for Mandy and her well-being. I know such death to self will be hard. It'll often be the last thing I want to do. And sometimes, lots of times, I won't do it, because of my selfishness and sin. I know this from experience: I fail all the time. I choose the wrong thing. And at such times I have no recourse but to confess my sin to God and repent.

A missional relationship isn't characterized most by praying together, reading scripture together, or even ministering together. These things are all great, they're wonderful, but there are so many Christian relationships where these things are present, but where the mission has been lost; and the reason is because of a lack of forgiveness and godly love. I'll sin against Mandy. She'll sin against me. And when that happens (not "if," but when), we mustn't hold grudges, we mustn't declare our innocence, we mustn't even pretend everything's okay. There needs to be confession and repentance. And a good dose of forgiveness. Therein lies one of the greatest pillars of a Christ-centered relationship that glorifies God and reflects His love to the world. To fail on that account is, quite simply, to fail.

03/16/14

On Sunday afternoons I've been going to parks around the city. Today's park: Mount Echo! I used to frolic there like a young deer in the days of my youth. The trails and views have become caked in memories, some good, others not so good. This afternoon I walked around in the chilly wind, snapping pictures on my IPhone and mulling over today's sermon at University Christian Church.

Anthony J. talked about the "privatization" of faith in American Christianity. The trumpeting of a "personal relationship with Jesus" has come at the expense of Christian community. The church has become peripheral at best and supplementary at worst. Sunday services or involvement in a church community is seen, in practice, as an "add on" to Christian faith. Christian community isn't to be religious theater, and the real grit and grime of the Christian life comes in community: carrying one another and being carried by others as we slug out what it means to be devoted to God in a world that has set its teeth against Him. 

The privatization of faith has, in its own way, made the litmus test of faith either (a) emotional feelings, or (b) intellectual prowess. We measure who has the most faith by these two standards: "Do I feel God's love for me? Do I feel a passion for Jesus? Do I feel Christ's forgiveness?" and "Have I thought this through? Can I make a good argument for my beliefs? Do I know why I believe what I do?" I've never really been "emotive" in my faith (emoticons aren't present in my written prayers); my devotion to God hasn't been founded on the way God's love makes me feel. I've always been more intellectual in my faith, and in rightly pointing out the flaws of using feelings as a litmus test for faith, I've been guilty of placing a breed of intellectualism in its place. Being an analytical and skeptical person, it irks me when people believe something but don't know why they believe it; such "irk" in my bones comes from my own predisposition and innerworkings rather than from an appreciation of genuine faith. The real litmus test for faith (the one put forth by Jesus and the Apostles) is obedience, endurance, and faithfulness over the long haul. How ones feels (or thinks) in the midst of that isn't the crux of faith.

A man who is brought to tears in worship, who feels a stirring in his heart at the name of Jesus, who feels the consolation of the Spirit in his prayers, but who doesn't live obediently before God, who doesn't even attempt to do so, has far less faith than the man who's seen as emotionally detached but who pursues conformity to Christ over every other pursuit. Likewise, the woman who can articulate her beliefs with poignancy and elegancy, who can demolish the arguments lifted against Christ's name, who can wow the masses with her intellect, but who clings to pride and refuses to surrender aspects of her life to Christ, has far less faith than the woman who pursues Jesus with everything she has but who can't tell you the names of the twelve disciples or expound on trinitarian theology. 

The point of all this: when we come before God on the Day of Judgment, he won't ask us what books we've read, how well we learned, or how much we felt; he will ask us, "Did you obey?" That is the crux of faith, to the point that faith and obedience are inseparable. You can't have one without the other. Faith absent obedience isn't faith at all, but an emotive concoction in the brain or a mental consent to a body of facts, theories, ideas and concepts. When Jesus looks upon his followers and says, "Well done, good and faithful servants," he won't be saying that based on our feelings or intellect, but upon how we lived our lives--did we truly surrender ourselves to him, truly devote ourselves to him, truly seek to obey him? One can have all the "marks" of the faith but lack true faith, as Jesus makes clear in the gospels; many will be surprised when Jesus says, "I never knew you," because they were convinced all along that they knew him and were known by him. There is a warning in this, a warning we would do well to heed. 

[sunday meditations]

1 PETER 1.13

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

All that St. Peter has written up to this point isn’t profitable merely for those whose interests are stirred in Christian eschatology. Peter isn’t writing to instruct but to remind, and he is writing to remind the Asian Christians so that they can live within the scope and framework of the Christian hope. The first step, obviously, is an act of the mind: putting the Christian hope at the forefront of one’s thinking. This is, essentially, what Peter says here. Using the connective, transitional word “therefore,” Peter is linking what he says here to all that has come before, and he is pointing back to verses 3-12 and demanding that the Christians fully set their hopes on future grace. This “future grace” isn’t so much a technical term as a blanket-term: future grace envelops all of Christian eschatology involving God’s people. The grace that Christians are to experience is precisely resurrection from the dead, glorification, and inheriting a new heavens and new earth—all which will happen at the revelation of King Jesus.

Depending on your translation, this verse reads several different ways. Some translations render all the Greek verbs here as imperatives (i.e. commands); however, the only imperative in the Greek text is, as the E.S.V. recognizes, the command to hope. That is what Peter demands that the Christians do. Preparing the mind for action and being sober-minded aren’t commands but descriptions of what this kind of hope looks like. It’s a description of how a Christian is to hope in future grace, and the two hinges upon which this hope swings are girding up the loins (the Greek is preserved in older translations; in more modern translations, such as we find here, the Greek phrase is rendered as “preparing the mind for action” or something along those lines) and being sober-minded. Both of these descriptors of hope shine the light towards what the Christian hope looks like in practice.

The Greek phrase about girding loins is lost on us 21^st-Century westerners. The language drew forth in its original hearers an image of men in long robes running full-speed ahead. Because the long robes would cause runners to trip, men would tuck their robes into their belts so that they could move faster without stumbling about (they would “gird” their loins). This phrase works on two levels. On one level, it speaks directly to the Christian duty of moving forward, advancing God’s kingdom, running the race set before us. Athletic imagery is common in the New Testament (since sports were as much a big deal, if not more-so, to ancient Greeks and Romans as they are to us today), and this phrase, while not explicitly athletic in nature, would echo such ideas. On another level, the language echoes the Passover narrative in Exodus 12. During the night of God’s final plague on Egypt, the Israelites smeared their doors with lambs’ blood. Once they were redeemed by the blood (the Passover story is where this language originates, and Peter will return to this in 1 Peter 1.19), the Israelites were ready to follow their God into the wilderness till he brought them to their inheritance (a familiar word: see 1.4). The inheritance was the Promised Land, the Land of Canaan, a land characterized by abundant food and resources (overflowing with milk & honey), and the Israelites needed to be dressed and ready to move.

It’s easy to miss out on the biblical echoes, and the echo of Passover is difficult to ascertain on first glance. However, when it is understood, the text comes alive: Christians, who have similarly been washed by the blood of the lamb (1.19), are to gird their loins just as the ancient Israelites did, so that they’ll be ready to launch into their inheritance, the new heavens and new earth (1.4). The universe is caught in tension between Easter and Consummation, between Egypt (enslavement) and the Promised Land (ultimate freedom). Christian hoping isn’t just sitting back and waiting for things to happen; it has about it the nature of preparedness, of anticipation, of longing and yearning, of being ready to go at a moment’s notice. It is an energized, purposeful, and active hoping.

Peter describes Christian hoping as a hope marked with a sober mind. Being sober-minded doesn’t refer to abstaining from alcohol; rather, it’s a metaphor, drawing upon alcoholic intoxication. When a person becomes drunk, his or her senses and perceptions are distorted, blurred, thrown off-kilter. Self-control becomes a laughable concept. In opposition to this, Christian hoping is to be marked by diligence, self-control, keeping the senses sharp and the perception even sharper. It may sound easy to do, but it’s quite easy to drift away into a dream-like state, not dissimilar from intoxication, where we focus on pleasure, career, and selfish pursuits over against God’s kingdom. It’s easy to cling to these things as if they were drugs, and to drink of them so deeply that our senses are dulled and our perceptions blunted. It isn’t difficult to lose focus. Christian hoping, however, must be focused; and it’s to be so focused that it’s marked by diligence and self-control in both thought and behavior: such a person monitors not just his or her actions but also his or her thoughts, worldviews, and perceptions. This focused hope leads to a focused life; such diligence of the mind results in a life that is markedly different from those manners of living which characterize life informed and consumed by the present evil age.

Carillon Park

of jumanji, nuclear war, and velociraptors

Guess what I'm watching right now?

Yup, you guessed it: Jumanji.

Are YOU game?!

The "word on the street" (or, rather, in the backroom) is that the cafe where I've sold my soul for the past three years will be closing in less than two months. No official word has come from the owner, but the rumor-giver is pretty knowledgeable and trustworthy, and there are too many consistent "little" details to make me think it's any sort of fabrication. In lieu of this I've been picking up hours left and right to try and make up for the hours I'm going to lose. In one day alone, much thanks to God, I was able to pick up at the least three extra shifts. Best case scenario is the cafe not closing, leaving me working like a madman over the next several months. I wouldn't mind the extra boost in income, and work really is a joyful experience for me, even if I feel exhausted at the end of the day. 

Remember that movie Flying Wild?

The one about the girl who teaches geese how to fly?

I've seen the preview like six times in a row just now.

I wouldn't mind seeing that movie again.

In a previous post I wrote about how I'm sort of stretching myself thin when it comes to "intellectual" pursuits. I'm not Benny Franklin, and such stretching only adds extra stress in my life. I've decided to cut some things out. At the top of the list? Rehashing Greek. I've enjoyed it, but the stress of trying to comprehend the Pauline epistles in one go is just too much. With that added weight off my shoulders, I already feel a bit more... relaxed. I'd still like to return to it at a later date (and if I end up getting my M.Div, that'll be a cherished, albeit excruciating, part of it), but for the moment I'm going to content myself with my ongoing studies in 1 Peter, my studies through the life of Christ, and essays on "colonial America", which I intend to dovetail into a series of "narrative histories" of the major battles of the American Revolution.

I'm such a dork. Like... seriously.

And I'm okay with it.

"Hey, Guys, I like to study even when I'm not in school!"

(I was quoting Ams' mockery of me)

Ams and Mandy H. came by the Hobbit Hole today. Since I'm working so much and quite literally don't have time to do my laundry, Ams offered to do my laundry at her place; I took her up on the offer, and the two of them came over from Bakewell, and we drank Rhinegeist Truth and sprawled out on the sofa and laughed hysterically like we always do. Mandy is heading out to Portland next month--like only a couple weeks from now--and we're going to have a "going-away" party before they go. I don't know how much of a party it will be. Maybe "party" isn't the best word. Get-together? Yeah, that's the word I'm looking for. With how much I'm working, just a "get-together" is a notable experience. Even this thirty minute get-together was somehow notable enough to make it to my blog.

Have you ever seen the movie Alaska?

The one about the kids and the ice and the polar bear?

No, me neither. And I don't plan on it.

Never give up! the boy wails. Never!

I'm betting the trailer's synopsis was as detailed as the movie itself.

The Wisconsinite is in Cincinnati this week, doing missions work down on State Avenue. I have a play-by-play of their activities through a schedule she sent me. Am I following along hour-to-hour? Yup, sure am. I may get to see her for a bit Monday after work (yep, I picked up a shift on my one day off each week; say hello to hell), and Thursday evening we're doing dinner with my parents, and Friday we're doing lunch with Ams, and Friday evening we're having a "romantic dinner" of sorts. I'm super looking forward to it, all of it, but mostly just looking forward to being with her in the same state and time zone and house and room. It'll be pretty great. LDRs sure do have their sucky moments--but they make "reunions" that much sweeter. Not that my girlfriend needs any help being sweeter, but, you know what I'm saying.

This post went REAL sappy REAL quick.

To assuage my readers, here's a picture of two things that terrify me:

nuclear war, and a world filled with velociraptors.