This is another in a series of posts called Occupy Life. Read here or here or here or the original post here for more.
The sun sets on another night and the rusty colors fading ripe in the night sky fill my heart with … wonder.
Today, I didn’t uncover any philosophical gems or scientifically disprove gravity. I didn’t speak to hundreds with a riveting account of the Gospel or sacrifice all of my North American excess.
This morning, I wrestled myself free from my many blanketed cocoon to meet the day with haphazard hair and a neutral temperament. Most days, cheeriness escapes before I can even take a breath (which makes for verrrry interesting encounters when I spend nights with my sister, who requires an hour at the least before conversation – not to mention my incoherent, cheery ramblings).
Today, I ambled around … folding laundry and showering and getting ready in a somewhat alien morning stupor. And then the day happened – every last waning moment of it, filled with ribbon tying, table decorating, record-keeping, and averting the small catastrophe that would have been the tablecloths.
That’s it.
Nothing spectacular – just walking with the rhythm of life and being available to respond to oh-so-practical needs in oh-so-unromantic ways.
And sometimes – precious MANY times – this is what is required of us. No, not ribbon tying – living. But, really, reallyliving where life is the most mundane things, not the exception to those things. If I had held my breath, waiting for this Friday to spark with out-of-the-ordinary light, I would have made the Guinness Book of World Records (or be dead).
Humming some tunes while I finish my time at my temp job; climbing into “my own little world” while I sort and organize and live.
I’ve always got a song on my heart – a soundtrack for livingalive. Today, that soundtrack is this song by Sojourn, “Lead Us Back.”
Today, this is the sound of life in the ordinary and extraordinary leading to the place where we must return to see its true glory.
Lead Us Back
Falling down upon our knees
Sharing now in common shame
We have sought security
Not the cross that bears Your name
Fences guard our hearts and homes
Comfort sings a siren tune
Weʼre a valley of dry bones
Lead us back to life in You
Lord we fall upon our knees
We have shunned the weak poor
Worshipped beauty courted kings
And the things their gold affords
Prayed for those weʼd like to know
Favor sings a siren tune
Weʼve become a talent show
Lead us back to life in You
Lord Youʼve caused the blind to see
We have blinded them again
With our manmade laws and creeds
Eager ready to condemn
Now we plead before Your throne
Power sings a siren tune
Weʼve been throwing heavy stones
Lead us back to life in You.
Weʼre a valley of dry bones
Lead us back to life in You.
Weʼve become a talent show
Lead us back to life in You
Weʼve been throwing heavy stones
Lead us back to life in You.
Yesterday, I stumbled on some unlikely (for me) reading about Tim Tebow. I have tried to stay away from all the noise, because I don’t want to feed a monster. But, this article does more than diagnose a media phenomenon – Chuck Klosterman looks at why people are so passionate about whatever side they’ve chosen to take in the Tebow Controversy of 2011, of which I claim neutral status.
The crux here, the issue driving this whole “Tebow Thing,” is the matter of faith. It’s the ongoing choice between embracing a warm feeling that makes no sense or a cold pragmatism that’s probably true. And with Tebow, that illogical warm feeling keeps working out. It pays off. The upside to secular thinking is that — in theory — your skepticism will prove correct. Your rightness might be emotionally unsatisfying, but it confirms a stable understanding of the universe. Sports fans who love statistics fall into this camp. People who reject cognitive dissonance build this camp and find the firewood. But Tebow wrecks all that, because he makes blind faith a viable option. His faith in God, his followers’ faith in him — it all defies modernity. This is why people care so much. He is making people wonder if they should try to believe things they don’t actually believe.
I think Klosterman hits the nail square on its head when he suggests the real root of anti-Tebow angst is not his presence in the media or his specific religious affiliation. The real root of all this angry noise is a universal discomfort of the other. Tebow, a sports anomaly, appears to truly believe that there is a power greater than his offensive line and a plan beyond that of the Super Bowl… and he hasn’t biffed any interview to reveal otherwise.
Again, not necessarily a Tebow fan or non-fan, but I think this informal social study points to an uncomfortable result from the impressive intellectual advances of modern and post-modern thought. Your average Joe would rather support other average Joe sports icons who trust in their abilities alone to get the job done. But this is more than sports (also as Klosterman points out). Though it limits possibilities, we are willing to ex-communicate a divine presence because we would rather believe outcomes are within our control (good or bad). Believing otherwise means we would have to do some serious soul searching.
If Tebow is really as transparent as he seems, if there is no gnarly skeleton in his locker, if he does believe all he claims, then sports fans might have to start thinking seriously about the forever post-game.
There are countless historical examples of this same universal discomfort that arises when someone of irrefutable character makes a bold statement by a life that points to something else. I think of Bonhoeffer.
This man had the pedigree for greatness – he had family ties, academic prowess, and a determination that would make (dare I say) Tebow seem like a nursery rhyme. He studied hard, gathered degrees, and decided to pursue the ministry (in his day, a respected career, but an unlikely one for a man so bright and gifted).
But he had something I can’t quite put my finger on, something that weaves life with theology in a way they can’t be separated.
I call it viviology because I can’t find a better word.
This viviology is not a gimmick. It’s not something you see on Sunday or at speaking engagements. When Bonhoeffer was working with adolescent ruffians in Wedding, very few people noticed. His life was not a show, it was just life. I imagine if I could ask Bonhoeffer why he worked so hard with that confirmation class or why he poured so much into the discipleship of young men, he would say, “What else is there to do?”
Being “radical” or a “standout” is really not something we should have to add to “Christian.” C.S. Lewis once described in Weight of Glory our duty as Christians to always operate with a mindset of war. We are always accountable to our commander, always looking to be useful, and never looking for praise for what comes naturally with the job description as soldier.
God shouldn’t have to qualify our calling by saying He wants us to be “radical” Christians. When Christ said, “Follow me,” the calling was filled to fullness. There is no room for lukewarm and no room for additional meaning. The only kind of calling to follow Christ is one that consumes every fiber and fills every motion. The Christian calling is one alive and breathing, with the air of gratitude filling our lungs. A life of faith is not one that can be neatly sliced and served up in reasonable portions.
A life of Christian faith is just life – all of it.
And that’s a big statement.
I certainly didn’t set out thinking I had this much to say, but we surprise ourselves sometimes!
Maybe we just have things turned around (wouldn’t be the first time for the human race). Maybe we’ve shelved things in the wrong place and now it’s hard to find what we’re looking for.
Maybe it’s like when you are making a recipe and you know you bought cumin, but you’ve torn apart the whole kitchen and still can’t find it. Then… after admitting defeat and cranking a can of Progresso soup open in disgust, you see little Tommy flying a plane around the kitchen with little cumin as its pilot.
Maybe that’s what we’ve done with humility.
“What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be.
A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed.
Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert–himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt – the Divine Reason. . . .
The new skeptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. . . . There is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it’s practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. . . .
The old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which makes him stop working altogether. . . .
We are on the road to producing a race of man too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.”
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy [Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1957], pp. 31-32
This will be a day for this equation: music+words=happy Monday! Enjoy these links and pass them along, if your little hearts desires. But most of all and as always
let LOVE fly like cRaZy
even if you aren’t dressing up or filling candy bowls for festivities tonight, there are ALL kinds of opportunities and I know you know it.
Are you a fan of Jars of Clay? Please check this out!
If Jars of Clay isn’t your cup ‘o tea, you should definitely check out Neulore. I became familiar with this band and frontman Adam Agin through Brite Revolution, in its earlier days. You’ve GOT to check out this album right now! Here’s one of the songs:
Let’s see… something to read. Well, on a recent road trip with a very special high schooler, she asked me, “What’s this ‘Lamb of God’ stuff about? I mean I hear it a lot and it’s in songs and I’m just wondering is it a real lamb?” LOVED the question and LOVED the fact that we had several hours to sort it out. At the end, I said, “I know I’m getting worked up about this, but it’s only the beginning – there are SO many ways the Bible speaks that we gloss over! There are all sorts of prophecies in the OT that are later fulfilled in the NT that are simply MARVELOUS. Here is a great list from Peter Cockrell’s blog (he actually got it from Dane Ortlund if you want to re-trace the internet steps). CHECK IT OUT!
I think I’ve already posted this once, but I ALWAYS need the reminder. What is God sovereign over? A few countries? The weather? My family? Friends? Jobs? The beginning? The end? Evil? Good? Check out this post by Justin Taylor.
We could be reveling forever in the love You bring and we could be wasted on You and not count it loss
Like fools in love we’re bound to make a scene
Our hearts bleed for you, whoa
What beautiful way to usher in a Monday (fyi – John Mark McMillan comes out with a new album tomorrow).
Especially after such a blessed weekend, I love this.
Like fools in love, we’re bound to make scene. Isn’t that the truth.
Do your days feel like this? Like you can’t HELP but make a scene? If we are reveling in the love of Christ – wasting everything else and not counting a loss, then our lives will speak (maybe even shout) like crazy that there is something greater!
We might be the people that get pointed at or the people that get ignored, but the bottom line is that the scene bound to happen is for an audience of One.
The Lord welcomes His sons and daughters into worship, where our hearts bleed for the Creator of the Universe. I’m so thankful that God also knows, as we endeavor to worship with our very lives, that there are bound to be scenes.
Our love can look near foolish, but if anyone deserves a scene it is certainly our Lord and Savior!
I’m probably on my way to Colorado by the time you read this – kind of last minute. I’m off to see some family and spend some beautiful time with one of my past Honduran students. If I was writing with my true excitement, it’d be in all caps, but because people usually read those in a scream, I’ll refrain.
Last week, I posted this link to a blog by Dane Ortlund in my this & that post. During a conversation I had tonight about Christian perfection and sanctification and temptation, I read it again.
It’s still amazing.
I love that we find this little Clive Staples gem tucked away in correspondence he was writing to a friend who had some questions about evil. Oh! If my correspondence were only half as significant!
this is how I always like to imagine him - with round glasses, wise face, and a big ole book
So, if you missed it, here it is (I just took this straight from Ortlund’s blog, so go check it out his stuff!):
On September 12, 1933, 35-year-old Clive Staples Lewis wrote a letter to his dear friend Arthur Greeves. The letter is located in the Wade Center at Wheaton College–just down the street from where I am typing right now.
Greeves had written to Lewis asking about the degree to which we can speak, if at all, of God understanding evil in any kind of experiential way–as Greeves had put it, ‘sharing’ in our evil actions.
Lewis begins with an analogy (all emphases original)–
Supposing you are taking a dog on a lead past a post. You know what happens. . . . He tries to go the wrong side and gets his head looped round the post. You see that he can’t do it, and therefore pull him back. You pull him back because you want to enable him to go forward. He wants exactly the same thing–namely to go forward: for that very reason he resists your pull back, or, if he is an obedient dog, yields to it reluctantly as a matter of duty which seems to him to be quite in opposition to his own will: tho’ in factit is only by yielding to you that he will ever succeed in getting where he wants.
Now if the dog were a theologian he would regard his own will as a sin to which he was tempted, and therefore an evil: and he might go on to ask whether you understand and ‘contained’ his evil. If he did you could only reply ‘My dear dog, if by your will you mean what you really want to do, namely, to get forward along this road, I not only understand this desire butshare it. Forward is exactly where I want you to go. If by your will, on the other hand, you mean your will to pull against the collar and try to force yourself in a direction which is no use–why I understand it of course: but just because I understand it (and the whole situation, which you don’tunderstand) I cannot possibly share it. In fact the more I sympathise with your real wish–that is, the wish to get on–the less can I sympathise (in the sense of ‘share’ or ‘agree with’) your resistance to the collar: for I see that this is actually rendering the attainment of your real wish impossible.’
Lewis then goes back to the original question to bring his analogy home:
I don’t know if you will agree at once that this is a parallel to the situation between God and man: but I will work it out on the assumption that you do. Let us go back to the original question–whether and, if so in what sense God contains, say, my evil will–or ‘understands’ it. The answer is God not only understands but shares the desire which is at the root of all my evil–the desire for complete and ecstatic happiness. He made me for no other purpose than to enjoy it. But He knows, and I do not, how it can be really and permanently attained. He knows that most of my personal attempts to reach it are actually putting it further and further out of my reach. With these therefore He cannot sympathise or ‘agree.’
Lewis then relates his point to how we think about past sins, and then how we think about future sins (temptation).
I may always feel looking back on any past sin that in the very heart of my evil passion there was something that God approves and wants me to feel not less but more. Take a sin of Lust. The overwhelming thirst for rapture was good and even divine: it has not got to be unsaid (so to speak) and recanted. But it will never be quenched as I tried to quench it. If I refrain–if I submit to the collar and come round the right side of the lamp-post–God will be guiding me as quickly as He can to where I shall get what I really wanted all the time. It will not be very like what I now think I want: but it will be more like it than some suppose. In any case it will be the real thing, but a consolation prize or substitute. If I had it I should not need to fight against sensuality as something impure: rather I should spontaneously turn away from it as something cold, abstract, and artificial. This, I think, is how the doctrine applies to past sins.
On the other hand, when we are thinking of a sin in the future, i.e. when we are tempted, we must remember that just because God wants for us what we really want and knows the only way to get it, therefore He must, in a sense, be quite ruthless towards sin. He is not like a human authority who can be begged off or caught in an indulgent mood. The more He loves you the more determined He must be to pull you back from your way which leads nowhere into His way which leads where you want to go. Hence MacDonald’s words ‘The all-punishing, all-pardoning Father.’ You may go the wrong way again, and again He may forgive you: as the dog’s master may extricate the dog after he has tied the whole leash around the lamp-post. But there is no hope in the end of getting where you want to go except by going God’s way. . . .
And in a final, powerful, delightful reminder–
I think one may be quite rid of the old haunting suspicion–it raises its head in every temptation–that there is something else than God–some other country into which He forbids us to trespass–some kind of delight which He ‘doesn’t appreciate’ or just chooses to forbid, but which would be real delight if only we were allowed to get it. The thing just isn’t there. Whatever we desire is either what God is trying to give us as quickly as He can, or else a false picture of what He is trying to give us–a false picture which would not attract us for a moment if we saw the real thing.
The other day (or was it last week? I am losing track), I was thinking (because I am unemployed and that’s how I spend all my extra time). If this phase is a dark tunnel, then God has been graciously granting little matches.
Here’s what I mean.
Until God allows the day to win the night in this tunnel of “transition,” He’s lighting little matches – little reminders that He is near, He has not forgotten me, and He wants me to be thrilled at even the notion of light.
You see, we get all wrapped up in HUGE, dramatic deliverance from trials. We have to squeeze tragedy and triumph into 30 minute TV shows and 2 hour films. When it comes to our own trials, we expect them to last just about as long. God doesn’t work within the schedule of TV digest or any other timeline we’ve superimposed on our lives. His tunnels and open spaces are the exact length needed for us to see His glory and nothing less.
So, I’ve adapted my eyes, if you will, to the darkness and I’ve found that the slightest spark is brilliantly bright! Take farming, for instance. Nobody (including me) would have said I’d end up in a tractor for harvest this year. But, there it is – a little match lit to remind me of all the ways God is providing and all the ways His fields are just as ripe for harvest and it’s no easy task.
And then there are the times I’ve been asked to speak at churches, the adventures in babysitting, the raspberry picking with my grandparents, the card playing with friends, the football games with parents, the crazy road trips to pick up missionaries, the missions conference with the local church, and the countless other examples of little matches sparked in my life to remind me of God’s presence, power, and purpose.
Last week, when a friend from church asked me to nanny for their family this week, she kept thanking me. All I could think to say was, “Thank you for being another reason why I haven’t taken a job!”
Every little match shows brilliant against a dark backdrop and reveals just how much God cares for me.
What little matches are being lit in your tunnel, dear friend?
It means, “to drive or urge forcefully or irresistibly.”
What are you compelled to do? What is so irresistible that you can’t NOT do it (I realize that’s a double negative, but it’s necessary).
It’s crazy – something outside a person has power enough to change not just actions, but desires. This isn’t always a good thing. When I was little, my four siblings and I had to make up a rule (one of many), “No singing at the table.” Strange? Yes, but every bit necessary in order to prevent a five way battle for the melody. More than likely, the rule came about because one or more of us felt “compelled” to sing a certain song a certain way to aggravate a certain sibling.
The good kind of compelled? What happened when I looked out the window this morning and saw the sun dancing on rusty leaves – SONG! God’s beauty in creation has a way of compelling the hardest of hearts on the hardest of days into sweet song.
I just walked off the treadmill a few minutes ago because I thought my waterworks wouldn’t pass for sweat any longer. I was sweating a storm when the song, “Love, Love, Love” by Tristan Prettyman hit my iPod. I happen to have the version where she explains the song is about growing up surfing and barbecuing with her family every day of summer. She has since left that routine to travel as a musician, but this song is a reminder that these people and memories will always be love to her. I started to think of all the ways this place and these people have become “love” to me.
I thought of the slurred broadcast voice speeding through a list of vegetables available on the back of the truck driving through my neighborhood at 7 am.
I thought of the cow that almost hit us on the way up the mountain last night.
I thought of the little note a student left for me today, asking me to pray for her test (and our joyful celebration afterwards when she was happy with the results!).
I thought of all the times I’ve been part of a crowded kitchen and the delicious results.
I thought of countless conversations that played out better than the most riveting film – conversations where I couldn’t wait to see what the student would say next or how they would surprise me with insight/joy/wisdom.
I thought of students popping into my office in every spare moment, whether I was busy or available, just to say hello.
I thought of nudging Louis’s battered nose out into traffic, confident that we would pull through whatever peril we were entering.
I thought of my house without electricity at the moment and all the opportunities I’ve had to be still in candlelight.
I thought of the delight at watching people enjoy something I’ve baked up in my kitchen.
I thought of student meetings, crowded in my little office, where we shared our testimonies and fears and joys.
I thought of the blessings of friendship – the deep, deep kind I never expected to find when I came here “on mission,” but the kind that will be part of my story forever.
I thought about the lessons I’ve learned at the foot of my Savior, when I’m willing and when I’m not, and His infinite patience with me as I try to figure out how to best support His kingdom work in this place.
I thought of all the crazy ways God has paraded His glory in front of my face in these past three years and I thought it was dangerous to try to beat the treadmill at its game.
It’s strange that heavy emotions really sap your strength. I can do an hour on the treadmill normally and still be ready for a crazy night of randomness afterwards. But, these days I am dragging myself out of bed every morning and having a rough time even pounding out 30 minutes at night and I can only point to these silly emotions as the culprit. I guess it’s even more proof that God interwove every part of us. You can’t separate your energy from your emotion anymore than you can separate darkness from night.
And I’ll say that’s why I am tired. I have a running list of “Things I want to do before June 23…” and it’s growing but my time is shrinking. Today, without warning, as the last students were rushing out of the hallways to get to the bus, I let the tears roll. People were asking when it would start hitting me… well, it’s now I guess.
Here’s Tristan’s song:
Here’s another song that has been such an encouragement to me lately. Honestly, this is my prayer right now – for me and for my students and for our desperate generation. This cry comes right out of Deuteronomy 6 and it is timeless. I want this to be my story. I want to remember my Lord and Savior in this way. I want His love and mercy and kingdom to be tied around my wrists and written on my doorposts and displayed in my life like I want nothing else. And I want this desperate love to be what holds my students together. I want them to remember who the Lord is and how He is reigning over all things.
Okay, I’m barely holding my eyelids high enough to peek through… but I wanted to jot down a few thoughts and some links. My friend John always pokes fun at me for the amount of tabs I leave open on my computer. I reason that I can’t close the tabs until I’ve dealt with them. Sometimes that means I just read the article and other times it means I post it or respond to it. Anyway… at this moment I have 9 tabs open in Google Chrome.
chocolate chip cookie dough chocolate cupcakes
First, I have to just take a moment to be sad about today being the last Tuesday I get to celebrate my little “taste and see” experiment with the seniors. I desperately want them to know how sweet the Word is! Today, if they told me their favorite verse and why, they got to choose a treat with a HIDDEN treasure: chocolate cupcake with chocolate chip cookie dough inside or a cake cookie with chocolate chip cookie dough inside. The process was about 4 hours long (and Hilda helped me out for the first half!), but the result was pretty delicious… and their responses were the sweetest part! Here are some of their favorite verses: Deuteronomy 6:5, Philippians 4:13, Zephaniah 3:17, Proverbs 31, Jeremiah 29:11, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Matthew 7, Luke 10:25-37, Galatians 5:20, James 1:12, John 3:16, Psalm 2:7-8, Proverbs 12:4, Proverbs 3:5-6, Psalm 23.
So, the whole idea was that inside the treat was a HIDDEN treasure. It looks sweet on the outside, but you can’t even IMAGINE the sweetness on the inside! I only have THREE more days with the seniors before they say Adios to high school. I don’t know if I’m ready for this.
In other news… I’m going to make a little list-love here to get rid of a few tabs up top.
Bell Rings True is an article written by author David Dark (Sacredness of Questioning Everything) that examines Rob Bell’s book Love Wins and takes a different angle than many reviews I’ve read. I like to think I appreciate the whole picture and this is one article that helps me try to step back a few paces to see the landscape view. I may not change my mind, but I’m glad for reading it.
Saving Leonardo is a book review of Nancy Pearcey‘s Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals and Meaning. Let’s just say the intersection of history, art, and culture are enough to reel me in… but then you add the Secular/Christian dynamic and I am caught! This is on my reading list!
Five Thoughts on Worship is an article by Kevin DeYoung about the theology of worship. After experiencing different denominations, cultures, and styles, I have started to grip even tighter the ways God has defined worship for us. He desires for us to worship in Spirit and in Truth and He has not hid those ways from us. DeYoung references David Peterson’s five helpful points in understanding corporate worship, from his book Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship.
What is Heaven Like by Jared Wilson, over at the Resurgence, didn’t have a hard time convincing me to read. I LOVE to think/talk/dream/pray about heaven. I don’t think we have as many discussions as we ought about the place we are destined for eternity.
The Veneer of Media is another article in the series from Q ideas based on the book Veneer. There are many things in this article to ponder, not the least of which is our response to the article’s assertions.
My eyes are getting heavier by the second! I should go before I start talking gibberish!
don’t forget to
let LOVE fly like cRaZy
because Christ is the HIDDEN treasure!
MUSINGS IN THE MIDST 