we will run this race for the least of these.

Fight injustice. Help heal a broken people. Give to Haiti.

2.01.10

"stood on the edge, tied to the noose, oh you came along and you cut me loose."

It has occurred to me--not necessarily just now, but strongly just now--that where i and i'd wager you and most everyone else gets it wrong at times is in our pursuit and almost quenchless thirst for feelings that we have defined and expectations our fancies have created. One of the dangers of being emotional beings is that we have a tendency to ascribe to the fulfillment of those emotions a place of ending and closure when emotions are at their foundation caused by people and events and our interactions within and between the two. They are reactions to reality, if you will. And yet we can put so much of ourselves into those reactions that we end up forgetting why we feel them in the first place.

One of the saddest things i see in the world is the falling apart of relationships. Friendships. Brothers and Sisters. Marriages. People--when they see an end game of self-defined emotional well-being--are willing to give up even the people they love if those people are not providing the feelings they desire, or perhaps not providing them fast enough, or maybe too fast, or not often enough. The problem is that when you create this state of feeling in which you want to dwell, and when you place that state above the people you hope help bring you there, your whole plan (and my whole plan) will inevitably fail. And then we blame the failure on the people we love.

For some reason, we have come to view emotions in a very static nature. We tend to automatically assume that because what we feel now is not the same as what we felt yesterday or when we first met, or when we were on our honeymoon, or when we used to go to the pool everyday during the summer, or when we were all younger, that what we feel now is not as good. To put it really, really simply, feelings change. They are kinetic. They don't disappear or evaporate, but they are just edited by life happening, and by people growing up or dying or being born. You and i can feel those emotions and become depressed and despondent because they don't meet our expectations, but here's the thing, our expectations are always, always, always far below what God wants for us. So inferior. Maybe you don't feel like a fuzzy little bear when you're with your girlfriend now. Maybe it's not always fun. But dear God, is that enough reason to throw it away? You see, your feelings have changed, and if infatuation was your end goal, you'll be going through girlfriends and wives for the rest of your life. But infatuation is nothing at all compared to the Love that God designed for you. The Love that knows forgiveness; the Love that is patient and kind; the Love that is selfless and brave.

So what importance will you and i place on feelings and emotions? The foundational issue that decides the answer to that question is how you view what glances back at you in the mirror. For this sin and all other sin starts with you and i placing ourselves first. Before people; before God. If the way you feel is more important than people, then you are in effect saying you are more important than people. That is the reason relationships fail. Magic isn't needed to repair them, only stepping down from that gaudy little throne you made for yourself and remembering that God has been and will continue to be on His majestic throne for all eternity. And by remembering that He said to love others as yourself. If only you and i would decrease so very much so that we could actually see what God wants for us. Sometimes my selfish, emotional obesity clouds my vision, but even if i have blinded myself to the people i love and to Jesus who loved me first, they are still there. Most importantly He is always there, waiting to show me grace. To show us Grace.

we are alive in the Mystery.

God hurts for Haiti. He hurts for the people of that broken country more than all the hurt the entire human population could ever express. Do i know all the reasons why He allowed this catastrophe to happen? No, how could i? One thing i do know is that He is able to do exceedingly beyond all we could ask or imagine. The same Power that rescued my heart from darkness can surely rescue that nation from despair. And His Love still reigns, even in the midst of tragedy. He can turn a nation dedicated to darkness into a nation filled with that very Love.

During this whole time of me trying to reconcile the images i see of the earthquake and it's devastation of people God created with that very God, Isaiah 30 has been so pivotal in helping me grasp the perfect Love of God. Israel had turned away from God much in the same way Haiti has historically, and God had dealt with their sin. Yet He never once gave up on them. These verses offer an astounding picture of justice, of forgiveness, and of a Savior who has paid the ultimate price to offer both.

Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
"Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,

this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.

It will break in pieces like pottery,
shattered so mercilessly
that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
for taking coals from a hearth
or scooping water out of a cistern."

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.

You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.'
Therefore you will flee!
You said, 'We will ride off on swift horses.'
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!

A thousand will flee
at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
you will all flee away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill."

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!"

He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

Isaiah 30:12-26

"the leprosy of unreality"

For some reason, one that is completely unknown to me, i have a tendency to recall--from a bank of about five or ten--short, unrelated passages from an assortment of unrelated books that i've read in my lifetime, and i recall them quite often. If you are the type of person that has recurring dreams, i think this is somewhat similar, because although i recall these words quite often, i have not been able to establish any connection with events or thought patterns that tip me off as to when i'll think of them again. It's not like favorite quotes that you would put on your facebook profile, because i have those, and they are different than these. Again, the closest comparison i can at the moment think of is that between these "quotes", if you will, and a dream which occurs throughout your life, but for which you have no real explanation or even ability to describe. They are similar in that they occur at seemingly random times, and, more expressively, they seem to me to be pictorial rather than paragraphical. In other words, it's as if i randomly see words on a page for which i retain a memory of reading and which carry with them a definite meaning, but i cannot always know the "quote" verbatim as it existed from the author's pen and as i read it originally.

This is all very confusing and annoying and boring to you, i know, but i'm getting somewhere. All of that (the previous paragraph) to say that there is one of those "quotes" which comes up most often and which has been the cause of the most thought, by far. i read this book, if my mind serves me correctly, in the seventh grade, and when i came across this quote i was struck very vividly by it, and continued to be for sometime. And by this i mean that it was something i struggled with intellectually as an idea with which i wasn't quite sure i agreed. But when the book was over, (this book being A Separate Peace, by John Knowles), i forgot, or forced myself to forget, this idea, and quote, altogether. But, like a recurring dream, it has never failed to visit me at random times since the seventh grade, and since it did so again this evening, i wanted to share it with you. It still causes me to think, and although i'm not quite certain about the superlative or dogmatic nature of its message, i will say that i've come to believe there is at least a certain amount of truth in it. i now give it to you as food for thought, albeit an out-of-context thought if you haven't read the book, yet thought still beneficial as i see it:

"It was only long after that I recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak."

re-gifting Charles Dickens.

This being Christmas break, and thus this being the time of year when i have the most time to post things under the pseudonym "thewelfareblogger", many of you (although that may only be three of you) could possibly be wondering why in the world nothing has been posted by me of late. Granted, i just assumed many things, not the least of which is the assumption that anyone has actually noticed i haven't posted anything.

The fact remains that i have actually been writing a great deal, just not on this blog. i have done quite a lot of writing for individuals, which i enjoy more than any other type of writing. Since this blog is never really for an individual, it has, to a certain extent, taken the back seat so far over this period of time of having time. This is not to say i haven't thought about many things which i would like to say to "the public in general", which includes you, dear reader, because i have thought a great deal about you. i have thought very much about the subject of gift-giving. i have also devoted much time to thinking about family. i have pondered friends and their respective dynamic relationships. i've thought of football and basketball, but mostly basketball. It's actually because i've been thinking so much that i haven't posted anything. i simply have no idea where to start, and i'm afraid i still don't have an idea, although i had hoped that by this time some clarification would have arisen. i do, however, have an excerpt that i'd like to share from a book i'm reading by Charles Dickens which goes by the name Great Expectations.

"Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as i may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Divisions among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there's been any fault at all today, it's mine. You and me is not two figures to be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and beknown, and understood among friends. It ain't that I'm proud, but that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these clothes. I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm wrong out of the forge, the kitchen, or off the marshes. You won't find half so much fault in me if you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even my pipe. You won't find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I'm awful dull, but I hope I've beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so God bless you, dear old Pip, old chap. God bless you!"

If you haven't read the book, that may make no sense to you, but i daresay that even without having read it, you might just see a great statement about friendship and family and relationships and alot of things i've been thinking about. See, although i don't know where to start as far as saying original things, i will at least let Mr. Dickens do some communicating for me.

"You were sold for nothing, and you will be redeemed without money."

All i have is one suggestion. Just think for a couple minutes at least on this phrase: "God loves you." It's a phrase that has all but lost it's meaning in our culture to a certain extent, because the overwhelming majority of people who say it on the regular basis give no real-life indication that God loves anyone but themselves.

But it really is one of the most profound statements that anyone has ever made. People (a group into which i fall) struggle with why God loves them, or when God loves them, or if God even loves them at all. Or is God even real?

i personally believe God is very real. i believe He created everything which we call reality, and thus is in ways i don't fully understand more than real. Maybe you don't believe that. Me telling you you're wrong in this blog isn't going to change that. Maybe you'd like even less to do with any sort of Higher Being if i did that. It is, after all, what religious people have done for centuries to no avail. Told others they're wrong. But i'm getting off track. Whether or not you believe in God, please just humor me for a second. When you contemplate what it means that God, the ultimate reality inventor, loves me and you personally, passionately, and actually, then does it not make sense that that fact should utterly challenge and shape the way we live right now and five minutes from now and when i'm taking my exam on Monday? To think about and truly understand that God Himself would Love people in our absolute filth--doesn't that require a paradigm shift?

"the dying day, the dawning night, oh in my soul i'm twilight."

Poetry is simple,
Really
The silent music of the heart
Put to the key of letters and words

And so the dishonest poet
Is really no poet at all
Only a peddler of holes
Fake emotion



i wonder, is it possible to be a good poet in a language other than your "heart language?" Probably it is mostly up to the individual who is critiquing the poetry in the first place, but while i hesitate to make comment on something which i haven't given great lengths of thought, i would say that to me, at least, real poetry is and will always be impossible for me in any other language than English.

Have you ever thought about the difficulty of the balance we as humans must come to between the music of the heart and what turns out to be more of an arithmetic problem of the mind? It's as if we are constantly struggling between the worlds of engineers and poets simultaneously. And perhaps i'm creating a sort of generalization which is true only in my life, but i really do think it's something everyone must come to terms with at certain times. Listening only to the heart's music can have the potential of turning your life into nothing more than mistaking empty illusions for real Love and real Truth and a real God. But then living only inside a math problem which your mind creates pushes you into a life of cynicism and jadedness, of doubt and anger, where you always feel as if the world is simply a cold, white hospital room.

For some reason, the very same God who gave us the gifts of music and poetry and painting and the emotions behind those expressive behaviors also decided to create a universe that operates under strict, complex rules of math and physics and chemistry and the like. i have no explanation for it. But i don't think we need one. i think we Westerners try as hard as we can to eliminate mystery, but the mystery of God is something that no passing of time could ever debunk.

"Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?
Can you loose the cords of Orion?

Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?

Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God's dominion over the earth?

Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?

Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, 'Here we are'?

Who endowed the heart with wisdom
or gave understanding to the mind?

Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?"

~Job 38:31-38

Do you see it there? Do you see that the God who set entire galaxies in orbit also had the creativity to paint the very constellations we see each night? The same God who would have us build bridges would also have us sing in the shower. He is one in the same, and it matters not whether you think you are good at art or good at math. They all fit into this crazy life of ours in order to give it a depth which would not exist otherwise. And we don't have to know why that is, because the answer to all those questions God asked Job is "no." An emphatic one at that. Revel in that mystery.

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.