ultimate christmas mix vol. 10

ultimate christmas mix vol. 9

i heard the bells on christmas day

"Advent is about anticipating the birth of Christ. It’s about longing, desire, that which is yet to come. That which isn’t here yet. And so we wait, expectantly. Together. With an ache. Because all is not right. Something is missing." Rob Bell, "Why Should We Care About Advent?"

This year, I began attending a church that takes the church calendar very seriously. And I realized that I liked it. The rhythm of the Christian life is lived out based on our ceremonies and traditions. Some are sad, some are happy, some are both at the same time. But just as the Bible has its hymns of revenge and its poems of romance, there is a wide spectrum present in the church calendar. A spectrum as wide as life itself.

Christmas is my favorite season of the year. That's fairly obvious from the disproportionate amount of blog posts I write about the holiday. But the true reason that I love it so much has never been as clear to me as it has been made through the lens of church tradition.

I enjoy Christmas as much as I do because it follows the journey that Advent has begun in us.

In the same way that it seems like the world is at its most opaque in the silent, cold, stillness of a winter's breath, I hear more from God in the season of Advent. (That may not be true. It just may be that it is the time I focus most on the listening.) Walk outside on the coldest, darkest night of the year and just stand there. You will hear noises you didn't even previously realized existed. More than that, you'll uncover thoughts you didn't know to be inside your own mind. I know that happens to me in this season. It is as if the world itself has more to offer in those long, quiet moments spent in solitude.

This is the season in which we welcome our coming Savior. Not very unlike the season the Israelites once welcomed him into. Except they had not been waiting since the end of the Thanksgiving meal but instead hundreds of years. Mostly spent in bondage and oppression and in the dimming light of the hope of a promised Messiah. It would have been a natural consequence of their long wait for them to lose faith in their interpretation of God's promise to them or maybe even in the idea that God would make us a promise at all.

And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men

Of course, this year we cannot bring an end to Advent and shine the light of Christmas without having within all of our minds Newtown, Connecticut. There are no words and no comfort to combat the coldest, darkest tragedy that I can imagine.

And yet there is Christmas. One thing I have learned in difficult moments this year is that the days do pass whether or not we recognize it as the pages on the calendar's days flip by. For the families who can never again be whole because of this tragedy, I have only my sympathy and my prayers to offer. And these seem like wretched things in light of the magnitude of the loss that was suffered.

Our entire nation has been set back on its heels from the violence played out on the news. Unlike most tragedies, this one has hit a personal chord. This shouldn't happen. Not in our country. Not in our towns. Not in our schools. The immediate response is one of confusion at a tragedy so senseless. And then an urgent cry to prevent anything like this from ever happening to another family again.

Still we know that even if we improve public policy, we can no more reverse time to prevent what happened than we can to stop death entirely. The violence that exists in our minds can be a betrayal of our biologies or our minds or even our very nature. And when the violence spews forth from within to hurt those that form our communities without there will be losses suffered. We lost the lives of precious children in Sandy Hook and we lost the innocence that accompanies an age where wonder and delight rule over cynicism and hatred.

As the President read the names of the fallen in his speech last week or as the bells rang out 26 times this morning to commemorate those that were lost in a moment of silence, it would be understandable to let this world and this act of terror plunge us into a state of hopelessness. Or to turn on each other and propel ourselves into a divisive political blame game looking to point the finger at who is at fault for this feeling of helplessness and grief.

But the promise of Christmas is that the darkness of this season will be pierced by an unmistakable light. That the silence of this dark and lonely night will be broken by the cries of a baby from a manger.

Then rang the bells more loud and deep
God is not dead, nor does He sleep (He is The Lord)
(He is The Lord)
The dark shall fail, the light prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men

Still, we cannot forget that as those cries from the mouth of the baby will one day turn to giggles to words of wisdom to comfort and healing to our very salvation, they will also turn to cries of anguish as this hope seems to be extinguished by a cross. God's very nature is to bring light into darkness, to bring form into chaos, to bring meaning into despair. We may not always understand it but he has set  the entire world to the rythym of this truth.

And so at Christmas the promise we cling to is just that moment of hope, of light in a dark place, or joyful clamor into the silence. If we can have just that moment to capture and to cherish, I believe we'll have strength for the journey ahead.

why i'll vote against

“Bad laws are the worst kind of tyranny.” Edmund Burke

1. Amendment One is anti-freedom.

From the days of our Founding Fathers to the present day, the steady drumbeat of progress in our great country has been that of a march towards freedom. That used to mean something in so-called “conservative” circles. I am a conservative in every sense in which that word can be traced through history. I believe in capitalism, our republican form of government, in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, and for treating others as we wish to be treated. And I believe in the power of freedom to loose deep down in human beings our best selves instead of the ugliness and violence that we too often inflict on each other as a means of propping ourselves up and controlling others.

That’s why I oppose this amendment. Not as a liberal but as a conservative. Freedom comes with a great price. If you are to be free, it means you must allow others who have entered into the same social contract with you that same freedom. If some are freer than others, then a society can never be truly free. Freedom from tyranny means that you can’t become the tyrant yourself. Even a well-meaning, devout, religious tyrant is one that cannot be tolerated in this country. In fact, if you read your history books, it was just such a tyrant we fled from to establish this nation.

Sure, you can dress it up and say this is about defining “marriage” and not about freedom but that ignores so much of what this Amendment would do if enacted and so much of what it will not do if defeated. We have tried defining marriage in the past (as you see pictured here). Our last state constitutional amendment on marriage was to make sure that people of different races didn’t get the idea that their marriage was valid in this state. The prevailing thought of the day was that allowing mixed race marriages would cheapen the whole institution. (Starting to sound familiar?) But, of course, no one can define words by themselves. Words will mean what they mean as people use them to mean such. So if gays are being married, people are going to call it marriage no matter what the law says. We can’t legislate dictionaries.

To look someone in the face and say “You cannot enjoy the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that I do because you’re different” is the opposite of the American ideal. It is the opposite of what our Founding Fathers created this country to embody. If we are to be the city on a hill, then we can’t treat people differently and restrict their freedoms simply because we don’t like them as much. Oppression is ugly and un-American. And it is not fit for our state constitution.

2. Amendment One is unchristian.

Some religious people in this fight have decided that it is imperative to the fabric of our society to enshrine Levitical law in our state constitution. I suppose we are supposed to just ignore the admonitions of Paul that there is now “no condemnation for those who are in Christ” or Jesus’ “Give to Caesar what is Caesar and to God what is God’s” brand of church-state separation. The entire story of the gospels is that Jesus came to seek and save what is lost. He came to reconcile men and women and even the Earth itself to God. He did not come to create a government. He was not a political savior bent on ensuring that one society or nation triumphed over all others. If anything, Christ’s time in our world was a demonstration that those society may consider virtuous may actually not be the ones who would find themselves at home in His kingdom.

Church-state separation is important because Christianity may not always be the dominant religion in this society. As Christians, our freedom is important. After all, it is again St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians that reminds us that “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Restricting others’ freedom simply because we possess the political power to do so is precisely the opposite of Jesus’ mission. Christ, who even in the garden of Gethsemane, in what he surely knew were his final hours facing a long journey toward a cross refused to let his disciples take up swords to defend him. It was not a political victory he was looking to win. He may have been scorned by the people in power of his day but he did not lack for might. Christ could have summoned an army of angels to fight his battles, to release him from the cross, and make the entire Roman Empire and the world itself his footstool as He had been promised.

As Christians, we should be co-reconcilers with God. So we must ask ourselves will we take up the sword as Jesus has forbidden us? Will we demand a political messiah once and for all? Will we join him in his mission to redeem this world or will we instead embark on our attempt to control it? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” These two phrases, Christ told us, sum up all of the Law and the Prophets. The fabric of our moral universe is love. Hatred and oppression are not fit for the kingdom of God.

3. Amendment One is anti-family.

If you have been following this fight at all, then you will know that Amendment One does more than just restrict gay marriage in our state. It invalidates any civil union even among straight couples and puts in jeopardy the relationship, rights, and privileges of families all across North Carolina. I am not only a conservative and a Christian. I am also a strong supporter of family. That’s why I think it is imperative we defeat Amendment One to ensure that it cannot do harm to families in our state.

Just a few examples of some of the worst harms adopting Amendment One could do to people who aren’t gay and aren’t married.

*Children could have their health care put at risk if their parents are not married. They could lose health insurance and prescription drug benefits that could be desperately needed when a child is sick.

*The financial burdens could be further felt by the children of unmarried couples if one partner dies and wills and trusts are invalidated. Custody issues could even be altered as a child could be caught up in the system and ripped from their family.

*Amendment One would even invalidate domestic violence protections that currently cover unmarried women and leave the most vulnerable women in our society without any legal protection from abuse. (This already happened in Ohio when a similar law passed.)

Amendment One is poorly written and was put on the ballot without a thorough review of just what the consequences of adopting it might cause for North Carolina families.

And just as a reminder a vote against Amendment One is a vote for the status quo. Defeating Amendment One will have no effect on our current laws. Gay marriage will still be illegal in the state of North Carolina. No church will ever be forced to marry gay people. What defeating Amendment One will do is avoid perpetrating the tragedies described above on thousands of children and families in our state.

I promised with the title of this article that I would tell you why I’ll vote against Amendment One. I’ll vote against because I can’t look my gay friends in the face and tell them they are lesser human beings than me and undeserving of the freedoms and rights that I have been blessed simply by being born straight in American.

You may have your own reason for voting against. If so, I encourage you to write out your thoughts, and share with your friends and family. Dr. King said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” This fight matters. So remember to get out and vote on or before May 8. If you need information about how and where you need to vote, you can find it here. Even if you aren’t registered to vote, it’s not too late to register and cast your ballot against Amendment One.

If you’re still undecided, I encourage you to continue doing research. Visit the Vote Against project and Protect All NC Families and learn more about Amendment One and what its passage would do to North Carolina. Then join me in voting against.

the herald angel

I recently rediscovered one of my favorite Christmas hymns in the form of a reimagination by the terrific group Seabird. "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is a staple of any Christmas album or church service but this version is special because although it still retains its reverent hymnlike nature, it introduces a little more up-tempo "heralding" of Christ's birth. After all, this is the gospel--the good news that God has come to live among humans in the form of a man born from the womb of Mary--the announcing that there is now no longer any separation between God and His creation. Though there was once enmity and war, there is now the promise of peace eternal. There will be no more struggle, no more mourning or tears or hate or war, only "God and sinners reconciled."

Hark the herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled"

It sometimes seems that since creation itself began, it has exploded with violence. The violence we do to each other, both the ones we love and the ones we leave out. But God sifts through the struggle and doesn't blot out our transgressions. He shows up among them. He leaves the throne of Heaven, the eternal unchanging perfect synergy of the Trinity to introduce His creation to how they have been created. We are to join Him in His mission of reconciliation. We are co-reconcilers with Christ as this earth, this life was our gift from Him. Though we have done our best to sully and denigrate what we have been given, God is patient. He is relentless. And even when our faith does not lie in Him, His faith lies in us.

Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
"Christ is born in Bethlehem"
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

This is the essence of what the herald angels have come to announce. The fact that we refer to them as "herald" shows just how special they are. They have one job. To proclaim, to announce, to declare that life as we know has been forever changed. A new reality has taken hold. In the midst of our despair, of our struggle, of our hatred and denial... springs Hope.

Christ by highest heav'n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin's womb

A herald is an official messenger of news. A courier. A forerunner. A precursor. A harbinger. Harbinger is an interesting word in itself. Normally, there are "harbingers of death" or "harbingers of evil" or "harbingers of danger." But I think harbingers have gotten a bad rap. I don't think it is the danger or death or evil that turns a simple messenger into a harbinger. It is the gravity of the message they carry. And there nothing heavier than the truth weighting down the announcement of the gospel.

Christmas itself comes in the dead of winter. Just days after the longest night of the year in fact. It is literally never more dark than it is at Christmastime. I don't know if that is a coincidence or not but it is part of what I love so much about this season. Because in this time of darkness and cold and dreariness steps in the most joyful, special time of the year. And instead of avoiding at all costs this intemperate time of year, we welcome it. We look forward to it. I'd have a hard time finding a better metaphor for Christ's arrival than the season in which it comes. The God who shames the wise and uplifts the foolish has us looking forward to the darkest and most difficult time of the year because of the hope it symbolizes.

Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth

You see, Christ isn't just announced by the herald angels. He Himself is a type of herald angel. Because he is the second Adam, the firstfruits of the gospel. He is the precursor of life itself and yet alive and present forever. Before anything was, He was. And so He is the promise, the hope in human form. At our darkest moment, God doesn't bring us comfort, he doesn't relieve our suffering, he doesn't even change the weather. In our bleakest moment, God steps into our lives Himself. He comes for us. And He promises us that this is the rhthym of life. This is the pattern, the DNA of life lived in intimacy with God. When we are weak, He is strong. When we are downtrodden, He is hopeful. When we have lost, He has won on our behalf.
Not always in the way we would expect. Not with a powerful Kingdom trampling all others under His feet. Not with trumpets and revelry and pomp. But on a quiet, still night. With a simple miracle. Birth. 

Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

Sometimes it takes fresh ears to hear an old song. Sometimes it takes fresh eyes to see an old truth. Few will herald but all will know. Christ is born in Bethlehem. And Hope is born in us.

same kind of different as me

Sameness. I think I hate it.

I used to have a habit when going to restaurants with large groups of people I would try to order something off the menu that no one else in the group had. I’ve always had the habit of falling in love with the most obvious girl in the room. I once had five earrings and blue hair.

I like being different. I value diversity. And more often than not, in the evangelical Christian circles I find myself in, it has caused me problems.

There are strands of evangelical Christianity that take great pleasure and expend great effort in silencing new ideas. As if opposition to motion can prevent the future from arriving. It’s Hoover Dam Christianity holding back a massive wall of water so that we can control what areas of land remain dry. In some ways, it has its place. There are reasons why we need to enforce our will on that water. It is powerful and not easy to manipulate and can easily overwhelm everything else.

But what if God is in that water? Do we want to hold Him back too?

Somewhere in the divide between Gen X and Gen Y, there came a point where a generation started to be willing to ask questions again. We wanted to challenge the assumptions that were made for us and undertake the task of rebuilding the foundation from which we will judge truth. It’s a predictable part of the evolution of every generation no doubt… as is the predictable response from the generation that comes before us. “We already know what’s true. You’re wasting your time. And worse than that, questioning what we have already established is dangerous.”

This generational shoving match plays out before us every day. It plays out in our politics, literature, fashion, technology, religion and all kinds of other ways. If we’re going to rebuild from the foundation already established, we’re going to have to knock out a wall here and there to do it.

Most recently, I’ve seen this struggle play out in the context of Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins. It’s “A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.” It only came out today. I haven’t read it and I can neither defend the author not critique him.

What I have seen are at least a half dozen articles and blog posts calling Bell every name under the sun, slandering his work, and generally aiming to silence his message. He’s called everything from unscholarly to arrogant to heretical and accused of lying, manipulation, and blasphemy.

As a general rule, I assume anyone being opposed so strongly has something incredibly important to say.

But that’s just the thing with Bell. His general M.O. is to ask questions and employ the Socratic method to get his readers to explore a topic more deeply and study more thoroughly the scriptures that should inform a Christian’s opinion on the matter. Now whether Bell is a universalist (he says he’s not) or whether he sets out to create controversy (he says he doesn’t) is up for debate. I just don’t think those are the true reasons he is being opposed.

People hate it when you mess with the systems they have worked so hard to mold. You can’t question these things. They just are. They have always been.

My pastor even made a point this weekend of saying that “the gospel can be summed up in four words.” A four word systematic theology. Alright, so it can. But should it be? Is the gospel four words deep? Or it is it deeper than all the water we can hold back with the Hoover Dam? Do we create our little systems to better understand God or to better control Him?

Bell at one point deflects the criticism he expects by saying there is a reason that many evangelical Christians don’t appreciate good art or throw good parties. Those things require someone to accept new ideas, to come in contact with diversity, to be challenged, and to relish the opportunity for genuine conversation. We cannot live a full life without being confronted by these things and yet so many of us continue to avoid them.

As a Christian, I don’t find it acceptable to fear other people’s ideas. I can’t fear questions. We have birthed a generation of critics rather than creators. People who live off criticizing the ideas of others instead of creating their own. It’s ugly. It’s unoriginal. And it is devoid of grace. Not to mention that fearing a challenge to the things I say I believe only exposes my insecurity about the allegiance I truly hold to those beliefs.

You know how Jesus responded to questions? He answered them. I’m reading through the Gospel of Luke right now and one thing I have noticed is there are a lot of questions in this book.

How can this be, since I am a virgin?

Why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?

Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?

Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?

But who do you say that I am?

Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus shatters our systems, our preconceptions, and our previous knowledge. He is the answer to many of our questions. But we must have the audacity to ask them.

angry birds

Whatever happened to the dreamers
They always look beyond the sky
Saw a world they could believe in
But only when they close their eyes - Jack Savoretti

Where is the line between dream and reality?  What is the relationship between ambition and obsession?

These are the questions at the center of Darren Aronofsy's latest film, Black Swan.  The film depicts ballerina Nina Sayers as she wins the role of a lifetime starring as the Swan Queen in a stripped down, raw production of Swan Lake brought to the stage by a visionary, mercurial director.  Faced with the full weight of the pressure of dancing the lead in the show, she slowly begins to buckle under the enormous stress that is put on her body and her psychological health.  Even as she revels in her newfound fame and power, she becomes increasingly suspicious of a new dancer to the company, Lily, and constantly worries that Lily may be trying to steal her role.  Nina becomes only more consumed by the role and driven to the edge of madness by the requirement that she transform her personality to achieve some method-like form of representing the evil Black Swan onstage. 

I'll stop my summary there as not to spoil any of the key plot points in the movie but if you are familiar with the story of Swan Lake, you may quickly catch on to where the action is headed.  (Only Aronofsky would attempt a film about Swan Lake with the plot of Swan Lake.)  As one reviewer described it, the movie is "cold to the touch leaving more to be admired than liked."  However, Natalie Portman's spellbinding and Oscar-worthy performance  is reason enough to see it and study it as a piece of pure cinema.  More than anything, the film left me pondering whether the interplay between dreams and reality will forever be aggresive and adversarial and whether ambition and obsession share a similar fate.

On the one hand, dreams (read: hallucinations) are what Portman's character experiences throughout the film as she falls further down the rabbit hole of her own obsession and paranoia.  However, on the other hand, her character also dreams of being a prima ballerina, of dancing a perfect routine to the loud cheers of an adoring crowd, and winning the admiration of her mother.  I think there has to be more of a connection between these two kinds of dreams than simply the word we use to describe them.

Nina's dreams/hallucinations materialize more as nightmares as the movie progresses but they are directly fueled by her dreams to achieve and fulfill the bright star of her potential.  Her nightmares are caused by the fear that her dreams will never come to fruition.  As Langston Hughes would have it, a dream deferred is not simply a missed opportunity but a haunting specter much more difficult to decipher and traverse than merely a disappointment.

But sometimes our dreams don't come true.

This is a fact of life.  We don't get everything we ever wanted.  No matter how hard we strive for it or how well we work for it or how ingeniuous our plans to grasp hold of it, there are times when our dreams remain just beyond our reach.  Like the hazy first few moments of realizing the dream has ended and reality has returned, we remain just within sight of our dreams but incapable of attaining them.  Nothing can hurt so much as the intanglible that feels just beyond arm's length.

I would submit that our character is forged many times by our response to these seeming tragedies.  I think most people would say I'm a very driven individual.  I live my life with purpose.  I expect much from myself and from the people around me.  I value boldness and vigor when making decisions and I take that approach to my professional life, social life, romantic life; I apply the same philosophy whether I'm on the basketball court, in a meeting with politicians, or across the dinner table from a date. 

But I wonder whether that ambition can lead to obsession and whether taking that responsibility to make things happen for myself, to achieve my dreams conflicts with Christ-like humility.

There's a verse in Scripture that I feel like is always quoted out of context and misrepresented by preachers in the pulpit and paltry promisers looking to make a quick dollar on their newest Christian self-help book.  It's in the 29th chapter of the book of the prophet Jeremiah.  In verse 11, "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  If you have any knowledge of the Bible or have heard any amount of contemporary preaching, you have probably heard this verse used out of context to feign comfort for those with uncertain futures or even to promise prosperity.  What you likely have not heard is verse 1.

This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

This is the context from where God's promise comes.  These are the words God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Israel who have been exiled to Babylon.  They aren't even necessarily personal words of comfort, they are more meant to assert that God is ultimately in control despite the outward reality of Babylonian captivity facing the people hearing them.  The words were spoken to a people that had worshipped at the temple built by Solomon who had overseen one of the most prosperous times in the long history of Israel.  Spoken to a people who knew of the promises given to his father David that a king chosen by God would forever reign on that throne.  Spoken to a people who had seen all of that come crashing down as the temple itself fell under the crushing blow of the Babylonians.  But not without God's permission.  God had sent the people into exile and sacrificed the temple because the people had relied on themselves and not on God.

Sometimes I'm in exile.  And the way out is not to rely on myself, to try harder, to buckle down, and drive myself to obsession over my own ambitions.  Sometimes the proper response is to take an objective view of reality and believe the fact that God is in control and ultimately has my good in mind.  Christ prayed for his followers that they would have eyes to see and ears to hear.  He did not pray that their dreams would come true.  This is not a case against dreaming but it is a plea to myself not to let my dreams and ambition turn to the nightmares of obsession. 

I feel like I've just been through a year where I got everything I wanted and nothing that I needed.  What do we do when our dreams come untrue?  Achieving a zen-like ignorance of reality won't solve the issues that surround me and neither will giving a firmer tug to my own bootstraps.  My only response, my only option is to remember and wait.  Remember that God is in control of this world and that everything happens only because he allows it.  Remember the ways in which He has worked for my good and on my behalf in the past.  Wait for Him to show me what comes next and where I can join Him in living out what He plans for my life and ultimately the plans He has to continue to redeem this world and all its broken dreams.

It is in light of that context that I can more fully understand what God is speaking through Jeremiah to the people and how the truth of that might apply to all of us.

"Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity."

I can learn much from that passage by simply listening to the cadence of the You's and I's.  God says: You will call.  You will pray.  You will seek.  God promises: I will listen.  I will be found.  I will bring you back.

We don't need our dreams or our ambitions to bring us comfort.  And whether realized or unrealized, they would never be up to such a task.  Our source of comfort comes from the fact that God is in control.  Even when we are in exile.  Even when we are in captivity.  He has a plan and wants us to be a part of it.  He is listening.  He is waiting to be found.  He is bringing us back.

always winter, never christmas

"Cause when it's always winter but never Christmas
Sometimes it feels like you're not with us
But deep inside our hearts we know

That you are here and we will not lose hope"

With the above lyrics, Relient K depicts a frigid wintry scene that closely parallels the way we can feel about life in general as it drags and refuses to resolve.  We've had a particularly cold, bitter beginning to winter in North Carolina this year.  And not the cool kind where it snows and everything feels magical but just the steely trudgery of freezing winds and plunging temperatures.  The season hasn't felt unlike what Relient K is alluding to and C.S. Lewis crystallizes in his description of the fictional world of Narnia.  It is upon her first meeting with Mr. Tumnus, a faun ally of Narnia's three child heroes, that Lucy is informed of the evil White Witch who has asserted control over Narnia.

“The White Witch? Who is she?” [asked Lucy.]
“Why, it is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb. It’s she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!”
“How awful!” said Lucy.

Frozen Narnia is a symbol for the world in which we inhabit.  Where dreams sometimes are frustrated and hopes fall flat and dissolve.  The White Witch is a depiction of an enemy that desires our destruction either through obliteration or slow, inevitable monotony and hopelessness.  I know that sometimes I feel the tug of Narnia's gravity at my feet in this world.

The beauty of Narnia, however, is that underlying the harsh conditions there is an obvious but subtle magic.  Like the first snow of the season, just below the untouched crystals, it almost feels like anything is possible there.  So how do we escape the doldrums of winter and look expectantly toward a promised Christmas?

Faith

The story of Christmas is the story of great faith in the face of great adversity.

It's the story of Mary subjecting herself to God's plan despite an uncertain future saying, "Let it be done to me according to your will."  It's the story of Joseph putting faith in God and in his young wife-to-be and choosing to raise Jesus as his own son regardless of his supernatural origins.  It's the story of shepherds and kings and wise men being drawn to a place and a child for unknown reasons and heeding the nagging in the minds and souls.  It's the story of a young family on the run protecting their son and fleeing a tyrant into exile in a strange land. 

In uncertain times and harsh realities, faith isn't just good.  It's essential.  But faith cannot exist on its own.  It must have an anchor, a source.  In the Christmas story, the article of faith is obvious: Christ.  However, faith extends beyond just the birth of a child.  Mary's faith, Joseph's faith, the faith of shepherds and kings and wise men and all the people of Israel was found in a promise.

It was a promise given to David, the King of Israel, many years before that a new king would rise from the ranks of the people and that his dominion over the Earth would forever transform our cold winters with the promise of Christmas.

"When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him..."

Even in the ancient prophecy that foretells the birth of Christ, we see he is different type of king.  Not only is no White Witch-like tyrant bent on our exploitation and bondage, he is not like David either simply driven by power, glory, honor for his own name's sake.  He is the servant king.  And although he never commits iniquity, he bears the punishment in our place.  Our coldest winter, our sin that separates us from God, is lifted in the Christmas promise that is the faith of Christ that drives Him to a cross so that we can be restored to God and creation.

Christmas is not easy.  But it is certain.

Hope

A promise provides a pathway toward faith but it is hope that lights that path and guides us along the way.  Faith is a choice but hope is an attitude.  It is a belief in the face of contradicting circumstances that deeper realities are at work in the world around me.

As a man subjected to all types of torment and sacrifice and as a man of great faith, the apostle Paul is keenly aware of the dual realities of what we can see right before us and what exists that we do not yet perceive.

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

...and later he sums this up connecting faith and hope simply by saying...

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

Faith is a choice but hope is an attitude.

We face tough times, economic hardships, lost jobs, broken relationships, unreliable families, jilted hearts, and deferred dreams.  We can choose to face these realities with resignation or we can dare to hope.

And hope is the magic of Christmas.  It's the feeling of waking up to snow on Christmas Day.  Hope rewarded and faith proved true are the hallmarks of the Christmas spirit.

Lewis depicts this living hope in the person of Father Christmas.  After all, who is more a symbol for the combination of magic and belief for children than Santa Claus?

He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as holly berries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest.…

Now that the children actually stood looking at him… he was so big, so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also solemn.

“I’ve come at last,” said he. “She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan is on the move. The witch’s magic is weakening.”
And Lucy felt that deep shiver of gladness that you only get if you are being solemn and still.

Love

The story of Christmas is a love story.

I don't know if it's the magic of Christmas or the desire for warmth and familiarity that comes with the season or the gathering of families or the amount of time we spend watching couples in airports or what but something about Christmas makes people want to fall in love.  I also think that's part of the reason so many couples get engaged at Christmas.  I think this is the natural tendency of the Christmas story.  At its heart, Christmas is about the love of a groom for his bride.

Christ the groom.  He, in heaven, without want or need at the right hand of his Father with pleasures forevermore.  In perfect community, family with the Father and Holy Spirit.  Riches beyond measure and joy beyond comprehension.  But deep in his heart, there is a love that cannot be extinguished.  It gnaws at his soul begging for release and always desiring the good of his bride.

His bride the church.  The prodigal, disgraced, dirty church.  We with our fallen natures, our sinful choices.  We have run as far away as we can from our groom.  Seeking our own pleasures and own kingdoms, we've not only taken our relationship for granted, we've renounced it altogether. 

And yet, Christ emerges with hope for rekindled love.

The confessions of love found in all the sappy, romantic Christmas movies ever made can never compare to Christ's love for his bride.

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."

Without fear of consequence or regard for his own fate, he puts himself on the line for his bride.  Beat that, Love Actually.

But what Christ offers is not an earthly love that will lead to its own winters but an eternal acceptance that can never be tainted or corrupted.  His love melts our perpetual winters and makes way for a new springlike reality.  His acceptance is the promise of Christmas.

So at Christmas, we wait.  We have faith.  We hope.  We love.

ultimate christmas mix vol. 6

As you probably know, mostly because I hype this thing up to now end as we near the holidays, it is time for the ultimate christmas mix once again. Going on my fifth year (the first year was a double album), I am still making very entertaining and *unique* playlists to enjoy as we enter the Christmas season.

This might be my favorite one ever. Fair warning though. While last year's mix was heavy on pop music and could easily serve as the background music at a holiday-themed party, this mix is more likely to be listened to while cuddled up to a warm fire and hot cup of your preferred winter beverage. Listening to these songs is kind of like being at a Christmas party then walking out to get lost in the woods. Full track listing is below.

ultimate christmas mix vol. 6
1. “Christmas Party” - The Walkmen
2. “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” - The Raveonettes
3. “Peppermint Winter” - Owl City
4. “Winter Wonderland” - Jason Mraz
5. “All I Want for Christmas is You” - Dave Barnes
6. “O Holy Night” – Glee Cast
7. “Silent Night” – Alexi Murdoch
8. “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” – Matthew Perryman Jones
9. “What Child Is This” – Parachute
10. “Jinglebell Rock” – Arcade Fire
11. “Go Tell It On the Mountain” – needtobreathe
12. “Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem” – Bright Eyes
13. “When the Leaves” – Ingrid Michaelson
14. “Ho Ho Hopefully” – The Maine
15. “Wishlist” – The Ready Set
16. “Boots” – The Killers
17. “Christmas Lights” – Coldplay
18. “When I Get Home for Christmas” – Snow Patrol
19. “Tracks in the Snow” – The Civil Wars
20. “We Are Snowmen” – Matthew Ryan
21. “Hey Parker, It’s Christmas” – Ryan Adams

You can preview the songs on the ultimate christmas mix vol. 6 above but if you want a full copy, you'll just have to see me. I'll be the one spreading holiday melodrama cheer.

broken

I really like the word "broken."  The way the "k" juts out in the middle disrupting the flow of the word.  Even in print the word looks like it is hiding some semi-secret violence.  The pronunication clearly causes us to pause in the middle and fight through the "k" to finish the phrase.  I like its dualistic nature.  Because while broken obviously has its damaged, fractured, weakened meaning, it also can mean tamed or reduced to submission.  In the Christian life, brokenness is not a condition to avoid but rather one to covet. 

I have been learning and writing often about the life of David lately.  Maybe that's why the work "broken" is coming up for me so much.  His life was characterized by brokenness and yet at his lowest, with nothing to boast about and nothing to bring before God to cover over his sin.  It is there we might witness David's finest hour or at least the one we can most identify with as he says, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."  Our broken hearts and broken spirits are all we possess before God and yet somehow that is enough for Him.

David was a poet and wrote the majority of the Psalms so it's fitting that my meditation on brokenness turned into a poem.  The thing about writing poetry is that it's very analogous to cooking a meal for someone.  You never really know if it's any good until you put it out there in the world.  I say that just to ask that you not judge me too harshly.  I"m pretty rusty at this type of writing but I do enjoy it.  I also tried to do this thing with pronouns in there that hopefully you'll pick up on.  Let me know what you think.

broken

the broken sun breaks broken day
breaking darkness with broken ray
on broken people living broken lives
exposing broken bonds and broken ties

my broken heart it cannot love
the broken her I'm afraid of
my broken hopes and broken dreams
her broken words and broken speech

my broken legs they cannot walk
the broken path we choose to stalk
broken steps will lead no where
but to broken promises we now share

my broken eyes they cannot see
broken you and broken me
but when they lift to broken Him
broken chains are broken again

broken prayers on broken knees
from broken he's and broken she's
our broken God shows the broken way
to place our brokenness on display

just friends

Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself. - 1 Samuel 18:1

Now let's be honest with ourselves for a minute.  That feels a little weird.  Saying one man's soul is knit to another and that he loves him as himself.  That falls somewhere in between the posting on my friend's facebook wall, "OMG!!! We're BFFs!!!" and catching my roommate singing "Teenage Dream" loudly to himself in his mirror.  (Neither of those have actually happened though one is substantially more likely than the other.)

Even as a friend and I were mutually making plans via the magic of Facebook to watch Monday Night Football together a few weeks ago, a female friend inserted her own comment to one of our posts.  "Isn't that cute?  You two boys have a date."  This isn't written to chide her but simply to illustrate the general attitude of our society toward male friendship.  We look on it with suspicion.

Ironically enough, it was an essay written by Al Mohler in the wake of the release of Brokeback Mountain that caused me to realize one of the main causes of the decline in male friendship.  The strongest aggressor in the war against men being friends is homophobia.  It's impossible for two men to share any kind of meaningful friendship without the eventual, obligatory, intolerant, narrow-minded leveling of the charge, "You're gay."

From the biblical narrative to numerous examples in literature, art, and history, we can easily produce evidence that our culture was once much more likely to celebrate the concept of common brotherhood rather than be repulsed by it.  After all, our nation's first capitol was located in Philadelphia, "the city of brotherly love."  Our society has quite literally moved away from the virtuosity of male friendship.

It was C.S. Lewis, himself a possessor of a strong bond with fellow author J.R.R. Tolkien that helped from both men's writing and character, who wrote most poignantly about the current condition of friendship or "philia."

To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue.  The modern world, in compariosn, ignores it.  We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few "friends."  But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make would describe a friendships, show...It is something quite marginal; not a main course in life's banquet; a diversion; something that fills up the chinks of one's armor.

Far from denying the superfluous nature of friendship, Lewis goes on to argue this is friendship's virtue.  The fact that men and women and whole societies can go on living and existing in a world without friendship proves the spiritual nature of the love.  He ultimately concludes that the reason God does not use friendship as a symbol of divine love for human beings is because it could so easily be mistaken for what it symbolizes.  A love that is unnecessary but freely given is perhaps too close to divine to be used analogously.

What love motivated God to create human beings in the first place?  A love for the other.  The trinity is a mysterious and inexplicable truth.  One thing we can definitely know is that if God lives in community and has lived in the community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from eternity to eternity and God is Love, then God is motivated to create out of His love and in conjunction with His character as developed by the eternal connections that bind the three members of the Trinity into one God.

What love motivated God to forgive His creation even as it rejected Him and severed the community that existed between God and man?   The love of a friend.   The same love that Jonathan showed to David when he went to his father, King Saul, and pleaded for David's life.  He convinces the king to be merciful and spare David's life.

Saul told his son Jonathan and all the attendants to kill David. But Jonathan had taken a great liking to David and warned him, “My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your guard tomorrow morning; go into hiding and stay there. I will go out and stand with my father in the field where you are. I’ll speak to him about you and will tell you what I find out.”


Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father and said to him, “Let not the king do wrong to his servant David; he has not wronged you, and what he has done has benefited you greatly. He took his life in his hands when he killed the Philistine. The LORD won a great victory for all Israel, and you saw it and were glad. Why then would you do wrong to an innocent man like David by killing him for no reason?”

Saul listened to Jonathan and took this oath: “As surely as the LORD lives, David will not be put to death.”

So Jonathan called David and told him the whole conversation. He brought him to Saul, and David was with Saul as before.

One of the most important beliefs that Christians hold is that Jesus pleads to His Father on our behalf.  And it is not difficult to imagine that the conversation doesn't sound much different than the conversation between Saul and Jonathan.  Except God is completely just in asking for our lives as we have sinned and broken our relationship with Him.  Jesus, as the truer and better Jonathan, not only pleads with His Father on our behalf but takes the punishment we deserve in our place so that both His Father's mercy and His justice can be satisfied.  The same Jesus who calls us "no longer slaves, but friends" is the one who sacrifices Himself that we might live.  Christ is not only our Savior but our model of friendship as well.  "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."

Now I might be able to write all this in a blog post, but I am no model of friendship.  If there's one thing I have been learning lately, it is that I don't allow my friends to share enough of my life.  I am ashamed of vulnerability and never want to burden other people with my struggles.  Often, I find it easier to blog about my problems than turn them over to a friend for support and prayer.  Sure, I'll say that it's because I don't want to burden other people's lives with my problems but the truth is that, like many men, I never want to appear weak in the eyes of others.  Even if I know that through my weakness, God's strength can be more clearly imaged. 

But when we hide behind our facades of strenght and pretend everything is just fine, we not only deprive ourselves of the help of others, we deprive ourselves of true friendship.  If we never share our struggles and doubts and insecurities with other people, we never have reason to celebrate together over our victories or marvel together at God's deliverance.  By not allowing others to carry our burdens, we're not doing them any favors.  Instead, we are depriving them of the biblical sense of community that they have been created for and called to live in.  In reality, we are denying the truth of the trinity and rejecting Christ's own model of friendship.  Christ died that we might have friends and be friends.  Far be it for us to reject His sacrifice out of fear.

i am still painting flowers for you

"When I wake up, the dream isn't done
I want to see your face and know I made it home
If nothing is true, what more can I do?

I am still painting flowers for you"  All Time Low

A boy who would be a shepherd in a field before it's known that he would be king.  This is how we meet the boy-king David in the first book of Samuel.  A boy who would be king in a temple before it's known that he would be a savior.  This is one of the scenes introducing us to Jesus in the gospels.

The parallels between the life of David and the life of Christ are exponential in scope but I hadn't really take the time to connect those dots until recently when our church began a study on the life of David.  All throughout this study, the pastors and elders of our church have been emphasizing that we should be looking to David as someone we should emulate directly but instead read his story as a foreshadowing of Christ and his life.  By doing that, we learn more about who Jesus is/was supposed to be and we stop placing the focus of bible stories primarily on ourselves.  After all, the books of the bible are written in histories, in letters, in proverbs, and in song.  But none of those books are primarily about us.  All of them are primarily about God. 

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to hear my friend and pastor Trevor preach about what discipleship means.  He was making the altogether true, but somewhat controversial point that discipleship does not happen in the Protestant-approved spiritual disciplines.  Reading your bible is not discipleship.  Singing worship songs is not discipleship.  Prayer is not discipleship.  Sitting across the table at a coffee shop from someone and talking about your feelings is not discipleship.  That's not to say those things aren't important to the Christian life or forming our character or that they aren't good spiritual practices.  But they are only preparations for discipleship.  Discipleship, after all, is following Christ.  That happens primarily when we suffer and when we struggle and when we fail.  Because discipleship is following Christ and Christ is going to a cross.  The question we face as His disciples is are we willing to follow Him even there?

As many similarities as there are between David and Christ, I am indebted to my friend Dan for pointing out to me a key difference.  David became king.  Yes, he spent much of his life running from Saul, hiding in caves, facing persecution, plots against his life, and real danger.  But he became king.  He enjoyed the spoils of wealth, of success, of power, of prestige, of significance, of military might, and of celebrity.  He became everything he could have ever dreamed to be and more and all of this was clearly done by God's own hand.

Jesus did not.

At least, not in the way we see in the life of David.  Jesus would become a spiritual king, the savior of Israel.  But he spend his life nomadic and homeless, hanging out with the scourges of society.  He had no real career or accomplishments to his name, certainly no prestige or celebrity.  He never wrote a book, never was even recognized as a proper teacher by the religious authorities of His day.  He was 30 years old, unmarried, with no property, and spending all his days with a bunch of uneducated fishermen.  It is safe to say that most people probably thought Jesus' life was a failure.  And then he went to a cross.  The only recognition of his kingly status was a sign reading "King of the Jews" hanging above his head adorned with a crown of thorns.

Now who do I really want to be like?  Do I want to be like David or do I want to be like Christ? 

Our pastor J.D. drew a comparison in his sermon this week between the pasture where David is tending sheep when they call for him so that Samuel can anoint him as the next king of Israel and the place we spend our lives as we prepare for whatever we think God is calling us to in the future.  I think this reads with a lot of twentysomethings like me who constantly feel like we are waiting for our real lives to begin and these preparation times to fade away to mere memories.  J.D.'s point was not waste this time.  God forms kings in the pasture.  That is where he makes ordinary, weak people into people who are capable of extraordinary things through His strength.

But what if God's calling for me isn't from a pasture to a throne?  What if while I wait and doubt and struggle what God is calling me toward is more suffering?  If following Christ means going to a cross then suffering is a permanent part of that equation.  I must be united to Him in His death if I am ever to access the healing that is found in His life.  Would I still worship Him if that is the case?  Am I enduring the pasture and the cave and the wilderness because of the promise of a throne or because I know that God is with me no matter where I am?  (I'm asking these questions because I honestly don't have the answers.)

If God's calling for me doesn't involve getting married to the woman of my dreams or having a moderately priced house in the suburbs or attaining financial stability or having the respect of my colleagues or the admiration of my friends, then am I still interested in pursuing the path which he has laid out before me?  And if I don't, then did I ever really have any faith or trust in Him at all? 

I think no one serves better as an example of someone who suffered well in scripture than Paul.  He encountered difficulties not when he was young but when he was older and knew enough to avoid strife and hardship.  He had status and prestige and power before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.  That was where Paul lost everything.  He lists out the various things he has suffered in his second letter to the Corinthians. 

Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

And yet through it all, he sings hymns while in prison and converts his jailers.  He not only endures torment and hardship, he almost seems to prefer it or at least to expect it.  He goes around writing things like, "I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.  And "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."  And "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."  At the end of his life, he uses his allotted time to defend himself before his would be executioners to try to convert them to Christianity instead.

This is not to fall into the all-too-common traps of sanitizing the bible or of glorifying the saints.  Paul's suffering were real and painful and difficult.  I think his testimony suggests that he endured them faithfully but at the cost of great discomfort.  I just don't think Paul considered it to be suffering if it was what God planned for Him to do.  He welcomed God's plan no matter the outcome or affect on his life.  He didn't hold back his faith hoping to attain the things he wanted all along and then just slap the name of God on the side.  He was ready, he was eager to suffer if it meant joining God in His mission for the world.  I don't have Paul's faith.

Much like life, this blog post will remain unresolved.  But I do want to leave you with some encouragement.  There's no better way for me to do that this week than to introduce you to new music.  My friend Jonathan put out his debut album this week under the name Aftermath and it is called The Aftertaste of Abandonment.  Not only is the record an incredibly insightful reflection on what it sounds like and feels like to have faith in God in a world that often disappoints us, it's also just flat out good.  You should go download it immediately.  (It's only $7.92!)  And listen to track 5 entitled "Waters Rise."  No, this storm is not over.

heart heart heartbreak

I would be sad because you left me all alone.
I would be sad because the lies that you had told.
I would be sad because I got left by a girl that I adore.
I would be sad because the love I had before. - The Avett Brothers

Denial

I meant what I said when I said I would settle down with you

although I know it's not something that you were asking me to do.

And I know we are young but we won't always be, so marry me;

lets not be that predictable young couple changing, moving on.

Heartbreak.  Inevitable.  Undeniable.  Instrinsic.  There is no way to both breathe and avoid it in your life.  Yet we spend most of our days, our waking hours, our efforts and energy trying to distance ourselves from it.  Even the risk of having our hearts broken, the mere prospect, is so awful as to cause us to rearrange our lives, reconfigure our choices, to ensure we would never face such a sentence.  Still we fail.  It catches up to us all.  We don't deny its power, we deny it is an essential quality of life.

"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me."

Christ's prayer spoken with His face in the dirt, alone in the Garden of Gethsemane looking for any way possible to remedy our sin.  Jesus in no way denied his fate.  He knew the pain he would endure, the torture that would be inflicted to mete out God's punishment.  He was willing to endure it.  For the joy set before Him, He did not waver.  It was the heartbreak that gave Him pause.  To suffer the pain that we had merited by our waywardness was a difficult task.  To face the heartbreak of His Father as He turned from the sin that weighed down on the back of Christ even as he clung to the cross, I have to imagine that was what brought Him to His knees in the garden.

Anger

But I can tell by watching you that theres no chance of pushing through.
The odds are so against us; you know most young love it ends like this.

In the midst of my trials in the garden of my life, I must admit I never respond so graciously.  I shake my fists in the air and rage against the stars that would dictate such a fate.  I blame God Himself temporarily forgetting that my arms are too short to box with God.  Forgetting that He has endured far worse from my hands and only desires my good in the long term.

God is not the author of heartbreak.  He is the author of love.  But you cannot have love without heartbreak.  There is no such thing.

God subjected Himself to that pain before any of us.  God was perfectly content before creating us.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were in perfect community, in perfect Love before the world we know was spoken into existence.  But it was out of the overflow of this love that God decided a perfect universe would be made somehow more complete with us in it.  It was out of this love that we were created.  Among our first acts to thank God for the inexpressible gift of somethingness out of nothingness that we responded by breaking His heart with our disobedience.

And yet I'm angry at God.  The weight of the evidence leads to an easy suggestion about which party should be truly grieved by this deal.

Bargaining

I meant what I said when I said I would rearrange my plans and change for you.

In the course of His ministry on Earth, Christ and his disciples happened upon a blind man one day.  His disciples, ever taught and never learned, immediately turn to Jesus and ask, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

Christ responds patiently, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."  He tells them, "I am the light of the world."  He heals the blind man and sends him on his way home. 

I am sight.  Without me, you are all blind.

There is no bargain we can cut with God to avoid heartbreak, no deal that He would prefer.  It's as natural as a wildfire.  An Austrailian grass tree is a very special kind of tree.  Subject to the conditions of wildfires, they can become damaged but not die.  After the fire has finished, the trees are known to push new leaves and bloom brighter than they ever had before.  In fact, some Austrailian grass trees only bloom after a scouring fire.

Only the heart set ablaze by pain that knows the depths of the contrast joy provides.  It's only in contrast to the darkness that light gives meaning and purpose to our sight.

Depression

You know me; I've always been the kind with easy confidence.

Confident enough to honestly believe that nothing out there stopping me

especially not someone who's not loving me.

Now listen here I told you I could live on without loving you.

I was bluffing then, but it seems that just might have been the truth.

That doesn't make dealing with pain any less hard.  It still hurts just as much even to the enlightened mind.  But our suffering, even when its meaning is opaque, is not without purpose.  If we are to believe the words of scripture, temporary pain is producing in us a glory that is incomparable to what we had before.  Hope dilutes sadness and spreads until even depression is changed into a new substance entirely.  Bleak worlds are colored by hope.

As Paul writes it to the Corinthians in his second letter, "For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory."

Acceptance 

Well my dad told me, "One day son, this girl will think of what she's done
and hurting you will be the first of many more regrets to come."
And he said, "If she doesn't call, then it's her fault and it's her loss."
I say, "It's not that simple see, but then again it just may be."

"Yet not as I will, but as You will."

Christ concludes His prayer in the garden.  Accepts His fate, draws on God's strength even in the face weakness, and endures the cross. 

In the final analysis, heartbreak is not a reason to lose trust in God.  It is a reason to trust Him.  We see the heartbreak that he endures at our hands.

It's not a proof that God does not care for us.  It is a proof that He does.  Even from the cross, Christ petitions God on behalf of His murderers, namely you and me, "Forgive them for they know not what they do."  We almost never do.  But we should know that we can follow and trust the God who endures such heartbreak on our behalf no matter the heartbreak we must endure ourselves along the way.

I would be sad...

i need some meaning i can memorize

I got a hunger and I can't seem to get full/I need some meaning I can memorize/The kind I have always seems to slip my mind - Bright Eyes

How is that a person can image God?  How can we walk as Christ walks and live as He lives even as we continue to reside on this earth?

These are the essential questions I am struggling with the most these days.  And I have found some insight from an unlike source: Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens is the among the most unlikely sources of Christian inspiration because he is a well-known atheist, indisputable contrarian, and all-around crank.  But he's brilliant and a great writer.  He's also recently wandered further into the limelight as he was diagnosed with cancer and many evangelicals began to start movements to pray for his death bed conversion to Christianity.

I have recently picked up his book, god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, mostly because he is a great writer and dogged contrarian, both of which to some degree I also aspire to be.  I was in no way surprised by his skepticism towards the Christian faith as he repeated sneeringly refers to believers as "monotheists."  In his angrier moments, he fires flaming arrows at the heart of the brand of Christian theology as comfortable and worn as an old pair of house slippers.

How much vanity must be concealed--not too effectively at that--in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan?  How much self-respect must be sacrificed in order that one may squirm continually in an awareness of one's own sin?  How many needless assumptions must be made, and how much contortion is required, to receive every new insight of science and manipulate it so as to "fit" with the revealed words of ancient man-made dieties?

Not eaxctly the lighter side of atheism.  More the grizzled and vaguely angry veteran, Hitchens' most poignant critique of Christianity is not Niestchke's grand proclamation that God is dead but rather that Christianity itself is a dead religion.  In the same way that Latin as a dead language is incapable of producing any new words, Christianity is vacant intellectually and incapable of producing any new thoughts or insights.

Religion spoke its last intelligible or noble or inspiring words a long time ago...  We shall have no more prophets or sages from the ancient quarter, which is why the devotions of today are only the echoing repetitions of yesterday, sometimes ratched up to screaming point so as to ward off the terrible emptiness.

Is it true?  Are we ready to declare new thoughts about theology and God as impossible?  Are no new formulations of the Christian faith possible?

Regardless of our answer, we live in too many churches that act as if it is.  But if there is nothing left to be done, nothing new to discover about God, no new insight to be gained about His intentions for the world, then what is the point of the Christian life?  In the literal sense, what difference does it make?

What might have been the most startling aspect of the chapter for me was a story that Hitchens recounts about selecting an appropriate scripture to eulogize his father at his funeral in a chapel of the Church of England.  He picked a passage from Paul's letter to the Philippians (chapter 4, verse 8), "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and ifn there be any praise, think on these things."  He then explains his selection by saying,

I chose this because of its haunting and elusive character, which will be with me at the last hour, and for its essentially secular injunction, and because it shone out from the wasteland of rant and complaint and nonsense and bullying which surrounds it.

And with that Christopher Hitchens, the most unlikely of sources, gave me as good of an insight into scripture as I had heard in months.

So why aren't we thinking new thoughts about God?  Why aren't we gaining new insights?  Mostly because of fear.

Don't believe me?  Just watch when someone tries.  Take, for instance, an author such as Rob Bell.  In his book, Velvet Elvis, he questions the centrality of doctrine in building a strong Christian faith by describing the Christian life as a trampoline and doctrines as the springs that hold it together.

This is where the springs on the trampoline come in. When we jump, we begin to see the need for springs. The springs help make sense of these deeper realities that drive how we live every day. The springs aren’t God. The springs aren’t Jesus. The springs are statements and beliefs about our faith that help give words to the depth that we are experiencing in our jumping. I would call these the doctrines of the Christian faith.

They aren’t the point.

They help us understand the point, but they are a means and not an end. We take them seriously, and at the same time we keep them in proper perspective…

In fact, its stretch and flex are what make it so effective. It is firmly attached to the frame and the mat, yet it has room to move. And it has brought a fuller, deeper, richer understanding to the mysterious being who is God. ...

Even his analogy is one that evokes the image of motion and energy.  The converse is a systematic theology built on stagnant doctrine brick by brick saying that a Christian who subscribes this view has quite a differenct experience of the Christian faith, "For him, faith isn't a trampoline; it's a wall of bricks. Each of the core doctrines for him is like an individual brick that stacks on top of the others. If you pull one out, the whole wall starts to crumble. It appears quite strong and rigid, but if you begin to rethink or discuss even one brick, the whole thing is in danger."

Brian McLaren relates a similar idea in his book, A Generous Orthodoxy.  For him, orthodoxy is not a set concept that is now and forever incapable of being bent and stretched and questioned and reformed.  It is a set of beliefs that are articulated by a community in the process of living out the Christian faith together.

To be a Christian in a generously orthodox way is not to claim to have the truth captured, stuff, and mounted on the wall...That, to me, is orthodoxy -- a way of seeing and seeking, a way of living, a way of thinking and loving and learning that helps what we believe become more true over time, more resonant with the infinite glory that is God.

If you need proof that these ideas are dangerous, divisive, and disfavored, just take a moment to google the names of the previous two authors and see how they are vilified.  For some "conservative" critics, the only new thoughts they ever have are critiques of someone else's thoughts.  As a people, Christians have become more critics than creators.  But in the essential picture of creation, fall, and redemption of the Bible, who is the creative force and who is the critical one?  When we spend all of our time opposing a new way of thinking, just who are we really imitating?

As Galileo put it, I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.  I am always drawn to authors with new ideas because they might be able to help me understand a new aspect of the character of God.  Isn't that kind of the point of learning to know him more?  Is that even possible by only simple repetition of everything I have learned before?  If we cannot accept a new concept or the possibility that God might still have something left to reveal to us, then our faith really is as dead as Hitchens would have us believe.