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

love-bugs

i like my wife. maybe that sounds childish or honeymoonish or oh-that-guy’s-still-in-love-give-it-a-couple-more-months- ish, but i am struck by that fact. when i have a long day at work and i'm ridiculously tired, the thing i most look forward to is not propping my feet up on the recliner or collapsing on the couch or just falling into bed – no, i simply can’t wait to go home and hug my wife.

i can’t tell you how many naysayers have virtually (and sometimes quite literally) wished trouble and hard times and a loss of our joy in each other upon us. it seems like a daily occurrence to have someone say to us, “oh, you guys are still young and newly married. give it some more time and you’ll get your heads out of the clouds.”

really? i mean, really?

is there that much cynicism, that much disillusion- ment, that much bitterness in our world? does it strike anyone else odd that we get comments like the one above instead of something like “oh, how refreshing to see two people who love each other so much!” why do we default to the naysaying and calls for unhappiness? it seems rather turned on its head.

but one useful parallel i’ve been wrestling with is this: with as much as i love (and am “in love” with my wife), does that passion pale in comparison to my faith in God? if i truly believe that God is as i say i believe he is, should i not be even more excited to get through other things and focus on him? i find that sobering.

i love my wife. a lot. and i don’t plan on stopping, naysayers be scorned. and i hope and pray and yearn that my faith reflects an even deeper passion for my Creator than anything i feel for my wife.

peace – b

life schizophrenic

so life is ... well, different than what we imagine it to be. not that it’s necessarily bad – just different. we set out each day, each week, each month on a journey, expecting to end up somewhere, but the compass goes out of whack, the map is missing roads, and you can forget about the gps working right. while this is often frustrating-annoying-disheartening, it is not always bad.

in fact, i would be hard-pressed not to call it sovereignty.

i know that can sound like pseudo-spiritual, canned christianity, but i’m learning more and more that it’s just the way God works ... at least with me.

so often i think i can figure it out. so often i think i can just try hard enough. so often i think i can do sufficient things to force the issue of what – in my infinitely finite thinking – is the right way things should go. and in the end, i find i am being taught the same lesson that i should have learned years and years ago: that God alone is God, and that my responsibility is just that, to be content in doing what i need to do with what He has given me to do.

right now, that appears to be selling relatively inexpensive entertainment and media resources to people who could still probably find better ways of investing their money.

but even that is a grand undertaking, to work hard at the job given to me to do and to try to find spiritually redeeming opportunities with those whom i serve and work with on a daily basis. is this the “career” i want for the rest of my life? clearly not, but it is my chance to make a difference – an eternal impact – in a place probably otherwise devoid of light. viewed in that regard, it is truly a magnificent pursuit i have been tasked with, really.

the last three-and-a-half years have been a whirlwind of ups and downs, of dreams and nightmares, of having my wildest expectations surpassed and other hopes dashed upon the rocks of this life. but that is what this life – this present life – will bring with it. and i have a hope that will never be dashed, a dream that will be fulfilled beyond any expectation.

and it is that to which i cling. and hopefully, i will learn these lessons at last.

pretty small in a big world

It's interesting how life works out. I think I have it figured out - at least some small part of it - and I am invariably shocked to learn how little I actually have a grasp on in the end. I'm a pretty hard worker and a fairly competent guy ... again, on at least some small level. And yet so often I seem unable to work even the slightest fraction of this grand scheme of my life toward the direction I think it should go.

Why is it that so little control seems attainable in the comings-and-goings of our lives? Is it because our existence is simply the sum total of innumerable variables, acted upon by a myriad of free-will choice-makers under the conditions of uncountable environmental conditions? That would be a quintessential characterization of chaos, and, while our world seems so often to be built out of and producing of chaos, there is still too much harmony and accord to make an explanation for this life from chaos and variability and the happenstance of complex mathematic inevitability.

Which leaves - in contrast - an explanation rooted in something-other-than-chaos. More and more, I see the intricate tendrils of this Other-Than weaving through world about me. I have seen how the denial of things that I desperately wanted working out for nothing short of my protection, my betterment, my good, as well as for the good of those around me. Not always pleasant, these circumstances amalgamate with a plethora of others, revealing an order and a synergy beyond anything that I could have ever conceived, let alone orchestrate.

I am not so clever and put together as I would hope to claim, but it is in my utter weakness and desperation that the real beauty of my time here on earth emerges. It is this weakness that shows the grander scheme behind the apparent chaos, the purpose in what seems random, the goodness that supplants the appearance of evil.

It is the grand Other-Than.

can't win for losing

do you ever have the moments or seasons of your life when it seems like, no matter how hard you try or home much effort you put in or how absolutely right you are, you still end up being labeled as the source of whatever problem may be at hand?

yeah ... it's felt like that for a few months now. the kicker is, it happened today from someone i didn't expect it from.

now, i'm not naming names or pointing fingers or anything of the sort, but it seems like sometimes, just as you get your hands over the edge of the cliff, there is someone ready to tread down hard on your tentative grasp on freedom and alleviation from the struggle. it just hurts a little bit more than normal when it comes from certain people, people you don't expect it from.

ah ... but why complain. i suppose i'll just start climbing the cliff again, after i dust myself off for a few minutes.

here's to hoping the top is a bit friendlier next time.

peace - b

confused by confusion

first, i am so very grateful for the news that i have a new job! after much looking and interviewing and hoping and compromising, it has been settled. i am going to be entering into the world of retail management with blockbuster as a store manager. three months of training at a location near-to-my-home, and then assigned to a location as-yet-to-be-determined, though still in lancaster county.

while it is definitely not what i went to school for or where i want to be long term, i have come to describe it as a "bridge job" for me - that is, it is filling the interim time between needing to leave my previous job and finding a place in fulltime, vocational ministry. it is serving to help pay our bills, teach me new business skills, and bring me in contact with a new regimin of people who need to hear about the hope and love i have found in God. hopefully, this bridge will be shorter than it is long, but we never can tell when the fog is thick.

the fog got just a bit denser of late, really just as of yesterday. after sending out many, many resumes to countless churches, parachurch ministries, and quasi-christian agencies, i got a cold call from a church in ohio letting me know that they will be losing their youth pastor at the beginning of this august - they got my resume from someone else who had asked me for one months ago. why would this come after it looks like i have at least a modicum of direction to my life after failing wildly with nothing for so many weeks?

in the end, of course, i attribute this to sovereignty, to purpose and design, to innummerable glorious qualities of God that i could never fathom in their complexity ... but, dang! i really flounder sometimes as to why these things happen when they do and how they do.

now, this church didn't offer the position or anything of that sort. they just wanted to "start the conversation" so to speak. (for the record, i do believe that i currently have 413 "conversations" started with various churchs.) obviously, i am hopeful that God brings a match to bear soon, and perhaps this could be the one.

but after my recent months of craziness and three years of drawing blanks in this regard, my confusion has become even more confusing ... and frustrating ... and defeating. luckily i have an unshakable faith, a wonderful God, an amazing wife, a loving family, and supportive friends. so in the end ... not really all so bad, aye?

flustermatated

i’m frustrated. i wish i weren’t, and i’ll admit that i’m feeling a tidbit “unspiritual” for it … and maybe that’s valid. i think a big part of my faith journey really is becoming an academy of contentedness right now. can i legitimately be content (and joyful … and fulfilled … and [insert spiritually mature characteristic here] …) in my present situation? especially if it’s not where i want to be?

intellectually? yes. practically? emotionally? i’m so sure i am.

i am waiting for things to work out, to change, for my life’s goals and ambitions and heart’s desire to come to bear. but perhaps i need to stop waiting for my “ideal” situation to come about and start doing the things that i intend to do when those things take place right away, in the here-and-now.

when it comes down to it, Jesus probably didn’t enter the desert and say to himself, “hey now – this whole desert-and-fasting thing will only be forty days. i can stick it out and then start doing all the stuff i’m supposed to do.” i bet when the devil started with temptation attack, Jesus wasn’t sure when it would end … he just did what he knew he needed to do. rely on God. stay devoted to God. worship God in all things.

if this is my desert time (or one of my desert times), then i need to have the same attitude, right?

again, i know this … it’s the connecting my heart to what my head knows.

that’s the tough spot.

peace – b

over-achiever

sometimes, i think i try too hard.

i don't mean this in a woe-is-me, self-pitying kind of way. rather, as liz and i have been trying to pray and talk and wonder through all that God is doing in our lives, i find myself trying to work out exactly what is going to take place. i feel this overwhelming need to know what the next step is going to be, telling myself that i will be faithful to anything God has in store ... if only He will let me know what it is.

but i am wondering more and more if this is the faith that God has set out for me to learn. perhaps He wants me to simply trust, simply believe, simply do the little things that i know i am to do without needing to know all the major pieces. faithful with the little things, right?

as i read through fresh wind, fresh fire recently, i was struck by my desire to organize and administrate and operate my faith in a well-refined and structured paradigm, while the faith and the godly life that seems evident in the work of God described in the book was one of simple, profound abandon to the Author of creation. maybe ministry and calling and place-in-life are more found in simply being the child of God than in figuring out the exact place and things i am supposed to be about.

i hope for clarity, for direction, but i hope ever so much more for a renewed passion, a return to my first love for Christ. i hope and pray for the courage to do this and be this even when my planning mind is not assuaged. i need this.

i am desperate for it.

peace - b

Starting Out

A new blog home, a new blog post. I'm pondering making the switch from Xanga here (loyal Xangian for over four years), so I may cross-post for a little while. Blogger seems a bit more streamlined, though posting pictures may be a bit more involved.

Here goes the wild ol' posting life ...

Peace - B

Informal Review - J. Hammett on the Emerging Church

I belong to a theology discussion group that is just getting started. The first article we reviewed was written by John S. Hammett, a Professor of Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Below are the thoughts that I had while interacting with the article.

peace - b
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Thoughts on J. Hammett's Article - An Ecclesiological Assessment of the Emerging Church Movement
(click here for article)

(click here for brad's thoughts on the article)