Currently Listening Hideaway By The Weepies see related

Take Two

I am in self-imposed exile.  My first and only speeding ticket was back in December.  I've neglected to take the online defensive driving course that I told the county I would take.  So, I must appear in court on the 22nd or they will issue a carpias pro fine and have me incarcerated.  That is why I am in Texas a week after my last final.  That is why I will not be back home in St. Louis for two more weeks.  That is why I freakin missed Mother's Day.  Grr.  Arg.  I saw you smiling and I knew right then that I couldn't have you.  Wouldn't work.  :O)  I've been busy collecting thoughts, collecting pounds and collecting words.  The Cardinals continue to play with my heart.  Don't you play with my heart too.  Ever wonder what makes a good storm?  Is it the right amount of lightning?  Is it how the fattest rain drops pound away on your chimney and makes the echoes dance on the hearth?  Maybe it's how those smokey clouds frown and snarl right before they weep.  It makes me think of home.  I can't stop yawning.  Time to hibernate.  Tomorrow I'll reboot.  It's nice to be back.

Currently Listening Migrations By The Duhks see related

As has been my habit, I was tempted to start this entry with a somewhat bland metaphor about life.  Then I'd throw in some ambiguous phrases to plant my feet firmly in the air.  Perhaps some mildly gloomy remarks about school.  And if I was in the mood, I'd top it off with a Princess Bride quote.  Nothing wrong with that, right?  It's perfectly readable I suppose.  But the gap between readable and enjoyable spans eons of bloodearnest prose on distant shores and high school English classes. 

Now where is the substance?  How deep should you have to dig and scratch before you can see me through the cracks in my words?  Do I have nothing to say or am I simply unwilling to commit value to a forum where a stranger in France can see what I think?  This is what I will try to work on.  For those of us who still roam the once wildly popular xanga pages, let me share some things that I was turned on to today.

Our previous summers at the movie theater dazzled us (and in some cases, tranquilized us) with a dynamic flow of superhero movies.  I'm not going to argue for their caliber (or lack thereof) but I'm sure you'll agree that numerous catch phrases were born in their scripts.  We see them today as facebook quotes, bumperstickers and even on t-shirts.  Perhaps the most famous and indelible was the catch phrase of Uncle Ben from the Spiderman movies.  You remember it don't you?  "With great power comes great responsibility."  It's true enough that we don't disagree but it's cliche enough that we sometimes glaze over it with a yawn.  I think I almost resent it now because it's just so overused.  But the phrase that I'm thinking of now is from Batman Begins.  It goes a little something like this: "It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me."  And yes, I'm stoked for Dark Knight to hit the box office.  But that's another post.

But there's a lesson to be seen in that movie line (if we're not too proud to seek it there).  The argument of the sentence is that actions define identity.  Heroic actions make Batman a hero.  The ability to fly clearly makes that animal a bird.  If it sucks up dirt, then it's a vacuum cleaner.  But something Jesus said makes me scratch my head.  He picks a fight with our understanding of cause and effect.

In Matthew 15, our Lord explains to the scribes and the Pharisees the peculiar relation of identity to action.  If you're not sure of who the Pharisees were, they were basically misguided religious fundamentalists.  If that still doesn't make sense, ask me to clarify.  I'd really love to!  Anyway, the question they asked Jesus was why His disciples didn't wash their hands before they ate.  According to the verbal tradition of the rabbis, you had to perform a special type of hand washing ceremony.  It was only after you had pulled this maneuver that the food could be considered clean.  But if you didn't wash in that way, the food that you ate would be unclean and you, in turn, would be made unclean.  And worse, you would be stepping on the mores of established religious teaching.  So Jesus brilliantly attacks the Pharisees understanding of holiness by citing their own offenses.  In that time, when your parents got too old to support themselves, you would do your duty and care for them, financially and otherwise.  The teachers of religion were experts at weaseling out of the command to honor their parents.  They would take that support money intended for their parents and declare it "korban", meaning that it was set apart for God.  The practice of korban was a great policy in Levitical law but to use something so good and holy to side step your responsibilities to your parents was unthinkable.  Yet that was common practice among careful and wise Bible scholars.  After dismantling the assumed righteousness of the Pharisees, Jesus goes back to the issue of cleanliness.  He explains it to His disciples.  "Whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled.  But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a person.  For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.  These are what defile a person.  But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone."  See what that means?  Eating with unwashed hands (what you do) doesn't change you.  What changes you is your heart.  That is the constant.  It is unchanged by what you do.  What you do does not define you.  The condition of your heart governs absolutely everything that you do.  It shapes your behavior like clay.  Proverbs 27:19 says, "As in water face reflects face, so the heart of a man reflects the man."  See how a person acts.  See what they prioritize in life.  Listen to how they speak.  The outside actions are merely reflections of the inward reality.  I eagerly welcome any contrary or different interpretation of this text but this is how I understand it.  It doesn't matter how many church retreats I go to and it doesn't matter how many times I say a prayer for someone.  Never before has my heart been changed by something I've done.  The problem is deep down in the twisted netherworld of my heart and that is where the solution has to start.  God has to act on it.  The only one who can bring about change by action is the sovereign Lord of Hosts. 

Good Morning, Sun

I've had a standing date with the sunrise this week.  It showed up late a couple of days but had the ready excuse of cloud cover.  So I forgave it.  It's been an inspiring relationship.  But I think we'll just be friends.  It can only stay out till about 7pm anyway. 

Ever wonder if you made the right decision?  You were so sure that you knew exactly what to say and exactly how to phrase it and you meant every word with all your heart and then later you second guessed it?  I suppose no reaction is a good reaction to honesty sometimes.  But no.  No, you made a stand.  You have to hold to it.  God help me, this is a mess.

I read through that book to try and see my life in technicolor.  All those sticky grey areas were breaking my heart.  I had no idea where to put them.  But when I read it through, I saw what it means to be a child and that includes fighting the urge to step backwards.  My oh my, if ever there was a want ad for duct tape, my mouth would be painted in a small print description of the desired.

This all made more sense at three in the morning last night.  I pulled an all nighter on some stupid paper due on Monday.  So why was I up doing what wasn't due till the 8th?  Well, fuzzy caterpillar, it's because I'm going on a retreat with the jr. highers this weekend.  I'm very excited about it!  I just haven't been able to show it because recently I've been coated in a filmy layer of responsibility.  It looks like a sad thin blue if you step back for a moment to admire.  I didn't mean to wake up like this.  It's just that my mind has been so full of show tunes and secret agents when I sleep that I can't help but wake up with spaghetti for a brain. 

I skipped out on my date this morning.  Sunrise is currently waiting at the back door.  But I have to do my hair.  I'd be nice to meet you but what would we talk about?  Art?  Politics?  Literature?  TV show theme songs? 

I've had Sanford and Sons running through my head all week.

This should have happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoNgMVFQNBI  The very end cracks me up every time.

I'm learning a lot.  Not in school.  Well, not really in school.  School is what is filling up my life, squeezing out the important to make room for the necessary.  That's just a depressing subject.  But I'm learning a lot in life (perhaps even through school).  I'm starting to know what it means to trust God.  I've always told my jr. highers to trust God but I realize that I've never really let that phrase entirely grip me.  God will tolerate no idols in my heart.  No matter how much you dress it up to look like an interest, a passion or a hobby, you will eventually demand that it have your heart.  Or it will if you allow it to.  Even sunshine can leave you blind.

I'm learning what C.S Lewis meant when he said that pain is God's megaphone.  The Lord really does let us suffer some in order to get our attention.  He needs to clear our eyes.  I'm more alert to what's paramount when I lose that which I loved.  Misplaced affection is the fastest way to etiolate a heart.  Nothing can starve a fire in the soul quite like dislocated praise.  I'm a professional when it comes to matters of idolatry and I'm dying to quit the business.  Like rubbing alcohol on a cut knee, God clears away what had somehow gotten in.

But praise God, right?  Who else could melt a dagger into a diamond?  By twisting my heart to look His way, He's driven me to my Bible with a deeply dependent need.  He may shape me into a man of prayer after all.  When I just can't take it and I want to cuss, He's the only one I can scream my pain to.

Now please understand, I believe I've mellowed down over the years.  I don't have nearly the theatrical flair that I had when I was younger.  But if these words feel a little wet, know that I've cried no sentimental tears.  I can't be sappy or nostalgic.  It's just sweat.  Sweat from a guy who's working hard to understand his sovereign God.  And it is hard.  Because life down here is so screwed up.  I'll never belong here.