To the Left . . .

To the left of this post was a video bar. I only wanted the one video but I didn't know how to download it directly to my post. My brilliant roomate however, discovered how and thanks to her, you can now watch the video below.
So watch it. Gather your thoughts and then read on.



So I'm taking Apologetics this semester. I am beyond excited. I've wanted to take this class for about 2 years now, so I'm pumped it worked out for me to take it this semester.
For those of you who don't know, apologetics is the defense of the faith; in Christian terms anyhow. Did you know that an apology, is not the act of saying sorry, its actually the art of making a defense. So as a Christ follower seeking to expand the kingdom, I am going to learn how I can more profitably defend my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ so that others may also come to believe.
Tyler Oakley, who I have loved from the moment I heard him make this claim, puts down an incredibly valid arugment. The argument that Christianity sounds insane. We have to admit this. Especially to those who don't believe. But the other reality is that, as believers, we have found hope in this thing we call Kingdom life. Hope that keeps us going and helps us live life to the best of our ability. The writer of the book of Hebrews calls us to always be able to give account for the hope that we have. So for those times when I inevitably encounter people like Tyler, I'm going to need to be able to do that well.
So here I go. Wish me luck.

A life well lived . . .

I don't visit my Grandmother very often. She doesn't really know who I am and mostly speaks to me in German. And she lives six hours away.
But one time, a little over a year ago, I did go visit her. It was also around this time that I realized my love for Senior Citizens. My realization came almost completely from my interaction with one Lady.
We were hanging out with Grandma . . . I showed her my iPod. We talked about Christmas . . . well I talked about Christmas. Then we wheeled her over to a different area where there was this very elderly woman, whose name I don't know. This woman was nearing her time to go home to Jesus and the evidence of her longing to do that was clear. This woman could barely raise her head. So she took the time she had with her head bowed to pray. I was just standing there, aimlessly, when I heard the low rumble of this woman's voice. She was praying outloud. So I sat down in front of her. She prayed ferverently to God in a way that made it seem as though this interaction with him was the most natural thing in the world for her. She praised Him unendingly. Then when she would stop she looked up at me (kind of) and spoke of his blessings; and as she spoke of his blessings she fell back into prayer.
As we were leaving I leaned in and told her that her soul blesses the Lord. I had to repeat it three times because she couldn't hear me. Once she did, though, she stated how much she truly loves him and began to pray once more.
I left changed.
The next morning we went back and I saw her eating breakfast. She could barely consume a banana. I prayed that the Lord would take her home soon; as that was clearly the greatest longing of her heart.
I want to be like her. I want to live to speak and praise God. And I'm convinced that her ability to do that didn't come from her age. It came from a life lived in that fashion. I want to live like her.

Shoveling Miracles.

I reccently survived the most intellectually engaging modular class of my Bachelor of Arts.

It was without a doubt my favorite class of all time. Followed closely by my studies in G.K. Chesterton.

On the first day we discussed in great length the absence of Laws of Nature in the presence of God as creator. Nature comes from the Greek idea that nature, and its laws, are completely separate from the whims of the gods. Their emotional fancies could not affect the consistencies within nature at any given moment. The question at hand therefore, was that if God is the creator of all things and is continually active within his creation can there be these so called laws that seem to be separate from him? Out of this came the questioning of miracles, as we know them to be; a violation of the laws of nature. Could it be that so called "laws of nature" don't exist but rather they are God acting within his power to order his creation as he sees fit?

So then we discussed the idea that miracles are not violations of the laws of nature but really God and his creativitity manifesting itself in a way that arrests our attention in order to draw our focus back to him as the all powerful creator.

Joel From went on to toss his keys up and down approx 40 times to demonstrate that a simple act of gravity is in fact a miracle. The problem, then, is that we refuse to see that simple act of gravity as such. We refuse to acknowledge that the daily, consistent aspects of our life in this world, as they really are: miraculous.

John Donne said in one of his sermons that, "There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature and which therefore is done every day, but would seeme a Miracle and exercise our admiration, if it were done but once; Nay, the ordinary things in Nature, would be greater miracles that the extraordinary, which we admire most, if they were done but once . . . only the daily doing takes off the admiration."

That last statement, I find to be particularly powerful.

I arrived back at school on the night of the fourth of January to find my driveway embedded with snow. Lots of snow. So much that I could not park. Later, as I was shovelling this snow and my back was beginning to hurt, I was hit with this thought. I was in fact shoveling billions upon billions of beautiful, individual miracles. The fact that God in his creativity deemed it good to make every snowflake different and yet dump billions of them upon us at a time should never be thought of as ordinary. How did we get so far as to think that it is?

I suppose the only way around this is to conciously think of every action thus. But that takes a lot of time and a lot of energy. So I suppose the point of this is to just say that having been made aware of this, I want to somehow uncover my eyes to see the constant manifestations of the one that I follow. In the fast paced world and society that I live in, however, I recognize the difficulty that goes along with that. So I welcome your input. What are some practical things I can do that will enable me to see less of myself and more of the Lord my God, as I so ardently long to do?

For Karlie . . .

This one time I joined track to get out of a day of school. I used to do hurdles in track but I was tired of that. It's a lot of training to run two races. So I picked Javelin. This wasn't a good idea. The farthest I ever got it was 12 meters. 12. Do you know what the Olympic record is? 71.5 for women. So anyway this was all to get out of a day of school. So I kind of trained. But not really. So I get to the meet, which is like 2 days before my grad. But I had this huge wait before my event so I went over to my friends house and she did my nails for grad. Then, I had to go throw Javelin. Another bad idea. I'm pretty sure I didn't even breach 6 meters. It was pretty lame. The guy doing the measuring was giving me throwing tips. My whole family was there along with 4 (max) other spectators. Me and my best friend did it together to get out of the day of school. But she's pretty athletic and could get the thing like 20 meters. So she got to move on to SWAC and whatnot.

This is her favorite story, about me, of all time.

Empathy.

You don't have to get hit with a brick to know that it hurts. This is empathy. But until you are hit with that brick you don't know how it hurts. This is true connection with the reality of a painful situation.

I've had this dream a couple of times now. I'm in a persecuted nation. I'm in a group who greatly fears those who oppose them. We experience an attack. We stand before our opponents. I ask about my friend Victor who they have taken. (In real life I have no friends named Victor. Furthermore I think I only know of one Victor.) They threaten me. I run away.


I run to the same house every time. It's a white bungalo that doesn't fit in the country (unknown) or the culture (unknown) that I'm in. I don't know who that family is, but I seek refuge there each time I run. Last night when I had this dream I didn't even knock before I entered and ran down to their guest bedroom and hid under/beside the bed; in the dark; waiting.

I woke up with my heart pounding. I struggled to place myself thinking that I was still on the floor beside the bed in my dream. It was horrible. I felt such real fear, even though I immediately understood my safety. I had been hit by a brick and along with that suddenly understood the severity of what people suffer through every day as they fight for their right to faith.

In America our knowledge of reality rarely breeches the boundaries of our own. We know what we see, experience, live. But that's not all there is. Even within our churches we pray for things as though we know them, but the shallowness of our prayer suggests we clearly don't. That's harsh. Excuse me.


Last night I didn't experience the truth of their reality, but I got a glimpse of it. I immediately understood why we thank God for freedom to gather and speak in his name. I understood the priviledge to attend an institution established in his name. I now understand one more thing about my reality in light of the greater picture.


I don't know why I have this dream. But it persists. And so I will pray. I will not take lightly the urges from others to do the same for the situations that aren't our own overseas. I will not take lightly the fact that I am free; spiritually and politically. Beyond this, right now, I find little else. And though I may not be going to join them, I will join them here in prayer.


Please join with me in joining with them.

Musings of a fourteen year old . . .

I began dialoguing about a week ago with one of my friends.
She's just like me. She thinks like me, she talkes like me, we struggle with the same things.
But she's fourteen; yet has the intellect of a much older person.
Here are some of her thoughts.

"It is like trying to imagine a new colour - we can't imagine there being one. We've seen all there is to see. Some would say it is impossible. We have all the possible combinations of the primaries. No other colours exist. But if we saw another colour, it would be just as obvious that we were wrong. If we'd never seen blue, we would think it couldn't be. Everything seems to be like that. Defined. Absolute. In a box. "This is how it is supposed to be." Music, love, peace, joy, life, death, God, faith, knowledge, dreams, words, purpose. Everything. And there are never any exceptions. I think what I was trying to ask is, what if there WAS an exception? What if someone or something just didn't or couldn't follow the rules? Would we think them insane? Would we arrest them? Would our world have room for another colour?"

It poses a good question; and others along with it. What would we do? Where would we stand? Are we to satisfied and defined? Is there room for anything else?

Thank you Hannah.

Cartesian Roots.

We all come from them. Our societal upbringing has made it so. It is as though we were bathed in its understanding from the minute we came out of the womb.

I just spent the entire day working through the concepts of knowledge and reality that can be found through a study of Chesterton's orthodoxy. I myself studied these concepts a little over a year ago. Now, as I go back through them at a completely different stage of life, I am affected in an entirely different way.

We talked about how the modern man boils down his reality to what he can understand. He has tried to understand it all but discovered he could not. So he simply rid himself of everything he could not rationalize. We discovered this process leads to an insane simplicity; an unhealthy and untrue simplicity.

Then we went on to the connections of this with other thoughts; specifically that of humility and mysticism. We discovered that it takes humility to step outside of your nicely constructed frame and look at a reality which may not directly be yours. At the same time, in order to understand a reality which is not your own, we discovered, you need a healthy appreciation of the unknown. You need a healthy balance of understanding what is and the possibility of what could be.

After the eighth time we went over this, I discovered a contradiction for myself. Comparably, the existentialist view we have of life is a direct antithesis to what we were created for. I think I discovered this a few months ago, but the phrasing of this is so important. The existentialist view states ". . . the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts" (dictionary.com). This is the materialist's view. This is living within a self-contained box that we control. We discovered that not only does this lead to insanity, but also to incredibly hardened hearts. When you take away any question, any doubt, any grey, you take away all freedom. Thus, I've never met an sane existenialist.

When we try to have all the answers, when we try to be the center of everything, we get hurt. We give up relying on anything greater than ourselves, so we need to be strong. We need to be stronger than everything else that may come up against us. This leads to hardened hearts. This leads to bitterness and anger and envy and strife. This is not what we are called to.

What we are called to is to have softened hearts. We are called to not have the answers but to allow Christ to rule in our lives in a way that gives peace and allows us to live with the grey. When we put our faith in the unfailable Christ, we are given a foundation that can never fail. When we stand upon that foundation, therefore, we have the freedom to question and doubt and live. Mysticism therefore is a call to softened hearts.

We all come from them. But they don't have to define us. Our world is the direct antithesis of what we are called to as followers of Christ. What choices are we going to make then, to live apart from that?