vive

i'm the type of person who likes to be able to define things. If i come across a word which has a meaning i'm not aware of, then i look it up. i define historical events according to their dates. i define car trips in hours rather than miles. i define people based on the number of facebook friends they have.

But i am so unbelievably bad at defining emotions.

How often is it that we experience a new emotion? Certainly not often for me. But i did today, and i have no idea what to make of it. Mostly it's like a conglomeration of probably 163 emotions at the same time, but it's still new. i would go into more depth if i knew how, but i have no definitive explanations at this point. The overall emotion is positive, and that is all i can figure. It has to do with the past and the passing of time. It has to do with 20 years. It has to do with Love and how Jesus modeled that for me and you. It has to do with real Thankfulness. It has to do with the handing-off of the generational torch. It has to do with family and how nurture is, i believe, much stronger than nature. It contains strands of sadness, but there is a hope in it which shines through much stronger. It is filled with anticipation. The vibrancy of it is astounding. It is the feeling of all needs being met by a God who is concerned with my concerns. It is fearful but overwhelmed by a simple flood of peace...

There is no way to define that. There is no need.

"...in its time I will hasten it."

i think that the smaller the world is to you and i, the harder it is to have a big-picture view of what's actually happening.

Your thoughts probably just went something like this, if i had to guess: "Wow, there is no way you could have made a more obvious statement just then." Believe me, i realize that it seems really elementary and almost circular to say what i said, but give it a second chance. There's more depth there than you realize at first glance.

Think about it: we can access all kinds of news and stories and pictures and even live videos from all over the world in less than seconds. To you and me--Americans and Western Europeans and basically people with money and access to technology--to us the world is incredibly small. And the reason it's small is not because our knowledge of it is limited in scope. No, quite the opposite. The very reason the world has become so small is that our knowledge (at least, our potential for knowledge) of it is so immeasurably vast compared to what it has been since its creation or chance appearance or whatever you happen to believe. That's why what i said is actually extremely unintuitive. It would seem that to those of us with access to the world's unbelievable depth and complexities that we would have a more developed sense of big-picture ideologies and world-views. And yet i find that the opposite is overwhelmingly true. Not only is it true but it is starkly obvious to the "rest of the world." To those whose world is still quite large.

You see, we could get on CNN.com right now and see all kinds of atrocities being committed in Darfur and Tibet and all over the world. The reason we see those things is because we have financial and societal resources that those people affected do not have. And yet we largely do nothing. Not only do we do nothing for those hurting people, but because we are so "in touch" with the rest of the world, we completely forget that even in our own wealthy nation there are hurting and dying people in our very midst. And yet we largely do nothing.

And so it seems that we are a people persecuted not by weapons of physical pain and violence, but rather weapons of intellectual and emotional anesthesia. We have so much knowledge that we have forgotten what it means to have sympathy. Our brains are so full of junk that our hearts have atrophied into blood-pumping organs at best, and frozen stones at worst. We have tried to take Michelangelo's painting from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and place it on a note card in our wallets. The world is so accessible to us and yet we fail to realize that behind all of the stories of joy and sadness, victory and anguish, and peace and violence, there are still people there. Real human beings, just like you and me. Men and women and children created in the very image of God Himself.

That is the Big Picture, i think. The picture of God creating a people whom He loves more dearly than anything else in all the universe. The picture of Him as the King who is even now establishing a very real Kingdom. The picture of a grand invitation to join Him as He works in this broken, messed up, sin-filled world of ours. The picture that somehow welds together the colors of Grace and Truth, Love and Justice, Freedom and reigning servants. How can we see that picture and not feel a passion for the hurting people around us, and around the world? How can we continue to ignore the pain and suffering of those whom God loves just as dearly as He loves us?

"woe is me, for i am a man of unclean lips..."

In June of 2007, i gave a speech at my high school graduation on the pivotal role failure plays in our lives. i talked about failure being actually essential to real growth as a human being, despite the fact that everything we hear in pop culture says none of us will fail. We are, after all, winners. Each and everyone of us. Right?

Well the ironic thing about truth (and i firmly believe that i spoke truth that day) is that there are basically two ways to know It: You can know it intangibly (under which fall intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, etc.) and tangibly (practically). And you will at some point usually experience both. Well, at that time in my life 2 1/2 years ago, i was definitely aware of this truth about failure with all of my intellect. Even from observation of others' lives i could see and know that failure is 1) certain and, 2) opportunistic. People never stay the same after failure. They learn from it and move on a stronger person or they let it beat them down and thus become afraid of life, basically. All of that to say that i have--if not painfully, certainly keenly--been moving more and more into that practical knowledge of failure, and more importantly, the choices that present themselves when that happens.

The whole irony of the situation is that in some ways when you experience Truth in your life in very real ways, you are much less likely to stand up on a podium and just talk about it as if it were the easiest thing in the world. You become more reserved, more sensitive to the effects of Truth before you just go blurting it out. Blurting it out doesn't make Truth untrue, but it's like playing Beethoven's Ninth through iPod ear buds. You lose the real, unadulterated, even difficult depth of what's really happening. So what i'm saying is, i've been the guy who blurts out Truth. Probably even in this blog i've done that. It is what it is. i think to hear Beethoven's Ninth through ear buds is still better than not hearing it at all. However, for you, dear reader, for you i hope and pray that i somehow can provide Truth in that purest form. In God's form. That's a statement that fills me with fear. Not fear like the fear of a gun pointed at your face, but rather the fear of the sun. You love it and you crave it, and yet you are aware that it's power is beyond taming, beyond putting into a box.

The search for Truth is the search for Freedom. It is the noblest of all pursuits and yet none other is more dangerous. Maybe, just maybe, this blog can help you and i on our journey.

"The wrong shall fail, the Right prevail. With peace on earth, good-will to men."

i'm supposed to be sleeping. Really, i should. But then i realized it's been over a week since thewelfareblogger has posted anything. Referring to myself in the third person is unusual, but since "thewelfareblogger" is simply a pseudonym of epic proportions, i don't mind as much.

Hmm let's see, much has happened since the last time we rendezvoused. Good things and great things and exciting things. Some of those Things don't belong on this blog, however. Sorry. If you actually know me, ask me through other means of communication, and i'll expound. One exciting thing is that Call of Duty came out with a new video game. This, however, is a classic lesson in perspective and relativity, because it is actually very stupid to me, but to others there is excitement associated with the release of this latest time-wasting device. "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." That is something Einstein had to say. i like it because he came up with this idea of relativity (although in a much different, perhaps mutually exclusive, context) and also he alludes to this idea of stupidity, which fits what i was just saying in regards to Call of Duty. i am in no way insinuating that comparisons should be drawn between myself and Einstein, i am simply saying that i am not the only person with my opinions.

here's an idea:

GET OFF YOUR ASS AND TURN THE XBOX OFF.



i realize now that this post welcomes criticism for a couple of reasons:

1.) i used the word "ass" in all caps. (There is a talking ass in the Bible. You should read it sometime, it's full of amazing things like that.)

2.) Probably this has made many people of the male persuasion angry. (i do not care. Confront me about something i'm doing wrong. Iron sharpens Iron.)

3.) i think all lists should have at least three listed items. This allows me to still accurately use the word "couple" above and yet still hold true to my convictions about lists.



In order to keep myself from sound completely arrogant, please let me say that the above is written in the sarcastic tone that you find it in order to keep myself from sounding angry and loud, which would be my natural way of communicating how i feel about video games. Seriously, if you're going to waste time, at least waste it with real people?

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep."

From my porch/balcony, i can see some of the sky line that is created by the mountains surrounding Boone. This porch area has become one of my favorite places in the world, and as i was out there just a short while ago reading and mind-wandering, one of the many things i began to wander around in my mind is that living in the mountains has done an amazing thing to my definition of beauty.

Although i hesitate to even try, i must really attempt to describe what i saw. It is a bright night, and as i had noticed earlier, the moon was an especially stellar white, the kind of white that takes you by surprise in its violent nature. It's one of those nights where the sky is not black, but actually this deep violet-blue shade which i think i wasn't aware of until i came up the mountain a few years ago. For all that, though, there was even more to be had for the patient admirer of God's art, and in the way of a picture of subtleties rather than explosive power. If you were to imagine this in your mind, and you let its eye drift down from the stars and the moon towards the mountain silhouette, you would swear that the sun would rise in the next two hours, because up from that dark silhouette was a haze of blue that you would only expect to shortly precede one of our famous sunrises. And yet, it was barely past midnight. It's as if the sun is just begging at the door to be let into another day, but it knows that even in its power it still has its boundaries.

i am a firm believer that the realest beauty contained in this broken world of ours is absolutely never immediately evident. The beauty of a Proverbs 31 woman or the beauty of a scene like i witnessed tonight or the beauty of a God who would die for sinners and then conquer death itself--all of these are filled to overflowing with beauty, and yet not a one can be recognized in its fullest sense without some change in perspective and a depth of searching which does not come naturally.

"i'll be doing my best, and i'll see you soon..."

October is over. Soon it will be Christmas. But for now, let us be content with November, for if it has anything resembling October within it, then it would be a shame to miss it.

Isn't it weird how you don't really notice change as it happens gradually? You notice change in the cousins you see every two or three years, or in your hometown which is now just your former hometown, but as you live within a part of society and among people, the change that is happening the whole time goes by largely unnoticed. But honestly the craziest thing is when you notice change in yourself. And that's the kind of change that doesn't necessarily have a single causation, but is simply (but probably not easily) a product of many little decisions we make from moment to moment.

i don't really have anything intelligent to say about that at the moment, but i find it very interesting to wonder if the little moments are really so much bigger than the "big" moments in determining the story we will one day tell. Living in those seemingly insignificant moments is something of an acquired artform, as far as i can tell. You come across it by simply observing the lives of those who do it well. Grandparents are usually professionals. Stay away from highschoolers and probably most college students for that matter.