Resolved

These are some resolutions I wrote in 2009 during a class that lasted longer than my attention span.  I find them useful to reread.

Resolved: To never err on the side of caution where God has called me to take a risk

Resolved: to not speak poorly of others behind their back, and to only do so to their face when I believe will bring some good to them.

Resolved: to not let the personality or appearance of someone cause me hesitation in sharing the gospel with them.

Resolved: to try, as best as I can, to love all people.

Resolved: to weigh the profit of any task against its importance in eternity.

Resolved: to live, as well as I can, with my own mortality in mind.

Resolved: to never open my mouth in prayer if my motive is a selfish one.

Resolved: if (or rather, when) I fail any one of these resolutions, I will not doubt the great forgiveness found in the grace of God.

Resolved: to never treat the greatness of God as common place.

Resolved: to never waste emotions on inanimate objects or unchangeable
circumstances.

Resolved: to go through my possessions often and see if there is anything which I would be ashamed to hold before the eyes of God.

Resolved: to pair actions with my beliefs.

Resolved: to consider I may be wrong before any disagreement damages a relationship.

Resolved: when I am confronted with my own error, I will not value my pride over the recognition of truth.

Resolved: to never, as well as I can, trade something which is best for something which is merely good. 

Resolved: to read this list often, act on what I've written, and add to it when I can.

Resolved: To not let nameless, vague, irrational fears cause me hesitation in following through in God's will.

To love everyone. Regardless:

of their response
of their personality
of their race
of their usefulness to me
of their offences against me or anyone else
of their possibility of change
of the possibility of repayment 
of their character
of how annoying they are
of how incompatible we are
of whether or not they ever know how much I've done for them
of how I feel
of who else loves them
of how long it takes
of how capable of love I feel
of how many times they've failed 
of who knows

Thoughts on Morality

It seems to me that Christians ought to be the ones on the front lines of many more causes than we currently are, and perhaps less vocal about some of the issues that we are most marked for.  This seems to not only be true in our current culture, but it seems to be historically true. 

I know it is very easy to judge those who came before us for their moral inadequacies, but morality does not exist in retrospect.  Morality does not exist in future intentions either.  Morality exists in that liminal space between our minds and our hands – what we know and what we do about it.  It may be that the concept of stewardship that is so prevalent in the New Testament also applies to the knowledge we receive.  If we have been given much, we are expected to allocate that knowledge in a way that “turns a profit,” so to speak.  So rather than saying of previous generations that they were the height of hypocrisy for not seeing what we so clearly see, we ought to wonder why we do not see what we ought to see.  Certainly, we would not want our future generations to call us hypocrites for the multitude of paradoxes we are guilty of.  What if in thirty years, the inhumane practice of factory farming animals and the inhumane treatment of animals in testing cosmetics were so looked down upon that our entire generation despised us for not doing more to stop it?  What if our future generations judged us for doing this to the ocean? 

Or that there are approximately 27 million people in slavery in the world, and that every year there are 1 million children exploited for the commercial sex trade.  And even with all this, the people who claim to be not only made in the image of God, but are meant to be ambassadors of Jesus are more known for intolerance and judgment than championing the causes of the oppressed. 

I promise you, if the world saw a culture that fought harder for the poor than our government does, and fought more for justice than our courts do, and fought harder for freedom than our constitution does, the world would fall in love with the same Jesus we did.  Medicare, the broken foster care system, failed governmental run ecological systems – all of these things exist to the shame of the Christian church.  Why is the world fighting harder to take care of the poor than we are?  If true morality exists between what you know and what you do about it, then I challenge you – what are you going to do about it?   

That Nameless Quality

It would seem that after all the study of what character is and how it should be cultivated, every possible character quality would have a definite name.  But I have one to add that I have yet to find a name for.

I have breakfast with a group of men every Tuesday morning at 6:00am.  Each of these men are significantly older than I am - almost any one of them could be my father.  One of the reasons I need this time for my own growth as a person, is that each of them has this nameless quality that sits on the tip of my tongue, but avoids being pinned down with a single word.  

Let me describe it.

There seems to be a kind of restedness that comes with living a long and full life - A kind of settled wisdom.  It is the kind of settled wisdom that comes from having spent many years walking with God and having been forgiven of many faults and having seen provision in many ways, having been very, very wrong and still loved in spite of it.  It's the kind of calmness that says "I've seen this before...yeah...it's gonna be okay."  It's the peace that comes with experience.  It's the assurance that comes with having seen a lot.  

It's like anxiety and worry have given way to faith and peace.  If there is a word for this, I do not know it.  But this realization tells me that language is running as fast as it can to keep up with the depths of our pursuit of God, and that it is not doing well.  

Maybe it's best that it doesn't have a name.  Maybe, like the character quality itself, it is best to be experienced, rather than discussed.  Maybe language will always fall short of the depths of the human soul.  If so, that gives me great hope for the human soul.

Thoughts on Jesus and my Heart

*This idea, and most of its development, is due to Quinten Miller, in a conversation we had over breakfast this morning. 

  

The Christian idea that Jesus lives in your heart has always troubled me.  I know that it is meant to be poetic, and representative, and spiritually speaking, but still, it has always sat funny in my mind.  Allow me to be a bit critical for a moment – it has always seemed that if Jesus could fit in my heart, he is a very small Jesus, because my heart seems like a small place.  When I imagine the scene of Jesus moving into my heart, I imagine it looks something like this.

Me: “Hi Jesus, come on in…oh, you didn’t need to wipe your feet, but thanks anyway.  Woah, it got pretty cramped in here, didn’t it?  Lemme just…no, well if you…yeah, I’ll stand here and put my arm liiiike this…so then you have room to sit down on that corner right there.  There.  Comfortable?  No?  Sorry about that.  Can I get you something to drink?  Oh, I can’t quite get to the sink…oh, you brought living water?  That was nice of you.  Well.  This is….cozy…..*long pause*…..so…..you’re here for eternity huh?  …know any games?

To really understand the poetics of what happens when the idea of Jesus living inside us, we need to broaden our understanding of what our internal selves are.  Imagine the space you are in right now.  Move out to the building you are in and imagine the whole aerial view.  Picture the city block.  Move out again to the side of town.  Move out again the whole city with its surrounding cities.  Move out again to the view of the state as a whole.  The country.  The hemisphere.  The world.  Move out again to the solar system.  The galaxy.  You can’t even make out the speck that is the world you live on at this point.  Move out again where our galaxy is a small part within the surrounding galaxies, and further and further out. 

This is not simply an exercise in the grandiose or the awe inspiring or the sublime.  Come back to the room you are occupying right now.  Zoom in on your chest cavity.  Zoom in again on your lungs and internal organs.  Zoom in to the fluid that surrounds and maintains the environment that keeps you breathing without any conscious thought on your part.  Zoom in again on the droplets of fluid that keep you alive.  Zoom in again on the molecules that comprise that drop, and the smaller elements that comprise those molecules.  Even closer at the atoms that make up those elements. 

There is an infinity in both directions – outward and inward.  Socially speaking, we could give our lives and energies to developing the external infinity, the impact we can have on others or the affect we can have on the world.  We can put up a front of caring or empathy or a façade of love, and neglect the infinity that is our internal selves.  How many pastors or ministers have given their lives to ministry, only to wreck their marriages and compromise their integrity?  What good is it to give your life for a cause, when you have neglected the infinite inward self that makes up your soul? 

I now have a new understanding of what it means for Jesus to be inside my heart.  Here is what it looks like:

Fog is rolling in from somewhere in front of me.  It is quiet and dark where I’m standing.  I take one step and the sound of my foot goes out into the darkness and seems to never stop.  There are no markers for me to get my bearings, and there is so little light I can hardly see past the fog that my breath makes.  It’s cold.  I shout.  Jesus is supposed to be here somewhere.  I wave my hands around in a circle trying to feel for anything.  Suddenly, Jesus is next to me.

Jesus: “Hi Stephen.”

Me: “Hello Jesus.”

Jesus: “Do you know what I want to do in here?”

Me: “Live, I guess?  There’s more room in here I think, you’re welcome to set up camp wherever you like…”

Jesus: “Live?  Yeah, sure, we’re going to live, but what I’m really looking forward to, is turning everything you see into something.”

Me: “What are you going to turn it into?”

Jesus: “A garden.” 

Intelligence vs Imagination

Victor Hugo once said that intelligence it's your wife, while imagination is your mistress. I disagree, though not simply on moral grounds. I disagree with the disassociation between how we ought to think and how we prefer to think. Hugo's metaphor has in it a dutiful mode of seeing the world, and a more enjoyable, exciting, pleasing mode. I have not found this distinction to be true in my life. I find they are, indeed, separate things, and certainly one is more exciting than the other, but I find I require them both.  One is not a pleasure any more than the other is a duty.  
So here is many edit of Hugo's sentiment: intelligence is the ground we stand on, imagination is the air we breathe. I would no more think that I could build a city on air, than think I could breathe dirt. But I find I need them both to live.  The ground allows me to build, the air allows me to fly.  

Salvation

This one is a bit longer, but is a creative short story I've written.


"Salvation"

----------------------------

 “The usual?” 

Eyes down, I nod and push the bills across the counter. 

“Is that it for you sweety?  Sure I can’t get you anything else?”

“What?”

“Anything else for you this time?”

“Um…no.”  My eyes jump back and forth, not wanting to look at her—for her sake.  They dart back down to the counter. Back to safety.   

My corner seat is occupied by an old man with more grey hair than God.  He is reading a newspaper, so I force myself to glance around the room and find another chair.  I settle in an unfamiliar seat, closer than I wanted to be, but my laptop screen is a welcomed distraction.  I plug in my ear buds and the music of Frédéric Chopin flows up and covers the background noise. Just when I am just relaxing my shoulders and breathing deeply, I catch a motion on the edge of my view.  Before I can stop myself, I see a woman walking up to the door.  Unaware.  Happy to be so.  I shut my eyes quickly and squeeze the lids tightly so she won’t see the sneer written on me—I try to focus on nothing.  Turning the volume up, the wash of the music runs up and over my brain.  I close my eyes so that I, in ignorance, can let her walk past.  She swishes past my seat, unaware.  I open my eyes, hoping, wishing it is gone.  It never is.  Above her head is an illuminated sign.  Above everyone’s head is an illuminated sign.  I shouldn’t have looked up.  I know better than that.

 A police officer walks by the window from my right, one hand on his belt, the other shielding the sun from his eyes.  Over his head the same sign hangs—as wide as his shoulders, only a few inches above his head and neon words recounting things I wish I could un-see.  I shield my eyes from him and look back at my laptop, not wanting to know any more.  Focus!  On anything else, focus.  I pushed the ear buds further into my canals and they fire small bursts of pain, threatening to break through into the core of my mind.  If they did, at least it would go away.  I wish that just for one whole day I could let my eyes rest.  Let my mind rest.  When I first started seeing the signs, I read them all.  And why wouldn’t I?  Knowledge is power and mine was great.  A god in my mind, but a god with bones and blood—cracks in my hull.  Too much cargo for not enough ship, I sank to the oceans floor, held down by the knowledge of evil, gasping for a single bubble of air. 

The café is full now—fuller still for me.  Regrets.  Sins.  Failures.  Mistakes.  Darkness locked away inside their hearts so deep, even they acted like they were not there.  They’re all scattered around the room, crowding my senses.  It seems I can smell, even taste it all.  The putrid odor wafts around my head, threatening the thin walls of my skull.  I can hear the heavy pounding of judgment echo in this small room.  When I breathe through my mouth I can taste it—through my nose I can smell it—on my skin I can feel it—so heavy in the air I wade through it.  The overwhelming nausea makes me want to be alone again.  When I am alone, locked in my room, it is quieter, but still there.  Looming at the cracks of the door, the florescent light seeming to seep up through the floorboards like smoke.  I prefer it dark and quiet, but today is Tuesday, so I am here.  Tuesday is my day to breathe.

At that moment, within the chaos I have never grown accustomed to, I hear a stillness.  My eyes are closed, resting, and I can feel a soft, cool breath of wind pass across my face.  The air seems less thick and the smell subsides for one glorious moment.  Fresh.  Air.  My brow unknots itself and I suck in the fleeting wave of air.  I flutter my eyes open and look around the café.  She’s here earlier than usual--the girl, no more than 25.  She has a plain face, nothing remarkable that anyone else would see.  Anyone else.  Nothing remarkable, except that bubble of air.  I start in my seat, almost knocking my laptop to the ground.  Every Tuesday afternoon I wait for that bubble of air.  The only bubble I’ve ever found.  Her face does not sit under the sick fluorescent light.  Her face knows sunlight well and soaks it like a flower.  Above her head hangs no judgment.  I have watched her, envied her, hated her and wondered at her freedom.  Every week for the past nine months she has lunch with the same companion.  Six days I hold my breath.  One day I breathe.  Six.  Then one.  Glorious.  Breath. 

She is tall, for a girl, and has dark brown hair, straight and long and pulled into a ponytail.  It’s almost always in a ponytail.  She is wearing her blue blouse today, though I usually prefer the brown one—it matches her eyes and brings out her dark arms, long and slender.  As mine was, her normal seat is occupied—why is the café so full today?  I pull out my notebook, slouch down in my chair, continuing my notes.  “The Clean One arrived first, again” I scribble.  “She usually arrives first, but she is a little early today.”  As she waits, she reads.  She always reads while she waits for The Other.  Ten minutes go by and I keep making additions to my notebook.  Her companion arrives.  She is not so tall as The Clean One, and hair darker than coal.  She is usually late, but today she walks in quickly and sits down across from The Clean One.  They both meet here, every week, one hour.  Our tables are closer than usual, but above the hum of the general babble, I can’t make out their words.  

The notes I’ve taken are meticulous, but I feel they are still incomplete and missing some grand revelation.  Like a scientist observing a creature’s eating habits, I note everything.  The sounds around me turn to background clatter--the feature presentation is beginning, and I have the only seat in the house.  Her face is like a crack of daylight that pierces the catacombs I wander through.  The darkness in the room bends in midair and is drawn into oblivion.   

Until today I’ve seen them, exchanging smiles and nods and gestures.  They always read, pointing to parts of the book and interjecting, flipping through it like recipe cards.  Their conversation is muffled, like an argument you can hear through a wall, but their faces never made me think they were angry at each other.  She always has such patience with The Other.  She seems to be teaching her something, but as an equal.  She has a certain look of humility, calm and caring.  I scribble notes and channel all my attention towards the pair discussing and reading only two tables away from me.  “Today, they are more passionate.  The Clean One speaks, The Other interrupts with a hand gesture like a lawyer, The Clean One retorts.”  

I sit there, eyes flicking up and down, from my notebook to their faces and back down again to my notes.  They carry on like this for the next ten minutes and my hand gets cramped from writing. 

“Their behavior is peculiar today.  Earlier, they seemed to be wrestling with each other with their words, but now they are calm and quiet.  Both their heads are down and they seem to be talking, but I can hear nothing.  The Other has her head on the table she is convulsing, quietly and rhythmically, almost like she’s cr—“

My mouth slipped open and the scream came from the core of my stomach—my eyebrows seemed to come unhinged from my face—my eyes, so wide they might have fallen out, but were held in by sheer friction.  The entire café is frozen and stares in abhorrent shock.  The scream was slipping out of my throat and into the open air.  My ears understood what my mouth was doing before my brain did.  It lasted longer than a breath should have—much longer.  Both girls looked at me.  One.  Long.  Pause.  My ears, hot and heavy, resound the pounding of my heart.  I have no moisture to swallow.  The edges of my eyes pulse white with the increased pressure in my face.  The girl who was unclean sat there, mouth open and face flush.  The fluorescent sign, the gallows that loomed above her head was wiped away in one instant.  In one dramatic pass of some cosmic hand, it has been thrown into oblivion.  Where her sick glow was, I can see the open, clean air.  The darkness in the room is bent inwards towards them both now, and they seem to give off more than double the radiance.  The two, now Clean Ones sit, staring at me, horrified.  The moment that seemed to last an hour, that rushed to its climax in just one sick second, was over as quickly as it began. 

“My God!  What is wrong with you?!” 

It was the old man who was occupying my usual table.  His face was contorted into a bulldog’s anger and he seemed to shake back and forth as he breathed his heavy gasps of air.  He slammed one hand on his chest in a theatrical gesture.

“Son, you gave me a start!  What the Hell was that?!” 

“I…I’m not…sure.” 

The engine of my being is stalling and sputtering for something to fuel it, something of substance to feed off.  I have no answer.  I can’t even form the question.  As I turn back towards the two Clean Ones, I say aloud

“But I need to know too.”

Poetry Time

These are two short poems I have written.

"Pawn"

To my flanks are those like me,

first to fight and first blood shed.

Uniformed we stand together.

Behind me skills I can’t imagine,

moves and slides beyond my grasp.

Bound we trod, our pattern set,

my brothers follow, strength in numbers.

Death to those who rush ahead.

“Stay by me!” I shout in protest,

the hand controls the fate of all.

I see the danger, cry aloud,

god has stopped his ears this time.

I can’t fall back, the turn is done.

Omniscience sees a bigger plan,

he justifies the end and means.

And next:

"Peace-Made Man"

Silent night,

The air was still

The fog suspended mid-air.

Thirty-forth battalion crept

Along the edge of target.

Sergeant Lane

Determined quickly

Tonight would see the bloodshed,

Of some unholy target

Hiding in a foxhole.

Sights are raised,

Target seen,

Crouching in the distance.

Steady hand will find the bull,

The eye of villain target.

Through the fog,

And through the sights,

Sergeant sees the target.

Writing down the thoughts in mind,

No doubt, the pain of bloodshed.

Quickly falls

Determined valor,

A writer’s heart can see another.

Pain is equal on both sides.

Target is a man it seems.

War will make

A warrior-man,

But only peace can make a man.

Why destroy the peace-made man,

To make the man who targets man?