28 July 2003

Why must I go? I must go, for it is my time. I must find myself. I must know myself. And here, in Kenosha, I cannot do this – for I will forever be weak, forever drawing my strength from others, never dependent on myself, never knowing what it means to be strong. Never knowing what it means to be a man.



Here, I pass the buck. I allow others to be my strength. I allow others to tell me who I am and what I should do. Here, I am not myself – I am the sum total of what others make of me. I am too weak to go out on the limb for someone or something, since I can always have someone else do what I would be unwilling to do. Thus, I get what I want without the inherent risk involved in doing it myself. I do not take risks because others will take my “risks” for me. Therefore, I am ever a child and ever lost. I must find myself. I must know myself. I must learn what it means to be a man and be strong – to have adventure and face life in all of its joy and pain. If I do not, I will never live. I will never be confident. I must be forced into such a situation. This is why I must go.



I spent my entire life in Christian schools – rarely being stretched, rarely living. I spent my college experience in an isolated corn field – rarely being stretched, rarely living. Other people would always do what I was unwilling to do. And therefore, I never lived and never became strong. This cannot be any longer.



I’ve made great strides in the last year, due to my struggles at Scott’s company. I’ve learned something of confidence, something of strength. But the full realization will not come until I am alone, facing the world. And until I can be strong by myself, I will never be able to be weak (in a holy sense) with another. Because the weakness I possess is not holy: it therefore must be hidden. I am weak because I am not a man, not because of any awareness of my sinfulness. Therefore, I must appear strong – because I am not strong in Christ.



I know, if I were to say these things to anyone, they would feed me some crap about “Don’t be strong: let Christ be strong” or “Its good to be weak” or “You don’t need to find yourself, you need to find Christ”. And, yes, that’s true. Yes, these things are very true. But I do not believe that they are right in this context. I do not believe that these things are what Christ would say to me.



Christ… what would you say to me? You would say, “Go – and know.” Know… to know… why would this be what he says? For, to know is something deep, powerful, strong, and real. Know who I’ve created you to be, he would say. For I know you, and, you, me. Now seek yourself, for I’ve created you for a purpose. In seeking yourself, you are following me. In becoming your true self (the one I have created you to be) you are worshipping me. For you are following me.



Perhaps he’d not say that. Perhaps I just would want for him to say that. It’s entirely possible. But I’m not looking for myself in a selfish sense. I am looking for who I am meant to be. I know this truth is within me, through the power of Christ, in the same way that I know he is in me. I want to know me because I want to know God. And until I am formed into who I am called to be, I cannot know God – I will forever be attempting to “follow” his ways in an unholy manner – in a human manner.



Because I – we – are called to be more than human. And following God in a human manner will result in death and error, such as we see in Moses’ early life. And so God forced him into the desert, where he both met God and met himself. It was there he realized the holy truth of his purpose in his life when he met God. This is what I seek. This is what I hope for. I wish to head to the desert to know myself. And the only way I will accomplish this is through God’s revelation to me.

( C: 0 )

27 July 2003

I’m bothered by the way we conceive of “being weak”. Sometimes, I feel the way we view it precludes any possibility of strength. For there must be strength. And there must be weakness. I don’t understand this dichotomy. Both are necessary. You know, the problem is this: we believe that Christ must be our strength, but it’s possible that Christ must also be our weakness. I’m not sure what I mean by this, for I certainly don’t mean that Christ is some inherent problem within us. He is not a weakness in that sense.



What I am saying is that Christ is what makes us strong and what makes us weak. And because he is what makes us weak, the weakness is not some false weakness, or some sinful depressed stupidity that screams for attention. Rather, it is true weakness – the realization of who we are. And because Christ reveals to us our weakness, we can glory in it, because he also reveals to us our strength. He is ultimately our strength and our weakness.



Because of Christ, our weakness does not make us a pushover. Because of Christ, our strength does not make us arrogant and overconfident. Because we are strong like Christ and weak like him. Both are real and true, not false and human. Both come at the expense of arrogance and self-pity. Both make us more human.

( C: 0 )

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives. (Albert Schweitzer)

( C: 0 )

20 July 2003

The site was due for a redesign. And so I did it. I’m rather pleased as to how it turned out!

( C: 0 )

17 July 2003

Hebrews 12:4:



“In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.”



Says quite a bit about both the seriousness of sin and the extremes we are called to avoid it. The whole “We all sin” or “we all have our problems” excuse does not achieve Christ’s standards. Have we resisted to the point of shedding blood? Or have we surrendered and called it victory?

( C: 0 )

15 July 2003

It’s a song, minus the music. And fortunately or unfortunately not autobiographical!





Remember that day, that street, that night

When we met, we met by accident

And as passed our separate ways, you said,

“I hope we meet again.”



And you said, “Hope is a game children play”

I hope for your love in the end

And as now fades from today

I hope for your love in the end



We met again, to drink, to talk

You smiled that smile, that captured me

And when time closed on the night, I said,

“I hope for this forever again.”



And you said, “Hope is a game children play”

We hoped for love in the end

And as now fades from today

We hoped for love in the end



Saw you today, I glanced, away

For hidden in anger was great pain

And as your hard eyes looked my way, you said,

“I hope to see you again.”



But you said, “Hope is a game children play”

I hope that I love again.

And as now fades from today

I hope I love again…



I hope I love again.

( C: 0 )

I believe that we, the Church, have become a Church of process – much to our shame. Let me explain: we are a Church which believes strongly in the process of Christianity and not so much in the immediacy of Christianity. In other words, death to self is a process rather than an act of immediacy. Destruction of flesh is a process not an act of immediacy. The battle against evil is a process, not immediacy.



Arguing against process Christianity is a difficult thing, for Christianity is indeed a process. There is a definite road to travel and a process of spiritual development. The fundamental problem is when we lose the “now” aspect of the Christian. “Repent! For the Kingdom of God is at hand!” John preaches. This is the message of the Gospel. Repent now. Change now. There is no later – for later may never come. There is no later, for your longing for later indicates that you will never change. You must change now or change will never come. Die to the flesh now. Die to sin now. Or they (sin and death) will kill you.



“Let me bury my father first,” a disciple tells Christ. What does Christ respond? Does he say, “Do that with my blessing. And make certain that your family is cared for, and your house is set in order.” No! He response, “Let the dead bury their dead.” What a statement of utter disrespect! Who would speak so of a dead man?



But Bonhoeffer points out that the disciple was trying to follow Christ on his own terms; trying to take control of the situation; trying to be the Lord. And Christ saw through that and demanded one thing: immediate obedience. Follow me now, or not at all, he seems to be saying. For I see your heart, and you do not fully wish to die and follow me.



Process Christianity is so often a disguise and an excuse for disobedience. And that is largely the state of the Church today. The problem isn’t that Christianity is a process; the problem is that process has become an excuse for sin. And it takes discernment to distinguish between the excuse and truth.



The pulpit may be the best way to discern between excuse and truth. If there is a sense of passion, immediacy, and pain crying, “Now! Now turn toward Christ then his path” then it is most likely truth. If the attitude of the pulpit is laissez-faire morality play, then the process has become an excuse.

( C: 0 )

14 July 2003

The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, that cuts the heart asunder.



-Virginia Wolf



I don’t want to ruin this quote by writing to much, but it’s great. Joy and sorrow. One without the other leaves a person empty and shallow. I was thinking about this the other day, trying to understand this mystery. It seems to me that sorrow is necessary for depth - for it is only in pain that we are driven to something greater. Joy gives us contentment, but sorrow drives us: otherwise, we would never leave a comfortable land.



On the other hand is joy: that thing which tempers the sorrow and allows us to live in a terrible land. It gives us the contentment to stay in this world, to take pleasure in the things which we should pleasure in. It allows us to live and love. Without joy, we would end up broken, shattered wrecks of people. We could not stand to live here, for we would be driven until we were broken.



Sorrow without joy is death of spirit; joy without sorrow is death of heart. Both are necessary and (I think) are a key part of why Christ was such a full man, being infinite in joy and sorrow.

( C: 1 )

13 July 2003

I am, once again, feeling confronted by the utter bankruptcy of my lifestyle. Paul summarized it well when he said that he was constantly doing the things he did not want to do and unable to do the things which we wanted to do. In other words, the power of sin is great – so great it is a wonder that we are ever able to overcome it.



To others, I am sure that I look relatively good. After all, I don’t swear, rarely drink, and I am generally a “good boy”. I have all the appearances of a good modern Christian. But modern Christianity is lost; it misses entirely the significance and the power of the Cross, except to the extent that the cross benefits Christianity in some way. Therefore, we are far more concerned with adjusting exterior actions than the spirit within. For the Cross of modern Christianity is a symbol, not a reality. And since it is a symbol, it merely has the power to affect the exterior, the things that man can change himself. It has not the reality which can change the spirit.



For the cross is something, nowadays, to be put on, to be contemplated but never fully experienced. This is what a symbol is. But the Cross as a living reality is something different, something which shatters our spirit – for it invades us, changes us, destroys the flesh, and resurrects something new and something different. This Cross is painful and invasive, difficult and true. And this cross is the one which modern Christianity, which I, lack.



It’s difficult to accept such a cross. I want to see it as a symbol, to deal with my flesh – my evil – myself. But this is contrary to the message of the cross, for the cross indicates that someone else, someone greater, must be the solution to my struggles with sin. And this person had to die in order to accomplish this task.



God! Why can I not accept this! Why must I constantly strive for some lesser thing? It is because I want to make myself worthy and acceptable through my own strength. I want to (and to some extent believe) that perfection is attainable through my own efforts. Yet this is despite the evidence to the contrary, for my life is testament to the falsehood of such a belief. For all of my talents, I am unable to achieve anything full and perfect in my own power.



Freedom from sin can only come through bondage to the cross. I must remember this. God, give me strength to remember this. To know this, to integrate it. I am so entirely tired of my crass, wicked ways, of the way I run from you with all of my strength. I must learn humility. I must learn love. I must unlearn the evils which I have so carefully taught myself. Who you have created me to be is entirely different from the person I have intentionally made myself. How this change can come about is beyond me; but I do know that it can only come as a result of Christ and the Cross, both things which I will never be able to fully intellectually appreciate.

( C: 0 )

08 July 2003

Happy belated 4th - I was out of the town, so I’ve not had time to be around the site much. That’ll change in the near future!

( C: 0 )

02 July 2003

Bonhoeffer makes an excellent statement: he writes that only those who are obedience believe and that only those who believe are obedient. In doing so, he accurately frames the predicament of those who are attempting to live in the faith. Unless I am obedience, I am not believing – in other words, my works reflect what I truly believe. However, works alone are not good enough. For unless I believe, I am not obedience. In other words, belief precedes obedience but obedience also precedes belief. An imbalance of understanding of this fact leads to any number of difficulties.



I am deeply concerned about this, for this places me in the difficult circumstance of obedience. It forces me there, for I cannot believe without being obedient. This causes action and change and a need to seek the living God who want to be obedient to. This entire statement causes me to seek change, to seek Christ, to live a holy life.

( C: 0 )