We could all stand to read more Henri Nouwen...

"More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people,
enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known
as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time
to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple
as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or do be
part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by
meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking
the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people
around and urgent cause, and not to feel tha tyou are working directly for
social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn't
be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their
stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs
that you do not simply like them, but truly love them."

Henri Nouwen

just us chickens

There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been: a people busy and powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent, important, fearful, and self-aware; a people who scheme, promote, deceive, and conquer; who pray for their loved ones, and long to flee misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time—or even knew selflessness or courage or literature—but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less. There is no less holiness at this time—as you are reading this—than there was the day the Red Sea parted.... In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in a tree. In any instant you may avail yourself of the power to love your enemies; to accept failure, slander, or the grief of loss; or to endure torture. Purity’s time is always now.

- Annie Dillard

Bottle up your emotions - they can't stay

Silence is your option.

Pull out the armor, begin the fight

See the light. Begin to run.

Stay composed. Take the gun.

It's crouching, whimpering - torn from its source.

In the shadows. Quiet.

Begin the divorce.

No pity. I know it's bitter.

But sugar's not for you,

Complete the surgery.

It's your duty. Do it.

Mad Farmer Liberation Front

(by Wendell Berry)

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Thoughts - on Justice and Pilgrimage

Justice seems to be one of those concepts which is coming back into vogue - at least, social justice. Personally I've been trying to learn what it looks like to extend the ideas of "justice" and treating people fairly into the realm of art and by extension, towards artists.

There may be another post in the future devoted to this topic in greater detail.

For now:

I saw the Hannah Montana movie last night. I enjoyed it. Now, it was a bit cliché and overall really predictable if you've ever seen a conflict-of-interest-resulting-in-a-change-of-heart-movie. But it was infinitely better than I expected it to be. My point, or sentiment here is not that it was wonderful and everyone should go see it, but simply a reminder (to myself first of all) of how I tend to judge things, art, and worst of all people, based on hearsay or annoyances with elements surrounding the particular thing/piece of art/person rather than the thing/artwork/person itself/themselves. It's pretty close to slander. I shouldn't do that.

Right now I'm definitely still learning how a desire to "do justly" plays out in my everyday life - especially when it comes to the arts and culture and the implications of this desire. But I think it's a worthwhile issue to trudge through. Especially when works of art, like ideas- but to an even greater extent, are tied back to people. Many things cannot and should not be accepted or excused just because people are involved, but if people are important, we as Christians ought to take care with our words and opinions. I don't think there is a place for uninformed flippancy among God's people.

And now a quotation: (which I just found on a stick on my comp...but originally saw displayed at a sr. art show at Biola)

“Once you accept the existence of God-however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him-then you are caught forever with his presence in the center of all things...
You are also caught with the fact that man is a creature who walks in two worlds and traces upon the walls of his cave the wonders and the nightmare experiences of his spiritual pilgrimage.

- Morris West

Too Easily Pleased

A sobering quotation I stumbled across while reading Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding:

[U]pon a stricter inquiry, I am forced to conclude that good, though apprehended and acknowledged to be so, does not determine the will, until our desire, raised proportionally to it, makes us uneasy in the want of it. Convince a man ever so much that plenty has its advantages over poverty, make him see and admit that the handsome conveniences of life are better than nasty penury, yet as long as he is content with the latter and finds no uneasiness in it, he does not move...

Were the will determined by the views of good... I do not see how it could ever get loose from the infinite eternal joys of heaven, once proposed and considered as possible

....................................

However much men are in earnest and constant in pursuit of happiness, yet they may have a clear view of good, great and confessed good, without being concerned for it, or moved by it, if they think they can make up their happiness without it.

Sometimes I think there is a great danger in being too content. (Granted, life presents many scenarios in which we need the grace to be "content" with what God has given and where He has placed us)....so does C.S. Lewis...and Bono :) <-- who "still hasn't found what he's looking for." If we see this as a reminder to always press on, and go further up and further in, I think he's right.

Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

–C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

The Songs are in our Eyes

Every day I die again, and again I’m reborn

Every day I have to find the courage

To walk out into the street

With arms out

Got a love you can’t defeat

Neither down nor out

There’s nothing you have that I need

I can breatheBreathe now

- Breathe, U2 - No Line on the Horizon

Just came back from L.A. As much as I walking around big cities, I find that they exhaust me.
Oddly this post connects back to a post I wanted to write a few weeks ago after coming back from a collegiate speech and debate tournament. Somehow the two experiences, from my perspective, were fundamentally the same. A lot of comes down to 1. How/What you view yourself as and 2. Whether or not you're willing, or even able to face the world with open eyes.
I love the song Breathe because the lyrics describe a sort of life in which a person sees the world as an opportunity. He's not really looking to "get" anything - and there is a sort of freedom in that. He is motivated by the song he wants to share...
(I had the chance to share the gospel twice today and discovered that I'm not very good at it. My next thought (connected to many other thoughts about apologetics), was "Wow, being able to defend your faith is worthless if you're inept at sharing it." Both men I talked to today volunteered the information that they wanted to go to heaven, but weren't sure if God would let them in. I pulled out my Bible and shared a few verses (also realizing how poorly I navigate scripture without Bible Gateway) as well as the basic gospel story. I pray that God works through and in spite of me because I feel like my words were empty. I felt like they had closed off their souls to any sort of hope with legs. They agreed with what I said about Jesus, but it just seemed like one more piece of information. The first man, Curtis, did express his enjoyment at listening to scripture and was eager for me to pray with him - that was encouraging.)
How do we cope with brokenness?
Sometimes it's very easy to spot. For example, you're not very disillusioned about the miserable condition of some people when you walk through Skid Row. A man urinates on the sidewalk. A girl puts her shirt back on near a darkened door way. A man lies unconscious on the sidewalk as people pass by.
It's a bit harder to recognize brokenness when it manifests itself among intellectual peers - people who equate traditional Christian values with fascism. We feel like those who consistently joke about getting laid, use the f word, and consistently push limits are less deserving of respect, compassion, etc. Maybe I'm the only one that has seen that as a struggle.
Either way, it's really been on my heart recently to get to the place that I can look at people - really look at them - and just have the sort of compassionate desire for their salvation and redemption that I think Jesus would have had. Sometimes it's hard to look at people on the streets because I feel as if I can't do anything and therefore can't handle the pain. Sometimes it's hard to look at people who offend us because we have knee-jerk reactions against some aspects of who they are. Honestly, my day at the tournament a few weeks ago was made when a fellow competitor offered me a cigarette. I don't smoke and have little desire to, but it made me happy to feel like her friend - or at least someone that she'd be willing to spend more time with.

How will we change or impact or love those in "the culture" when we're not willing to get close enough to see them?

We are people borne of sound
The songs are in our eyes