Love Is Stronger Than Death

I had a dream two weeks ago that Death was knocking at the door.

Over the past few years I have begun to learn the difference between a dream that is a mere image, a problem working itself out creatively in my imagination, and the actual spiritual encounters that can occur during sleep.  This was, unfortunately, the latter.

In my dream, I was in a family member's house, and they asked me to get the door.  I said, "I'm going to check first and see who it is -- you never know, it might be Death."

I looked through the peephole, and sure enough, Death was there, a spirit with a definite form, long black cloak, scythe, and black empty face.

"It's Death."

"Well, you better let him in."

"No.  We don't have to let him in, and I'm not going to."

He kept knocking, but I checked the lock and woke up without letting him in (and with Rosie Thomas's "Death Came and Got Me" playing in my head).



For the rest of that day I was disturbed and confused, with this growing sense of dread for the future.

Two days later I received a text message from my sister that our dad wasn't waking up.  "He's not breathing when he's not snoring," the next one said.  She and my mom called 911 and fifteen paramedics could not get him to respond.  They temporarily paralyzed him, performed CPR, and whisked him away to the hospital.

In the midst of all this, I called my sister.  Our dad is chronically ill, and we have been through six or seven of these attacks, but never like this.  I could hear Death (or the Fear of Death) in her voice: I can't talk right now, but PRAY.  I walked around the block in a daze, remembering my dream.  Death had come for him.  Not just Pain and Sickness, but Death.

But if I could keep that door locked and shut, then Death didn't have to come in.

It is a strange thing to really believe in what you know to be true.  In times of crisis I cry out to God Almighty to deliver me, because He can and does.  But still it is strange.

C. S. Lewis once wrote, "You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you."

I believe.  Oh, God, I believe.  I cried out to the Holy Spirit -- show me how to pray! -- and as I marched around downtown I told Death it had no right to take my father, that this was an illegal attack because my dad belongs to Jesus.  I told Death to go away.

My pastor called and prayed with me, giving me strength and courage and standing with me against Death.  I got a ride to the hospital and met the rest of the family, where we continued to pray and wait.

There are people who think the spiritual realm is really just our imaginations tricking us into belief, faith, and fear.  I know quite a few of them, good people, but very wrong.  I saw Death that day.  I spoke to Death, and by the authority of the Risen Christ, I stood with the rest of my family and kept the door shut.  And my father lives.

The morning Psalm that day has become my family's theme:

Psalm 116

1 I love the LORD, because he has heard

my voice and my supplications.

2 Because he inclined his ear to me,

therefore I will call on him as long as I live.

3 The snares of death encompassed me;

the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;

I suffered distress and anguish.

4 Then I called on the name of the LORD:

"O LORD, I pray, save my life!"

5 Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;

our God is merciful.

6 The LORD protects the simple;

when I was brought low, he saved me.

7 Return, O my soul, to your rest,

for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

8 For you have delivered my soul from death,

my eyes from tears,

my feet from stumbling.

9 I walk before the LORD

in the land of the living.

10 I kept my faith, even when I said,

"I am greatly afflicted";

11 I said in my consternation,

"Everyone is a liar."

12 What shall I return to the LORD

for all his bounty to me?

13 I will lift up the cup of salvation

and call on the name of the LORD,

14 I will pay my vows to the LORD

in the presence of all his people.

15 Precious in the sight of the LORD

is the death of his faithful ones.

16 O LORD, I am your servant;

I am your servant, the child of your serving girl.

You have loosed my bonds.

17 I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice

and call on the name of the LORD.

18 I will pay my vows to the LORD

in the presence of all his people,

19 in the courts of the house of the LORD,

in your midst, O Jerusalem.

Praise the LORD!

I will call upon the Lord always, because He has delivered me.  To Him belong escapes from Death, and from Him comes all true strength and peace.

I remind myself of this, because even now, with my dad safely resting at home and the crisis over (though the recovery ongoing), it is easy to forget.  There is something inside me (and I have actually caught myself saying this aloud) that would say, "My father died," though he is alive and well by the grace of God.  I know that he lives, just as I know that my Redeemer lives, but the nearness of Death -- its empty face, the seductive darkness -- still haunts me.  I had another dream two nights ago, but in my dream I told myself that this wasn't really Death, it was just a threat, and it wasn't after me but someone else... but still, I need reminding.  Death has lost its sting and the grave, its victory.  I will remember, and rejoice again.

In the Middle of the Night

Becoming a semi-permanent resident in the hospital gives one time to think, if not to sleep. I actually kind of like it here; it's quiet and dark and feels very removed from everything, almost like a hotel in a foreign city.


I imagine that this might be rather like having a baby and waking up in the night, only it's every 10-15 minutes when an alarm beeps about a downward occlusion in his IV or, more often, he wants a drink of water.


He asks with the softest voice, tired and compliant, as he has been since they took him off life support yesterday. I hold the straw to his lips and hear the sweetest "Thank you, thank you Anika," words he means with all of his long-suffering helplessness as the cold fizzy thickened mixture goes down his sore throat, swollen from the tubes that were breathing for him hours ago.


The next time he wakes me, quietly asking for a drink, I stumble forward and am jolted back nearly twenty-three years, to when he was the one awake in the night, holding me on his shoulder with my mouth to a towel and swaying back and forth to help me sleep after I was sick. I remember feeling the solidness of the world in his broad frame, knowing that the worst was over and I was going to be okay. I wonder what he feels when I minister to him -- the easy dependency of a child who has always only relied on its parents is very different from the helplessness of a grown man who has been made to suffer. But I recognize the happiness and peace in receiving the cool drink and praise God for the beauty of patience I see Him bringing forth through this time.

Biblical Music: The Mountain Goats

My curiosity is piqued when a band, especially anyone in the elite indie-genres, makes a biblical allusion.  Jenny Lewis's Run Rabbit Run is still rewarding to me not just for the sweet Watson Twin-supplied harmonies but because she's taking her born-again mother's clichés and throwing them back in her face (cf. "There but for the grace of God go I," and "God works in mysterious ways / And God gives and then He takes / From me...").  So I stumbled across The Mountain Goats' track list for their new album with the titles written as Bible verses, like this:

1. 1 Samuel 15:23
2. Psalms 40:2
3. Genesis 3:23
4. Philippians 3:20-21
5. Hebrews 11:40
6. Genesis 30:3
7. Romans 10:9
8. 1 John 4:16
9. Matthew 25:21
10. Deuteronomy 2:10
11. Isaiah 45:23
12. Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace
The Mountain Goats: The Life of the World to Come
release date 6 October 2009

Naturally, I am intrigued (the Genesis 3:23 link takes you to the first single).  I really want to hear what Psalm 40:2 sounds like ("He lifted my feet out of the slimy pit...") and I'm especially intrigued by Romans 10:9 ("If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,") particularly in light of this tidbit from the songwriter:

I guess the obvious question is going to be: "John, have you had some sort of religious awakening?" and while I guess lots of people might want to be coy about answering that, that's never really been my style, so: no. It's not like that. It's not some heavy-narrative-distance deal either, though, and it's not a screed. It's twelve new songs: twelve hard lessons the Bible taught me, kind of.

 Take a listen to the first single -- it's a classic lament for where he used to live, Adam Unparadised, but with a jingle-jangly feel.  Fits in with the verse.  What do you think the other titles might sound like?  Better yet, how might you write them?  For example, If I were to write a song based on 1 John 4:16, I would focus my lyrics on something like C. S. Lewis's depiction of agape in The Four Loves -- loving makes us like God, loving brings us into union with God, God is love, but we have to rely on His love completely in our own blessed helplessness... something of the freedom and release that loving God and losing ourselves in the sea of His goodness.  That's what I would try to capture.

I Wish You Were a Song to Play

Tonight METRIC finally returns from their ever-so-long hiatus.  While I thoroughly enjoyed both Emily Haines' solo album and the rhythm section's phenomenal garage-rock side-project, Bang Lime (why yes, that was me in the corner at Chop Suey with only 16 other people to watch two guys bang the juice out of a guitar/drums combo), Metric is the band that I keep coming back to, the music that has defined my twenties and changed my life.  And now they're back.  I'll be down front, standing through opening acts I've never heard of with a bunch of teenagers, because they are Metric, and I don't know of any band I'd rather see.  I'm hoping for at least one 15-minute breakdown of "Dead Disco" where Emily rapping random poetry while the audience is audially assaulted by Jimmy's screaming guitar, and I'll just jump up and down and shake my head, it's empty.

A small flame

Are you going to drink the candle?
You cradle the flame inside your hand
Domesticate the fire you handle
Every dove just wants to land

Give it up, but don't surrender
Better to marry than to burn
Loving blaze will life engender
There beside you, if you turn

Control is proud
Control is ugly
My laugh is always the one
That blows the candles out at parties
Long before they're done

Vignettes to Define These Endless Numbered Days

There are moments in life when I delight in being simultaneously engaged in an activity and self-conscious of its significance, however provincial it might be.  Even as I experience them, immersed in my own part to play, I am aware of how the pageant plays out for the audience (e.g., myself looking back on my life in fifty years -- I doubt anyone else will care).

This afternoon was one of those times.  I had just read a new review of this coffee place downtown where I'd always wanted to go and convinced my friend to join me.  We ran errands in the rain on our way, getting pelted with the near-snow as the brisk walk woke us up from our cubicle stupor.  The shelter of the small coffee bar was the first thing we noticed... then the friendly owners, who took our orders and chatted us up.

Then it happened.  My friend loves white chocolate mochas -- they're her "signature drink," so to speak -- and when she ordered one, there was hesitation on the other side of the counter.  "White... chocolate mocha?" the woman asked her husband.  "Yes," he nodded, "we can do that."

We took in the cozy ambience while we waited, smiling at the authentic Italianness of everything there, until Janine's drink was announced.  "Your white chocolate mocha?"

She took a sip while the barista/owner watched with interest.  "How do you like it?"

"It's good."

"Come here, let me tell you something, something very important."  Her eyes widening, we both followed the siren's call back to the bar.

"The stuff they use -- the white chocolate they put in there -- the guy tried to sell it to me, but I won't have it.  It's horrible!  That s*** shellacks your arteries, okay?  It's like taking shortening -- I'm not s***ing you, shortening, like margarine -- and drinking it."

I decided to match him tone for tone, while my friend was stunned into wide-eyed, silent laughter.  "You realize what you're doing here?  You're staging an intervention.  This is her favorite drink."

"I'm not -- I'm not going to tell you what to drink.  Everyone has a right to their vice, I believe that.  But you don't need to do that here.  I made you a cappuccinno with Mexican vanilla with half-and-half and some raw sugar, to bring out all the flavor, and it's good.  That's all you need to do.  Next time, just order the Roman cappuccino and we'll do that, no charge.  You can drink that stuff -- no, come here, I'll make you one everyday, and your arteries will be better."

It was amazing.  He was so sincere in his zeal to save my friend's arteries, which is sweet, really (and the coffee was amazing, so we'll probably see him again for the Roman cappuccino soon), but it's so funny.  Fifty years ago, no one would dare question what a complete stranger puts in her body (especially a young, healthy stranger like my friend).  Today we have evangelists for physical health everywhere, well-meaning people who just want to make sure you get the most out of life and live as long as possible.

Later, Janine asked the relevant question:  What if we cared for people's souls the way that barista cared for her arteries?


Every day we think nothing of the bondage to sin that surrounds us.  Across the street from this cafe is a strip club, which always makes me shudder, and a couple days ago I saw a woman walking into work there and was moved to pray for her protection and deliverance.  As much as I felt the weight of her soul in that moment, the description of what the white chocolate powder does to my friend's arteries seems more compelling to talk about -- and to confront.


The rain, the coffee, the righteous admonition to choose (temporal) life and reject (artery-clogging) sin -- it was a perfect vignette of Seattle, circa 2009.

Inaugural Thoughts

I missed my flight, so I'm sitting here at a gate that would be empty were it not for the Inauguration on tv.  Eight or nine airport employees and fellow travelers are gathered around the television in rapt attention, and I think that it's a good thing I have this chance to watch this in a public place filled with anonymous strangers, able to observe how much this means and what this is to them.  That's a good thing.

I had some fun putting together a playlist in the wee small hours this morning, which you can find on the sidebar if you're so inclined.  May God bless President Obama, and may God bless America.

To remember for 2009

I think one of Satan's tactics is to distract us.

It almost made me giggle when a very wise and somewhat nerdy man told me that last month, but I know it's true. The more I think about it, the more I realize that lack of focus on the task at hand tends to be my biggest problem, whether that's distraction from a project at work or time away from doing what has importance in Eternity.

Snow had fallen, snow on snow

This has been a strange and wondrous season.  Christmastime is usually one of my favorite times of the year -- caroling, traditions, celebrations, merrymaking, remembering -- all really good things.  This year is just strange.  I can't believe it's almost Christmas -- it's a cliche, but it doesn't feel like it should be here yet.  For one thing, I haven't prepared.  The tree (fake this year) isn't up, I haven't hung the lights, and my presents aren't bought/made yet.  I've been too busy attending parties and singing to put any effort into decking our halls.  And yet I don't feel like I'm missing out on something important or betraying some sacred ritual...

The snowfall last week has been a wonder and a sign to me.  When it first started falling on our street (and I was awake) I was waiting for a bus with a friend, who noticed that the snow made 15th look like Bedford Falls.  Now that it's nighttime, I want to run down the avenue, yelling, "Merry Christmas, everybody!  Merry Christmas, you beautiful old savings and loan!  Me-e-e-rry Christmas!"

Snow softens and subdues everything.  It makes me want to sing "In the Bleak Midwinter" every time I step outside (I've only done it 3 or 4 times so far, including Sunday, when it was actually solstice/midwinter).  It frustrates plans and reminds us that we are not in control, as my less fortunate friends know very well.  I need that reminder.

On Saturday night, when it started snowing again in earnest blizzard-conditions, I began to worry.  Sunday morning was "Christmas Sunday," the service where all the worship songs are Christmas carols.  Sunday is always the lynchpin of my week and the day I most look forward to, but this Sunday I especially longed for church, for communion and worship and hearing a good word. 

I got an email from the lead guitarist, who was himself worrying and asking for a contingency plan in case people couldn't make it.  The worship coordinator wrote back, suggesting that we might not even have church.  The snow kept coming, and I was sure everyone was going to be snowed in and my favorite church service all year was going to be canceled. 

I awoke Sunday morning to the guitarist calling me to let me know that he wasn't going to make it.  I tramped down the hill in freezing rain, arriving at the church to find it apparently deserted: every car around was covered in over 4 inches of snow, and there were no footprints leading up to the doors.  With trepidation, I stepped in the church.

"Hello?" my plaintive call sounded as lonely as a peacock's.  "Is anyone here?  Please, someone be here..."

I walked up the stairs to the sanctuary and found my pastor sitting on the couch up front with his Bible.  He had driven through the storm and spent the night at the church in order to be there that morning, and he was as surprised and happy to see me as I was to see him.  He told me that the worship coordinator wasn't going to make it, which meant that probably no one else from the band would be coming, either.  He suggested that he could play the piano as I led the singing, and we might have a small Bible study for whoever showed up that morning.  Then we read the lectionary together.

Normally the Sunday morning routine is a bit harried -- musicians tune and set up until everyone is gathered and we go over the service with the pastor, who says a quick prayer before rehearsal.  That morning, reading the lectionary and considering the scriptures together, a particular and new sense of peace and purpose washed over me.  I was there to meet God and worship Him, and His will would be done there -- I had His assurance of that.

While we were reading, my friend and praying lady showed up, just to bless us and pray for us and see if we needed coffee.  My joy grew strong and hopeful.  We kept reading the lectionary and suddenly heard footsteps coming up the stairs -- a lone band member managed to trek out from West Seattle with his beautiful acoustic guitar.

"No way!"  His appearance was nothing short of miraculous, and a sign of God's continuing provision for us that day as one by one, the necessary people arrived, called by a loving Father to come.  We had our pastor, one singer (me), one instrumentalist, one person to run sound, one person to run powerpoint, one person to help the pastor shovel the walk since our sextant was gone, one person to prepare communion . . . and one God to praise and glorify.

It was not particularly easy to adjust the music from a full-band setting to a guitar and two voices, but it was beautiful and my heart rejoiced in the praise we sang.  The 9 am service started with one person in attendance who was not a part of the service, but we had a dozen or so by the end, and I could hear each of them singing in the front as they huddled together.  I'd never seen anything so lovely.  More brave souls ventured forth for the 10:45 service, maybe around 35, including children and elderly and many beloved members of our church family.  My heart delighted in that morning in a very peaceful and quiet way, as if each face I saw smiling at me were a candle burning vigil in that darkest night of the year and every smile a hymn of thanksgiving for the God who brought us each through the storm.  It was deeply satisfying to my soul, and I don't know how to explain the mystery of the peace of that morning other than to say simply that it was a mystery, a wonder, a sign of God's provision and love.

May I remember these signs and ponder them in my heart.

Put the Lights on the Tree

Sufjan Stevens + world's cutest elementary class = perfect video

45 Years Ago Today

45 years ago today, C. S. Lewis died.  If you know me, I have probably told you the effect Lewis has had on my thinking, my judgment, my moral foundations.  My imagination was baptized and shaped by what I read at an early age, and I was fortunate to have "the right sort of books" at my disposal.

It started at Christmastime.  Every year our small town of Montesano put on the Festival of Lights, a nighttime parade with marching bands and candy and lots of big trucks covered in Christmas lights rolling slowly down the hill, past the courthouse, county jail, and library (where my family usually stood) until the very end, when a big cement-mixer truck lit up like a giant Easter egg, twirling away in the night.  All our friends and neighbors would go, and afterwards we'd have a party at our house, which involved re-arranging the furniture.

I loved rearranging furniture.  Usually it meant creating new forts and cubbies for me to hide away in, like the time I sat under an end table with a festive green tablecloth and listened while various relatives chatted.  One year we moved the Davenport (I have no idea why we called it that) up against the hall closet in the living room, which ended before an abrupt little square space where we usually kept a small desk and lamp.  Having closed that area off with the Davenport, my all-time favorite hiding place was complete.  Grabbing a large blanket and my sister's copy of Prince Caspian, I disappeared for a couple hours one Festival of Lights Saturday.  Preparations were going on all around me -- vacuuming, sweeping, table-setting, cooking, baking, dusting, phone-calling -- and I heard Mom once ask someone (Jessica, maybe?) if they had seen me or knew where I was.  I silently giggled and returned to my reading (I was very devious as a child).

And there I was caught into a story and a world I had never known, but one that was to become my imaginative home.  Narnia was where I first discovered escape, reconciliation, and consolation in story, as I've written before.  The next book in the series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, gave me the first piercing beauty of Sehnsucht, that inconsolable longing (or Joy, as Lewis explains in his autobiography) for Heaven and glory.  It was the first time I cried after reading a book.

The thing about being moved and changed by someone else's art and communication is that it connects you.  I owe so much to this man and his writing... and I think that he would understand (or does understand, or will understand?) me when I tell him.

In fact, I've got a pretty solid precedent that he himself set for intellectual hero-following:

"I don't know you, Sir," said I, taking my seat beside him.

"My name is George," he answered, "George Macdonald."

"Oh!" I cried.  "Then you can tell me!  You at least will not deceive me."  Then, supposing that these expressions of confidence needed some explanation, I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me.  I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the New Life.  I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see that the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness.  He laid his hand on mine and stopped me.

"Son," he said, "your love -- all love -- is of inexpressible value to me.  But it may save precious time" (here he suddenly looked very Scotch) "if I inform ye that I am already well acquainted with these biographical details."

For Lewis, his hero guided him through Heaven in a dream.  For me, my hero spoke to me of Heaven through the same.  Praise God, the Giver of good things, for spiritual fathers and mothers who guide us "further up and further in" to His kingdom.

So hide yourself away for an hour or two with a good book -- one that will baptize your imagination and shape your heart -- and know that these things matter, eternally.

Luxury

But also now she was gone, he could attend to himself.
Luxuriating-more than he knew in the thought, he turned. Luxury stole
gently out within him, and in that warm air flowed about him; luxury,
luxuria, the quiet distilled luxuria of his wishes and habits, the
delicate sweet lechery of idleness, the tasting of unhallowed peace.

-- Charles Williams, All Hallows' Eve

There is for me a strong temptation to indulge the luxury of isolation -- sensual and private, hoarded time and energy spent on nothing but oneself and one's own thoughts.  I was struck in reading that passage by how what is at root a spiritual issue (pride and selfish conceit) is so naturally expressed in such fleshly terms.  It is warm, luxurious -- like taking baths that last for hours in a household which had only one bathroom for five people (which I did regularly as a child, much used to my own luxuries).

I fell asleep last night re-reading Charles Williams' Halloween masterpiece.  I forgot how fully he expresses every observation of human nature, expounding and enlargening it until the fullness is unmistakeably clear in relief.  His words capture truth fully and deeply, and his insight as an artist is wonderful to behold.  Take this description of a painting for example:

It was of a part of London after a raid-he thought, of the City proper,
for a shape on the right reminded him dimly of St. Paul's. At the back
were a few houses, but the rest of the painting was of a wide stretch of
desolation. The time was late dawn; the sky was clear; the light came,
it seemed at first, from the yet unrisen sun behind the single group of
houses. The light was the most outstanding thing in the painting;
presently, as Richard looked, it seemed to stand out from the painting,
and almost to dominate the room itself. At least it so governed the
painting that all other details and elements were contained within it.
They floated in that imaginary light as the earth does in the sun's. The
colours were so heightened that they were almost at odds. Richard saw
again what the critics meant when they said that Jonathan Drayton's
paintings "were shrill" or "shrieked", but he saw also that what
prevented this was a certain massiveness. The usual slight distinction
between shape and hue seemed wholly to have vanished. Colour was more
intensely image than it can usually manage to be, even in that art. A
beam of wood painted amber was more than that; it was light which had
become amber in order to become wood. All that massiveness of colour was
led, by delicate gradations almost like the vibrations of light itself,
towards the hidden sun; the eye encountered the gradations in their
outward passage and moved inwards towards their source. It was then that
the style of the painting came fully into its own. The spectator became
convinced that the source, of that light was not only in that hidden
sun; as, localized, it certainly was. "Here lies the east; does not the
day break here?" The day did, but the light did not. The eye, nearing
that particular day, realized that it was leaving the whole fullness of
the light behind. It was everywhere in the painting-- concealed in
houses and in their projected shadows, lying in ambush in the cathedral,
opening in the rubble, vivid in the vividness of the sky. It would
everywhere have burst through, had it not chosen rather to be shaped
into forms, and to restrain and change its greatness in the colours of
those lesser limits. It was universal, and lived.

The very gift Williams attributes to his fictional artist he himself possessed.  I don't know why, but the part about the light having to become color before it can become shape stuck out to me.

Screwing My Courage to the Sticking Place

Sometimes it's hard.

Have you ever been the only x in a virtual sea of y?  Try it sometime.  Actually, try it when x and y both assume that they are not only different, but diametrically opposed to one another and morally superior.

Of course, I'm talking about politics and my own experience, but I'm sure this applies to many other things as well.

I have a friend who wants to go to our local coffee shop (my favorite neighborhood spot) wearing Sarah Palin t-shirts.  Now I love Sarah Palin and have said so in a public forum — and was called a number of things, notably a "Stepford Wife Republican."  But these people don't know who I am or what I look like or where I live.

The people in my neighborhood, on the other hand... after two years they might recognize my red hair and loud laugh.  The barista might remember the conversations we've had about how "God Only Knows" is the greatest Beach Boys song ever, or how awesomely redneck Reba McEntire's "Fancy" is.  (Music is what knits our culture together.)  They may even like me.  But as soon as I wear a Palin t-shirt, I know that will change.

I shouldn't be intimidated, but I am.  I also shouldn't want so much to be accepted by the people around me, but I do.  A local blogger kept on inviting people to add their blog as a friend on Facebook, and I responded twice and was rejected... because my profile said my political views were conservative.  I've since removed that information and been added as a friend.

It shouldn't matter, but it does.  And I wonder how many people feel the way I do, a tiny red dot in a sea of blue (or the other way around, if you're in Kansas).  It's lonely out here.

I was thinking about that as I ran past the dozens of Obama signs last night (and a few "Death With Dignity" thrown in for good measure -- because nothing makes more sense than assisted suicide and socialized medicine, together at last).  Aren't there any Republicans in my neighborhood?

And then I stopped myself.  If I am so wary that I wear no Palin t-shirt and put no McCain sign in my window, why should I expect anyone else to?  Maybe they're all like me, passing as blue-staters on Capitol Hill. 

And then I remember that I received 13 votes in the primary (for Republican PCO) and the Democrat received 121.  Neither of us were challenged, so I'm assuming that most people voted for the PCO listed, and there are all of 13 Republicans in my precinct, plus my sister and my Palin t-shirt friend, who both forgot to vote.  There really aren't many of us out there, which is sometimes fun — I always reveled in being somehow odd or different from my peers, and I still do, but it can be discouraging.

I worry about my emotional reaction to the isolation and how it might affect me.  I know some people who became extremists after being pummeled by the other side.  I don't want that -- nor do I want to back down from what I believe to be right.  To maintain a posture of humility and compassion for the other, whether that other is Republican or Democrat or bent on destroying you... that's the challenge.

Vanity and Death

Because of endless pride

Reborn with endless error,

Each hour I look aside

Upon my secret mirror

Trying all postures there

To make my image fair

 

Thou givest grapes, and I,

Though starving, turn to see

How dark the cool globes lie

In the white hand of me,

And linger gazing thither

Till the live clusters wither.

 

So should I quickly die

Narcissus-like of want,

But, in the glasss, my eye

Catches such forms as haunt

Beyond nightmare, and make

Pride humble for pride's sake.

 

Then and then only turning

The stiff neck round, I grow

A molten man all burning

And look behind and know

Who made the glass, whose light makes dark, whose fair

Makes foud, my shadowy form reflected there

That self-Love, brought to bed of Love may die and bear

Her sweet son in despair.

-- C. S. Lewis, "Posturing"

I return often to Lewis for insight into my own nature because his observations of human nature, especially pride and vanity, ring so true.  Making "pride humble for pride's sake" is pretty familiar, as is the introspection that is nothing but an exercise in vanity ("trying all postures there to make my image fair").

Some thoughts on vanity and pride seem appropriate this evening.  I've been thinking about vanity ever since yesterday's memorial service for my great-Uncle Gene down in Centralia, where the eulogy and the conversations at the grave-site remembered his great love of knowledge and learning... and his uncommon kindness and humility for a man of letters.

I can't say authoritatively, because I knew him best as a child and less when I would pay attention to such things, but by all accounts of those who knew him, Eugene Kjesbu was a man who was more learned than any in his family or small community in rural southwest Washington.  He truly loved knowledge for its own sake, for how the great books he read and the beautiful music he listened to shaped his soul.  He was a polyglot; he taught his nephews Latin, he read the Old Testament in the original Greek, and he kept his prayer journal in Russian and Norwegian (being fluent in both, of course).  He was a true intellectual, but the remarkable thing about him was that this was not his aim.  His aim was to love God.


Instead of seeking the acclaim and renown that would be easily attainable for a man of his intelligence, he served his country and his community, first in the Coast Guard after World War II, then as an elementary school teacher.  The thought of someone who loved the classics and the sort of advanced learning he did humbly submitting to teaching children the very basic knowledge in sixth grade is remarkable (though I do know some gracious teachers who dedicate their lives in the very same way -- it seems to be something in the Kjesbu line).

He could teach children because he knew that his knowledge did not make him a better person.  I don't think that's the case with many people today.  Most "men of letters" go on to greedily grab as much attention as possible for their capacities, and it's rare to find humility in their circles.  The so-called intellectual thinks his education truly does make him a better person, because he assumes he has the right to judge those "ignorant" people outside of the citadel, especially the rural classes.

In contrast, Uncle Gene lived out his days among family and friends blessing -- but never bludgeoning -- them with his knowledge.  Nothing made him happier than taking care of his sisters; as a bachelor, he was afforded the chance to see after their affairs, being generous even in his death, willing his house to be sold so the money could support Aunt Annie.  He was convinced that he couldn't stay in the hospital and the nursing home as he was dying because he had things to do, people to look after.

He was renowned for his humor and his good cheer, and I think that's related to his humility.  Being without vanity gave him the freedom to "look not to his own interests, but look to the interest of others."  Someone at the funeral shared how "Gene always had a kind word to say, and just the way he said it... he could see the truth about people."  Like Montgomerey's Anne of Green Gables, he was a child of light "by birthright.  After [he] had passed through a life with a smile or a word thrown across it like a gleam of sunshine the owner of that life saw it, for the time being at least, as hopeful and lovely and of good report."

His life was blessed by the charm of his grace, a gift from God which he allowed to work in and through him for the sake of his friends.  I wish I knew other people like Uncle Gene, but I don't think there are many left.  Oh, to be like that -- to have that gift of blessing others by word and deed, to live and die serving others, to be talented and intelligent and yet avoid the trap of being concerned with what the world thinks of you -- that would be heaven.

Neither a Consecutive Integer Nor a Prime Number

But 24 is still pretty neat, as far as numbers go.  I mean, it's both a doubling of integers, which only happens 4 times in one's lifetime (unless one lives to be 124, in which case, whoa), and it's also a squaring of integers, which only happens 3 times in one's lifetime (unless one lives to be 111, in which case, why are you getting excited about silly things like prime numbers and consecutive integers?).

Anyway... I'm finally 24.  Hooray!  And I'm finally doing things like writing regularly... just not here.  But that will come, hopefully, with time.

In the meantime, some thoughts about numbers.  When I was little, I took numbers really seriously because they had distinct personalities which played out every day in the melodrama that is number wars.

Number wars? you ask.  Yes, number wars.

It all started with learning the times table.  Then we had speed drills in class, where the teacher handed out a single sheet full of addition and subtraction problems and gave the class some time interval in which to complete the page.  Being a competitive little overachiever, I got really into the speed drills... and I always won.  But my own personal drama wasn't enough -- the numbers had personalities of their own, and they were fractious at best, treacherous at worst.

Thanks to the internet, I can now conclusively self-diagnose myself as a synesthete, with ordinal linguistic personification in particular.  Numbers and letters had distinct personalities (and also textures, for some reason).  Take the number 8.  8 was a jerk (still is, as far as I know -- I try not to pay attention to number wars anymore, because I'm pretty sure it's not helpful for the whole "coping with reality" thing).  He just was.  I think he was in cahoots with the color yellow, who also seemed to be oppressive and bullyish.  8 led the all the even numbers in a war against all the odds -- and I was always rooting for the odd numbers.  My favorite was 7, who was assertive and sharp and fought valiantly.  He was rather dashing, but a little immature. 

The number wars themselves were very logical: each battle was determined by the answer to the problem.  Whichever side had the highest place value won.  For example, if I added 21 and 36 together, the answer would be 57 (score!).  The odds would win a supreme victory by not allowing any evens into the answer.  If I added 22 and 36 together, the answer would be 58 -- the odds would still win, because the 5 is in the "tens place" and the 8 is only in the "ones place," having a much lesser value. 

The best part about number wars was the trash talking.  8 was really mean, but 7 could be snarky and triumphant (I think I may have identified with 7 throughout this process).  9 didn't really care -- he was 7's cool older cousin, and he would sort of roll his eyes at the idea of the number wars, but he helped them win nonetheless.  5 was sort of a useful idiot -- he tried really hard, and he wasn't that bad, but he could be a little annoying.  4 was horrid and small, the little snot-nosed kid sidekick to play sycophant for 8.  6 wasn't actually bad at all; he just had the misfortune of being even.

All this to say, numbers are interesting to me.  24 is not bad -- very round, a little plain, but solid.  And divisible in so many ways...

Napping music

I keep fighting it because I'm trying to work, lying down on the couch with my ankle propped up and typing at this awkward ankle on my laptop, but I find myself dipping into a delicious nap this afternoon.  It's a very simple and familiar pleasure, taking a nap on a sunny day in the summer with the lights out but the sun shining outside, listening to a woman's beautiful voice singing perfectly pretty songs.  When I was five, my mom would put Amy Grant's Lead Me On or The Collection on a little boombox in my room and I would fall asleep watching the light on the ceiling and the rusty clothesline outside my window and the bright green right outside.  Today I'm resisting a little black kitty who keeps putting his wet nose in my face and listening to Emmylou Harris' All I Intended to Be, and it's that same perfect, sunny, sweet, safe afternoon nap feeling.  I love Emmylou.  She makes me want to take a roadtrip and be a country singer.

The greatest movie ever

"You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading 'the land of the free' in history books.  When they get to be men, they forget even more.  Liberty is too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders.  Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say, 'I'm free, to think and to speak.  My ancestors couldn't; I can, and my children will.  Boys ought to grow up remembering that."

It's the fourth of July, which usually means attending a wonderful family picnic down in Wishkah where there's barbeque, home-made ice cream, volleyball, and an occasional hymn sing.

But this year I'm laid up in my Seattle apartment due to the ankle surgery.  Disappointing as that is, Monica has helped me make the most of it, starting with a reading of the Declaration of Independence (government by consent of the governed!), a reading from David McCullough's incomparable 1776, and now watching my favorite movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

The classic story of an idealist who is crushed by a ruthless political machine is still compelling -- and still true.  It's a story that parallels not only Christ (crucified and betrayed by a trusted friend for resisting evil and speaking truth to power) but Socrates.  One of my professors used to give a lecture titled, "Why Politicians Must Kill Poets, Priests, and Prophets."  He read from The Trial and Death of Socrates and the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate.  Then we'd watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

I think it more of a testament to Frank Capra's work as a director than to any sort of sacrilege on my part, but I can't help but feel that MSGW is a more effective passion play than Mel Gibson's The Passion.  And I think it may be more necessary for our culture today.  (Do you ever wish that you were a teacher of some sort who could assign good movies and books to people, to shape them and open their eyes to what is good and true and right?  Or is that just my dream?)

In honor of Independence Day and my love for my country and for the "plain, decent, everyday, everyday common rightness" of Jefferson Smith, a few quotes worth remembering:

"All the good that ever came into this world came from fools with faith like that." -- Saunders, encouraging Smith when he's ready to give up and go home after being wrongfully accused of corruption and graft by his corrupt and powerful ("I have no defense against forged papers -- I stand guilty as framed!).

“Have you ever noticed how grateful you are to see daylight ahead after coming through a long, dark tunnel?  Well, he’d say, always try to see life around you as if you’d just come out of the tunnel.” -- Jefferson Smith, on his father's wisdom.  (Sounds a little like Plato's cave, doesn't it?)

"Either I'm dead right, or I'm crazy!" -- Jefferson Smith (that's the desperation of a Puddleglumm.)

And the keynote address as he's about to faint on the Senate floor:  "Just get up off the ground, that's all I ask. Get up there with that lady that's up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won't just see scenery; you'll see the whole parade of what Man's carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so's he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That's what you'd see. There's no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties. And, uh, if that's what the grownups have done with this world that was given to them, then we'd better get those boys' camps started fast and see what the kids can do. And it's not too late, because this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else. Great principles don't get lost once they come to light. They're right here; you just have to see them again!"

"You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well, I'm not licked. And I'm going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause. Even if the room gets filled with lies like these, and the Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place."

"I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for. And he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them; because of just one plain simple rule: 'Love thy neighbor.'... And you know that you fight for the lost causes harder than for any other. Yes, you even die for them."

It may be the percocet I'm on, but I can't help but love Jimmy Stewart -- and Frank Capra.  Integrity and faith in the face of evil -- it's beautiful and fortifying for the soul.  From a wonderful essay I found last year, The Gospel According to Frank Capra:

Frank Capra was raised a Catholic in a devout family of Sicilian peasants. He grew up watching these peasants live out a pathetic and backbreaking life of everyone working three jobs and going hungry anyway. The considerable happiness they found together in spite of these circumstances was largely sustained by their religious beliefs. Frank's father Salvatore also believed strongly in the old fable of "America as the land of opportunity." He died in a machine accident trying to improve their lot. Thus Capra was raised to believe in two ideals; democracy and the dignity of man with the Christian Faith as the way to understand man and his destiny. Within this framework, he was encouraged to find the meaning of their humble lives and their very considerable troubles. Within this framework, Capra saw that his father, Salvatore Capra, though he was a dead, illiterate peasant buried in a hole, had been made in the image of God; he had mattered and still mattered.

 My favorite Capra quote shows how his beliefs permeated his stories: "When I see a crowd, I see a collection of free individuals: each a unique person; each a king or a queen; each a story that would fill a book; each an island of human dignity."

Every person is made in the image of God, regardless of their position in life or their power.  But this is not the way the world is often presented to us -- and frankly, more and more people (particularly the educated class) refuse this truth which was so "self-evident" to our founding farther.

Indeed, one of the most effective (and amusing) aspects of Capra's films is the way in which Capra the Cynic narrates (and really mocks and resists) a fairy tale dreamed up by Capra the Optimist. Thus Capra's films are full of cynics like himself: Saunders in Mr. Smith, The Colonel in Meet John Doe, Cornelius Cobb in Mr. Deeds (who even bears a strong physical resemblance to Capra). These cynics are Capra's stand-ins. We experience the story through their eyes -- through the eyes of doubt. In this way, Capra gives expression to that part of himself (and that part of us) which is afraid of being taken in, the part that is just as embarrassed by these proceedings as his most red-faced critic. We are encouraged to laugh at the impossibly idealistic hero --Mr. Smith brings pigeons "to send messages home to Maw;" Mr. Deeds plays his tuba and chases fire engines. But then, as we see the storm clouds gathering over his head, this Capra hero begins to worry us. The sap has brought it on himself, of course, for going out so far on his creaky limb, but we like him and don't want to see him get hurt. He's a little lost puppy about to be run over by a very big truck. "Go home!" says Saunders, on a Smith-inspired drunk. "Get out of here! Stop hanging around making people feel sorry for you." Then the Capra hero starts to make us a little angry: we see very clearly now that this person has somehow managed to stay pure and that we sold out a very long time ago. So we laugh at him some more, but most of the fun has gone out of it now. Finally, we have mocked the Capra hero until he hangs bleeding from his cross. And then we get to step back and have a good look at what we've done.

As we noticed of George Bailey earlier, these Capra heroes could have gotten off this funeral train at any time; their high ideals have brought them nothing but the defeat we foresaw from the beginning. But somehow we don't feel like saying, "I told you so." We have become morbidly fascinated. This hero has courted the worst of the chaotic forces that hammer our dreams into the ground. He has challenged them to single-combat, as it were. This fool has positively dared them to come out and prove to us what we've always feared most; that our ideals are just wishful thinking...self-maintained fantasies that we cherish in order to keep our sanity. But now that he's done it we are eager to watch the scene play out. The hero's life, dedicated to Capra's twin pillars of faith and human dignity, is to be tested in the chemist's furnace because we need to know the truth -- we need to know whether that life or any life so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

 I sent young Jefferson smith, the Boy Ranger who "can tell you what Washington and Jefferson said -- by heart!" to the U.S. Senate where I had him jeered at, lied about, unjustly condemned and betrayed by those whom he most admired. I slapped him down every time he raised his head and spat on him until even his friends begged him to give up his lost cause and I left him looking up at an empty sky and silently crying out "My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me?"

Ultimate guilty pleasure

Michael W. Smith, "Lamu," from The Live Set! or The Big Picture, or, because iTunes doesn't have the original recordings available and I'm too lazy to track them down when there's something as horrifically great at hand, the "Various Artists" cover from the people who brought you Ultimate Music Makeover: The Music of Michael W. Smith.

So awesome.



This song defined my childhood summers, and it still makes me giddy.

So great -- working from Victrola

They've already played Oasis "What's the Story, Morning Glory?" and are now onto The Postal Service... and people keep singing along in that just a little bit, under their breath sort of way. Happiness.

My Brightest Diamond

Girl hero, singing Man hero song:

Green and Grey June

Volunteer Park looks like what I imagine the English countryside to be.

QOTD

"Is Twitter a good idea like Communism is a good idea? It sounds like it should work in theory, but in practice..."

Meaning, Art, and Google Reader

Sometimes I wonder how the disparate streams of thought that trickle through my google reader each day relate to one another. Why am I reading an article on something as esoteric on whether or not there will ever be great composers again in the same sitting as someone's honest review of a tasteless movie at SIFF.

Somehow this all relates to meaning and the necessity of meaning to art. It should come as no surprise that I find nihilism morally repugnant -- that it is aesthetically repugnant as well naturally follows.

The point of the first article, on the dearth of great music in the 20th century, is that the modern movement, which discarded the traditional forms in favor of all things new and original (and angular and atonal), destroyed music's ability to grow and build upon the work of previous composers. It has been a fruitless endeavor (the argument goes), proving the barrenness of rejecting tradition and the wisdom of those who came before. Modern art is constrained not by lack of imagination, but by a lack of acknowledgement for what is good, beautiful and true.

The encouraging admission of a local blog critic that he walked out on a pointless, ugly movie about nothing was startling to me -- not only for his good sense, but for his observations about the Seattle audience who endured the film:

When SIFF says that it is a great audience festival part of what they mean is that they can almost fill the Egyptian on a Monday night at 9:30 pm for a Swedish film about meaninglessness. Further, a few dozen of these people will laugh uproariously at nearly every line or tiny sight gag: whether it is a solitary tuba player, a picture frame falling into an aquarium, a depressed woman yelling at her boyfriend, a depressed woman yelling at her boyfriend’s mother, a depressed woman yelling at a bar full of strangers, a depressed teacher crying in the hallway, a depressed psychologist breaking the fourth wall...

About halfway through Du levande (You, the Living), which won Roy Anderssen a handful of awards including three Guldbagges, I started to wonder what it might mean to sit through an entire film about meaninglessness looking for meaning. As the short loosely-connected segments featuring unattractive uninteristing characters set in the large-looking unpleasant small spaces shot with stationary wide lenses began to pile up, I increasingly found myself thinking about how I was nearly out of toothpaste.

This reminds me of the old story about the Emperor's clothes -- everyone is watching because they're supposed to, but there's nothing to actually see.

Somehow this all relates to meaning and the necessity of meaning to art. It should be obvious why nihilism is morally repugnant -- that it is aesthetically repugnant as well naturally follows.

Lambs in the Midst of Wolves

I don't usually read the Gospel of Luke. John was the account I always liked -- lots of theological language, mysterious and beautiful. So the charge Jesus gives in Luke 10 really struck me today as weird and possibly frightening:

"Go; behold, I send you at as lambs in the midst of wolves."

Lambs; pitifully helpless, woolly-headed creatures completely vulnerable to those we've been sent to. The language is vivid and clear: the world is full of wolves. Not helpful border collies and solitary farm cats, but wolves -- predators to whom we are easy prey.

It's not hard for me to get that point. I feel like a little lamb a lot here -- soft and and defenseless. And that's the point Jesus is making to the 70. He tells them not to arm themselves or rely on anything other than God's provision. It is important that they remain as lambs, peaceful and meek, trusting in God to be their strength and shield.

And that's hard to do when you feel your weak and susceptible to attack. We are called to be unguarded, to stop defending ourselves against what all we fear and to allow God to be our defense, but that's... well... frightening.

I don't think I suffer from any illusions of who I am or what's around me. I suffer from fear.

After Prayers, Lie Cold

Arise my body, my small body, we have striven
Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven.
Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go,
White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow,
Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light,
And be alone, hush'd mortal, in the sacred night,
—A meadow whipt flat with the rain, a cup
Emptied and clean, a garment washed and folded up,
Faded in colour, thinned almost to raggedness
By dirt and by the washing of that dirtiness.
Be not too quickly warm again. Lie cold; consent
To weariness' and pardon's watery element.
Drink up the bitter water, breathe the chilly death;
Soon enough comes the riot of our blood and breath.

-- C. S. Lewis, "After Prayers, Lie Cold"

Seattle Ideals

When I was in high school, living outside Aberdeen city limits where we didn't really talk to our neighbors and had to drive anywhere further than 7-11, I dreamed of one day living in a City. I imagined it would be a beautiful place full of activity and ingenuity, a place teeming with thinkers and doers and, most importantly, musicians.

When I got to college and realized how attainable all that was, on a certain level -- surrounded by beautiful, creative people who think and do and make music on their own label but still manage to play the Crocodile Cafe and even Neumos -- it made me very, very happy. And then college ended, and I moved from that little Queen Anne enclave to Capitol Hill, where everyone is a rock star.

Seriously. We just walked back from Red Balloon Co., where we picked up a dozen pink balloons (we looked like a girly fun parade walking up fifteenth), and as we walk up to our doorstep, our upstairs neighbor is sitting on the stoop with his guitar case and a knapsack, waiting to head out to a show. And he gave us his CD. And it's good.

It just makes me happy. People really do live out their dreams here.

Conversations in my world

I love how many wonderful, strange, funny things there are to talk about in this world. The news is full of humor as well as horror, and there are plenty of beautiful, true, lovely things to meditate on these days... a few things said or heard in the office today:

A colleague, shooting the breeze in the kitchen and under the influence of cold medicine:

"Emmylou Harris is some kind of cool... I mean, she's got some sort of otherworldly talent. She's one of those people you just know they're talented... she seems so cool and smart, she's probably pretty reflective... and she's got great hair."

(I heartily agree, on all counts.)


Me, excited and inspired after hearing Dawn Eden speak at SPU last week:

"I think I want to write a dissertation on womanly nihilism, taking a page from Mansfield's argument in Manliness, and Emily Haines and the rest of the third wave feminists in rock music."

Another colleague, upon reading that Hillary was suggesting that she should stay in the race because Obama might get shot:

"If I were Obama, I'd pick Hillary as my Vice President... No one would ever shoot him with her a heartbeat away from the Oval Office."

Via Tribunali and St. Louis Cathedral

The way Wikipedia tells it...

I'm taking some time tonight to clean out my files, defrag my hard drive, organize my bookmarks, and generally streamline my life online. Naturally, this involves updating this sadly neglected space (I just removed an old link to the Crocodile Cafe -- *sniff*) and doing some online searching for current information.

This is how I've stumbled on a Wikipedia article on my neighborhood (Capitol Hill) which actually talks about my church -- and this is what it has to say:

One recently founded church does have a building: Westminster Presbyterian Church—behind SCCC—became Capitol Hill Presbyterian (new church development) at Easter 2006, when Church at the Center merged, with the liturgical music going from classical music to indie rock.

They don't say much about any of the churches, but I love that they focus on the change to "indie rock." For the record, there still is some occasional classical music (if you come to a special Iconostasis service, you might even hear Kevin Siegfried's "Media Vita"), and what we currently play at Sunday services is best described as modern arena-rock, though that's starting to change some. Bluegrass hymn medleys help (as do violins and banjos)... but I don't think anyone should be calling us "indie rock," exactly.

Old lines

I wish you were a song to play
I wish you had something to say

- The Lifestyle, Metric (Mainstream EP)

Gratitude and Morality

The two may or may not be related... but I'm thinking right now that they are.

Bear with me on this -- you see, tonight I had the distinct pleasure of conversation with two friends who think deeply about issues with moral implications. Conversations like these awaken gratitude in my heart for what I have been given -- for truth and beauty revealed, for strength and hope through relationships, for God's shalom in my life.

It is more or less my natural bent to be thankful for where I come from. While my life has not always been easy and there were many things I envied other children, growing up, I am overwhelmed by the sense that God has been very good to me in placing me where I am. I always knew I was loved (which I think is very, very important and a point I wish to argue in another post), and I was trained in the way that is right. Not that my parents or the cultural context they gave me were perfect -- "by no means!" as Paul says -- but I knew enough to reject what is wrong and cling to what is good at a very early age.

Knowing that you have been made rich in anything, whether it's money or talent or moral fortitude, can lead you one of two ways. You may be led (as I have been, I know) to sin in pride -- thinking that you are better than someone else because of the good gifts that were given to you (which you did not earn). I have nothing to do with the family I was born into. I did not choose them -- God chose me for them. Same with God, really -- while I made a choice by my own free will to accept Jesus, in the mystery of God's wisdom He put that desire in my heart and gave me the very ability to trust in Him and be blessed. I cannot earn the talent I have been given (whatever its measure), though I can train myself to use it wisely or let in languish in slovenly disuse (or misuse). Being grateful for these gifts, when you are aware that they are "from God, and not by works, lest any man should boast," is not pride or sin, but wisdom and humility.

If I know that the moral knowledge I have been given is from God and not anything I should boast of, that humility gives me the freedom to see and understand more fully the riches of wisdom I have inherited, and to hold fast to them.

This I think is wisdom, and I am surprised when I discover that some of my friends and peers have not learned this.

There are people I know (as I'm sure you do) who have left the Church at this point in their lives, rejecting the traditions and the foundations of their morality. I do not presume to judge them, mostly because there's a story behind each decision, and that story does not resemble my own. I was given the grace to believe and understand early in life, and God protected me from everything that could have destroyed me, psychically, physically, spiritually and emotionally. But these are gifts. I don't understand why they were given to me, and not to someone else.

The Faith has been God's gift to me, expressed and taught through my family and local community when I was younger, and now also through the saints and scholars whose words open the truth up to me (or is it me they are opening up to the truth?) just a little further. So I am grateful, and I also am aware that I come at life from a very different angle than my friends who have not received the Faith as a gift, but reject it as a prison or a wound or a curse.

But sometimes it's hard.

At one point in the night's meandering talk, someone said, "Oh, I wouldn't call Hitler evil. That's just such a strong word, and it's been so politicized as of late..."

My thought: If we can't use strong words to condemn the Holocaust, what good are they?

"Um, I'm pretty sure we can call Hitler evil."

"I don't know, it's just so damning, the whole good and evil thing."

"Well, I think good and evil are there, everyday. The choices we make either lead us closer to the good or farther away, but we're moving one way or the other."

That was all I could think to contribute at that point (we were watching a completely non-Holocaust related movie at the time, so we just went back to it), but I keep thinking about it tonight. It bothers me that my friend can't say that Hitler was evil, probably because he is the most widely-acknowledged example of evil's reality in human form. Evil is real. And not being able to admit that poses a serious problem.

But that might be a topic for another time.

Realization

Every comment he makes
Is a pronouncement from the king of ignorance.