Job's Tale

Penguin & Killer Whales

2008-11-26T07:45:00.000-08:00

I could do without the music... but this video is pretty cool.

If you are looking for a post by Curious Servant, click here.

Hey... Just go to the Journey Blog

2008-07-22T07:48:00.000-07:00

Going to post exclusively at The Journey of the Curious Servant for a while.

Click here to go there.

"Bed Time" -- Over there

2008-07-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't been sure how to handle these two blogs. Do I post the same on both? Do I give a "heads up" on Job's Tale for posts that are over there and I feel don't belong here? How do I make it easy to see that the "new" post is one that someone hasn't already seen before, so they don't waste their time going there?

So... here is the solution.

When I post there and not here, I will put a little something here, just a note saying something is there, and include a pic or two so people can see that something has changed.

So here goes.

I have been writing like crazy... a real burst of creativity, born of exhaustion and confusion. Mostly by hand, in my Moleskine journal (pronounced: mol-a-skeen'-a).

I did type up and post something new Sunday, and again today at The Journey of the Curious Servant.

Here are some pics of something that usually does not happen in the middle of the day:

New Post... over there...

2008-07-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been here lately, in the previous post I explained a little about another blog... that I have opened it up for whoever may wish to share this strange journey I am on.

I just wrote a new post.

The Other Me

2008-07-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

I have been maintaining, somewhat, two blogs, for some time.

This blog, Job's Tale, was about my journey of faith. I started it two weeks before my mentally handicapped son played with fire and burned down our church.

Since then the topics have been focused on my spiritual journey, my family.

About a year ago I began another blog... one I wanted a little more private. My wife had been having an affair. I wanted to make it easier for her to come back, hold her head up, face people in our church and community. So I tried to find a place where I could work through my feelings and thoughts and be a little more discreet than this blog which so many visit.

She left me for a short period, but came back.

I believe this past year I have been doing what God wanted me to do, though it was hard, and it hurt, and it was... a real mess.

Now... she has left. And I feel it is time to move on. I have no inner voice telling me I should work to help her heal, keep her in our home and family, work on our marriage.

I don't know why God had me do this past year.

I think I was supposed to do what I did this past year. I don't know why. I know God wanted me to, but now it is over. Perhaps this past year will be something she needs when she looks back at it from some future date.

It's been tough, but I think I needed to do all that. Being obedient isn't always easy or fun or what seems like the right thing or logical.

But, there it is. I went out and walked and prayed for quite a while this morning. No directions, no sense of what is next, except just doing what needs to be done. It's a time of waiting and healing and working to finish raising these boys.

I will need to explain all this to my son, Jeremiah, when he comes home from his friend's this afternoon.

Now... to the point of this post.

This blog has been with me for a long time, and I don't want to give it up. I think the title is pretentious, comparing myself to Job of the Bible. I'm just an ordinary guy. But perhaps the slight embarrassment I feel over the title of this blog will keep me humble.

I ramble. The point is... I do not feel I have to hide this other part of me. I don't know if I will post different things on each blog, or the same on both, or eventually shut one down... but, I am opening up that part of my life to those who visit here... sort of an impulse in being open and honest and transparent.

So... if you care to... you may visit my other blog.

It is called "The Journey of the Curious Servant" and the address is: http://csexplores.blogspot.com/ ("C.S. Explores")

After I had posted a few things there I noticed the unfortunate word "sex" in that address and so it has attracted a few unwelcome visitors, and it embarrasses me a little, but embarrassment keeps us honest, right?

At any rate... if you want to know me better, you are free to read through the posts over there chronicling the past year.

I could use a little prayer for my family. My children are a little handicapped and this single parent thing is going to be tough.

Love you all.

Curious Servant

(But you can call me "Will".)

The Voice of God

2008-07-15T20:21:00.001-07:00

The moon was nearly full, but for most of the evening it skated behind thin clouds, a smeared bright spot in the sky. I stepped away from the fire under the cedars and the broad old oak several times marking its progress.

Down the gravel drive, through a field of drying hay, the clearing beside a creek had belonged to a blackberry patch that morning. We stuck chunks of meat and brats over the coals, opened beers and sodas.

“When have you sensed the unmistakable presence of God in your life?”

I have some buddies. We gather every once in a while around a fire and talk. I call it our Moon Howlin'.

It took us a while to get to the real conversation. We warmed up through discussions of books and such. But, we get there.

One of us, a straight-forward, blunt, frank fellow, threw out the question. It hovered over the orange tongues of flame licking the evening air.

“The unmistakable presence of God.”

For me the presence of God is a spectrum of interactions ranging from an impulse to do something, say something, to moments intersecting eternity.

“How about you, Will?” the frank one asked.

I cleared my throat, signaling I would share, but needing a moment to martial my thoughts, though I had been thinking and writing about this topic all week.

“Two come to mind.”

“Two is good. I can handle two.”

The others murmured agreement.

“1976.

“I was pretty sick. I was staying with my uncle in Ojai, California, and I was very sick. Dying.

“I went down to that river bed often. I was very sick. I wasn’t expected to live long.”

I told them this story:

I had joined an ashram and in the previous years spent too much time doing things I am still uncomfortable talking about. Spiritual things. Yogic things. Explorations of meditation and diet and... searching and exploring what I know are not right, not for this life anyway.

Once, in Ojai, while walking slowly along the Ventura River bed, I saw 17 California condors in a single dead tree. It was estimated there were fewer than two dozen of them left in the world. I was looking at the majority of an entire species.

Those enormous vultures, creatures who’s diet consists of dead things, sat in that dead tree, looking at me uncomfortably. I stared up at them. They grew restless, dropped off their perches, their enormous wings flapping slowly.

A few weeks later I knew it was time.

I walked down to the river bed.

I lay down on the sand. I felt my body slowly giving up. I began to pray.

I didn’t pray I might be saved. I didn’t make excuses for what I had done, for the extremes of fasting and meditation and explorations of astral planes. I didn’t beg for another chance.

“Father, I’m sorry. I have been stupid. You gave me a body, You gave me a mind and a spirit and a heart, and I have thrown it away. I deserve to lose all this. I’m not asking for anything right now. All I want to say is... I am sorry.”

God spoke.

It wasn’t a complicated thing. It wasn’t a divine revelation. It wasn’t anything that would leave a mark on the world, but it left a mark on me.

As I lay there, as I prayed my repentance and acceptance, a wave of light poured down the valley from the mountains. I guess I would describe it as sort of pinkish, if I could say it was really a color that could be photographed or painted.

It wasn’t a crushing wave or anything disturbing the quiet of that evening, but as it swept down and over me a couple of things happened.

I wasn’t tired anymore.

I didn’t feel weak. My mind wasn’t fuzzy anymore.

I felt strong. I felt healthy and clean and whole.

The second thing was the voice.

Hmmmm... Not really a voice.

The words did not pass through the air, did not pass through my ears. The words weren’t even words. They were a complete thought, a complete statement. It was a message compacted into a single idea, a whole, and it came from everywhere and from nowhere, and from deep inside my heart:

“It’s okay. Don’t do it again. Do other things. Get up. I have things for you to do yet.”

I didn’t look up at the faces of my friends as I told this story. I didn’t trust my voice would remain steady if I did. Instead, I launched into the next story.

“March 15, 1993. It was just before dawn and I was alone at Molalla River State Park.

“The moon was enormous. It was yellow, and had shifted toward orange as it descended into the naked branches of trees to the west of the field I stood alone in.

“There was that Oregon ‘Marchiness’ in the air, a promise of the coming Spring.

“And there was a color. Sort of.

“The sky was still speckled with stars, still black overhead, but it also... that color...

“It really wasn’t purple. It was too deep. Maybe a hint of violet. I don’t know... But there was this color to the sky that seemed to stretch from that field where I stood clear through to the stars.”

I paused and looked at my friends. I took one of my usual perpendicular digressions.

“A few minutes ago a small plane passed over us,” I said. “I loved the color that was bouncing off that plane’s white frame as it banked in the sunset. I see these colors around me all the time, and I think, ‘I wish I could mix that color with paint.’ I look at the clouds and I see this range of hues and values and colors I can’t describe. It is all so beautiful. I look across this field and I see that huge oak over there and I marvel that capillary action can raise all that water from those roots all the way to the leaves at the top... it is so beautiful.

“I look at my life and there is so much beauty and wonder and shit and aching and glory and pain and I see how wonderful and how awful life is...

“The color I saw above me that early morning sixteen years ago is with me still, and it is echoed in the colors I see still.

“That color was deep and rich and more real than I can describe.

“The sun was coming up. The sky in the east hadn’t started to lighten yet, but there was a sort of sense that it was about to. There was a sort of anticipation to the sky.

“And I was hurting. It was three months to the day of Willy’s death and I was out alone and I was hurting.

“And it happened...

“Folks think about eternity like it is some sort of continuance of things going on around us. That it is sort of like we just keep getting dragged along this timeline we know, forever and ever. I don’t think that is how eternity is.

“As I looked at that moon, and that sky, and felt the coming sun, and my heart ached for the son I had lost, I shook, I trembled, and I dropped to my knees.

“And I felt connected.

“I felt connected to everything.

“I was with the moon and the sky and the sense of dawn. I was with the stiff cut grass, and the river flowing nearby, and those leafless branches grasping at the sky.

“And God spoke.”

My voice thickened for a moment. My friends remained silent.

“It wasn’t a voice in the air, or anything like that. It came from everywhere, and nowhere, and from deep inside me.

“God said:

‘I know.’

“It was more than a moment. I mean, I know it was only a few seconds, maybe not even that. But it was more than that. That instant shot through me. Not just the me kneeling in that field. It shot through the me that is sitting here with you guys. It shot through everything, everywhere, everywhen.

“I think that is what eternity is. It’s not a continuation of the sort of time we know. It is sideways to the time we know.

“That moment happened sixteen years ago, and it is still happening. It will always be happening.

“That experience was so real. It was more real than the heat coming off those flames. It was more real than you guys are, sitting around, listening to me talk.”

My friends listened. They heard. They talked. We talked.

--------------

Perhaps I mentioned the colors in those experiences because they help to describe what I experienced. Yet I failed to truly describe those colors.

Humans are among a small number of species on this world seeing so much of the spectrum, what we call visible light.

But even that amount of vision is tiny. If the electromagnetic spectrum was a line stretching from San Francisco to Anchorage, Alaska, visible light would comprise about an inch and a half of it. The percentage of the spectrum we see is 3.5 X 10^-28. That is a lot of zeros between the decimal and the 3.5.

I’m a very small creature. I have an extremely brief life span, less than a hundred years. I am a single organism on a small world on the edge of a rather ordinary galaxy, among perhaps hundreds of billions of galaxies.

I’m a very important creature. I have a soul which permits me to feel the reality of The Creator. And, amazingly, astonishly, impossibly, The Creator knows who I am!

He knows who I am, and He loves me.

He cares.

How can that be?!

It is a terrifying, and humbling, and exhilarating thing to know that He who holds atoms together, who hears the 10,000 year beats of super galactic clusters, who spoke creation into existence and stands outside of time and space, loves me.

Those two experiences were eternal moments, places where my spirit leapt out of this entropy-driven linear plowing through time, are just a part of the spectrum of the times He has spoken to me.

There was the beautiful message He gave me in a dream, telling me to adopt my first son.

There was the moment when I was six and the stain glass image of Jesus glowed, and flooded that little church, and He turned and looked at me!

There was that whisper of His when He told me to follow Jim home and permit me to share that troubled man’s burdens.

There was that time in 1974 when I felt enormous hands grip me from behind, lift me out of the path of a car, and set me twenty feet in the opposite direction I was running.

There are moments when I am gripping a fine point Sharpie marker, writing prayers in letters so small I can hardly see them... and I feel... outside.

Or after Willy died, we had gone to get sleeping medicine from Kaiser Permanente, and Brenda and I saw someone running ahead of us in the rain at 40 miles per hour. The wipers couldn’t keep the windshield clear, and we were exhausted from two sleepless nights after Willy’s death, and we both shouted when we saw someone keepng pace ahead of us along the Willamette River.

I cannot prove God exists.

But I know it is true.

I know He is more real than I am because the life I am living seems a pale experience to those moments when He paused the world, stopped the universe, and touched my heart.

Those two experiences especially. Those moments shot through time, I experience them still. I will experience them long after this body I am wearing ceases to breathe.

I don’t know why I have been blessed with faith. Some folks struggle with it. They wonder if it is real, or a delusion of folks like me, or a scam of some televangelist.

I know it is real.

I don’t know why I have been so fortunate as to have this faith.

Hey... I’m not saying everything is lovely. It isn’t. The earth shifts and tidal waves rush across the world washing entire villages away. Diseases creep through water and air and food and children suffer and die. The entire world, our entire history, is one long groan of pain and suffering.

My own life has some ugly things in it.

Yet...

It is all so beautiful. It is so lovely it makes me ache.

The world spins around the sun, and its wobble moves the stars about. If we could experience the night sky of thousands of years in a few moments we would see stars swimming around us in elegant movements just as we see the flocks of sparrows react as a whole, shifting and rising and settling as they ready for dusk.

Life sucks.

Life is indescribably wonderful.

Catching Up With You

2008-07-14T09:57:00.001-07:00

It's Monday morn, and I have been a neglectful blogger.

It isn't that I haven't written anything. It's just that I have finished anything.

I have many posts I have started, but haven't finished or polished enough to post:

* "Music"
* "The Voice of God"
* "Is Religion a Crutch, or a Staff?"
* "Choices"
* "Following the Speed Limit"
* "Maggie"

But... I have an awful lot of stuff to do, an awful lot of stuff that is distracting me.

First... my home, my marriage. It is, as usual, a mess. We avoid talking about the uncomfortable stuff. But I think about it all the time. Last week I drove out to the AA meeting she was attending... her car wasn't there. I asked how the meeting went. She said it was good. I kept quiet, brooded.

We've had ancient railroad ties lining the planters around our home. I've always hated them. One can't get those last tufts of grass with a mower, and they are havens for insects, slugs, moles, a veritable ecosystem from microbes to medium predators.

So I ranked them out, bought 150 concrete tiles, and have been reshaping my landscape areas. One heck of a lot of work. I finished the majority of it, one more smaller planter to go, but my hands have blisters, the psoriasis has broken out, and I have a couple of more pressing chores to do to do. But I'd like to do the last flower bed today if I can.

I'm very proud of how hard Isaac worked alongside me, hour after hour.

We picked about six gallons of Bing Cherries and gave most of them away to friends. The boys worked hard with me. I took a few pounds over to "Jim" the fellow who flipped me off in traffic a few weeks ago, and then shared his life with me. I wanted him to know I was still thinking and praying for him.

A week or so later the pie cherries were ready, so I made some pies.

We have had a small population boom of mice at our home. We have caught 16 of them so far.

I've been working in my garden. If you have never had an Oregon strawberry you really don't know what you are missing. They may not be as large as California berries, but they have flavor!

While gardening the other day I decided I couldn't stand the long hair after all (I was kind of hoping to grow a pony tail for "Locks of Love," but the hair kept getting in my face. So I took a break from the garden, got it cut, and Isaac documented the before and after.

I've been in the Prayer Room at church, praying and drawing.

Last week Jeremiah had his state competition at Special Olympics. He earned the gold medal in shotput.

Jeremiah went to Martha's Place, a bed and breakfast sort of thing. This weekend was a Hawaiian theme there and he had a good time.

Saturday night our local hispanic gang tagged our fence again. I'm painting over their marks this morning. Yesterday I wrote a letter to the Editor to the local paper about it. I don't know if he'll run it as it is a little longer than their restrictions. But I need to get that fence painted today.

Brenda and Rocky in front of the police car

Sunday at church we had our annual church BBQ. William "Paul" Young, author of The Shack was there, sharing about his book. Isaac insisted I get my picture taken with him. I have been facilitating a discussion class with my pastor on the novel.

It was pretty warm here Sunday, so we took Rocky for a swim in the Willamette River.

I also need to do something about the plumbing under the kitchen sink. Always been a bit of a problem. It's cheap, easily put together, easily comes undone.

I haven't been sleeping well, and I have been anxious during the day.

I haven't been using my prescriptions as I should. I was taking a prescription sleeping pill and one Xanax at bedtime. The doc said it would be better not to mix meds so much. So he doubled up the Xanax and told me to stop the others. But when things get tense around here, I take a Xanax to slow my racing heart. To compensate for the missing doses I skip the Xanax at night and take two of the ones I was supposed to throw away.

I am very upset over my marriage. I worry. I see little progress. I keep thinking about what she has done, what she might do. I wrote her a letter. I keep telling myself I want to be a good servant. That all I have is today. I pray a lot.

Tomorrow night is our occasional Moon Howlin'. I'm looking forward to time with my buddies, being honest, real.

So... I gotta go. I have a lot to do. But I'll finish one of those posts soon and toss it onto this blog pile.

------------------

UPDATE:

One chore done. It's a thing of beauty and joy everlasting, isn't it? I don't think I'll ever have to mess with that drain again!

Independence Day

2008-07-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

I avoid politics in this blog. I don't talk politics much with friends and acquaintances. But I am involved. I have not missed voting a single time since I turned 18. I write my local, state, and national representatives when I feel strongly about an issue or concern. I follow how my elected officials vote, how they run their campaigns and their offices, and I remember their actions when I cast my vote.

I'm not going to spout off now about what mistakes we have made, or delve into thorny issues, but as it is Independence Day, I want to share a few things about this place that I happened to be born in... a place that has wealth and freedoms and beauty that gives me blessings unmatched elsewhere in the world.

-------------------

The United States of America.

Powerful nation.

Powerful ideas behind the nation.

Freedom. Individual rights. Tolerance for other faiths, other views, simply others.

I am unhappy over some of the changes our nations has seen over the last decade or so. Lawsuits which warn us not to use hair dryers in showers, that our coffee is hot, that our children shouldn't wrap their heads in plastic, we shouldn't stand in front of moving heavy equipment.

I'm also concerned about the erosion of civil liberties and due process.

But, all that aside, I love my country.

Though we may seem like we are butting into the business of everyone else in the world, that we are arrogant or self-centered, there is something to remember.

We are a people who believe in justice. We believe, on the whole, in responsibility, and protecting the weak, and doing the right thing.

When I was 19 I spent an afternoon laughing so hard that my sides ached, my cheeks hurt from grinning. I and a dozen others spent the afternoon dangling our feet in a hot spring and listened to a very funny man, Red Skelton, tell jokes.

Red once had something to say about America, something I echo each year to my students. And I want to share that with you:

One more thing... another larger than life American was John Wayne. I also saw him in person, though I didn't say a word to him. He was the second person ahead of me in a line at a pharmacy in Newport Beach. It didn't seem right to approach the man in such a situation. But he also had something to say about us I would like to share:

Happy Independence Day. Thank you for those who sacrifice their comfort, their time with families, their lives, to protect me and my family.

And while we are a nation that is far from perfect, I pray that the best parts of who we are spread throughout the world. They are precious and I would love everyone to feel safe worshipping where they like, voting how they like, and be free to say what they believe.

God bless all of you.

P.S. Here is another example of the kind of men that make me feel the way I do about my country:

Homeland Security

2008-06-30T11:39:00.001-07:00

I have three posts that are handwritten... but before I finish them up and toss them onto the blog pile...

A letter came today from Homeland Security... the folks dedicated to keeping Americans safe.

My son, Jeremiah,

J at Special Olympics this weekend

upon further consideration...

has been denied U.S. citizenship.

--------------

A rather new visitor to this blog wished for a little explanation regarding this post. I think her visit was somewhen around the post Of Mice and Men.

So, I have picked out a few posts that I think touch upon the issues here.

My first post, describing the events around our first adoption, Willy. please forgive all the spam in the comments... It's an old post.

About the fire, an issue that has placed obstacles in the way of his citizenship.

One of my favorite posts, about where my children came from, in honor of Mother's Day.

Jeremiah is granted residency.

Here is the short version:

We adopted two children from Haiti 15 years ago. When Jeremiah turned 18 we checked into service for him because of his disabilities and discovered the boys were never granted citizenship, and had entered the U.S. under emergency medical visas which had expired. since then we have spent quite a bit on lawyers, filing fees, and a lot of red tape top fix it. Because of an incident with fire, Jeremiah's application was in question. We got the residency, and then to our surprise, citizenship, for both boys. Today they informed us that Jeremiah's citezenship will not be granted afterall. We can apply in five years.

Beauty

2008-06-24T19:23:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that when I talk about the bad parts of the world, the ugly parts of the world, I am referring to sin... to people.

That's true enough. We are masterful in causing each other pain.

And though it is true that the natural world, the natural universe, is incredibly (in [not] - credible
[believable]) beautiful, people are also.

Here is an example:

Here is the high quality for those with faster connections:

Politically Correct (Service)

2008-06-21T17:42:00.001-07:00

At six years old the most dreaded words were: "Wait until your father gets home!"

It was just before they split up.

Mom was pretty patient. But if my brothers and I went too far, far enough that she was ready to step aside as a shield between him and us, then we knew we had really gone too far.

Like sneaking into the old house across the street and roaming its upper floors in search of ghosts.

Like climbing atop our old two storied house to throw balsa wood planes.

Like climbing the apricot tree beside the old garage and shocking ourselves with the exposed power line (Wow! That really makes you jump!).

(Willows, CA. Garage is way in the back.)

Waiting for dad to come home made a fearful afternoon. He worked for an insurance company and that thin belt of his really, really hurt.

I suppose he would be arrested nowadays. I think such punishment is too much (I tried putting a paperback book in my pants once, but he noticed, big mistake).

But though that was too much, as a society we may be going too far the other way.

I think we are becoming lenient with disciplining children.

A 12 year old in Ottawa successfully sued her father recently so she wouldn't be grounded for her excessive internet use and disobedience. (Hard to believe!)

We are becoming too eager to sue. (When a 12 year old does it I think that is a warning.)

A city worker in our small town tripped on a slightly raised sidewalk in front of the library. So, for fear of the lawsuit, the two old trees came out, the sidewalk replaced. It's too hot too sit on those exposed benches now. They were nice trees.

We are becoming easily offended over slights against our persons, our faiths, our sexual orientation, our dietary habits, our turn at the stop sign, our wait at the check out counter, the hotness, spiciness, sweetness, frothiness, and strength of our coffee.

Ever since those first orchard thieves put themselves first we have found ever more creative ways to hurt ourselves, hurt each other.

Stone age to bronze, iron age to the information age, we fill the world with ourselves... we fill ourselves with ourselves.

I'm getting so tired of Republicans and Democrats and Muslims and Hindi and vegetarians and feminists and skin heads and Christians and Jews and communists and socialists and capitalists and yuppies and genXers and freemales and all the other labels which are supposed to describe but instead place people in tidy little boxes with tidy little labels.

People are hurting. A label won't really make them feel any better.

I'm a Christ Follower.

I'm a teacher and a husband and a father and a friend. A gardener and a blogger and I love this world.

I am unique.

...just like every other person on this spinning ball of dirt.

We need each other.

Life is hard.

There is so much hurt and pain and wretchedness in the world, and overlying it all, this incredible, indescribable beauty and love and loveliness.

We must help each other.

When we smile at someone, say a kind word, we take a little of the beauty God has poured, is pouring, is drenching the world, and lay it over them.

They need it.

We need to give it as much as they need to receive it.

I understand the need for people to be concerned about saving souls, for sharing their faith.

But there is something more important.

My Lord did a lot of cool things when He was walking about this earth in a body that stubbed its toes, had acne, and had to relieve itself.

He didn't hurt people. He didn't avoid tough topics, but He didn't hurt people.

When someone was hungry, He fed them.

When someone was sick, He healed them.

When someone was scared, He comforted them.

He told stories, and He hugged His friends, and He comforted the disenfranchised, and He looked at the beauty of the world, and He let it seep into His human heart through His human eyes, and He took that joy and shared it.

Hey, life sucks. I get. Boy, I get it.

The planet is filled with 6.7 billion people who are sick and hungry and poor and grieving and confused.

One of the last things Jesus did before He went to prepare Himself for His arrest and torture and death was to present a meal to His friends after washing their feet.

Even after His death and resurrection, the last thing He did before leaving the planet was fix breakfast for His friends.

What can possibly be clearer than that?

Love each other, help each other, say a kind word.

The world is horrid, hurtful, spiteful, beautiful, wonderful, and glorious.

I feel a lot better when I do the sort of things Jesus did.

He Changed the World

2008-06-20T11:39:00.001-07:00

One of my challenges this Summer is to teach myself a variety of software programs in preparation for teaching technology next school year.

My first project is a little video using the new iMovie program.

This video is a little reflection on how Jesus constantly sought God through prayer. He went off to pray, especially when the task before Him was difficult.

Even though He was (is) God incarnate, He sought God's direction always.

Let me know if the size is too large or if there are other problems. It is in Quicktime format, and set for higher end broadband.

Metaphors

2008-06-18T10:44:00.001-07:00

I found this photo on a blog, The Feathered Nest. A nest in a bird cage. A nest is a symbol of new life, of nurturing. An empty nest is a metaphor for letting that young life free. And a cage is a good analogy for trying to hold what wishes to be free. I got stuck thinking about metaphors. I wanted to write something drectly about the image above... but this post came out instead.

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A spear of light pierced the dark, pooling around the antique wooden chest with the metal straps and reinforced corners. The humped lid swung up and away, revealing, nothing, just an empty box.

The first gold coin turned slowly as it fell, dropping into the container on the smooth grey floor. A steady stream of gold coins followed, filling it up with the weight of precious metal, filling to the top, heaping above the top. It would be too heavy for one person to lift. The metal handles on each side were large enough for each to be grasped by two hands, which is what it would take to lift so much gold.

The sound of the coins striking each other, the rich sound of wealth, quieted and a powerful humming, almost choral sound grew.

A piece of rectangular paper fluttered, rocked from side to side as it sought its place on the pile of coins. The chorus rose. An indistinct, deep, swelling of voices that did not stop for breath, swung its unified voice, a dramatic sound of hope and joy and love and promise, rose as another piece of green currency fluttered down and joined the first.

The rumble of voices, voices that sounded as if they could sing joyously forever without tiring, grew soft as the currency continued to drift through the air, bill after bill, until all the gold was covered.

The sight of all that wealth seemed more of a promise of personalized joy than a symbol of material wealth.

A deep thrumming slowly replaced the chorus. The rumble seemed to be saying something, though I could not make out the words. But if that distant thunder could be described as a feeling, and if that feeling could be translated into words, it would be: "I promise."

----------

They say all people dream. Most people I ask tell me that though they may dream, they are unaware of it. They awake and if there is anything left of their dreams it is a diaphanous veil, more feeling than memory.

Apparently I differ in this respect.

I remember my dreams.

I remember them as clearly as I remember any other experience. A few of them are vivid enough that they stand clearly in my mind for years and years.

Like the big moments of my waking life.

I remember a little boy, not too far off my own age, saluting a horse-drawn casket accompanied by soldiers in their finest dress down a street lined with crowds.

I remember lying on the living room floor watching the grainy, black and white, flickering sight of a man in heavy clothing and a round white helmet descending a ladder onto the dusty surface of another world. I was 13.

I remember a man standing atop a wall against the backdrop of sky, a crowd cheering as he swung a hammer... and another image of that same wall falling from repeated hammer blows. My heart swelled as I realized that the ridiculous promise that an elementary school desk would protect me from nuclear holocaust would not be told to another generation. The Cold War had ended.

I remember a column of white smoke forking in the sky. I remember the pounding of my heart as something I had never seen in all my viewings of launches from Cape Canaveral, creating that enormous white Y as the announcer stumbled in his descriptions, unsure of what we had just witnessed.

I remember my wife telling me of a plane crash as I left for work, and then, a few minutes after arriving, learning that a second plane had crashed in New York City. The image of an expanding ball of flame duplicating the smoke which already poured from an identical building is frozen in my memory.

I remember certain moments so clearly, even when they are dreams.

I remember the chest filled with gold and currency with the sound of enormous power stepping itself down to a small rumble so a mortal might understand.

For me dreams are like any other experience.

I recall dreams from when I was five, ones that had the same sort of import as the events which etched themselves in my waking life.

For me there are distinct types of dreams. Some are mere flotsam. Bits and pieces of my life, jumbled together and being placed in convenient spots of my mind... just a bit of psychological housekeeping.

Some are messages from myself to myself. Bits of advice from the subconscious.

Others a fantasies. Experiences I would like to have, often breaking laws of physics.

And some are not mine at all. Some are clearly messages from outside my mind and heart.

Those are the important ones. They have a quality different than the others. There is always a sense of importance to them, an importance that I feel while I am dreaming, which is stamped on them ever after. They have in common a simplicity outside my normal dreams of bizarre plot twists.

Though many of my dreams may incorporate real places, things, there is often the added dimension of metaphors to them.

The night before the dream of the treasure chest I had prayed.

"Lord, tomorrow we see the lawyer. Tomorrow we begin spending money we don't have. Guide me Lord. Shall we adopt this child? Is this the son you promised me? If we adopt him, make him ours, how will I care for him? I'm going to school and money is tight. How will we buy the furniture, clothing, food, toys, all the things we will need to raise this child? Lord, I need an answer now. I need an answer before 10:00 tomorrow morning. Bless me, Lord. And Lord, if this is what You want... if adopting this boy is Your desire for me, then I make You this promise... I give him back to You. I will raise him the way You would have me raise him, and I will love him, and I will dedicate him to You. What you choose to do with his life, I will stand firmly behind. I give You my first child, my first son. May his life please You, if it is Your will that we take him into our home."

That next morning I was certain. The treasure we longed for, the gift of a child of our own would be fulfilled. The empty chest of my heart that longed for a son, would be filled. I would get the thing I treasured. And as for my fears for how I would raise him, how I would find the money to feed, and clothe him, I needn't worry. It was all covered.

We went to the attorney that day. A few months later my first child was born. He came home with us less than a day old.

I kept my word. A month later I threw a celebratory feast for my closest friends. And at that table, after we had blessed our meal and eaten our fill, I prayed that prayer of dedication.

"Lord, You have blessed me with my heart's desire. We have our child. But he isn't just ours. And so I pray, and I promise, that this first son is Yours, Lord. Whatever Your will, whatever You want me to do in raising this child, I do in obedience to You. I give him to You. I will be his teacher, his provider, his father, but all in Your name Lord. Because You gave this child to me, I give him to You. --Amen."

A little over two months later the Lord took that child home.

A few weeks after that, in packing away clothing and toys and pacifiers, and cards and gifts, we came to a startling conclusion. Gifts of food, clothing, furniture, money, totaled within $10 of all we had spent on that child, my son, Willy.

------------

It was a painful year. I hurt. I was depressed. Suicidal.

But I came out of the experience with a deeper understanding of sorrow, and surprisingly, of joy.

Now I have more children. Two more. And though they present challenges, and though they cannot learn the things I had hoped to teach my children, I feel extremely blessed.

I look back at the first child's life and I see meaning. I see symbology in a short life, one that passes through so quickly that all it gathered in its quick sojourn through this world was the basic experience of birth, parents, taste, touch, smells, sight. No crawling. No walking. But a bright soul headed toward eternity with the simple experience of mortality.

People see metaphors all the time. We see the cross and think of forgiven sin, and the suffering endured by eternity in experiencing tortured deicide.

We see the six pointed star and think of a people gathered beneath a flawed king who established a lineage, a family that led to that day of ultimate sacrifice at Golgotha.

For three years the incarnate God walked among us, listened to our sorrows, healed our wounds, washed our feet, feed us when we hungered, and told us stories.

He told us stories that held meaning. Important morality tales which shed light on matters of the spirit, and matters of daily living.

Jesus taught us through parables.

It is natural for us to think that way. We like metaphors. We use symbols to represent sounds, events, empires, points about faith and morality, all things of our minds are represented in many ways, in symbols and metaphors.

We dream that way, we speak that way.

-------------

Brenda is confused. If God is good, if He loves us, why would He let us suffer? Why would He let evil roam unfettered?

It is a common question. We seem to have an innate sense of what is right, what is wrong, and much we see of the world seems very, very wrong.

There are the usual answers to the question, about free will, about choices, about how God works good out of the hurts we inflict on each other.

A more interesting question for me is why do I believe all the stronger when I too have been hurt the same ways as she, and I have the passion for science which relies only on what is measurable, testable?

I have had some strange experiences which reinforce my faith, a vision of Jesus when I was six, two experiences with angels, a miraculous healing from a life-threatening illness. Dreams which felt outside my reality.

But my faith does not spring from those experiences.

My faith springs from my soul. There is something inside me which recognizes the truths of faith regardless of circumstances or evidence.

Metaphors in dreams, parables in scripture, examples of spiritual truths looming large in ordinary events, such as the quiet death of an infant, speak to me.

And the amazing realities of science (see previous post) which demonstrate a universe beyond human proportions, human imagination (though I work hard at grasping those proportions) speak to me of greatness, glory, care, love, power and control which I heard echoed in the rumble of certain dreams.

Do I believe in God?

Should we believe in God?

I think we have it backwards.

At the limits of human exploration of what might be at the tiniest of levels, at the level below that of sub atomic particles, at the level of quarks and 12 dimensional strings singing the universe into being, we find that everything is chance. The patterns and order we see in the newtonian universe seem to be completely random.

It seems that the effect of a mind can have more influence on what is than the laws of the universe. The act of observing somehow constrains things to behave outside their random nature.

If one throws one's mind down into the realm of quantum mechanics and turns to gaze upward at the world we experience, we see that the "real" world is as imaginary as a dream.

In this dream of what we believe is reality we question the existence of God.

We should question our own existence.

Might we be metaphors?

Might I not be the question: "How does a soul respond to the experiences of being raised this particular way, having those particular experiences, walking that particular path?"

We want God to prove Himself to us. To show us He cares and loves and has control over a world where evil roams and pain is common and grief and longing drive us in directions away from Him.

Perhaps we have it backwards.

Perhaps we should prove ourselves to Him.

Life sucks.

Life is wonderful.

Life is all things, and what we decide, what we do, how we choose to stand, how we choose to live, is far more important than the sorrows that might cross our path in the brief time we walk this world of ephemeral living, this realm of mortality.

I am ready to accept things I don't want to accept. I am ready to do things I would rather not.

If it pleases Him, I am ready.

Of Mice and Men

2008-06-10T16:27:00.001-07:00

I’m sitting before this glowing screen and you are on the other side of this shimmering electronic mirror.

Still, we are connected.

You may be one of those who have followed my strange travels for several years. You may have just now stumbled into this odd corner of the blogosphere for the first time.

We are connected.

Sunday afternoon I, my wife and two kids found ourselves in a Chinese restaurant in Salem, Oregon. My wife’s father’s paternal uncle was celebrating his 60th wedding anniversary. There were he and his wife’s four children (who hosted the event) and their children, and grandchildren. Some of those offspring brought boyfriends and girlfriends, new wives, genetic relations and legal relations. Folks of nordic descent (family name: Nelson), hispanics, asians, my children from Haiti. All connected.

I did a fair job in remembering names, but could not possibly keep up.

In such a setting I see the world is connected.

Business, personal, faith, genetic, marriage... there are so many ways we connect to each other.

My great grandmother (maternal, maternal, maternal side) told me she was the grand daughter of President Ulysseus S. Grant. How distant he is to me... yet connected.

My grandfather was adopted by a man who befriended his mother, Alice Louise Edstrum, a woman who survived a severely abusive husband, an explosion which deformed her hands, poisonous well water (which killed all but one of her children) and finally succumbed to tuberculosis.

That man who took my grandfather in was a down on his luck farm hand (much like George and Lenny in Steinbeck's novel) descended from John Greenleaf Whittier, the famous Quaker poet.

And Alice, my great grandmother, was born Alice Louise Gordon, of the Clan Gordon of Scotland. My friend and colleague across the hall at work is a descendant of Clan Gordon of Scotland.

We are all connected.

I’ve been thinking about connections, physical, theological, cosmological, genetic...

I was on the freeway today, following an 18-wheeler. It was carrying one of those cargo containers which get picked off the truck frame and set on cargo ships and moved about the globe.

Something moved along the corrugated metal, clinging to the slanting steel, ran to the vertical bars which lock those tall doors. I slid over to the lane to the right (it was my exit) and the mouse scurried back across to the container’s corner near me, desperate to find a way off that vibrating metal box rolling along at 60 miles per hour. I took out my camera to snap its picture, but it scurried back behind the locks again and all I could see as I went by was its tail.

Poor little guy. I hope he makes it out of that situation.

The smallest of connections between he and I, yet here I am, imagining him still. And now I have shared the vision of that frightened fluff of grey fur clinging to yellow metal on a busy highway in the northwest corner of a Oregon, a state in the northwest corner of the United States, with you, on your side of the mirror.

There were several pieces of news which caught my attention this past week. News I found startling, and beautiful. While I caught and tossed back a dozen emails from a parent concerned about her son’s failing grade in my class, while I coached a half dozen kids in organizing an end of the school year assembly, while I graded dozens of hastily finished projects, weeded my garden, tucked my children into bed, threaded the land mine-strewn conversations with my wife, I pondered several strange, startling, and beautiful pieces of news.

First piece of news: The tightness of the spiraling arms of galaxies are indicators of the mass of the black holes that lie hidden in nearly every galaxy. We can determine how many solar masses (the mass of our sun) make up those central black holes, those voracious, monstrous eaters of all things.

(Background: a galaxy is an island of stars, numbering in the billions [ours has about a 400 billion stars]. Early in the universe they tended to be smaller, made up of more massive stars with short lives. The latest editions of galaxies look a little like hurricanes gliding through the universe, unless they collide with another, in which case they can take on almost any shape as they swing through and around each other in a complex dance of mass and gravity.)

Hurricane

Colliding galaxies

More colliding galaxies

Second piece of news: Scientists have studied the orbits of the stars in our galaxy's halo (one can determine the material of a star by looking at it through a spectrometer, then determine its mass by its brightness, and its velocity by how much the image in the spectrometer is red/blue shifted) and so have determined the total mass of our galaxy. (Read this paragraph again if you didn’t get it the first time. I think its a little awkward and might need some editing.)

Turns out our galaxy contains the mass of a little less than a trillion times the mass of our sun. Wow! Cool work there, guys!

Third piece of news: The Spitzer-Hubble Space telescope has finished its survey of our galaxy and using primarily the light from the infrared portion of the spectrum which penetrates the dust lanes much better than visible light, scientists have mapped our galaxy! That’s right! We now have a map of our own galaxy. An amazing feat of detective work!

Please click to enlarge
(It's pretty cool)

So, our galaxy is typical of that latter sort, spiral, if a touch on the small side. We have thought for decades our galaxy, the Milky Way, was a typical spiral galaxy featuring four arms spiraling out from its glowing hub.

Turns out there are only two arms, and they are tightly wound. Remember news item two? Our galaxy has some VERY LARGE black holes in its heart, pulling its swinging arms in a tight grip like a ballerina who brings her arms in to spin ever faster (well, it takes about 250 million years to make a complete turn, but that is pretty quick if one takes the long view of things).

Fourth piece of news: We see into the future.

Sort of.

It takes about a tenth of a second for the image that hits our eyes to get passed along the optic nerves and then passed on to the brain. The problem with that is that if we are presented with an object moving fast toward us, how can we react in time?

A pitched ball should smack us in the face before we can determine where it is going, how to react, and get that catcher’s mitt into place.

The truth is... we see the ball coming before it is coming.

There have been a lot of theories on why we see optical illusions the way we do. There are about 52 types of optical illusions. Past theories have only been able to explain one or two of them at a time. A new theory predicts how and why for all 52!

Here it is: The brain is analyzing everything we see all the time. We can’t spend our time really looking at things, so it takes the memory of things and places them where they should go, so we feel comfortable walking along and don’t worry about the empty spots in our environment where we haven’t bothered to look closely. As we move along the brain predicts what we will see next and imagines that image as “real.” Then if the image that arrives is different than the one we are presuming on, it quickly adjusts and updates the image.

We don’t see the world as it is. We see the world as we imagine it is going to be in a moment.

When something is wrong with that image we do a quick double-take, look hard for what is different than what we believe was supposed to be there.

Say there are two objects in a room about the same distance from you but at ninety degrees from each other in terms of your perspective. If you suddenly move toward one of them, your brain will enlarge the image of the items it believes should get larger, blur out others, and shrink others, presenting you with a virtual real time image.

About fifteen years ago I was riding in a van with my brother Mike. He was driving. We were talking and as we passed a side street I saw a car coming out from that street too fast to make the turn.

My eyes widened, my mouth opened to shout a warning. The car went out of view behind Mike, on the other side of the wall of the van.

“What?” asked Mike.

I furrowed my brow. Why hadn’t the car hit?

WHAM!

The van gets shoved sideways. We had been in an accident.

How could so much time have passed between when I saw the car fly by heading into our vehicle, just behind Mike’s seat?

My brain was telling me about things that hadn’t happened yet.

In moments of crisis it can actually predict a second or two into the future!

Did you know that astronomers can see galaxies that are out of view by examining the lensing effect of massive galaxies which lie between? Gravity bends light waves and a distant object’s image can slip around another just the same way mirages in the desert are caused by the light slipping in strange ways through the shimmering variations of air.

The little arced streaks are galaxies further away than those they surround

Mirage on The Great Salt Lake
(where my dad attempts his speed records)

We can see things that aren’t there by using the slippery characteristics of gravity and light.

We can see things that aren’t there.

We do see things that haven’t happened yet.

After my little trip into town today I was pulling up to my house.

It has been my habit to cross the oncoming lane (if I am eastbound) into the parking area past my drive, and back into my drive. I believe it is safer to pull out again forward rather than backing out.

As I pulled over, there was a car coming, about a block away. I debated for a moment whether or not I should back up into the driveway before he arrived or after. I decided to wait to make him feel more comfortable, though I had enough time to get completely in the drive before he arrived.

It took only a few seconds, but he rolled through, going a touch fast, and gave me the one finger salute.

I had no idea what we was angry about.

I backed into my drive, watching him grow smaller in the distance.

What was he upset about? How had I angered him?

I wasn’t angry. I knew he must have some bad things going on and I was a convenient target.

“Talk to him. Be kind, be polite, don’t crowd him, but talk to him.”

Huh?

It was a weird thought (or perhaps The Spirit?). Actually it wasn't so much a thought as a feeling.

I pulled back out, turned right. Kept the speed limit, followed.

A stop sign made him wait for me. I could see how angry he was in the reflection of his mirror. He turned north on Holly St. So did I. I kept a respectful distance.

Great. I’ve been thinking about how the things I see aren’t real, and now I’m hearing voices, or rather obeying a feeling in my heart.

He turned left on Territorial Rd. As he did his angry face glared at me in the mirror. He flicked a cigarette butt back in my direction.

A few blocks to the end of the road. A couple of turns, he pulled into a drive. I pulled in slowly as well. I stopped just inside the drive, I didn’t want to crowd him.

“Stay calm,” the voice/feeling said. "Smile. Be kind."

I stepped out as he pulled his pickup into the garage. An elderly woman got out of the passenger side. The driver got out, he looked about five years older than I.

“Stay calm, be kind. Smile sincerely,” my heart whispered.

His face was contorted in anger. The older woman spoke.

“What the Hell are you doing here? Go away! This is private property!”

“What is your problem with me?” he growled.

I smiled nervously. (Sorry Lord, that’s as close to sincere as I could manage.)

“I just wanted to know how I offended you,” I said softly. “You look angry, and I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry if I made you angry.”

“I’ll tell you what you did!” he shouted. “You cut across in front of me!”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been pulling into that driveway that way for over fifteen years and it hasn’t bothered anyone before, and you were a block away. But I knew you would be passing me as I was backing in, and I can see how that would make you feel I was putting my vehicle close to yours. I should have waited until you passed.”

A confused look came over his face.

The older woman huffed and went inside.

He walked up to me, his hands balled into fists.

I looked into his eyes, smiled.

He had tired eyes. There were wrinkles, sad wrinkles circling his eyes, creasing his forehead. They reminded me a little of the lines of stars around spinning galaxies.

"I'm sorry," I repeated.

He smiled weakly.

“It’s OK,” he said. “My mother has alzheimer’s and I had just picked her up from the nursing home and she yelled that you had cut me off and I reacted and I got mad. I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK,” I said. “Life is tough. I can see there are a lot of things going on in your life. I’m sorry about your mom. And I’m sorry I got in your way. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not upset or anything.”

We stood a moment. Both of us slightly confused by the situation.

“I’m Will,” I said, and stuck out my hand.

“I’m Jim,” he said. He took my hand.

“I hope things get better for you,” I said. “It must be hard dealing with your mom. Are you married?”

“She died last year. Alcohol and drugs.” His voice thickened.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

“I don’t know what the Hell is the matter with the world right now!”

It was almost a shout.

“Gas is going up, I’ve been a trucker all my life, and now the company has gone, just disappeared, and how am I going to start over at 56 years old?!”

He looked close to panic.

“I’ll be damned if I go on welfare,” he said.

“Life is tough, I know,” I said.

“Are you married?” he asked.

“Yeah, but things are rough there too.”

“You got kids?”

“I have two. They are mentally disabled. I love them, but it can make things... interesting.”

“I’m sorry I got angry at you,” he said.

“Hey, it isn’t any big deal. Life is tough. I’m glad there aren’t any hard feeling between us.” I started to get back into my van.

He grabbed my right hand in both of his.

“God bless you,” he said.

I smiled, sincerely now.

“Thank you. You too.”

I drove home.

I love to think. I love putting ideas together, learning new things.

Sometimes what I see isn’t what is really there. And what is there isn’t always seen. Sometimes I think I know what is real.

Sometimes I feel I have righteous anger, a right to be indignant at the hurts others have inflicted upon me, sometimes intentionally.

But those thoughts feel wrong.

The mind is a strange instrument. It tells us what we see, and it creates conclusions out of nothing.

The heart is a more trustworthy organ. When it whispers, when it tells me what I am feeling is wrong, or when it tells me to do something, it is often more right than my mind.

I think about that man, walking into his house. His hand still feeling mine in his, minutes after he had used it to fling anger at me.

I think about that mouse scurrying on the back of that speeding truck, a tiny living thing in a whirling world it cannot see or understand.

I think about the coiled arms of our galaxy, hugging invisible, powerful singularities in its heart, and my little home, my little star, riding a bit of flotsam of stars, the Orion Spur (rather nice sounding, isn't?) coasting between those two arms.

I think about my eyes telling me about the world, and knowing that it may or may not be right, be true.

I think about the sadness in my heart resting beside the joy I feel for living in a world my Lord has made.

I think about how everything is connected. We are all related. We lean against each other, brace each other up in our lives. Sub atomic particles making up atoms, making up molecules, making up cells, making up organs such as my heart, making up people, such as myself, making up societies, cultures, making up a world, which swings around a star, tugging at other stars with the braces of gravity, swinging around a galaxy in a headlong journey with many other galaxies, all bracing each other in connections seen and unseen, imagined and unimagined.

I think about my friendships, and how I want to go off somewhere and pray.

I think too much.

But I don't think I feel too much.

Forgiveness

2008-06-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

Note... this post was written for another purpose, yet I thought I would post most of it here. For certain reasons I will delete portions and replace them with ...###... to indicate the edits.

Additionally... I just finished the editing and I see how much it chops this piece up. let me know if it too messy to leave here, or if there is still value in it, or if I have left too much behind and you can still read between the lines... or rather, between the ...###...

----------------

A friend pointed out how much my previous post (“Wary”) dealt with forgiveness. I thought it more about suspicions, but in rereading it I see forgiveness his point.

If I am suspicious have I forgiven?

I think I have.

Being suspicious can be (might not be, but can be) a logical response to circumstances. ...###...

...###...

...###...

Forgiving is different than trust

Forgiving is a gift one gives to another and to oneself.

...###...

In continuing to blame ...###... feel a little betrayed once again. It feels ...###... unrepentant of...###... own mistakes...###...

But that isn’t the point.

What happens when one forgives? What happens when one doesn’t?

...###...

...###...

...###...

It may be that in forgiving I make things harder ...###... It isn’t much of a gift if it is a burden.

...###... may feel greater remorse because I forgive...###... may feel greater embarrassment. ...###...may feel a debt. ...###...may feel pressure to give me what ...###... I want.

...###...

Whether or not that is true, I’ve been thinking, what does that mean? What does it mean to forgive someone who isn’t sorry, is unrepentant, doesn’t want forgiveness?

I thought forgiving someone was about making them feel better. I thought forgiveness is a a gift, a bit of grace, perhaps undeserved grace.

I don’t think it is.

I have asked ...###... to forgive me for my mistakes. ...###...

I’m sorry about that. I won’t repeat my mistakes. I can work to compensate for my errors. But that is all I can do. Time is assymetrical (in this dimension), running in the direction of entropy.

But ...###... pays a greater price. In not forgiving ...###... clings to her pain.

Perhaps it helps ...###... feel justified in her own mistakes, but it also keeps ...###... angry, unhappy.

My mistakes happened, they are in the past and I cannot undo them. But those same mistakes continue to hurt ...###..., or rather, ...###... continues to hurt herself with them.

And there is the epiphany. Forgiveness does more for the one forgiving than the one forgiven.

A lot of implications there. If in forgiving we heal ourselves a little, does living a life of forgiving others make one happier? Healthier?

Does continual forgiving make one a doormat? If we are seen as someone who will forgive anything, will others take advantage of us?

I forgive ...###...

When I think too much about that hurt, when the anger returns a little, I am stealing back some of that forgiveness. It doesn’t affect ...###..., it affects me. When I say a prayer, and give it up again, forgive all over again, the small relief I feel is the light touch of healing.

Forgiving does not make me a doormat.

First, forgiving is hard work. When I forgive I am wrestling with myself, conquering my emotions. Forgiving isn’t about letting someone walk over you. It is being strong enough to control your emotions. It is loving yourself enough to stop letting something continue to hurt you.

Additionally, forgiving does not mean becoming available, welcoming, further hurts.

...###... A future hurt is a part of accepting the risk I take in ...###.... It hasn’t anything to do with forgiving.

Forgiving is for me, it is letting something go so it doesn’t continue to hurt me.

And that brings me to the next epiphany.

Forgiving someone is not a matter of telling anyone about it.

Forgiveness lets us off the hook, not the other person. If we forgive and make a point of letting the other person know, especially if we make a grand gesture in forgiving, we are seeking control, seeking to elevate ourselves.

Telling the person we forgive them should happen only if it helps the other person, if the other person is seeking that forgiveness, needs to know they are forgiven.

When Jesus was on the cross he said “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” Jesus wasn’t forgiving us. He had already forgiven us. He had endured much already, and He had been able to extricate Himself had He wanted. He had accepted it all, forgiven us all, when he received that deiscple’s kiss.

On the cross He was pleading our case. He was asking the Lord God to share His gift of forgiveness, extending His forgiveness into the trinity.

I’m not sure what to make of the part of the Lord’s Prayer that says: “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

It implies we are only going to be forgiven as much as we are able to forgive.

Obviously not the case.

Jesus has taken on the sins of the world, sins of each of us, my sins. I can never match His grace. Therefore that line isn’t a description of how our salvation works.

Perhaps that line from the prayer is a reminder of that point. We are not able to forgive that much, that consistently, that freely. Perhaps it is there to remind us that we have been given grace beyond price and the least we can do is give a little out now and then.

If I could learn to live a life filled with forgiveness, not nescessarily opening myself, allowing others, to hurt me, but forgiving them so I can let the past go. i know I would be happier, healthier.

So what is forgiving for?

Forgiving is for giving us, for giving ourselves, freedom. Freedom from the hurts others have given us.

Forgiving is for healing.

Memorial Day

2008-05-26T17:25:00.001-07:00

Last Friday night, as I was chatting with each of my sons, preparing to pray with them, I talked to them about what had happened that day. That morning my children became U.S. citizens.

“There are billions of people all over the world who wish they lived in this country,” I told each of them.

“We have plenty of food in the frig and the pantry. We have a good roof over our heads. If we are in trouble we can call the police and not worry they might want money from us or they might be as much of a problem as the reason we called. That isn’t true for a lot of people.

“If we are hurt or not feeling well, help is only a three digit phone call away. In many places the only people who can get help are those who have enough money to get special privileges, and in those countries very few are in that position.”

Each boy looked at me, unsure how to respond, unsure what I was referring to. They cannot remember what their home country, Haiti, is like.

“I think many people in this country don’t appreciate what a privilege it is to live here,” I told them.

“I lot of people talk about gas prices, and politics, and our economy, but all that means very little when we compare ourselves to most of the world. We are very lucky to live in such a wealthy country, a place where there are people to protect us, help us, let us go to whatever church we want and vote any way we want.

“Now you are a U.S. citizen and that means an awful lot.”

I went on for a little while. I think the voting thing went pretty much over their heads.

Today is Memorial Day. It is primarily a day when folks remember those who have served in the military to protect our freedoms, but it is also used for us to visit the places where we have buried all our loved ones.

We have a memorial to the veterans of the Vietnam conflict. It’s the first thing one sees entering town from the west.

That Vietnam was difficult for us. Some folks are still upset about the reasons we were there.

We treated the soldiers of that war poorly. In the current conflict the American people are trying very hard to make it clear that whatever their feelings about the war in Iraq, we honor the men and women who serve.

That is why I think the memorial on the edge of town is a good thing. It is a memorial to the veterans, not the war. There was some valor in that war, regardless of the poklitics behind it. The helicopter is a medical rescue vehicle, not a weapon. It may be military, but it is at least a symbol of rescue.

We voted in President Nixon because he told us he had a secret plan to get us out of the war (though we didn’t know the plan was: “Everybody on the roof!”).

There is a great concern in our country that the current conflict might not be the right thing to do as well.

Still, it is Memorial Day and the flags are flying. The boy scouts are putting them on the streets, the Veterans of Foreign wars are doing the same at the cemetery.

There is an American flag on every veteran’s grave. There are too many of them.

At Zion Memorial Cemetery there are representatives from nearly every war, all the way back to the Civil war 150 years ago.

Brenda and I put flowers on Willy’s grave.

I don’t believe God is an American, but I do believe I am very fortunate to live in a place where I can worship Him without fear, or regard, to what others think.

I’m unsure what is best for us to do in the rest of the world, but I believe that as a people we really want to do what is best, what helps others. Perhaps not all our leaders have been motivated by that concern, but for even them, doing the right thing is a part of it.

Death is a part of life. Some of those we honor today died for others. Some simply died (such as Willy).

As I tried to explain that to my kids, I am grateful for those who sacrificed themselves for others, for me.

Most especially my Lord who sacrificed Himself that everyone, American, Venezuelan, Portuguese, Russian, all of us, that we may live not only forever, but live well in this world as well.

Happy Memorial Day.

Nests

2008-05-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

(A Short Tale of Nature and My home)

“Dad, could you come out into the front yard? I have something I want to show you.”

Isaac gets a formal tone, chooses his words carefully, when he really wants to connect with me. He often has trouble articulating. When his language becomes precise, I pay attention.

“There’s a bird’s nest in the plum tree.”

Sure enough, only about five feet off the ground, there was a nest in the crotch of the tree.

No bird in it. No chirping. I peeked in, there were only empty shells within.

I gently pried it out of the tree while Isaac took pictures.

Bird nests are cool. I’m not sure why, but they are.

I think it is partly because they are complex. The twigs and leaves and bits of detritus swirl around in a macramé bowl.

Oregon weather has been strange this year. We never got the real cold weather, but there was plenty of rain. The temperature swung into the 90s (F.) and back down into the 50s over just a couple of days. We had weeks of cold rain, (very unusual) and the fruit trees are confused about what they should be doing. And a pair of birds have already raised their young this year.

I took the day off today. I explained what was up to the boys when I sat on their beds last night, our nightly time together which ends in prayer.

I explained once again about their citizenship problems. I told them how we were going to the immigration office and try to get their citizenship, that we knew it wasn’t supposed to be possible for Jeremiah to get it yet, but we thought we might, so we were going to try.

I told them how fortunate we are in this country, that we have so much available to us.

We dressed up a little, the boys, myself, Brenda. We left the house at 6:30 a.m. for the half hour drive to Portland for an 8:00 appointment. We wanted to be certain we got there ahead of morning rush hour traffic.

GREAT NEWS!!!

By 9:00 we were at the post office, applying for passports for the boys and Brenda, evidence for the happy news that my children are now U.S. Citizens!

Once more...

MY KIDS HAVE BEEN GRANTED U.S. CITIZENSHIP!!!

So this post isn’t the mix of theology and science and personal angst as the previous one (other blog), but it is a mix.

Simple pleasure of an empty bird nest, a symbol of Spring, new beginnings, another generation. A tremendous victory and gift in my children gaining the benefits of U.S. citizenship, the threats of the legal status swept away by people who knew how to do what is right, show us the way out of the maze of legal red tape (sorry about the mixed metaphor).

I'm so glad not to find bureaucrats in a buraeucracy! Not what I would expect. Especially one that is now under the umbrella of Homeland Security!

How might this affect my home life?

(This paragraph deleted... unedited version in other blog.)

And so is God.

He has been faithful. I am grateful

Hi There!

2008-05-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

I wish I had something of value to drop into this little blog.

I have been writing, but it doesn't fit this blog (so it is at the more melodramatic one).

Additionally, the school year is wrapping up and that is a little different than a lot of people seem to think.

"So... things starting to slow down for the year?"

"I bet you are glad things are drwaing to a close and you can begin to relax as summer approaches."

Things like that.

The way things are for me is that things actually get busier. As the end of the school year nears the kids become more restless, less focused, a little more rambunctious.

Meanwhile, I am still trying to squeeze in as much into this trimester as I have the previous two.

And, there tends to be more assemblies, more field trips, more year end activities which whittle away at my time with them.

Lastly, this is my last chance to instill the habits and ethics children need to be succesful students, successful citizens. It is all the more important to do all the character building stuff as it needs to hold them until the fall.

I am most concerned about the eighth graders who go on to high school next year. So many of them are so immature, so sure they are right in everything, so unready to grasp the responsibilities high school will demand of them. In middle school they are top of the heap, lords of their domain, and next year they will be lowly freshman roaming halls with upper classmen who haven't the patience for wide-eyed kids.

So... I wish I had some wonderful theological insights to share. But the lessons I have been learning lately are a little to painful to share here.

But I'll be back.

Soon.

Real soon.

And I'm praying that I can start writing as little on that other blog as I have been on this one.

OK... one last parting insight... just for kicks...

I have learned a spiritual lesson that might fit here.

I am not nearly as clever as I'd like, and that it turns out that I have learned that I have a lot of reasons to be humble.

Not only am I small in the sense of one among 6.7 billion, but I am small in the sense that I spend so much time thinking about myself that I leave very little room for God... and He deserves all the room I can give him.

Alright, that doesn't sound very insightful. But like so many insights, they don't come across as important to others as they do to those who are beginning to internalize them.

So, in closing, I'll leave you with a quote that I used in my other blog which is clevver enough to spark introspection all on it own:

The destiny of mankind is not decided by material computation. When great causes are on the move, we learn that we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time, and beyond space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.
--Winston Churchill, Rochester, New York, 1941

Eternity

2008-05-02T19:11:00.000-07:00

A crisis of faith can strike anyone. My wife is having a difficult time right now with her understanding of God, or as they put it in AA, her “higher power.”

I understand her frustration. She feels God has been capricious, perhaps cruel, in the events of our lives. We longed for children, she was barren. We adopted a child, took him home the day after his birth, and he died at three and a half months. We adopted two more, hoping to grasp our dream of raising children to carry on our values, our world view. They are both mentally handicapped. They are incapable of being who we wished they might be.

My wife feels punished. She thinks God should intervene in people’s lives, especially when people are trying to do the right thing, helping others, such as adopting orphans.

Oddly enough, though I have experienced those same life frustrations, my faith seems to grow stronger every year. What makes it especially odd is that I have this scientific bent to my nature. I read as much as I can, gobble up information on physics, geology, natural history, astronomy, quantum mechanics. I'm not a scientist, I know very little, but I try to learn as much as a lay person can. And all the science I digest does not shake my faith. Instead I see God in His creation all the more clearly because of the things I read, the things I learn.

My faith doesn’t spring from seeing the wonders science reveals. My faith doesn’t spring from reading scripture either. It just is.

My life has gotten pretty screwed up.

I have no idea where it is going, what will happen next. I harbor great anxiety over my future, over decisions I need to make each day. And though my faith tells me I need not be anxious, my faith isn’t quite strong enough that I drop the concerns I carry.

But my faith does not waiver.

Why is that?

Some time ago I resolved to stop caring what people in church thought of me as I worship. I shut my eyes, told myself that it hasn’t anything to do with anyone else, and let it all fall away as I turn my mind, and my heart, to praying the words I sing, imagining my God watching me, enjoying me, as I open my heart to Him.

I think that is one reason my faith has grown.

During those moments of worship I open my heart and I sense just a little of eternity.

There have been other times when eternity drew near. Those moments are with me always, and because of them I cannot give up my faith.

I was trying to explain this to a friend today.

I asked him to imagine time as having two dimensions. It is a little strange to try, but I think I can do it. Imagine that instead of being dragged along with the passage of time, being carried by that unrelenting stream that carries us in the direction of entropy, we could step away. We could step aside and remain in a particular moment for as long as we like.

Imagine we could turn around and face away from the line of time all together, and gaze across a smooth glassy plane that has no boundaries, no edge, no end in any direction. That one could turn and walk beside the time line, gazing into any part of the existence of the universe, both in time and in space. “When” would cease to have meaning.

I suppose there was a “time” when all there was to experience was that plain, that austere prairie of eternity. The trinity was there, existing in a reality that stretched everywhere and nowhere. That the only part of it that made it something was the existence of God Themself. A trinity of thinking, loving, existing I AM... A being so much the essence of love, the tangible deification and expression of Love, and They desire(d) to expand that experience, to fill all, to fill eternity, to be eternity.

For that two dimensional plane of eternity powerful beings were created. Beautiful souls capable of sharing that love, giving that love, “moving” and “being” in eternity. Powers, and dominions, and angels, and principalities. Their existence unmarred by strife, longing, death, corruption. Their existence a steady existence bathed in the central glory and glow of their Creator. Powerful, smooth souls gleaming and reflecting, love, community.

Time did not/does not/will not pass, for there is not/was not/will be no restriction to it, all of eternity existing all at once.

Until...

Until a thread was stretched and pulled up from that surface and lain across that plain. A constriction of eternity into one dimension. One end of it tethered to eternity, to the mathematically pure two dimensions of time, the other laid out a hundred billion or more years and flattened into nothing. One end the tight, bright beginning of the universe, the Big Bang we like to call it, and the other the smooth, cool evening of entropy, billions of years ahead of us, when all things lose themselves in expansion and quiet, cooling dissipation.

Imagine the wonder of those beings, those august mighty entities of eternity as they gaze(d) upon that line laid upon the plane of their existence. They could move alongside it, see the formation of the laws of physics as the hot plasma of raw matter cooled enough, held still enough to embrace electrons, and each other... forming hydrogen, helium, and stars.

They watched the stars dance into simple round galaxies, and grow, and die, and in dying their immolition creating more complex, heavier materials, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen...

Did some of those eternal beings with souls smooth and clean, created to reflect Love and Beauty and Glory, move along that strange line upon the plain and wonder? Did they glide along it a dozen or more billion years and see how worlds settled out of star dust and marvel(ed) at life?

It must seem(ed) a miracle, a great wondrous spectacle, to behold things tied to that line, that stream of entropy. It must have seemed so different to gaze upon mortality... plants, animals, creatures and things in corners of the universe consuming and procreating and dying.

It must have been a wonder to see Them nurture gardens and set creatures in them, to see how they moved and interacted and relied upon each other in a complex web of life. The complex web of ecosystems adapting to changing environments, of the rain of meteors, of ice ages, and of volcanoes. Watching as an atmosphere of carbon-dioxide cleared to one of nitrogen and oxygen. Watching as the age of green things ruled, and oxygen spiked so high insects grew to enormous proportions. The gritty reality of a limited universe filled with things that relied upon each other in complex ways. To note how the wolf is connected to the elk, the elk to the trees, the trees to the beaver, the beaver to swamps, the swamps to meadows, the meadows to flowers, the flowers to butterflies, and to watch those butterflies knowing they rely upon the wolf.

Amazing to watch the Lord let the systems of worlds age, settle, become used to each other. To watch Him place human-like place keepers in the world, the australopithicenes, proto humans, allowing them to hold the niche in nature, letting the ecosystems settle into their rhythms, waiting for the wonder that would bring texture to eternity, the mixing of souls with living things.

Then He did a most marvelous thing. The Lord God made Man, pushing tiny slivers of eternity out of the two dimensions of time, into the hearts of living beings so they could sense it, so they could carry fragments of a greater reality within their breasts and sense the larger truth that there is more than their narrow path, that thread through eternity. He gave them souls.

From within that thread, from within the thin line of time, I'm blessed to imagine a reality of greater proportions. It seems amazing to think of powerful eternal beings gazing upon us from outside our own thin existence.

It is amazing that I have this sliver of eternity within my own living body, this soul, and that it senses there is so much more than I can ever know from my books on science.

What can I offer in return for this amazing gift? All I have. I offer the devotion of a soul that sorrows and longs and grieves and loves and has choices. I can take the mysterious gift of free will and set my love in it and carry the strange experience of living a life along a single line of time. I can take with me into eternity the gritty roughness that comes from living among a species that can be selfish and self-serving and greedy and cruel and experience pain and let that soul bring texture to eternity.

Why do I believe in God? Why has my faith stayed when it could have turned to questioning whether or not God is capricious and cruel, or steady and loving?

I think I haven’t much choice about my faith.

I experienced eternity once.

March 15th, 1993.

I was walking in Molalla River State Park, before dawn, grieving over the death of my son.

The full moon was sinking, the air had that strange hush as nature holds its breath at the approaching dawn. The stars were sparkling through a sky gathering unto itself a color impossible to describe, a rich, dark violet tinge over velvety space.

I dropped to my knees in the hurt and anguish of lost dreams and the aching void my son had left and I heard Him.

I know my ears did not receive any sound, that there was no physical movement of His words streaming through air, but all of nature, the moon, the stars, the dark shadows of trees, the large river flowing by, the grass and dirt beneath my knees, all of it thundered silently with His words: “I KNOW.”

That instant my heart leapt, that sliver within me connected to eternity, leapt. For that instant I knew eternity. That moment took no time at all, and it lasted forever and ever and ever.

I carry that moment always.

I have no choice about my faith.

I experienced God Themself and I have no choice, for all the rest of this mortal life, but to believe in Him.

An Hour of Peace

2008-04-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

Friday is our monthly day of 24 hours of prayer at our church. I have the 5:00 a.m. slot.

Walking and praying is one thing, a time of personal reflection and talking with the lord, but setting aside time to be completely alone, in a quiet room dedicated for just that purpose, is a different thing.

When I go on those walks to pray I move about, contemplating, whisper thanks, praise, petitions for wisdom and serenity. Though I am in prayer, it is too often born of nervousness, anxiety, and that makes for poor prayers, restless contemplation.

When I set aside an hour or two for prayer in that quiet corner of our church, the walls contain my nervous pacing, slows my racing mind. Though I may begin by striding to and fro, the twenty some feet of the room turns me about, casts my vision back upon the table set for communion, the bookshelves, the candles, the writing table. I slow, and slow, and slow...

There is something about setting aside a time of prayer in such a place that is conducive to more than communication with God, more than an opening of my heart to the Holy Spirit. It is a balm for my mind, a sip of cool peace for a thirsty soul.

I have been distressed these last few months.

I’m looking forward to the quiet time I have set aside this week.

Fifty Two Laps

2008-04-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

April 27, 1956, Santa Ana, California.

Today’s my birthday. I’m fifty-two years old. I once thought such an age was just short of decrepit, but it doesn’t seem as old now as it did then.

Still, it is a bit of time. More than a half century. I’ve ridden this green and blue ball of dirt around and around the sun, and that fiery hearth for earthly life has swum over 410 billion kilometers around the galaxy, a distance of approx. 0.04 light years, in that time.

When 52 seemed to be ancient I was young enough to be fairly certain I knew the truth about life. Now that I’ve spent a little time skating along this entropy-driven line through the fourth dimension (time), I feel I really don’t know much about anything.

I like playing with big ideas, trying to fit a crude lay knowledge of science with a crude lay knowledge of theology to the experiences filtered by five senses. It’s much like a dog chewing on the edge of a book. I like the way it feels in my teeth, but I really don’t have any idea what I’ve got ahold of.

I often sit at this glowing screen, tapping at the little squares of plastic that make up the symbols of written language, and expound on things I know nothing about.

My current appreciation of how right I am, about how smart or wise I am, hasn’t really improved too much from that 18 year old who started growing that thin beard.

I too often think I have a clue when I haven’t even begun to understand the question.

People keep mistaking me for someone who has a hint about what is going on. They too frequently make the mistake of thinking that because I read stuff like Scientific American and books by Stephen Hawkings (the lay stuff off course), and relate it to passages from the Bible or books exploring theology, that I might have some indication of what I’m talking about.

Of course it isn’t my fault people are foolish enough to take me seriously.

A good example about how clueless I am is the Sargasso Sea of confusion my ship of life is currently plying. I have the rudder of my faith to keep it steady, but I haven’t any charts or course set that I am aware of.

I just keep doing what seems to be the right thing each time a demand for a decision presents itself.

My wedding ring comes off, my wedding ring goes on. I brace myself for a divorce, I welcome my wife back home. I even offer my facial hair up for my students to reshape, and settle in on the look they give me. I facilitate a class at church to examine the theology of a novel, and I wing it each time I do so.

So...

Fifty-two years old, and as confused as the day I was first thrust into the light of this world and didn’t even realize that the horrid sound I was hearing was my own birth wail.

I’ve received a number of birthday greetings from family and friends, folks from the blogosphere and acquaintances in town. It is nice to have their love and friendship.

I just wish I was a little more grownup than I am, that I understood what I am, what I am doing, where I am going, and what I should do next.

Of course...

...for an eternal being...

I’m still pretty young.

GOSPEL of Jeremiah

2008-04-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

“Are you, or have you ever been, a member of an organization which promotes violence, or terrorism?

Blank look.

The interviewer’s mouth creased in a small smile.

“Have you ever been a member of the communist party?”

Jeremiah looked confused.

I butted in.

“He doesn’t understand. The only organizations he’s been involved in are our church, Boy Scouts, and Special Olympics.”

“I understand,” the man across the desk said with a friendly smile. “These are just standard questions.”

Across the country April 15th is a day many of my fellow Americans are nervous about filing their taxes. My wife and I were wondering what the future would hold for Jeremiah.

We were in an office in the Federal Building in downtown Portland. We were all dressed nice. I had put my wedding ring back on for the day.

The man across the desk did not seem the sort to go to the extreme of deportation, but we feared he may feel required to deny Jeremiah many of the opportunities which accompany permanent residency, and then, citizenship.

But it wasn’t like that at all.

Brenda and Jeremiah had the two seat directly in front of the desk. I was pulled up behind and between them. Our attorney sat to the right of us.

The questions were generally routine, except perhaps the first few.

“Why have you waited so long to file for permanent residency?”

Brenda replied, “Because we didn’t know we had to. In all the people we dealt with, the attorneys, the home study people, social security, we were never told we had to do anything.”

He smiled.

Bottom line... the friendly man behind the desk was not a typical bureaucrat, or someone inexperienced with dealing with unusual immigration cases. He had enough experience, enough seniority, that his recommendations carried a lot of weight. And he was a man who saw the reality of the situation and what he could do to fix it.

Brenda had picked up a letter from the asst. district attorney of our county which explained the situation behind the fire at our church nearly three years ago. he too out a highlighter and marked three passages, out it in the file.

After the routine questions he said that he was inclined to approve the permanent residency application. It may take a little while to get his supervisor’s approval, but he would see if he was available right now.

Five minutes later he returned. Asked for Jeremiah’s work permit, saying he won’t need it anymore. He literal rubber stamped the whole thing.

He reached into a drawer, pulled out a huge rubber stamp with small letters describing some sort of bureaucratic approval, and began stamping papers and signing in the areas of the stamping. He stood up, shook our hands.

Tears welled up in our eyes.

The biggest hurdle for Jeremiah had been cleared. he has permission to be a permanent resident in the United Sates of America.

In five years he would be able to apply for citizenship.

I could hardly believe what had just happened.

on the steps leading out of the court house I stopped a stranger.

“Pardon me... We’ve just had a rather significant event of our lives happen. would you mind taking our picture?”

She smiled, stepped back to get us fully in the picture, and snapped the picture.

The word "gospel" is a translation of the Greek word "euangelion" meaning good news, news of victory. The modern words derives from the middle Engilsh words for "God's word". And what He says, happens.

So, that is The Gospel of Jeremiah, today's gospel.

Circle and Lines

2008-04-13T07:42:00.001-07:00

I like circular plots. The sort of stories in which characters move out, go upon some sort of journey, and return again, changed.

Dorothy, tired of her life, dreams of going somewhere different, so her life can be different, only to find the things she really cherished were at home. Her journey changed her heart so it recognized what was important.

Ishmael tires of life on land, so he takes a job on a whaling vessel, and by the time he floats back to shore clinging to that coffin, his journey witnesses monomania and hubris, changing his views on faith, life, and humanity. His returns marks his deep change.

Ged saves his village with magic, and is sent to develop his powers at Roke... releasing an evil he discovers is really a part of himself. His journey takes him out, and returns him, scarred, yet wiser.

There is a pattern to such novels, a satisfaction in the circular, that rings true to my own experience of life. It seems I am always returning, yet never the same.

I like to write that way. Most of the posts on these blogs have that sort of pattern in the topics. I start out on one topic, get the reader used to the idea I’m exploring, and then I go off on a little journey. I head somewhere else. The journey may wind around a bit, but I usually bring it back and show how the journey ends where it began.

Perhaps it is because our lives are filled with cycles that we appreciate circular plots.

The moon waxes and wanes, crescent to gibbous, and the rhythm of that cycle beats in our hearts on a nearly genetic level.

The seasons roll, rebirth of life in the Spring, growth in the summer, harvest in the Fall, rest and fallowness of Winter, the slowing of the cycle in preparation of the rebirth of another Spring.

Hours of the day, seasons of the year, the rotation of generations, even the ebb and flow of wars seem to return again and again. Perhaps never exactly the same, but close enough for us to feel the familiarity.

“History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes.” -- Mark Twain

The other sort of journey is the line. I think most of us feel our lives are such stories. We are born, our lives wind around, events large and small mark the mileposts, and there is never any returning. If we do come back to where we had been once before, we feel that either we or the place has changed so much that it isn’t the same any more.

What is my story? What sort of plot am I living?

It has been a difficult journey, one that isn’t finished. I have tried to accept my faults, my failings, and that isn’t an easy honesty. I see clearly now.

Two things dominate my thoughts today. My children and my faith.

There is another side of the self esteem issue that is more healthy.

I know I am insignificant. I have a fair concept of the size of the universe, a fair handle on the the number of stars in galaxies, the way galaxies dance together, form clusters, reach toward each other in spinning motions that take millions of years, how some form groups... I know of the 10,000 year beat of the thrumming of galactic superclusters.

I know I am insignificant. A single life form on a small ball of dirt on the edge of a rather ordinary island of stars inhabiting a place in the universe that has no particular difference from any other place in the universe.

Except...

I feel something. I sense something.

I know I am significant...

to God.

That doesn’t necessarily make things easy.

As I have wrestled with the issues in my life I have turned, again and again, to what my faith tells me to do.

Sometimes, being a Christ follower is a lot tougher than one would guess. I think about Jesus, what He did, how He lived, and it makes my decisions more difficult.

I think about Christ, how He knew Judas would betray Him. Yet He loved Judas. He taught him and walked with him, and shared His life with him.

Could I do that? Could I offer trust, knowing I would betrayed?

This isn’t the trite teenage look at life, wondering “What would Jesus do?” This is my knowingly walking into a future that will hurt me, will harm me.

Looking at His life, trying to follow His example, is tough.

Perhaps the struggle is enough. Perhaps in examining my life, in seeing my faults and weaknesses, and hers as well, perhaps in the climbing over of rough terrain, I gain the strength, the spiritual muscle, which is enough for the lessons set before me.

I thought about Robert Frost’s poem about the road diverging in the woods, and I know I have such choices.

I share this choice, it is hers as well as mine, but I accept that this marriage has failed, that I have not been able to grasp onto it in a way that will save it. And I accept it. I accept my failures, own them.

I want to live my life to the end and feel I did it with as much integrity as I could.

I heard the echo my words are creating...

“...well done good and faithful servant...” (Matthew 25:21)

Some day I expect to live in grandeur greater than the most majestic chorus of beauty sung by dancing galaxies. Not because I will have earned it, for I cannot, but because someone has thought me significant enough to give that to me.

It isn’t the sort of love I long for in my heart today, but it is enough for me to do my best, my very best, in loving my children, loving my wife, making tough choices.

I’m unsure if I should see this as a lesson along a long road of life with many twists and turns and rough terrain... or perhaps it is the return of a journey, the coming home part of the circle plot that this small life has told in its living.

Starbuck

2008-04-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

Captain Ahab commanded the Pequod to its doom, his monomania driving him to sacrifice everything, his money, his friendships, his ship, his crew. The madness of his powerful ego made his revenge against Moby Dick, a symbol of the power of all nature, more important than anything else in all the world.

His first mate on the other hand cared nothing of the killing of any particular whale. Starbuck was a whaler, willing to kill the white whale if it came within reach, but only as a part of his livelihood. He was in the business of getting whale oil, the stuff for lubricating machinery, lighting lamps, and anointing kings.

Ahab was mad, insane. His insanity more clearly revealed when reflected in the calm eyes of the man charged with carrying out his orders.

The literary term for characters which reflect qualities in another is a “foil,” as in a shiny metal used in the Renaissance to illuminate jewels.

Ahab himself was unable to see his madness though Starbuck tried to tell him, show him.

I think most people look at those around them to help them judge themselves, and the inability to see the norm in those we are near is a dangerous weakness, a step towards a hubris that leads to self destruction.

In short, being near others helps us remain humble, remain true to ourselves, to recognize where we differ and helps us to raise our standards for our own behavior.

That is but one of the benefits of friends.

The other day I wrote of Adam’s loneliness, though he was in the company of God. It is a mistake for us to claim that we find all we need in God, for even God Himself (Themself?) saw that Adam needed a mate, someone like him, in order to be happy.

I was at Starbucks today. I met with a friend. He cares for me, and I for him. He said he’d buy me a cup of coffee, and I told him I would repay him by mentioning him in my blog.

So, my friend, thank you for the coffee. I appreciate it. You are a hero.

Aside from the free dose of caffein, I got something more important from him.

I got to look in his eyes, talk about things in my life, things of importance and things of no import at all. And in the reflection of his eyes I could read myself. I could see the insanity I was feeling as I choked up in commenting about the loving elderly couple I had seen chatting sweetly with each other a few minutes before. I didn’t have to say how that affected me. He knew what it meant to me.

He looked at what I had been writing in my Moleskine and we chatted about the strange idea there.

(Hang on, sideways shift in topic here.)

Here is what I had jotted down:

A Divine Idea

Premise; Act of observation affects the object of observation (a quantum mechanics detail of modern physics). ?: What role does thought play in the universe? ?: Might powerful ideas be spread aside from communication? Independent of speech? They might present themselves to minds. Ex.: God is love. Love permeates the universe in the way that God sustains the existence of the universe, the atoms themselves. Might the concept of love be independent of minds, of thought? If a mind is constrained by the brain (which I believe it is, independent of the physical organ itself), might an idea be constrained by a mind? Could love, as an idea be a “living” thing?

He looked it over, smiled, asked if he could write a quote onto the page. (I’d share it with you, but it would reveal who my friend is, and I’m unsure if he would appreciate that much attention in my blog. No sense in giving him too much of the shadow of notoriety!)

What does all this mean?

Nothing in itself.

In sharing my notes with him I could better judge if what I was thinking made sense, or if I’m nuts. (Of course, that is supposing he isn’t nuts!)

What is more important is the time itself we spent together.

It didn’t matter what we spoke of. What mattered was we were together.

I think God intended for us to be with each other, to share our lives. It occurs to me that people must have people around them or they get strange.

Just as Ahab encapsulated himself in his obsession, in excluding all rational thought or input from others, those who eschew others become... odd.

Think of those we know who live apart from people. The hermits, the loners, the self-absorbed.

I once spent a couple of months alone in a cave, reading. When I rejoined society I had difficulty fitting in.

Is there an example of this in the Bible? Well, Jesus surrounded Himself with people, with friends, with disciples. The company of others is good, healthy I (though gettijng away to prayer is also immportn]ant.) Is there a loner in the stories there? Sure. John the Baptist, the wild man of the desert. Though John played a very important role in the gospels, it seems evident he was a little... odd. You know, eating bugs, wearing camel hair clothing and ranting and railing against the establishment.

One of the things I love about where I work are my coworkers. They are family to me.

I haven’t shared much with them of what has been happening in my life, yet it is clear they know something is up, that the are looking out for me, cutting me a little slack.

One of the things I love about where I worship are the members of my church family. Though I haven’t shared much with them of what has been happening in my life, yet the know something is up, and they tell me they are praying for me, the send me notes, they offer to bring food over.

One of the things I love about this blog are the readers who visit. They have prayed for me, sent me encouraging notes, told me I am not alone. And these are people I have never laid eyes upon.

Why do we need people so?

Because we are made in God’s image. Not only have we souls, eternal spirits, but we are built for community, just as God Themself is three individuals in a single being.

From the obvious importance we place on having a partner, to the examples of those who reject true companionship for omphaloskepsis.

It is clear that being with others is healthy, needful, and the way God made us.

But Seriously, Folks...

2008-04-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

I'm a little odd.

I can't seem to remember things my wife considers important, or at least worth remember (like what someone gave us for Christmas seven years ago, or what someone else was wearing at a particular social gathering), but I do seem to hang on to odd bits and pieces of things I have read in Scientific American, or National Geographic, or a conversation I had with a brain researcher while hiking in the Olympic National Forest.

I also recall my dreams as clearly as my waking life, and some of those date back to when I was only three or four!

I take these little bits of information and I make improbable leaps of logic. I toss ideas in the air and see if I can make them loop around in interesting patterns. Meme Juggling.

For example, there is a Sunday School class I am sort of helping out in (I’ll be the “sub” for a week or so, but my current role is being “the weird guy in the corner with the odd ideas”).

We were looking at chapter six of The Shack and the theological question of whether of not God abandoned Christ at the cross (having given up His part of the Godhead in order to bear the sins of mankind). The theology ran a little heavy, with scriptures and learned commentaries being consulted. That is until I threw in one of my too frequent odd ideas, which went something like this:

“Well, I might be wrong, in fact I probably am, but these thoughts occur to me...

“I’ve read that autistic children often swing their arms and legs about not because they lack control, but because in moving their bodies they are better able to distinguish who they are, where their body ends and the rest of the world begins. For most of us, we have a very clear idea of who we are, focussing on this physical body, and not really consider anything beyond it as being a part of “us.” We know exactly where our skin ends and clothing begins, and what is of us and what is of the room or the furniture.

“I’ve also read about a scientist who studies the mind and the brain, and he argues that the brain, the physical organ within the skull, is not the producer of the mind, but actually limits what the mind can express. His evidence is intriguing. In looking at folks with brain injuries, he notes how they are limited in the mind’s thought processes. If the injury is repaired, there appears to have continued the larger abilities though the brain was unable to express them. It seems that there is something beyond the organic brain which screens the mind and limits its capacity, its potential.

“Additionally, I have thought it interesting that all matter at the quantum level is an expression of six types of sub atomic particles called quarks, which may be “strings vibrating in 12 dimensions” and in those vibrations “sing” an expression of particles. It is interesting that these particle are “sung” into existence in quantities of thirds, as if there is a trinity behind the physical reality of the universe.

“Now, if that trinity which sings the universe into being is the same trinity we call “God”, then even though God is actively creating the universe, we still have free will, to be self-centered, which is the core of sin. God is not apart from us, though we sin.

“Now, consider, perhaps in becoming a man, in Jesus being born of a woman and living as a human being, He was sort of extruding Himself into the reality of our world, filtering Himself into this expression of himself in a way similar to how the brain might be limiting the mind. He was still, most of him, doing His part in the trinity in maintaining the existence of the universe, yet the part that was on Earth, was not only fully divine, but also completely expressed as a mortal being.

“And if sin is about being self-centered, in turning away from God and focussing on ourselves, then in opening Himself up to our sins, in grasping and turning to hold, to behold, to take in the self-centeredness of the world, His limited expression in being mortal was turned away from His Father. He turned away, and in doing so took His eyes, his human, physical, ordinary mortal eyes, away from the trinity, and He experienced the abandonment we all feel when we turn away from God.

The class sat stunned for a moment. Then a buddy I work with said: “This is the kind of stuff I have to put up with every morning!” and everyone laughed.

I have tackled all sorts of weird ideas this way, blending science and art and philosophy and theology and any other ology I can manage to fit in.

And here is the most important thing about this little habit of mine:

I'm wrong.

I am almost certainly wrong about everything I think about or know.

I perceive the universe with eyes that see only so far, ears that hear only so much (and less than they used to with my tinnitus), and most importantly, a mind that is constrained by a brain that works in a dubious fashion.

Don't take me too seriously.

: )

Later!