Dear Diary part.2

   DEAR Diary,

      Where have you gone? Where are you off to? Where are you going?

   I saw you last when I closed my eyes to sleep. I saw you last when I was at work. I saw you in memory. But where are you now?

   Oh, that's right! I left you somewhere along the way. I left you in my sleep. I left you in that fleeting thought at work. I left you in my memory, in a dream that faded with dawn.

   There was so much that I thought I might write in you but I couldn't find you in my thoughts.

   So here you are, Dear Diary. I found you like a man who reconciles with a friend. Let us go off together and play beneath the stars. Only stay with me through sleep and through my fleeting thought and through memory and dreams. Don't fade with the dawn. Stay near through the day.

Christian Thoughts #008: on "People Who Want My Attention"

  

  JESUS Christ was a real go-getter.

   I mean, He was a Man with a message and He knew that. So what did He do? Well, He both sought out people and allowed people to seek Him out. He talked with the woman at the well. He talked with the Roman centurion. He talked with the blind man. He talked with Nicodemus. He sought out lepers, tax collectors, future disciples and doubters while at the same time allowing Himself to be approached by children, scribes, religious leaders, people who were hurting, truth-seekers and otherwise people who had their own agenda.

   Now I don't know about you, but I find this immensely challenging, since--for the Christian--Jesus is our primary Example, our moral Examplar. His perfect life is one which we try to emulate, while the Holy Spirit transforms us inwardly to be more like Him. The fact that Christ is a moral Examplar is attested even outside of Christianity.

   I was reading a book entitled Batman and Philosophy: the Dark Knight of the Soul, which was written by several philosopher authors. There was a chapter in which even an unbelieving philosopher made the case that Christ is a moral Examplar. If this is true--which it certainly is--then even the way in which Jesus interacted with others, that is, seeking them out and allowing Himself to be sought out, is in iteself an example for us to follow. Christ as the greatest moral Examplar has left that for us.

   You're probably beginning to realize that this is a post for Christians. There's not much of a point in trying to be like Christ 1) without the Spirit of God working inwardly and 2) without reason--why want to be like Christ at all, if you're not a Christian, since living a good life will mean nothing when your's is over. Now if you have realized that Christ is good, then you must either deny that statement or follow it to its conclusion. Christ once asked a young man who called Him good: "Why do you call me good. There is no one good but God." Since all men are inherently evil and have a tendency toward sin, then Christ is either truly good and thus God or not good at all.

   As the late great Clive Staples Lewis said: "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."

   Are you ready to accept that view? Are you ready to believe that Jesus was and is the Son of God, that He was sent to die in your place, taking your punishment for your sins? Are you ready to believe that He died as He said He would, that He rose from the grave three days later as He said He would, and that you can have eternal life in placing your life under His Lordship, forsaking and repenting of your sins and trusting in Him to save you? If so, then you need to talk to God about it. Ask Him to forgive you. Ask Him to save you. Ask Him to become your Lord and Savior.

   With that said, back to the Christian.

   We were talking about Christ the moral Examplar providing the example of interacting with people in such a way which is friendly and welcoming. Jesus sought out others and allowed Himself to be sought out. He didn't fail to answer His door when someone came knocking, just because they're probably selling something. No, the people came to Him with their own agendas but He turned the questions on them and made them see what they really needed.

   Now it's one thing to talk about all this like theology and all, but what about practicality? Let me tell you about a real situation which has challenged me in this area. It seems like whenever I get a real thought going for some time or if I'm writing on something, a certain subject, then that subject is placed before me, usually as a challenge. I'm not sure why. Maybe God's just gracious enough to start preparing me mentally for something I'll soon be facing.

   Anyhow, at work there's this homeless man who comes in and orders a drink. He then gets refills and proceeds to hang out in the establishment all day long. Well, that's unfair. He hangs out for a few hours. There.

   Now that doesn't sound too bad, does it? It wouldn't be if that was all. No, the real trying thing about this guy--who some of my coworkers refer to as Beardy--this man is a conspiracy theorist. He's talked to me about everything: mircochips in the backs of hands, the government putting poison in food and drink on purpose, corporations using radio waves to know your thoughts, my own mother signing my birth certificate to enslave me to corporate fiction, charities being a method of mind control, Jesus Christ being a revolutationary who died only for the underdogs as a kind of inspiration for the lower class, that he could become his own god if he wanted to, and that churches are merely hateful country-clubs for of people who "smile at you but would just as soon stab you in the back". His own words.

   And this man is hungry for conversation. He prowls for it. He seeks it out. Once I was on eating dinner on our patio and he came out to talk to me, all through my break.

   What is my reaction to this man? Well, like pretty much everyone else I work with, I can't wait till he shuts up and gets out of my face.

   But hang on a minute, Moses, you Christian you. Is this how I'm supposed to interact with people who are just like the people who came to Christ: hurt, lonely, confused and acting with their own agenda? So what if he's annoying? So what if he's only trying to get me to buy into his thing? How can I act like my moral Examplar would?

   In actuality, this all kind of came to the forefront of my mind only tonight. Now sure, there may not be a Beardy where you work or live. But there are people who come to your door. There are solicitors in your area. You see that man or that woman standing on the island in the middle of the street by the turn lane with his or her sign. You see that someone selling something you don't need. You see that Mormon or JW headed for your door. You notice that person wandering the parking lot for loose change or a bite to eat. You may even know that these people have their own agenda.

   There's a song by the band 16 Horsepower with a lyric that goes: "Everyone want my attention, everybody got somethin to sell, 'cept you, yeah you..."

   And you know, these people may just want a hand out, or a listening ear, or money, or ease, or comfort, or duty, or whatever. They want you attention for whatever reason. But what did Christ do to people who had their own agenda? Ignore them? No! He made them see what they really needed. And in fact, He--thought of all thoughts--downright welcomed these people that were disgusting and annoying and full of their own agenda! He said "Come unto Me all you that are weary and burdened down, and I will give you rest!" Matthew 11:28

   There's a reason why Christ is always depicted as having arms reaching out. He reached out.

   So then how can you and I show them that what they really need is the Savior of the world? The next time someone wants your attention, don't waste the opportunity. We sometimes work real hard and go out of our way to get someone's attention. Why not use it when you have it, yeah?

   A haiku on the way out:

   Attention is rare
   So use it while you have it
   Before they don't care

Christian Thoughts #007: on "Tetris"

 

From Russia. With Fun! O rly?

 

   These multicolored blocks represented the frustrations of many a young gamer in my day. If you were fortunate enough to own a Gameboy or NES but daring enough to own a copy of Tetris--or maybe if you just happened to play it sometime--you know exactly what I'm talking about. Tetris is a game which plays upon a fundamental human fear.

   Tetris is probably one of the most recognized video games of all time. It is played by controlling and coordinating colored blocks on screen which are falling inexplicably downward. Once the blocks reach the bottom of the screen, they must form rows to be eliminated, otherwise they will build up, fill the screen and cause a game over.

   As the player proceeds through various levels, the blocks fall faster and faster, creating greater cause for error and greater cause for rage quitting. The player must be able to think quickly in order to keep forming rows out of the blocks. L-blocks, T-blocks and squigglies, and the rare and coveted line-piece, must be organized, and organized quickly. Really, the whole point of the game is organization.

   I mentioned that Tetris plays upon a fundamental human fear, which is this: the fear of disorganization.

   Think about it. All of our lives have been about putting things in order. Bank accounts order your money. Bills organize what you owe. Cellphones organize our phone numbers. Facebook organizes your social life. Folders organize your pictures, music, documents and videos. Vacations organize your time off. Clocks and calendars organize how you will spend your time. Friends (or lack of friends) organize what you do with your time. In your home, you have various rooms with certain designations, which are organized in that way. Check out the fridge lately? There is a lot of organization going on there. Even a messy person organizes their mess.

   On a larger scope, the government and our cities organize all kinds of things. Corporations are organized. Roads are organized. Laws are organized. Prisons are organized. Residential areas are organized. Hospitals are organized. Restaurants are organized. Schools are organized. Everything is organized in science, biology, physics, astronomy. Learning is all about categorizing things you've learned into their respective groups.

   All of our lives are full of organization. We treasure it. We need it.

   Things which through our lives into disorder are things which we avoid. Unexpected accidents and bills. Natural disasters. Power outages. Running out of gas on the way to work. But there are ways to even get around things like these. You've maybe got a savings account for emergencies, a spare tire in your trunk, an emergency contact, a flashlight and batteries in the closet for those power outages.

   Yet for all of our plans, there is really one thing that does not quite fit into our well-organized lives. That is: God.

   Oh sure, many of us make time for God-stuff on Sundays and such. Church can fit into our organized lives. But I'm not talking about church. I'm talking about God Almighty. And there is no way to fit His infinitude into our organized lives.

   Certainly many religions and religious groups exist for the sole purpose of trying to fit their concepts of 'god' into our lives. But what you end up with is a compact, silly idea of God either being uninterested in human affairs, or as being to impotent to be of assistance, or of just plain being your bestest bud in the universe. The REAL God simply doesn't categorize like that and there's no way of rationalizing Him into our address books, calendars or sciences. That's why no amount of religious jargon can ever fully explain what it must be like to be three Persons in one God or just why God began all of history or really why He loves us little things at all.

   God does as He wills, as He sees fit according to His wisdom and counsel. There's nothing you or I can do about it. We can only rest upon the truths that God is good and that God does things for a reason. God's nature is something infinitely beyond our grasp. God's actions are enacted with purposes we couldn't dream of. God's essence is unlike anything we know. God's goodness is a goodness which we can hardly comprehend. God's justice and holiness are concepts we're hardly fully aware of. And we could go on talking like this for ours, talking about an everlasting Life, an infinite Mind, an all-encompassing Love in an Almighty God... talking about all this without even batting an eye.

   I'm steadily learning this since I began teaching our college-age Bible study in systematic theology. The sheer inability of human words to not only attempt to describe God but to actually explain Him reminds me of the apostle's own words, when he tells of a man who was caught up to heaven and saw things that could not be explained.

   Tetris blocks may be easy to fit together, but the Lord of Heaven is not so easily fit-able. If it seems to you that He is, if it seems as if God easily fits together in your mind, that you're somehow comfortable His Being which is so much higher, holier, greater, alien, infinite and lovelier than ours, then you need to look at Him as He really is.

   When the original biblical peoples saw God, they were terrified, humbled, aghast at their own inabilities and ineptitude. When Adam and Eve sinned, they hid from the presence of God. When Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the LORD, he was left bested, beaten and begging. When Israel stood before the burning mountain of fire, they cried out in terror. When the apostles saw the transfigured Christ, they were struck with awe. When John saw the vision of the risen Christ in the Apocalypse, he fell as one dead. Why? Because God was too much. He didn't fit. There was nothing like Him they had ever dreamed of. He is something that was beyond them, beyond their organized lives and their organized thoughts and their organized religiousity.

   Where has all this gone off to? Where is our understanding of what God is like? Why is it that we're so comfortable with a 'little' god we've made to fit into our organized lives?

   "What a friend we have in Jesus", but what an awe-inspiring Being He is at the same time. Don't lose your balance.

Christian Thoughts #006: on "Where's Waldo?"

   AS the poet once said: "I have climbed highest mountain, I have run through the fields, Only to be with you, Only to be with you... But I still haven't found what I'm looking for".

   U2 lyrics aside, Where's Waldo? was a series of childrens' books by British artist Martin Handford. The first book was published in 1987. In it, the reader becomes visually accustomed with the character of Waldo, his distinctive red and white stripes, blue jeans, walking stick and happy go lucky smile.

 

 

   If you've ever touched a Where's Waldo? book, you'll remember that the whole thrust of the literature was to find Waldo. Easy enough, says you after you're parents naively hand you your first copy. Not so easy at all.

 

 

   Look at this mess! And this was just page one!

 

   Where's Waldo? was a champion of holding a child's interest for longer than any video game or any tv show. I spent hours pouring over the detailed pages, scouring every corner of Waldo's crazy world just for a glimpse of the elusive man. The books came with me on car trips, plane trips, beach trips. Why I would even go to the beach with a Where's Waldo? book serves as testament to how gripping these books were.

 

   The second book in the Waldo series was known in Britain as Find Waldo Now, in which Waldo proves to be the master escape artist yet again.

 

   But hang on. Find Waldo Now? Well, why? Let's ask the question: why is it so important to find Waldo? I mean, it can be absolutely grueling. And after you find him, you have to look for him again on the next page! It seems like no matter how hard you chase him down, the striped man slips through your fingers and you have to do it all over again. The searching doesn't ever seem to end.

 

   There's a different kind of searching within the human soul, which searching it performs sometimes without us even thinking about it. Why do we window-shop? Why do we aimlessly browse the internet? Why do we channel surf? We do we go to new places to see new things? Why does that sudden itch come to learn all about something that maybe you've never heard of before? What is it we're looking for?

 

   Far more significant and profound than the search for red and white striped bloke named Waldo, the human soul searches for something which it doesn't really even know. It's like knowing that you lost something and tearing up your house looking for it, only you've forgotten what that something is. It's like walking into the grocery store to pick up that one thing, only you forgot your list in the car and now you're wandering all the aisles looking for it.

 

   What are our mortal souls looking for?

 

   Friends? No, you get friends, you make friends and you lose friends and all the while, you're still looking.

 

   Riches perhaps? No, you get as much money as you could ever want and it will never be enough.

 

   What about power? Even the most powerful men and women in history looked beyond themselves for something more.

 

   Fame, then? No, I think we can all agree that fame only means you'll be searching at the top and not at the bottom.

 

   What is it then? What is this deep searching within us? Like the Where's Waldo? books, there is no abandoning the search. Once you pick up the book and turn to the first page, there's no dodging the task. Oh you might come back to it later. But you'll always come back to the search. Why? Because the man must be found.

 

   There is maybe no easy answer for just why our souls are searching. At least, the answer is probably too complex for a humble blog post. But what is evident, is that there is no abadoning the search.

 

   And yet just as in the case of Waldo, the prize, the goal, the object of our search is right there in front of us the whole time.

 

 

   If God said 'dude', He might very well say the same thing as Waldo.

 

   Everything our souls are reaching for are ultimately in God. We search for wealth. God can give us the riches of heaven in Christ Jesus. We search for friendship. God came to the world to befriend mankind when we were alienated from Him. We search for power, fame, kindness, purpose, happiness... all these things have their source in God, not necessarily meaning that we will have them in ourselves, but that in knowing God we may know what all of these truly mean. That is to say, I may never experience fame, but I can know the Famous One. I may never have true power and authority, but I can know the One who has authority over all creation.

 

   Really, our souls are only searching for their Creator.

 

   Note I did not say religion or spirituality. The soul isn't searching for strict liturgies and codes for conduct. Someone once said: There is a way of reading the Bible that seems to leave God far away, off in the shadows somewhere. It is all information and technicalities and knowledge, but it feels like you're sitting with your back towards God. You come up against a difficulty or question, and you go to books, you ask pastors, friends, strangers on the internet, anyone but Him. Gradually God gets smaller and dimmer. Don't read it in that way. Read the book to know the Author! Know the Creator. What we are looking for isn't friendship on a social website, it's a friend in a real Person.

 

   The question is: why is it that you still haven't found what you're looking for?

 

   "O God, be not far from me..." Psalm 71:12

 

   Either you haven't found Him yet, or you did and you forgot. If God seems far away, guess who moved?

 

   "The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth." Psalm 145:18

 

 

 

Christian Thoughts #005: on "Calvin and Hobbes"

 

   CALVIN and Hobbes was a newspaper 'funnies' comic strip by Bill Watterson which I grew up reading. Actually, it formed some of my first reading experiences. I remember bugging my parents for a new book (a set of strips) everytime we went out of town and visited the bookstore that carried them. Something about the strip drew me to it in a way which Peanuts or Garfield did not. I almost cried when the last new Calvin and Hobbes strip was printed.

   Calvin, if you recall, was a self-centered, bratty child with a vicious imagination and a strangely profound, philosophical reflectiveness. Hobbes, his tiger friend, was a stuffed animal which inexplicably interacted with Calvin like another human being, seeming as alive and exciting to him as any best friend could be.

   In retrospect, I realize that one of the major draws of the comic strip (no pun intended) was the ability of Calvin and Hobbes to capture childlike wonder. Many strips revolved around Calvin's rapacious imagination. He took trips to Mars. He envisioned himself as a spiffy space-man. He visited dinosaurs. He transmogrified himself and his furry companion. He fought crime with the aid of superpowers. Summers were filled with inexpicable games of Calvin-ball, terrorizing the girl next door and babysitters, and intrepidly exploring the wildnerness. For the little boy and his tiger, there was always something new. Life was exciting and wonderful.

   Looking back, I think to myself "yeah, well wait'll he gets his first job" or "wait'll he has to stand in line at the DMV" or "wait'll he has to pay his taxes". Well, it's entirely unfair of me to think that. Of course Calvin had his moments of undiluted boredom: his schooldays.

   Yet even at school, Calvin's mind turned the mundane into the magical.

   Calvin's hometown was somewhere on the continental US. Myself having grown up in Hawaii, I was unfamiliar with the things unique to Calvin's life on the 'mainland', such as autumn, snowfall, camping beside a lake and loooong trips to the beach. For me, these things which I had never known served to heighten the magical nature of Calvin and Hobbes, and made that sensation of childlike wonder real.

   But what is childlike wonder? Why do we never say adult-like wonder? Doesn't that even sound a little droll--maybe a little raunchy--saying that: adult-like wonder? There's a reason we don't associate wonder with adults. It is a skill they no longer possess, except probably in rare exceptions.

   Wonder about the world, the feeling within oneself that everything is magical and special and new, is something that an adult somewhere drops along the path of growing-up, somewhere along a path strewn with college papers, taxes, job hunting, finance managing, work and family and standing in line at the DMV.

   We never say adult-like wonder because adults have lost their sense of wonder about the world. To the grown-up, things are no longer new and exciting. We've been there. We've done that. We've seen it before.

   When I, at the age of seventeen, moved with my family to the continental United States and experienced the changing colors of Fall, snow on the mountains and actual lakes and long car-rides to the beach... sure, they were fresh and exciting at first. The first time it snowed outside my house, my brothers and I freaked out. It might have been raining money for all the noise we made.

   But it wore off.

   It put a damper on my excitement the first time I had to drive through snow to get to work. Each subsequent time it snowed outside of my house, my enthusiasm waned. I had already seen snow last year! What else ya got?

   In a sense, this can be one of the most depressing things about growing-up. A child can be perfectly content with a simple action figure or toy car. An adult needs far more to even just relax. An adult needs a lengthy vacation or an expensive car or a sizeable flat-screen tv to truly allow themselves to be content, and then only for a little while. As we grow older, not only does excitement come less often, but it's a guest that leaves early, well before the party's over, leaving us wondering where it has gone off to inside ourselves.

   But is this a negative aspect of growing-up? Need it be? Is it an unsolvable problem of becoming an adult that somewhere along the way wonder is lost for the sake of a view of the world that is mundane but manageable?

   It is not a negative aspect of becoming an adult.

   The capacity for a man or a woman to appreciate grows as they grow. A child can appreciate pots and pans banging together to make noise, but he cannot necessarily appreciate an opera, a symphony or free-form jazz. An adult may lose wonder, but that's only because it takes far more of something extraordinary to bring wonder racing back.

   This comes around to a Christian thought right here.

   Do you ever hear someone say that Heaven sounds a little boring? I mean sure the gift of flight or eternal life might be exciting. But sitting around on clouds all day and playing little, golden harps like the fat babies in all those old 'renaissancy' paintings... boy, that sounds dull. And for eternity? Thanks but no thanks.

   I was that person. Oddly enough, when I as a child was excited about the world, I had not yet cultivated an excitement for heaven. When I was eight in Sunday school, I pictured heaven as a dirty room in a cave with a bunch of old pots stashed in a corner. Pretty blah.

   And yet, it is precisely Heaven, more specifically the One who makes Heaven what it is--God Himself--which makes for the only ultimate source of wonder once the world has become mundane. The capacity of an adult to appreciate and to wonder increases as they grow older, but God is a measureless depth of wonderment. He is, after all, infinite in knowledge and power, limitless in graciousness and love and forgiveness. He has crafted a plan for all of human history. He has built out of nothing the very particles of space. He is the source of light and truth, of our souls and our minds, of logic and of reason, of everything.

   This is where the real crime comes in: if you're a church-goer especially, you hear this sort of God-talk all the time. And if you're anywhere in America, you're inundated in a culture which is full of "Christianese"--Christian vernacular, jargon and phraseology. Part of the culture is the common things that are known about God. And we, crazy we, can talk about God raising His Son from the dead, or God becoming a human being, or God creating everything ex nihilo, out of nothing, without even batting an eye. I mean, what is wrong with us?

   That's the most bizarre thing in the world, to speak of the most unique Being in existence as if he is as common a thing as a trip to the grocery store. Heck, I've seen people lulled to sleep by sermons espouting miracles and mysteries the like of which should shock people with their sheer rarity and absolute inanity. People don't walk on water. People don't get up from the grave. People don't ascend into the sky.

   Either we don't believe it at all or we're not listening.

   How we ought to realize that our long, lost capacity to wonder has not been lost at all. It rather has a place in which it can be found. Or, I should say, it has a Person in which it can be found. A man or a woman can, if they truly allow themselves to, think on God the same way that a child marvels over their first trip to the city or to the ocean. God is so far beyond us. He is not simply some old man sitting up on a cloud somewhere.

   Any rational realization about who and what God truly is, if it is believed, will produce a tremendous change in how you view life.

   This was the final strip of Calvin and Hobbes Watterson ever produced, printed on December 31st 1995. In it, the boy and the tiger sail away for adventure and wonder, espouting how fresh and magical the world appears.

   There is a way in which the Christian can live in this world and a way in which he or she can think about God that will make all of this life seem like an adventure. Jesus Christ once said "Behold, I make all things new" (Revelation 21:5) All things. There's a lot that fits into those two words. Is it possible that He meant our lives as well?

   If you're familiar with the Bible, you might remember that Christ's first miracle was turning water into wine. I think that has bearing on what I'm saying. Water gives life but hey, let's face it... water is kinda boring. It's dull. It's flat. Where's the fizz? Where's the excitement? Now wine on the other hand--and please don't presume that I'm approving getting drunk--wine was the excitement of the anicent world. Turning water into wine is just how God is willing to turn our lives from mundane into exciting, from something that just keeps going into something that cherishes every moment. And He can do that through Himself. God's eternal and bottomless nature is the only source left for wonder.

   So are you willing to think about God in such a way that life seems fresh and new again? Are you ready to come to Him as a child?

   Are you ready to reclaim your childlike wonder?

  ~norton