joy.

how can i place
my hands
in His side?

blessed are they
who need not, perhaps.
but blessed are they
who can at all.

this is mercy,
curing doubt.
and this is sin,
being too proud to reach.

and while i never can reach quite far enough,
at least i've been stretching.


doubt is a burden that weighs heavily down
and joy comes with the mourning.
and how I yearn for
appreciation of that tortured soul.

yet still it escapes me.


objectivity is just that,
and reason makes sense.
life is more interesting when paradoxical
and i do mind living.

Perhaps one day,
far away or not,
i'll trust that God is Good
and that God has the last word.

perhaps one day,
far away or not,
i'll trust that God is.

we are all alone together.

The separation of each from others is unbridgeable:

Growing up in Smalltown, Minnesota left me with a naiveté regarding the distance between people. Everyone bears the harsh winter and the sultry summer together. We work toward mosquito genocides exacted on the same evenings, and surprise each other and ourselves by getting out of bed when the wind chill is dangerously cold. It wasn’t until I moved to Los Angeles that I realized just how far apart people could be: the proximity belied the distance. Though claustrophobically full of bodies, solitude is hard to escape while difficult to appreciate. Loneliness runs rampant in a city of millions.

our souls are ever inside;

I enjoy hiking quite a lot, and hiking by myself is great (though I suppose not the wisest decision if I don’t want to have to cut my arm off). I love the camaraderie of it. Hiking past someone taking a rest or meeting them at the top of the mountain, there’s a connection there that’s unexpectedly strong.

however, solidarity in solitude encourages appreciation:

I spent a summer in solitude. It changed me – I’m not sure I can return from that place. I am too aware of the fact that others cannot enter into the thoughts of my mind, the motivations of my heart, or the yearnings of my spirit. A sanctuary, my soul, is of stone and mortar. The walls have yet to be breached and the drawbridge is in disrepair. I am also aware, though, that across the river and over the plains is another sanctuary.

And from my tower I see for miles and miles.

And I see endless sanctuaries.

at least we are alone together.

Reality is but a state of consciousness in the Absolute Mind, and we are but fancies of thought.

C.S. Lewis said, “I presume that only God’s attention keeps me (or anything else) in existence at all.”

If the Christian concept of God is veridical, if when we die we find ourselves in front of a giant geriatric magician, then all that can be said about reality is that God is. Everything is in God and God is in everything. God is the context and the content.

Lewis went on to suggest that, “what we call the ‘religions’ are either mere delusions, or, at best, so many porches through which an entrance into transcendent reality can be affected.”

Indeed, Lewis pinpoints the distance faith covers in one epic leap: when delusion becomes transcendent reality. For someone seeing delusion to make the shift to recognizing transcendent reality, however, seems a near impossibility for never will the thought be shaken that faith is the systematic deluding of oneself.

I have found a first step in the approach to his leap. Understanding this “transcendent reality” to refer to elevated (and deified) priorities of a culture rather than a reality that cultures have tried to capture through metaphor and analogy. It’s sort of the difference between a posteriori creation versus a priori recognition. I think this actually comes quite close to the heart of religion without having to admit anything beyond reason (further, I think recognizing the value of religion in this sense is something even the faithfully deluded should work toward as it emphasizes the human aspect of religion, which is often lost in the over-spiritualization of doctrine). I suppose after this first step comes the necessity of relational experience of the aforementioned B.F.G. [read God]. Alas, I have yet to reach this step.

I think Lewis puts it, the understanding of the nature of doctrine, well when he concludes, “for our abstract thinking is itself a tissue of analogies: a continual modeling of spiritual reality in legal or chemical or mechanical terms.” Doctrine, the delineation of to what faith refers, is an interpretation of reality. Be that reality human creativity or a figment of a divine imagination, my hopeful heart yearns for both. The content and context of reality, be it a divine God or a metaphorical god, can only really be engaged through our neighbors.

An appreciation of religion, either as delusion or transcendent reality, ought to lead toward an action manifestation of hope in a better world.

But I suppose if the concept of God is not in line with reality this is all just a whirling cosmos of matter and ultimately nothing is significant at all.

I choose the former.

as loud as hope

I find myself wishing I were more hopeful.

Optimism about future events or the state of things to come is not a natural disposition for me (and perhaps not for anyone). This lack of optimism sometimes immobilizes me. I come to feel as though working toward desirable things will be in vain.

I think the important thing to notice here is the movement:

Hope moves.

Simply desiring something, wishing that _____ would be realized, seems an inherent forfeiture of power. Wishing for something is an appeal to the cosmos to intervene on behalf of a slothful you.

To have hope in something is a much more personal statement than most people realize. It says something about your priorities, your actions, your lifestyle, your heart and your soul. To have hope in something is to expect an outcome. Expectation, to be taken seriously, is an active disposition: expectation begets action.

To wish for something is to long for an outcome. Longing is a passive disposition: longing entails a feeling of loss or lack of something.

Hopefulness is a presence.

Wishful-ness is an absence.

I wish that I had hope that I would be more hopeful.

I hope for a time when I will wish no more.

help Thou mine unbelief

A recent Gallup study (http://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/americans-continue-believe-god.aspx) showed that more people with a “High School or Less” level of education don’t believe in God than those with a “College or More” level.

As I thought about this, realizing that Christians all over the nation silently celebrated solidarity with those more intelligent than themselves, I wondered why we put so much weight on the correlation of intelligence and faith. Frankly, I’m not sure that a higher IQ gives someone the corner on understanding what would be an ineffable reality (or the opposite, to be fair).

The fact is we are all scared.

Self-awareness and an ignorant understanding of mortality cause fear. These in the presence of ambition create a dire situation. I’m wont to say that faith is better understood as this fear, the product of too much capacity for thought but too little capacity for knowledge (even among the best of our brains); however, I don’t desire to live in a world where God is a contrived defense mechanism. I want to live in a world in which God is a reality.

Perhaps what faith I muster is better understood as variations on Pascal’s Wager.

And maybe that faith – faith enough to question, faith in my mind and my heart, faith in community and faith in a God that, if actual, will disbelieve my unbelief and claim me as his own, recognizing that my disbelief is more faithful than mindless adherence – what faith I can muster, maybe that is not faith at all. Perhaps it’s simply the outcome of waking up.

But then, maybe God is as organic as that.

Anyway, it’s clear that my thoughts surpass my knowledge.

It is in the tension of unknowing that we live.

Ah, hell. Mr. Bell is causing problems.

Francis Chan recently published a response to Rob Bell’s book.

Conservative pastors (whether or not they accept the title) everywhere breathed easier.

I’ve heard it claimed that Bell’s perspective is the offensive one. It's allegedly one that presents itself without giving any credit to the opposing viewpoint, and ipso facto deceives people into trusting in it. It should be noted, however, that up until now hell as eternal punishment and heaven as paradise have been the only seriously considered beliefs on the topic in the popular church. Sure there has been and is plenty of dissent surrounding eschatology, but not like this. Rob Bell has finally managed to get the public to take seriously what's been called a heresy.

Note:

People don’t like to admit that heresy defines anew.

Traditional orthodoxy is a myth. (Consider what else has been called traditional stances, especially regarding women, homosexuality, alcohol, etc.) We do not believe what we used to.

Certainly generally held beliefs exist, but those are as fickle as the wind.

People rally against Bell’s thoughts, fearing the disjoint of their comfortable tradition. They have put far too much work into maintaining ignorance to have one man mess it all up by suggesting something different.

So they waited for their pastor – their master and commander, surely the corner on Truth – to tell them that the bad man was wrong. “He’s silly and got himself caught up in an activity that he’s no good at (namely proclaiming truth) and he should leave it to the pastors that aren’t part of this new-fangled emergent church. Orthodoxy is Truth.”

Phew.

A sigh of relief goes up from the crowd as they find out that they don’t have to critically consider anything after all.

The comforted chuckles

Of the ignorant masses

Chastise the vulnerable prophet.

“I don’t mean to tease,”

Said the Pharisee,

Sure that His was the Truth

As he assured all

of his Humility.

Seinfeld: A Commentary

Why do people love Seinfeld?

I don’t understand.

Obituaries. Threnodies. (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the World)

I recalled some memories from high school. (oops)

I thought about good things and good people and about things I did or said. I thought about how different I am now than I was. I thought about how the things that so informed my decisions and gave context to my actions are so much different now. And while what they used to be has certainly shaped me, I know how distant I am from them.

And I wonder how different things would have gone if who am I now

were the me back then.

I wish it were.

(And I think it’s a great thing that I can honestly say I wish it were, though it might be who I was more than who I am.)

What really hit me, though, is that it’s likely everyone else has changed too. Not just because my perspective of them would be different because I’m different, but really legitimately changed.

It’s kind of a sad thought. I mean I lost all of those people.

I miss those people.

Those people don’t really exist anymore; new people have taken their place.

And while that’s not necessarily a bad thing because growth and development are good things, it’s strange no longer knowing those people that were so significant.

So, a threnody for those lost in the tides of time (i.e. most everyone):

There was so much between us

during such good times.

And there was so much between us

when times weren’t as good.

And I think you should know

that I would do it again.

And I think you should know

that I want to.

“And of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you.”

All this is not to say

that there’s nothing to today,

but I like that I like my memories.

People come and go.

They always have and always will.

Thoughts, beliefs,

hope and dreams,

they change too.

The context of your life

is all that you’ve got.

And as that changes,

so shall you

(it would be wrong not to).

So I try evermore to

find contentment,

to learn to stop worrying

and love the world.

The Passion of the Jon (no sacrilege intended)

As I make decisions that will set the course for the rest of my life, I realize that there’s nothing that I’m sure I want to do for the remainder of the time I’m conscious.

I find myself wishing I were obsessed with something.

Or unreasonably exceptional at anything.

Alas! I’m fairly balanced and not passionately committed to any possible trajectories.

This has me wondering what makes something a passion? Is it something that I will retrospectively realize I was passionate about the whole time? Or suddenly come across and will want to spend all my time doing? Or is there not that one thing for everyone? Will I simply have to behave as though I’m passionate about something for the sake of a career?

The requirements for a passion surely can’t be based on time spent doing that thing, because if that were the case it could be said that I’m oddly passionate about washing dishes or testing the quality of kernels of corn (I can assure you, though, that I am not). Time spent must be a result of being passionate. So perhaps after spending enough time doing something it could work its way into your soul to become your passion?

Perhaps passion refers more to how the thing is thought about? If your thoughts cannot escape the thing, and there seems an unexplainable gravity about it, maybe that evinces your passion for it? Does forcing yourself to think about something constantly make it a passion, or aid it in turning into a passion? Does the definition of passion require that you don’t force it?

Do we need to be passionate about anything to live? (Passionate about something in life, I suppose, inasmuch as we don’t end it ourselves.) And I suppose this doesn't even skim the surface of talking about what purpose is.

It's interesting that Jesus got credit for The Passion for suffering and dying.

He evidently figured it out, all this business about passion—the pinnacle of all passions is suffering and death.

I suppose The Passion of the Christ plays out as much as The Passion of the Jon insomuch as being human largely entails suffering this life to die in a sort of teleological ellipsis.

I guess what I want to do for the remainder of the time I’m conscious is to be conscious.

The Passion of the Jon is incidental.

Life is wasted on humanity.

It seems that life has been wasted on humanity.

We were out walking the other day.
We saw two adults hauling a radioflyer behind them as they walked the river trail in downtown Bend, OR.

Perhaps it would be more revealing to suggest that the radioflyer was essentially a regal litter and the parents were the faithful servants (read slaves).

Anyway, atop the vehicle was the infantile emperor [of the household] sucking down a juicebox while simultaneously smashing goldfish into his mouth as fast as his teeny tiny hands allowed.

One of my walking partners keenly noted that we, as humans, are largely unable to appreciate the stages of our own life.

I think that's really true. Children haven’t the trying experiences of life lived to appreciate the ease of their life. Adults tend not to appreciate any of the good things in their life as they struggle toward an undefined and unreachable success, or at least a fleeting contentment, in their career and in their family (difficult things are always most consuming). And the elderly often don’t appreciate, or don’t get a chance to appreciate, the counsel of their years as their bodies slowly fail them.

It also seems that we cannot really change this no matter our efforts just as wisdom isn’t a decision, you don’t know who you are but who you’ve been, and you only see the younger version of yourself in the mirror.

What we can do is spend time with children, adults and the elderly throughout our life in an attempt to appreciate the various stages in which others live. (What really seems to be the case, then, is that we need each other. We need to live with one another because it is only in relationship that we appreciate what we had, what we’ve got and what’s ahead.)

Seek contentment in this pursuit of communal life well lived.

A [Rather Unexpected] Defense of Idealism

What good is it to understand how disappointing humans are, that the changes you hope for in the world probably won’t be realized, or that in the end almost nothing matters as death overtakes everyone anyway?

It’s no good.

None at all.

“We must be the change we wish to see in the world,” says Gandhi. And indeed we must. If the decision is made that things cannot improve, that world is simultaneously realized in the lack of motivation to even hope for improvement. And if that hope, when it is there, isn’t more than a feeling – if it isn’t an action, a movement, a way of life – there is no use for it.

Idealism isn’t simply foolishness or naiveté, but rather commitment to hope. Without such an optimistic outlook on life, the world surely would have killed itself by now. We owe much to the optimistic few.

I will never be an idealist. However, I think it’s realistic to say that the world needs all kinds of people, however impractical their suggestions might seem.

And though realism holds that I recognize the shortcomings of humanity, it also holds that I recognize the strengths.

I think idealism is a strength.

One that I wish I had. 

Freedom to criticize... or not.

What can I write about Independence Day?

It would be easy to decry it as a sad celebration of all that’s wrong with America (gluttony, sloth, wastefulness, excess, etc.). And further, during this worship of our shortcomings our minds are so distant from the reason for the holiday that it becomes an idolization of America and our selves rather than an appreciation of how ridiculously much we’ve been blessed through our independence.

Yet I don’t want to write about that.

I think having an opportunity to relax, spend time with family and friends, enjoy bright, colorful explosions in the sky, and eat loads of food is great. Taking too much time and energy to be critical about everything leads to the death of enjoyment. And while I wouldn’t normally say something like that because our culture is sure to err on the opposite side, uncritically accepting or rejecting everything they come across, I think it’s an important thing for some of us to remember.

While you would be entirely justified in dwelling on your disgust for much of American culture, make sure you don’t forget how to relax, let things go, and enjoy the blessings that so few others in this world have.

"Leave those bad ideas in your troubled head today"

Some borrowed words from talented friends (who don't know their my friends, but surely would be if only we could get to know each other...).

The search for Life is a difficult one.

"And I keep looking for that blindfold faith,
Lighting candles to a cynical saint
Who wants the last laugh at the fly trapped in the windowsill tape.
You can go right out of your mind trying to escape
From the panicked paradox of day to day--
If you can't understand something then it's best to be afraid"¹

Though I think the pursuit of reality should go something more like,

"when you love the truth enough you start to tell it all the time

and when it gets you into trouble you discover you don't mind."²

And when you get frustrated in your search,

when the trivialities of life seem to be all that exists and

everything feels meaningless,

just "hear the chimes,

did you know

that the wind when it blows

it is older than Rome

and our joy

and our sorrow."³

Learn to be content because

this life is all we've got.

And "if no heavy breath blew up these lungs

while dirt and wet spit hung in the air,

well we're still here."⁴

It seems to me that if this is what we've got,

if this life is the frame and

what you see is what you get,

that still there is meaning even if only for itself.

"'Cause everything must belong somewhere."⁵

An anthem to our visit,

a summary of how our lives relate 

to this whole massive universe,
is held well in this:
"In truth, the forest hears each sound,
Each blade of grass as it lies down.
The world requires no audience,

No witnesses, no witnesses."⁵

“No doubt the universe is

unfolding as it should.”⁶

Indeed, I desire to be allowed to exist in my identity

as a "child of the universe, 

no less than the trees and the stars."⁶

I desire to dwell in my identity that exists only in my relation to others, 

but that has been shaped by every

experience, thought, love (left or lost), desire, heartache...

: everything that makes life interesting--

that makes life worth living.

While I still want to pursue progress

(whatever that means),

I would love to "leave the novelist

in his daydream tomb"

or the "scientist

in her Rubik's cube,"

or even "let the true genius

in the padded room remain."⁵

I think contentment is hard to find.

I also think it's important.

Avoid stagnancy,

seek contentment,

strive for excellence.

And in all of that,

"Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy."⁶

¹Classic Cars - Bright Eyes

²People - David Bazan

³Cleanse Song - Bright Eyes

⁴Heavy Breath - David Bazan

⁵I Must Belong Somewhere - Bright Eyes

⁶Desiderata - Max Ehrmann (a poem among songs)