Category: culture and current events

is the anchor deeper?

It’s hard for me to imagine someone who welcomes death and darkness like I welcome light and love – someone who longs to be in utter, distant loneliness forever. There are such people and Cormac McCarthy introduced me to one such person last night in his screenplay, “The Sunset Limited,” an HBO film.

The entire film takes place in a cramped apartment where two men take ahold of the other’s worldview by the collar and give it a thorough shaking. Their lives could not read more opposite, but their human-ness keeps them in a wordy banter between death and life.

Several times it felt like the wind got knocked clean out my lungs, so direct was the attack on the anchor to which my soul is bound. After Black (played by Samuel L. Jackson) rescued him from a suicide attempt, White (played by Tommy Lee Jones) refuses to give up hope on one thing: giving up. He plans to end his life and finally find peace in the nothingness – the void, dark, solitary space beyond. Everything he valued in life as a respected professor revealed itself as an illusion and in his ‘enlightened’ state the only logical response was suicide.

The despair was palpable as White spoke – like death’s bony hand had already strangled the life out of him, twisting up his insides. When his eyes attempt to betray the death in his soul, his words pound harder the nails on his vacant coffin. Emptiness.

Black (Jackson) is a man of conviction and a self-proclaimed ‘outlaw’ when it comes to faith. He lives in a rough tenement, surrounded by junkies and crackheads, and claims to not have a single thought apart from his Bible knowledge. He lives simply, available and eager to be used by God in the lives of broken people. And White (Jones) would have nothing to do with his charity.

With the striking boldness of a man who has seen death battle in front of him all his life, Black debates the meaning of life with White (and on several occasions requests an everyman paraphrase). Though we are pulled this way and that, the end of the film closes without resolution. We suppose that White left the same man who walked into the shabby room, a pending suicide statistic. We suppose that, though Black is shaken, he remains faithful to the God who took him down to the train tracks the night before.

The irresolute ending feels like a rope unraveled. Brilliant dialogues pull the pieces apart across 91 minutes. In a last, desperate effort to reach White, Black responds to the man’s hope for the cold darkness of suicide,

“Maybe you could just keep that in reserve. Maybe just take a shot at startin over. I dont mean start again. Everybody’s done that. Over means over. It means you walk away. I mean, if everthing you are and everthing you have and everthing you have done has brought you at last to the bottom of a whiskey bottle or bought you a one way ticket on the Sunset Limited then you cant give me the first reason on God’s earth for salvagin none of it. Cause they aint no reason. And I’m goin to tell you that if you can bring yourself to shut the door on all of that it will be cold and it will be lonely and they’ll be a mean wind blowin. And them is all good signs. You dont say nothin. You just turn up your collar and keep walkin.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Sunset Limited

Black suggests that if White’s life has brought him to make such a terminal decision as suicide, then he’s come to the end of himself. If there is nothing to salvage (nothing except death itself holds meaning), what could be lost in starting over but that which could be gained by starting over?

When White responds with probably the most horrifying monologue of the entire film, we can almost taste the human depravity as it drips off his lips. Void. Cold. Death.

And the viewer must decide what or who is capable of arranging the unraveled strands into something meaningful. The viewer must battle with his own demons and despairs when everything is shaken free of its settled skin.

The viewer must decide if he is the anchor or if the anchor is deeper than his frail, human skin.

Posted on by Caroline 3

Remedy

Talk of the economy and taxes and ‘Greece-is-our-future’ can get a sister down, you know? It’s not just the old folks who are saying, “What’s this world coming to?” No, that phrase is open to all ages because nobody knows anymore and it’s a little frightening.

Safe to say, everybody is looking for something. Also safe to say, everybody is looking for something to fix whatever’s broken.

Here’s something to sleep on by the Welcome Wagon that might chase away some of those bad dreams.

Enjoy!

http://vimeo.com/43865331

Posted on by Caroline 1

every promise, always kept

We suffer the sale of cheap words, but we buy them still.
Every day their consequence cuts afresh the wound of our failure and exposes all the ways we fall short.

“The hill I’m walking up is gettin’ good and steep
but I’m still looking for a promise even I can’t keep.”

Brandi Carlile can sing. She can sing and boy! can she write. Her song, “A Promise to Keep” has been rolling around in my soul since she released a free EP on Noisetrade. When I listen to this song, my shoulders slump with sadness – a kind of resignation that wraps me in and weighs me down. The words are heavy bundles with long, painful sighs because the notes sing the melody of hurt.

Carlile sings hurt… maybe because she has suffered the sale of cheap words, but she buys them still. Maybe because she feels the consequence of fresh cut failure-wounds and is exposed to all the ways she falls short. It’s a humanity kind of failure – a shortsightedness that presumes another promise spoken, believed, and broken.

My shoulders fold in and my lip shakes a little and I hurt with her for the insufferable exchange – the buying and selling of promises.

I still talk to you in my sleep
I don’t say much cause the hurt runs too deep
I gave you the moon and the stars to keep
but you gave them back to me

The hill I’m walkin up is gettin good and steep
but I’m still looking for a promise even I can’t keep

I still lay on my side of the bed
I dance alone when the last bottle’s spent
memories like a river runnin through my head
I’ll have me an ocean before I’m dead

The hill I’m walkin up is gettin good and steep
but I’m still looking for a promise even I can’t keep

I still whisper sweet words to you
and when I’m busy, or have nothing to do
I pray to god, that my words ring true
and that your words might reach me too

The hill I’m walkin up is gettin good and steep
but I’m still looking for a promise even I can’t keep
I can’t keep it…

My hearts in pieces so please understand
I’ve tried to jump, but I’ve nowhere to land
so give me your heart and I’ll give you my hand
and I’ll try as goddamn hard as I can

The hill I’m walkin up is gettin good and steep
but I’m still looking for a promise even I can’t keep

She is desperate for an impossible promise and her grief is filling up oceans, recklessly hoping there is someone better than she. I get woven in to her grief like I’m knit right into the melody’s sweater. I croon it out my car windows and sing it to the silent roof.

Why can’t I find someone who keeps a promise these days?
Why can’t I keep a promise?

And with my heart freshly beaten, my soul cast down at our dreadfulness, I hear sweet words proclaimed from the pen of Paul.

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.
(2 Corinthians 1:19-22 ESV)

For the promises of God find their Yes in him (Christ).

Through Christ I can utter my beaten, battered, folded-in AMEN to God for his glorious promises kept to a suffering and obstinate people. Not one of us can sing Carlile’s song and not know her hurt. But, oh! that we might claim the AMEN in Christ – who was the fulfillment of God’s promises and evidence of God’s faithfulness.

God establishes us in Christ, anoints us, puts his seal on us, and gives us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

The hills we walk up will get good and steep and full of suffering. But, even as we sing of our despair in broken promises, let us glory in the God whose promises are all Yes! in Christ. Every promise, always yes. Every promise, always kept.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

St. Francis, evangelism, reliable research, sexual identity, and the 99% I’ll support

I was gone last week in Michigan, but I tried to stay up on my reading. I slipped away a few times to work and inevitably ended up perusing Twitter and the blogosphere to find out what’s going on in the world. I think of my twitter account like one of those tickers that talk about the Dow Jones or Wall Street (I guess all that information flying across the screen is about the economy or something). Twitter is more my cup ‘o tea because it’s an aggregator of information of news in theology, arts, crafts, foods, and popular headlines. I don’t find everything there, but between twitter and blog posts sent to my email, I read a lot of content from a computer screen. Here are some of the things I’ve found.

  • How well do you know the saints? You know, the ones that get their soundbites memorialized on those inspirational posters with landscape scenery. How well do you know about their lives, their ministries, and their beliefs? Do you know them well enough to recognize when they are being misrepresented? St. Francis of Assisi is famous for saying, “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” There is one huge problem with this inspiration – it didn’t happen. Check out this great article, “FactChecker: Misquoting Francis of Assisi“ by Glenn T. Stanton to find out more.
  • This short article, “No Such Thing as the Gift of Evangelism” by Ed Stetzer exposes the excuses far too many believers use to ‘get out of’ sharing the gospel with others. I’m interested to know your thoughts – especially if you’ve taken a Spiritual Gifts Inventory that said you are not gifted in evangelism. Stetzer shares four proposals that I think are very helpful.
  • Have you ever wondered where the statistics come from that say a child in the foster care system requires 40 square feet to live in the state of Iowa (true story, I checked)? Where does research come from and why do we trust it? Who is checking and double checking the methods of the researchers and how many re-writes of the results happen before the public sees it? Here’s the biggest question: when we don’t agree with what research finds, is it bad research or just disagreeable results? A professor at UT conducted research of children of gay parents and came up with some very UNpopular results. A blogger wrote a letter and now the University of Texas is looking into his “questionable” ethics in the study. Check out this article from Denny Burk, “The Witch-Hunt for Mark Regnerus” and see if you can make sense of it.
  • This article, “The New Sexual Identity Crisis” from Jeff Buchanan (Executive Vice President of Exodus International) writes about the identity fragmentation that we see in regards to sexuality. Too many people have chalked it up to progress or trend or fad and not enough of us have taken a deep look at what it means for society and culture that we are a people so sexually confused. This article gives great insight.
  • In this video, Jonah Lehrer shares that “grit is the stubborn refusal to quit.” I love that. I can support 99% when it stands for good, old-fashioned perspiration. If you’ve got the time, his insights on creativity and how we get there are really refreshing.
  • I am a huge fan of the arts. HUGE. My mom is a music teacher, my dad’s family of 10 grew up performing, and I grew up on the stage with my siblings in church and school productions. This story in the Huffington Post, “Grace, Love, Courage: on Art, Artists, and Patronage” talks about one particular person and her support of the arts.

As always, I could give you more, but these should keep you pretty busy. Enjoy, folks, and don’t forget: knowledge is useless if it doesn’t result in acts of love. Even knowledge of what’s going on in the world should point us back to ways that we can serve and share the hope of the gospel.

Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

(1 Corinthians 8:1-3 ESV)

Posted on by Caroline 0

Bible literacy, Must-see films, short-term missions, and Micah Project

Hey, friends! Here’s another short-list of things you should read/click/watch/do. I hope this Monday is anything but manac and everything wonderful!

  • This series on short-term mission trips from the Gospel Coalition is extremely helpful in giving some understanding to a really hard topic. Short-term missions is just something Western churches do, even if it doesn’t need doing. Read the first article, “Celebrating the Short-Term Missions Boom ” and then the second, “Why You Should Consider Canceling Your Short-Term Missions Trip .” There is a third on the way.
  • So, my favorite film critic Brett McCracken, has a list of Best Films of the first half of this year. Take a look and see what you think.
  • How many of you start books and never finish them? How many of you are “reading” 5 books at the moment and a few of those you’ve been “reading” for 5 years? This article, “Biblical Literacy Begins with Reading,” reveals a problem we may have thought little about. It’s not about getting the Bible into the hands of more people. It’s about teaching those people to obey (Matthew 28) by actually reading and understanding the Bible in a way that translates into life.  But not the kind of reading that we do haphazardly – intentional, focused reading with accountability.
  • There are a lot of Christian books out there about how to be radical today – how to live simply, be significant, make a difference, and all that jazz. Micah Project, an organization I worked with while I lived in Honduras, is not a tagline, but a transformational ministry. Take a look at this video to see their story (narrated by a boy who went from street kid to professional through the power of Jesus).
  • And, just because I don’t want your Monday to drag, check out this article on the “awe of God.” It puts theology and Mondays in their rightful places.
  • Here’s some background music for your morning:

Have a great day, my friends!

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

Captivated, Prometheus, Eugenics, and Yosemite

It has been a LONG while since I posted links for “this & that.” I’ll just trust you’ve been doing your own sleuthing. In the chance that you haven’t, here are some things you should look up.

  • Friends, please watch this trailer for the documentary, “Captivated.” The lure of media-saturated living is so great and happened so subtly that we barely realize our bondage.
  • I mostly get my movie recommendations from the blogs I read and this post by Thabiti Anyabwile makes me want to look up listings for Prometheus right away. Now, for finding the time to go to the theatre…
  • Oh, did you think eugenics was a thing of the past? This brilliant piece in the NYTimes, “Eugenics, Past and Future” reveals where the idea (because things like public policy always start with ideas and end up with society-altering implications) originated and which great minds were involved in its inception. Now, what does the conversation look like today? I wish there wasn’t one.
  • This timelapse video of Yosemite is breathtaking. Such beauty – really unexplainable beauty. If you’ve got 4 minutes, you won’t be wasting it by watching this video.
  • This is a hard story to read, so don’t click unless you are ready. It’s not one that is filled with hope in the last lines or rings of redemption – this story is streaked with pain.  This freelance writer (and blogger) writes about her very real and frightful struggle with a daughter who has acute mental illness, “In the never after.“

Now, can I make a shameless plug? Um, I’m trying to … well, I’m trying to “be” a blogger. I guess I mean that in the sense that I’d love to have more “hits” and “pings” and all those things that make your readership grow. Not because I have something to say, or maybe it is because of that. In any case, I’ve been told one of the ways to find more readers is to have them “like” you on facebook. There is a facebook image on my sidebar and if you click on it, you can “like” my blog on facebook. There, I said it and I can’t give you anything for doing it. Just do it if you want to and don’t do it if you don’t.

Okay, friends. Please

let LOVE fly like cRaZy!

Posted on by Caroline 0

doing what we ought = freedom

More than a little ink spilled recently in Iowa over an administrator’s questionable email etiquette. That’s a nice way of saying she used her work email to do some pretty dirty things. In fact, her behavior motivated the powers that be in Des Moines public schools to implement a morality clause.

Morality clause? Aren’t we living in a relativistic culture? Who has the right to implement a moral standard?

Seems like our culture’s digging her own grave, though we hate to admit it. If we all make our own moral standard, how can we say someone else’s is inferior?

C.S. Lewis differentiates moral law from the law of nature in that it is what we “ought” to do, not what we simply do. Trees fall when cut and grass grows in response to rain and sunshine. Nature does those things, but there is not another layer of “ought.” Trees aren’t looked down on if they don’t fall at the feller’s ax. Grass isn’t more supremely regarded if it grows than if it wilts. Nature simply does things and we observe these characteristics.

People, on the other hand, get angry when someone steps in front of the shopping line or if someone steals the family car. We get angry because they “ought” not do such a thing. It’s wrong.

Everyone has their own version of “ought” – the place they draw the line in the sand where relativity fades and objectivity says, “you can’t do that to me.”

I struggle with the controversy in Des Moines because we are clamoring to say this woman “ought not” do what she did, yet we told her all along (as she gained experience and degrees in our system) that she needn’t bother with someone else’s morality. We told her that hers would do just fine.

How many people implementing the city’s new ‘morality clause’ could stand under its inspection? Are some positions more ‘moral’ than others because they are more public?

I race around these questions in my head and wish that C.S. Lewis was giving a lecture next week on a public campus. Jesus would obviously be the first choice, but C.S. Lewis seems more within reach (is that bad?). Honestly, I imagine the same response following a lecture by Lewis and a sermon by Jesus – a bunch of people filing out of a sterile auditorium mumbling their disagreement or support as they walk to their next engagement.

It hurts to hear the high-browed arguments about what should or shouldn’t be done in the public eye. Moral rules outside of divine wisdom are like walking on railroad tracks to an unknown destination.

The excitement and joy of doing what we “ought” is in knowing that in doing so we are free. It is not a morality clause that keeps us behaving as we ought, but a love that can’t imagine behaving any other way.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 3

parody, tarp surfing, learning to teach, and open heaven

It’s been awhile since a “this & that” post. There’s plenty to look at, click on, hear, watch, and do. Do as little or as lot as you wish, but whatever you do – let knowledge be something that produces action. It’s my hope that the more I know, the more I can translate that knowledge into love actions in a way that pleases my Lord. Just like all Truth is God’s, all knowledge is possible only because He’s allowed it to be so.

  • Andrée Seu is a woman I’d love to meet. This piece, “Under an Open Heaven,” seems to be a page right out of my heart. Here’s a taste, now please go read the rest!

My lover is the fresh wind of the Spirit, blowing through the rafters of my melancholy. My lover speaks of God “in season and out of season,” like Jesus at the well in Sychar, in his fatigue and hunger. There is no difference between his “religious” talk and his regular talk. He does not sound one way in church and another at the mall.

Walking with him I feel no sides, no floor, no ceiling, and everything all new: No past, no future. No rules but God’s. No servitude but to Him. No man-made impossibilities. We do the adventure called “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Let me be blunt: This is fun!

  • Wanna know what makes a great story? Seems like this post would answer it, “1+1=3 Ken Burn on what makes a great story” but it may not answer your math questions.
  • If I could choose a conference to go to this summer (in addition to the Muslim Missions Conference in Dearborn, Michigan), it would be the gem of a conference in Florida – The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference. The next best thing, of course, is to read/listen to everything. Carrie Sandom, hailing from the UK, will be speaking and here’s an introduction that makes me excited to hear more from her. “Learn the Bible to Teach the Bible” makes a bunch of sense.
  • Do you doubt that a landlocked country could surf waves? Doubt no more. This is really sweet.

  • Not to be “that kind of fan,” but Metaxas has proved himself as a brilliant writer and historian (Amazing Grace and Bonhoeffer). This article, “Spirituality as Parody” is definitely worth the read as well (and a lot shorter than Bonhoeffer).
  • What does your view of Scripture have to do with your view of God? See what J.I. Packer has to say about that, “Your View of Scripture and Your View of God.”
  • If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been grooving to the new band Citizen. They’re cool enough to spend $3 on, for sure.

Okay, friends. That’s all for now. Click, read, listen, watch, and… then DO something.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

heaven’s my home, anyhow

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
(Philippians 3:20-21 ESV)

I used to think heaven was a far-off, mysteriously cloudy place with a full orchestra on loop. I understood my “heavenly citizenship” to mean I had a ticket to get into some gloriously holy, underwhelming theme park where all the rides would be safe and all the fun would be clean.

Man, was I ever wrong.

No, I don’t believe that heaven is full of unholy and unsafe rollercoasters with unruly people. Rather, I realized that my knowledge of heaven was incomplete because I believed an incomplete description. It’s hard work to find out what the Bible says about heaven, true. But, it’s work that allows us to live like the Gospel is invaluable. What we think about heaven and eternity completely informs what we think about today, what we think about life, and what we think about the message of the Gospel.

When we share the Gospel like this, “Believe in Jesus because otherwise you’ll go to hell!” we are not doing justice to the message. If you were a sought-after artist, it would be like telling someone you would paint a masterpiece and then only covering a corner of the canvas with paint. Is it a part of what will be the bigger masterpiece? Yes. But would someone admire that little corner of the masterpiece as he would the whole? No. They would call it incomplete (actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if the art community would seize the unfinished and project meaning anyway). I would call it incomplete.

And this is what I think we do with heaven. It’s that place somewhere that I’ll be someday because I believe that Jesus died for my sins, according to the Scriptures – because I believe that Jesus took on all the messes that ever were and ever will be and stood in the place of their consequence. But, why?

Because of Christ’s work on the cross, we are brought into right relationship. This is what eternity is about. This is what heaven is about: right relationship that I do not deserve. And it’s not as mysterious as we’ve been content to think. A more robust view of heaven and eternity means a life blooming with gratitude and joy. When we have eyes to see God’s plans for heaven, we have a heart to reach out and pull others in to gaze at the wild beauty.

Randy Alcorn says, “If you lack a passion for heaven, I can almost guarantee it’s because you have a deficient and distorted theology of heaven (or you’re making choices that conflict with heaven’s agenda). An accurate and biblically energized view of heaven will bring a new spiritual passion to your life.”

Heaven is not an escape from this earth. It’s not where we will finally run where no evil can find us. Heaven is God’s idea of complete restoration – a peace between God and man and all of creation that hasn’t happened since the Garden of Eden. This gives perspective to our momentary troubles, but it also brings a passion to live absolutely abandoned for God’s purposes.

This song, “Heaven’s My Home” is another among the many that focus on a distant land, another home, a forever refuge. Featured in the film, “Secret Life of Bees,” this song captures some of the reasons why we hope for something beyond right now. The brokenness we see and feel in this world is unsettling. That little piece of eternity set in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11) is uncomfortable thinking this is all there is. But, I hope we are not content with simple descriptions of harps and clouds and mystery. I hope we dive into the Word and trust that the Lord knows best what eternity is made of… and that He might want us to know a thing or two.

Sam & Ruby Live- “Heaven’s My Home” from sammy b on Vimeo.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

therapy, cohabitation, syndrome success, and momentary marriage

Several things made me emotional today – in mostly good ways. I’d like to share a few of them with you in the form of these links in hopes that you’ll be encouraged, challenged, and spurred on. These are all inroads for conversation. That’s how I see it. The more we take in of our culture, the more ready we are to “give a reason to anyone who asks about the hope that we have.” Hope is not something that shows up once or twice a week. Hope makes appearances in conversations over a coffee or a beer or on the sidelines at a little league game. And these can be inroads, so let’s not waste our opportunities to engage.

  • I appreciated this article from Qideas, “Overcoming the Merely Therapeutic.” In a 2005 study (according to researchers Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton), teenagers say that worship is, “something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: he’s always on call, takes care of any problems that arise, professionally helps his people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process.” Revered Gregory Jensen responds to these findings and also reviews a recent book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 (2012).
  • This article by Scotty Smith, “Pray the Scriptures” for how it seeks to battle the, essentially therapeutic idea, by knowing God through His Word and then forming a conversation from that knowledge.
  • If you’ve got high school graduation parties to attend, think about giving a gift off this book list. It will last longer than the food gift cards and picture frames, promise.
  • This is a brilliant article by writer George Will in the Washington Post on the life of Jon Will – 40 years and going with Down’s Syndrome. I felt like I just watched a beautiful, short film of a life lived well (and still living).
  • Switching gears a bit, this article from the New York Times is more than interesting. The Downside of Cohabiting Before Marriage is important on so many levels. Something about being published in the NYT gives a topic legitimacy and makes it a valid conversation over cards.
  • This article, “Who Wants to Buy Honduras,” hits pretty close to home for me. With a country whose past is layered with corruption and poverty, are charter cities really the way out?
  • In view of the recent Desiring God conference on men and ministry and masculinity, I appreciated this article from Michael Horton, “Muscular Christianity.” Do you have thoughts on how manly Christianity is or if it is even worth deciding?
  • Lastly, I want to encourage you to watch this film on Ian and Larissa. Their marriage story is absolutely broken and beautiful. May God receive the glory!

Okay, friends. That’s all for now. Click one or two if you have to choose, but just do something with the knowledge.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0