catching up on me

so, while i clearly don't blog on a regular basis, i do find myself reflecting quite a bit. i discover myself, most often these latest of days, to be caught between the ideal and the real. it's that location that is drawn between the massive gravitational pulls of what should be and what really is. the hard part is determining when i should be content with what is and when i should desire and endeavor to move beyond.

my line of work is one that constantly wars with these states. on the one hand, i have learned over the past several years to strive to walk with people through whatever it is they find themselves mired in, whether good or bad. it is the condition of humanity to constantly answer the call of the present, regardless of what has been, might be, or will be. and so often, people will respond with outright "no's" when pushed from the places of life to which they have become accustomed or seduced, regardless of the merit or persuasiveness of the argument.

on the remaining hand, i have the privilege of delving deep into the recesses of God's revealed will for us on a regular (and vocational) basis, which lends insights and direction as to where all of us should be (or, at least, should be striving towards). this stirs me up to leave a contentment with the present far behind and push for the sublime that God details.

so what to do, and when to push, and when to simply stand by? to stand by is to let those i love careen down a hell-bent (or, less glamorously, unhealthy) path. to intervene can have the effect of furthering the errant pathway. there is no simple formula, not easily contrived balancing of factors that allows for deciding what-to-do-and-when.

i suppose it is the tension i most despise.

truly, and not said with some wimpy, christian platitude air, i can pray: tapping into the counsel and heart of the Almighty is by far the greatest thing i can do. but in the tangible, day-to-day, what is left? how do we decide when to wait and when to push? when is the weight of saying nothing too great a burden to bear? when is the danger of demanding too much dissuading enough?

i find it is in the wrestling with the tension that my heart is most transformed, albeit mostly without the answers i fervently seek.

the twists and turns

You know, I am always amazed at the way life tends to work itself out. I never know what the next day (or really, the next MOMENT) will really bring my way. I really didn’t think that I would be sitting here in my parents’ kitchen typing on my lappy on a Tuesday night in the middle of August – but here I am.

Here I am indeed, after a whirlwind trip back up north. Mom had surgery today to deal with some craziness in the form of cysts and masses in her uterine area. While I know that she is in good Hands, while I was able to support and encourage her, the family, friends, and concerned people with that knowledge, and while I believe wholeheartedly that everything would work out for Glory and good ... right now I’m in a place to actually reflect back on the what-ifs.

What if the cysts were more than benign?

What if the fibrous tumors were cancerous?

What if I had to say goodbye or know that I would have to soon?

What if Dad were left alone after all these years?

What if, what if ...

Unsettling to say the least. Scary to be more honest. I love my Mom. She’s a pretty amazing, incredible woman. It would be wretchedly hard to be parted from her now, even if that parting were only so very, very brief in the grand scheme of eternity.

But I guess those words ring even truer to me in this moment:

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about
those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of
men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died
and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring
with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

Sorrow mixed with joy. Ironic. And yet I am so grateful in this moment that God has allowed this world to be blessed by Mom for even one more day to come.

And I am hopeful for many more than that.

attitude or action

there is a great discussion rolling about that i've been able to join in on ... namely the idea of, for those of us who want to be a positive influence on our fellow man, what should we focus on: the attitude of the person or the actions?

the notion is that focusing on actions breeds or forces conformity to a standard or code, but does little to effect any substantive change in the individual, while focusing on an individual’s attitude will result in deep-seated change that manifests in appropriate action. with this, i heartily agree.

here is my hitch … no society (zero, zilch, nada) has been able to operate in this manner. more over, no religious group or sect has been able to manifest this into a tenable, sustainable, and effectual system either. both society-at-large and religion-at-large has seen the need to codify and enforce standards and expectations in order to preserve unity, promote good, and protect constituents. if there are capable individuals who believe and pursue the attitude-change model, why has it not been “enforced” apart from official rules?

i think the real problem here is a base, fundamental problem. it’s a three letter word that we have come to disdain not for its truth-in-fact but because of our belief that it can’t apply to me. it’s the problem of sin. we are not able – in-and-of ourselves – to live in any kind of utopian-my-heart-has-really-changed kind of world because we will constantly, repeatedly, sometimes even eagerly respond not in like fashion to what we know to be good or right. rather, we will react in selfish ways, in ways that belie our knowledge of the reasonable and demonstrate a base, ignoble view of ourselves, others, and the world in general. humanity bears the constant burden this side of heaven of the ugliness of sin.

the real danger here is that if we rely on influencing society only through the change of heart, we ignore the problem of sin. so how do we protect both those who would feel the repercussions of our base, ignoble views as well as ourselves who hold these base ignoble views?

while profound, substantive change can only occur in the presence of a true attitude change, history and logic lead to the conclusion that something more is needed to guide and direct that change, in essence a framework within which that process can arise. but herein lies the struggle: if it is merely a human endeavor, it is fraught with the same burden of being constructed by hands steeped in sin as the effort to rely on heart change alone.

so where do we go from here?

christmas in a storm

so this life thing just keeps on rolling, and some times i feel like i'm the steaming pile of tar waiting for the steamroller to flatten me out. and with all the craziness piling up, with all that i have to get done in the next week, it is easy to understanding why i would feel that way.

luckily, i don't feel that way.

now, i'm not saying i'm not stressed or that i wouldn't like to push that magical fast-forward button to skip past the upcoming week here, but i am excited about this next stage of life. and it is exciting to be making this journey with my best friend - and this time, she's just as excited as i am!

it has been wonderful to celebrate our second christmas together, too, even though we are in the midst of such a HUGE change, but what has served as our ballast and keel has been focusing on the "why" of christmas. it's bigger than gift-giving and more important than family ... that little baby, the great mystery of the God of eternity becoming fragile man. that's been the best of the best.

peace - b

forward, backward, and points in between

things change so rapidly, faster than my disheveled mind can possibly keep up with, and i find that i spend more time trying to catch up and recover lost ground than in actually living in the here-and-now of life and looking ahead to what is coming my way.

and this change isn’t always – or even usually – bad, but it takes what was normal, familiar, and safe and twirls it in a maelstrom of the unknown. that’s life right now, and it is both exciting (when i remember to look ahead) and nerve-wracking (when i get caught up looking backwards).

it’s actually a bit comical that i get caught up in this looking-to-times-already-gone-and-spent, as i profess and attempt to live a life of forward-looking faith. i make sense of so much senselessness by holding to an understanding that there is an ultimate (and good) end to all the evils of this life, to all the pains and uncertainties. but then again, i suppose it is also part-and-parcel of living life that faith is a journey with ups, downs, spins, u-turns, and hiccups along the way.

that said … i'm more excited about the days to come than i have been in a very, very long time!

peace – b

a monster called worry

i'm an anxious guy. not the curl-up-in-a-ball-in-the-corner -of-the-room-type or anything like that, but i do tend to over-think things and can begin to cascade down the precipice of worry if i don't reel in those thoughts. my professional training over the last several years provides some good strategies to make sure that i don't take the plunge, but my practice of faith is even more bolstering.

this morning, i find myself leaning heavily on those beliefs that have become so dear to me.

what i mean is this, and i am working quite hard to avoid anything political here, which is absolutely not my intent - nothing divisive is being orchestrated here. but, simply as background to my state of being, i am very concerned with the election results. it is my belief that many very dangerous and harmful policies and ideologies are espoused by an inexperienced man who was elected as commander in chief of america last night. enough ... nothing else on that.

what i am really saying is this: as a person of faith in Christ, my hope and assurance and confidence and overall sense of "okayness" with the world do not rest in the hands of a democrat or a republican or a libertarian or any other political or social figure in our world yesterday, today, or tomorrow. my faith guides me that there is One who is in charge, One who is able to protect me in the storms of life, One who is able to bring joy out of sorrow and suffering, One who is sovereign when things look swell and when they appear monstrous.

it is an amazing thing, as i have adventured ahead on this journey of faith, to learn to trust my God with all parts of me, my life, and my world. even when the stuff of life would otherwise wildly trigger those anxious thoughts and feelings, i am lead on a grand journey of deeper understanding and wild exploits.

and so, life is good. very good.

loaded for bear (part one)

mono really limits your extracurricular activities - seriously limits them. simple things, like walking down the stairs to your apartment to go get the mail or take out the trash, wipe you out. with these restrictive limits (read here, "really only able to sit in one spot or sleep"), i am finding myself with a plethora of time to consume the hours with sleeping, reading, and thinking.

while these are things that i find in short supply during the entire course of my non-mono-infected life, two weeks of this sedentary life style is driving me i-n-s-a-n-e. however, i have gotten some reading done that i have wanted to do (though about an hour of even this low-level activity can drain me these days). i've noticed a theme as i've read various tomes covering a variety of themes and subjects is that everyone thinks they've got the silver bullet.

and one of the things that i've really come to believe is that there are no silver bullets.

don't get me wrong: there are lots of werewolves, vampires, and other assorted monsters and creeps in this world that a silver bullet would be just swell to have in the ol' revolver, but it just ain't so. as hard as it is to do, we need to have a varied arsenal at our command, a big toolbox in the shed, or whatever analogy you want to stick in there. maybe i'm spouting common knowledge here, but it seems like we're all looking to find the panacea that will cure all the ails in our own little worlds.

but that cure-all remains ellusive. and that ellusivity? it's permanent. you can't find it, because it's not there. but still we look, we seek, we toil. if only we can find that one way to answer it all ... and so we spend our energies trying to find a way to solve it all with the silver bullet.

now, my faith in a way is that silver bullet ... it provides absolute truth, a keel in the midst of a wildly raging sea, and practical ways of dealing with the insanity of life. but even my faith requires looking for ways of expressing it and living it and taking it to my hurting world in a different way everwhere i look.

and i think that's it ... we need to be willing to diversify our lives and our thinking and our applications and our ways of doing life. no silver bullets, but a quiver full of different arrows that can be used in a myriad of ways. (think i can stick in any more metaphors into this post?)

this is all quite abstract ... perhaps a bit more concrete in my next post. but hey ... i've got mono, so cut me some slack. geez. ;^)

peace - b