commemorating a brother

one freak accident and so many lives are changed forever.  no warning blip, no whisper to say 'brace yourself - a big one's coming.'

the world has shrunk, this morning's colors seem inordinately dull, and the conflict between faith in things unseen and pain of genuine loss has never seemed greater.  faith presents ancient scriptures while pain attacks with accusations of injustice and irrational fragility.  faith counters with its chief ally hope and the irrationality of love entering into our fragility in the form of Jesus.

it hurts.  but in the end, one man's death doesn't diminish the goodness of God.  not even if that man is young and overflowing with smiles and life.  not even if that man has one of the sweetest and gentlest temperaments that could conceivably be designed.  not even if that man was the first person besides my wife and i with whom my baby daughter felt comfortable enough to fall asleep on.

farewell for now, brother.  we'll see you soon.

processing grace

when i was 10 i saw a wordless skit performed by a high school youth group that depicted man's creation, fall, and redemption.  i was struck by the beautiful idea of a God who loved us to the point of death and for the first time that i can remember, i cried as a result of something resonating in my spirit.

this idea of love captured my mind and my emotions, but it failed to capture my heart, and as a result, my life.  i understood grace but had a deeper and rawer understanding of scrutiny and consequence.  i had an adolescent boy's typical issues with self-worth, the perception of others, a desire to be accepted (often at the expense of others), which many times manifested in bad behavior, which resulted in the disappointment and rejection of others, which resulted in shame, which resulted in more bad behavior.

above this cycle, the concept of God loving us even when we behave badly - of loving us so much that all the bad behavior everyone could ever do only caused Him to reach out and give humanity the greatest hug possible through Jesus - floated in a disconnected vacuum in my outlook on life.

in the decades since then, God has continuously prodded and poked at this vacuum to let the life-revolutionizing nature of His love flood outwards and into my relationship with Him and others around me.  but it's a process, and a journey, and often a cycle, and sometimes i find myself cowering needlessly, waiting to be squished by the full weight of His disapproval.

and now, as i've become a father myself and have been thinking about how my relationship with karis will develop as she grows, i've realized that it is amazingly, suffocatingly important to me that she will always know that i love her NO MATTER WHAT, and that her unawareness of this would be more painful to me than any behavior or action she could do herself.

and so i wonder if the message of grace can be explained by what affects God's heart more - when i disobey Him, or when i fail to recognize that He loves me even after/despite/regardless of my disobedience?

tomorrow is easter and yesterday was good friday.  yesterday, after being nailed to the cross, Jesus implored God to have mercy on the people tormenting him, to 'forgive them for they know not what they do.'  yesterday, Jesus proclaimed that His heart was for God to pour out His love and mercy on us instead of letting us spiral downwards in a cycle of consequence, guilt, and shame.

tomorrow, God makes it happen.

inspired by a german dissident

well, it's been over five years.  

since the last post, i've started working full-time, gotten married, moved overseas, and become a father.  this series of life events might lead some towards greater introspection, but i seem to have gone the other way.

according to goodreads.com, since september 2010 i've read 65 books.  here's a categorization, from most to least read:

22: fantasy
13: science-fiction
12: not so literary fiction
6: literary fiction
4: kurt vonnegut
3: not so thought-provoking non-fiction
3: thought-provoking non-fiction
2: Jesus-related

i really wanted to put a sarcastic caption here.
been reading way too many cracked.com articles...

hm...a bit heavy on empty calories and light on nutritional value.  also, kurt vonnegut gets his own category just cause he's the man.  

i'm currently reading through a biography of dietrich bonhoeffer, the german theologian who was executed for his involvement in the valkyrie plot to assassinate hitler.  the biographer quotes extensively from bonhoeffer's personal letters and diary entries, and it's absolutely fascinating how rich and engaged his inner thought life was.

so, here's my new year's resolution.  actually, let's call it a declaration instead, to be more proactive and less reactive.  take a bit of thoreau (or more accurately, that kid in dead poet's society who quotes thoreau, since i barely remember walden from 10th grade english):

I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,

To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die
Discover that I had not lived

and shift the orientation from humanism to heaven with 1 Corinthians 7:

Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him,

and to which God has called him

and determine to think more freely, reflect more intentionally, and process the world more deeply, and as daily life both settles and expands, to have it be characterized by this:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

(after all, i couldn't really kick-start this blog again without some help from t.s...)