A Grief Observed

Stage 1: The Leidenfrost Effect

It's normal. All is well.
I'm alone. But all is well.
She's not here. But all is well.
It's normal. All is well.

A simple text. All is well.
A sudden plunge.

All is well.

When no pain comes, all is well.
She's not here. But all is well.
But she's not there. And all is well.
It didn't happen. All is well.
But it did. And all is well.

I feel no pain. All is well.
But I do. And all is well.

What is this pain I feel?

It is not the pain of nerves, like you feel when you have a tooth pulled. It is not the pain of emptiness, like the pain you feel when your tongue touches the exposed gum. It is the pain of numbness; the pain you feel when they give you local anesthesia but keep you awake during the procedure. Your nerves are numb, so it does not hurt, but you know it should. You can feel the roots being severed, hear the ties being torn. Your conscious knows that this should hurt, but your subconscious cannot, will not, accept it. And so all is well.

The danger of this stage is that, because it doesn't hurt, we are not prepared when it does. And I wasn't.

Stage 2: The Stiff Heart Questions

The feet, mechanical, go round. Until it hit me. It wasn't the plunge that did me in, it was the lingering. The realization that she wasn't just a few hundred miles away anymore. The realization that I don't know how to move forward from this. The realization that she doesn't get to be a light in this world anymore. The realization that I don't even know what it will be like this December in San Diego anymore. The realization that now there is now only one person who can fully understand me when I say "First Maker Last Maker". The realization that there is one less person who will ever call me "Tilaps". The realization that those pictures on Facebook are now just pictures, and there is no longer anything of substance behind them. The realization that on October 23, she texted me, and I never responded.

A few hours too late, I responded to her text:

Janee,
The other day, you and Claire asked for a C.S. Lewis quote. I never did send you one. Here is the best one I could find:
"You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw -- but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realise that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of -- something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it -- tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest -- if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself -- you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say "Here at last is the thing I was made for". We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work."

I broke down. I asked "why" more times than I can count. Why, God? Why her? Why now? What is your will in this? Where is your healing hand? What is the greater thing you want to show us? How could that possibly be your plan for her life? Why was that your plan for her life? What are you trying to teach us? Why couldn't you teach us some other way? What good could this possibly accomplish that you couldn't accomplish some other way?

I was mad. I began to wish God had taken me instead, that my depraved mind would end and her loving spirit would continue.

All this time, I would simply scroll through Facebook, my newsfeed as full of her face as my eyes were of tears. Yes, I freely admit, by this point, I was sobbing. Nose running, breath staggering, the whole bit. If you know me, you know that this isn't exactly a common occurrence. I decided to join the crowd and change my profile picture to honor her. I posted a picture of the Pocket in an elevator (missing Paul, somehow). In the description, I gave her another C.S. Lewis quote, this time from A Grief Observed:

If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created. And it is a comfort to believe that she herself, in losing her chief or only natural happiness, has not lost a greater thing, that she may still hope to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever." A comfort to the God-aimed, eternal spirit within her.

I also posted another quote from the same book as my status, dedicated to her of course. The quote read:

God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.

The problem with both of these was, I was not ready to accept them. Sure, I knew in my head that Janee didn't really lose anything. In fact, she is more alive now than she ever was when I knew her. She is more filled with joy than she ever could have been this side of eternity. But that first quote continues to say that the mother's spirit of motherhood has, in fact, died. She is no longer a mother. That part of her, brought out by the child, is gone. True, that is not the chief aim for which she was created, but it was a part of her nonetheless. So that quote really doesn't give any comfort.

As for the second one, in my head it always made sense. But it is one thing to understand something and another to own it. For example, this past Sunday, the pastor at my church flippantly referenced John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." Almost everyone has heard this verse, and I dare say that most Christians wholeheartedly believe in it. But have you ever had to truly take hold of that promise - "whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life"? I know I have not. Not that I didn't believe in it. I can assure you that I did. But it is one thing to believe in something and another to take hold of it. And in this case, taking hold of that promise meant letting go of a dear friend, and that is not a painless process.

Stage 3: Help my Unbelief

Gradually, the tears subside, and I begin to try to think clearly. I would quote scripture, songs, books, and people to myself. I said to myself exactly what I would have said to someone who was in my position two weeks earlier. But what I found was that all of the knowledge and quotes in the world couldn't change how I felt. It was simply not a matter of knowing that she is seeing God face to face, or that God is still in control. It was a matter of accepting all of those realizations I had come to in the previous stage. It is something that I could never have understood until it happened. As I said, I knew exactly what I would have said to someone else in my position, but now I know that there is nothing you can say that will help. There is no secret thought, no cathartic moment, no magical phrase that can simply make it all better.

I would hear other people say things, and my conscious mind would scream them at my subconscious until I became physically out of breath. But, as with the first stage, the subconscious will only ever move as it pleases, not as the conscious wills it. Some of these things were:

"God is good, and God is sovereign. He knew he would be glorified more with Janee with Him."

"She ran the race so hard that she beat all of us."

"She is home now. We will see her soon!"

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants." -Psalm 116:15

All of these things are true, and all of them are comforting. I readily accept them as such. But try telling a man who has just lost his leg that he only has to wait a little while until all will be made new. If he is a man of great faith, he will agree with you with little complaint. But that does not mean he can walk. He will eventually learn to get around with a wheelchair or prosthetic limb. But he will never be exactly the same, and no amount of comfort or faith can change that.

In addition to these comforting phrases, I began to see her in everything, but especially in song lyrics and quotes. In keeping with the staccato moments of feeling in my life at that time, I am simply going to list these with no explanation:

"I remember you like yesterday, yesterday

I still can't believe you're gone
I remember you like yesterday, yesterday
And until I'm with you, I'll carry on

Every lament is a love song

Yesterday, Yesterday

I still can't believe you're gone

Oh so long my friend, so long."

--"Yesterdays", by Switchfoot

"End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it...white shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise"

--The Return of the King, directed by Peter Jackson

"Where is my song?

I've lost the song of my soul tonight

Sing it out

Sing it out

Take what is left of me

Make it a melody

Sing it out

Sing out loud

I can't find the words to sing

You be my remedy

My song

My song

I'll sing with what's left of me"

--"Sing it Out", by Switchfoot

"The shadow proves the sunshine"

--"The Shadow Proves the Sunshine", by Switchfoot

"Looking for signs in the night sky

Wishing that I wasn't such a nice guy

Wonder what it means to live forever

Wonder what it means to die

I know there's meaning to it all

A little resurrection every time I fall

You got your babies, I got my hearses

Every blessing comes with a set of curses

I got my vices, got my vice verses."

--"Vice Verses", by Switchfoot

"Here's to your bright eyes

Shining like fireflies

These are my souvenirs,

The memory of a lifetime

We were wide-eyed with everything, everything around us

We were enlightened by everything, everything

So I close my eyes and go back in time

I can see you smiling, you're so alive

I close my eyes and go back in time

You were just a child then, and so was I

We were so young, we had no fear

We were so young, we had no idea

That nothing lasts forever

Nothing lasts forever

[...]

Life was just happening

Life was just happening

I wouldn't trade it for anything

My souvenirs"

--"Souvenirs", by Switchfoot

"Lay down

Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You’ve come to journey's end
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across the distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home

And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass

Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time
Don't say "We have come now to the end"
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home

And all will turn
To silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the West"

--"Into the West", by Howard Shore

"We’re still smilin as the day goes by

and how come nobody
ever knows the reasons why

Burry you deep so far
you can't see
If you're like me
who wears a broken
heart on your sleeve

Pains is troubles that
you know so well
Either time don't
It can't or it just won't tell

I'm not the type to say
I told you so
I think the hardest part
of holding on is lettin it go

I don't know what time it is
or whose the one to blame for this
Do what I believe what I can't see
And how do you know
which way the wind blows

Cause I can feel it all around
I'm lost between the sound
And just when I think I know
there she goes

Goodbye for now
Goodbye for now
So long"

--"Goodbye for Now", by P.O.D.

"Until the sea of glass we meet
At last completed and complete
Where tide and tear and pain subside
And laughter drinks them dry
I'll be waiting"

--"Restless", by Switchfoot

"But I'm not sentimental

This skin and bones is a rental
And no one makes it out alive

Until I die I'll sing these songs
On the shores of Babylon
Still looking for a home
In a world where I belong

Where the weak are finally strong
Where the righteous right the wrongs
Still looking for a home
In a world where I belong
[...]
And on the final day I die
I want to hold my head up high
I want to tell You that I tried
To live it like a song

And when I reach the other side
I want to look You in the eye
And know that I've arrived
In a world where I belong

In a world where I belong
In a world where I belong
Where I belong
Where I belong

I still believe we can live forever
You and I we begin forever now
Forever now
Forever
I still believe in us together
You and I we're here together now
Together now
Forever now"

--"Where I Belong", by Switchfoot

"Till He returns or calls me home

Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand."

--"In Christ Alone", by Keith Getty

"When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul."

--"It is Well with My Soul", by Horatio Spafford

I'm sure there are more, but I'm also sure that you probably didn't even read all of those. To be honest, I realize that there is no way to adequately express what I went through, and what I am still going through. But I did notice two recurring themes in all of the above excerpts. First, the idea of where we belong. Janee is where she belongs. I am not. This is not my home. Janee is finally home. I should not lament the departure of a stranger for her true home, simply because I am not yet leaving. Second, there is the concept of life being a song. Janee lived her life like a song. To be honest, I lost the words to my song recently. But through all of this, even when I cannot feel it, I can trust God to simply take what broken life I have and make it a song for Him to sing. Indeed, that is all I can ever do.

I don't claim to be fine. I don't claim to be done processing. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that grief is not a process. It is a cycle. At some points, I find myself unable to accept what has happened. At others, I simply break. And still at others, I realize that, while I am not yet made whole, that one day I will be. Janee just had that happen a bit sooner than I did. Will I ever leave this cycle? I do not think so. I think grief is not something inspired by an event, but rather a harsh reality of a fallen world. To live in this world is to grieve. Sure, eventually the rawness of her death will fade as I grow to rely on God more and more. But I will never again walk on two legs until I reach the other side. This I know. What I am currently learning, however, is that I never have. It just wasn't until something pushed me over that I realized it.

I don't claim to be wise. I don't claim to be able to transcend my current situation and speak general truth. All I know is what I see and feel and what I know to be true. That is what I have tried to communicate. Whether or not I succeeded is for you to decide.

Stewardship

If you know me well, you know that I am a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpieces, The Lord of the Rings, and the movies directed by Peter Jackson. If you don't know me well enough to know that, I'm not entirely sure why you're reading this blog. Anyhow, one of the tensest scenes in The Return of the King is when Gandalf confronts Lord Denethor, who is the steward to the throne of Gondor; that is, he and his family are not the rightful heirs of the throne, but they are charged to watch over Gondor and the throne in the absence of the true line of kings, from Isildur son of Elendil down to the present Aragorn, son of Arathorn, the rightful heir to the throne of Gondor.

The throne room is austere. A chill emanates from Denethor as he sits brooding on his cold throne. Gandalf is trying to convince Denethor to call for help from Theoden, king of Rohan, to defend against the armies of Mordor that rise up all around Gondor. The conversation proceeds as follows:

Denethor: You think you are wise, Mithrandir [Gandalf]. Yet for all your subtleties, you have not wisdom. Do you think the eyes of the White Tower are blind? I have seen more than you know. With your left hand you would use me as a shield against Mordor, and with your right you would seek to supplant me. I know who rides with Theoden of Rohan. Oh, yes. Word has reached my ears of this Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and I tell you now, I will not bow to this Ranger from the North, last of a ragged house long bereft of lordship! 

Gandalf: Authority is not given to you to deny the return of the king, steward! 

Denethor: The rule of Gondor is mine! And no other's!

Watching this scene, it is clear that Denethor is power hungry, selfish, and delusional. He lays claim to a throne that was never meant to be his. He claims to have knowledge, wisdom, and a right to rule, when in reality he has none of these things.

I cannot help but wonder how many of our lives might look the same to an outside observer. We read in the Bible that God created the heavens and the earth, and that he entrusted the earth to mankind to care for it. So from the beginning, we were meant to be good stewards of what God has given us.

The problem arises when we start to ask, what is a good steward? Undoubtedly, Denethor thought he was being a good steward of the throne by not letting a Ranger (basically, a yeoman hunter-soldier) rule the kingdom of men. Often, we use the term "being a good steward" to tell someone to put their money in the bank, go to college, save up for retirement, and develop talents that we seem to be naturally gifted at. But is that really what good stewardship is? I recently heard a sermon by Matt Chandler, a pastor at The Village Church, on "The Parable of the Ten Minas" found in Luke 19:11-27. In this parable, a man who is king of a country gives some minas (a lot of money) to some of his servants for them to put to work while he is away. When he comes back, he rewards two of his servants that used their minas to earn more minas. But one servant had simply buried his mina until the king got back, and here is his report: "Sir, here is your mina. I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow."

So what does this mean? We are supposed to use the money God has blessed us with to make more money? No. Like all parables, this is not meant to be taken literally. Hopefully by now you are starting to see the parallel. The king was already king. His servants could not change that by how they acted, just as we cannot detract from God's glory and dominion at all by our actions. The minas are everything God has given us--our money, our time, our energy, our intellect, our strength, our talents, our relationships, our desires--and they are given to us for a spiritual profit. God gives it to us, and he rewards us for spiritual profit.

So this "wicked" servant is delusional! He thinks that the king "takes out what he did not put in and reaps what he did not sow." But the minas were never his to begin with! They always belonged to the king, and he entrusted them to the servant for a spiritual profit. And the king's reaction is even better. In the next verse, he says, "I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?" Note that there is a question mark at the end of the second sentence. He is not agreeing with the servant, he is calling him a liar! If the servant really thought that the king was harsh (hint: he isn't) and would take what isn't his (hint: he doesn't), then he would have at least tried to make sure he had something to give the king! It is akin to when people say, something to the effect of "Well, if God judges us like that, I don't want anything to do with him." Right, that'll show him. You're not going to make a point, you're just going to be judged.

The point of all of this is that everything we have is not ours. It is, and always has been, God's. He has entrusted it to us and charged us to go and use it to make a spiritual profit.

This past spring, I went through a particularly rough period of life. I began to withdraw from social interaction, and I lost almost all of my motivation to go to class, try hard in school, eat healthy, work out, and just live a decent life. I ended up being diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and I eventually went on anti-depressants, which I am still currently taking. Praise be to God that He has delivered me out of that storm, but I did not emerge as the exact same person. I learned a crucial lesson in the process.

You see, an interesting thing happened when I found myself at the very bottom of the dark pit I had fallen into. When everything had fallen apart, I had to put my life back together piece by piece. In doing so, I had the unique chance to examine each piece on its own, outside the context of what I thought had been a pretty well put-together life. Imagine, if you dare, starting over from nothing, and having to explain to yourself exactly why you spend nearly 40 hours per week sitting in a chair, either taking notes or regurgitating them in various forms. Why did any of this stuff matter anyways, I asked myself.

Fortunately, God answered this question when I could not. And his answer has already been stated in this post, which is now getting to be much longer than I originally anticipated. He told me "I gave you everything you have for a spiritual profit."

So there it was. The defining criterion. My life in its entirety is meant to bring glory to God; to know Christ and to make him known; to love God and to love others. Everything else--school, work, money, exercise, health, food--is only important insofar as it contributes to that one single purpose. In the end, my life did not end up looking that much different on the outside than when I began. But now, I recognize that the center of my life, the sole, single purpose to which everything else must relate and submit, is Christ himself, and his mission for the world.

In the popular worship song "Came to my Rescue", we sing the words "Lord all I am is Yours." I know in the past, I have taken this to mean that I am giving everything that I am to God and calling it His. But in light of all of this, I don't think that is what it means. In reality, everything I am is already God's. It was never mine to begin with. I can't even claim to be giving Him something, because I am just giving back to Him what He just gave to me to hold on to. Even then, I am giving him back a broken, shattered remnant of the good life he originally gave me. Praise be to God, then, that we read in Psalm 53 (ESV):

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.
You will not be please with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Where we start to get into trouble is when we begin to view our lives as our own. We then begin to place ourselves at the center, and assume that everything else in our lives has to submit to us, to our needs and desires. We become like Denethor and the wicked servant.

From this perspective, it is easy to see how Denethor became as callous as he was. For 1000 years, 26 generations, no King sat on the throne of Gondor, and Denethor's family had ruled as Stewards. Similarly, we sit on 2000 years since God himself walked the earth. But the length of time is not what matters. What matters is, how will you react when the King comes to claim His rightful throne?

EDIT: Here is a link to the Matt Chandler sermon I referenced:  http://www.thevillagechurch.net/sermon/good-servants-wicked-servants-and-the-enemies-of-god/

The Language of God

I have been reading through a book called The Language of God, by Francis Collins. Collins was the head of the Human Genome Project and is a very strong Christian. Many of his ideas really intrigued me.

For example, consider the following description: "the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy." This description seeks to reconcile the Big Bang theory with the creation account in Genesis. To Collins, the Big Bang "forces the conclusion that nature had a defined beginning" and thus "cries out for a divine explanation."

Romans 1:20 states, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." In every generation, mankind has seen something in nature that he simply cannot explain without looking to divine intervention. To ancient man, it was the sun rising in the sky or plants growing out of the ground. In the Renaissance, it was the mysterious force that made things fall to earth and kept the moon orbiting around the earth. In the Enlightenment, it was the origin of the earth in the cosmic perspective. What is it now? Right now, the mere fact that our universe is able to exist as it does is inexplicable. Collins writes:

Altogether, there are fifteen physical constants whose values current theory is unable to predict. They are givens: they simply have the value that they have. This list includes the speed of light, the strength of the weak and strong nuclear forces, various parameters associated with electromagnetism, and the force of gravity.

And if any of these forces changed slightly, the universe as we know it would cease to exist. If the nuclear binding force were slightly lower, no elements other than hydrogen could ever form. To me, this points to God's words to Job:

          "Who shut up the sea behind doors
          [...]
          and set its doors and bars in place,
          When I said 'This far you may come, and no farther;
          Here is where your proud waves halt'?"

God told the waters "This far you may come, and no farther." He told gravity "This hard you may pull, and no harder."

So we see that God's invisible qualities have, indeed, been clearly seen. True, mankind is constantly searching and finding answers and explanations to these mysteries, but should we expect anything less from a God of infinite depth and complexity? Have we not seen enough to know that, just when we think we have arrived at the fundamental building blocks of the universe, we discover something even smaller, more complex, and difficult to understand?

The fundamental error of science is not that it continues to search. The underlying sin of all mankind is the assumption that, because we continue to learn and discover more, we will one day have learned and discovered it all. It is the same fatal mistake that Satan made, thinking we can become like God, all-knowing, all-powerful. Instead of being filled with awe at God's creation and praising Him, we are inflated with pride at our puny understanding and seek wisdom apart from God. And until we turn away from this pride and turn back to seeking God for wisdom and understanding, we will never obtain it.

If you want a link to the book, here it is: http://www.amazon.com/The-Language-God-Scientist-Presents/dp/1416542744.

C'mon Son

At the Flinn Scholar's retreat up at Chapel Rock, I attended a poetry workshop. The professor leading us decided to focus on anaphora, and asked us to write a poem accordingly. The poems I wrote in the allotted time were not worth the ink I used on them, but immediately afterwards, I was inspired to write the following poem. The inspiration came from my experience in Santa Monica, where "C'mon son" quickly became a popular phrase amongst the project folks. I posted it with the hashtags #processingthroughpoems #cmonson #letsbereal. So here it is.

C'mon Son

C'mon son, let's be real
C'mon son, think it through
C'mon son, listen up
C'mon son, this is true

C'mon son, don't just live
C'mon son, don't just walk
C'mon son, don't just hear
C'mon son, don't just talk

C'mon son, don't be nice
C'mon son, disagree
C'mon son, dare to doubt
C'mon son, come and see

C'mon son, dare to ask
C'mon son, dare to mind
C'mon son, dare to seek
C'mon son, dare to find

C'mon son, Jesus saves
C'mon son, soon you'll see
C'mon son, hear Him say
"C'mon son, follow me"

Think it Through

Inspired by many of my experiences out sharing in Santa Monica, here is a poem I wrote. It's a little rough at parts, but I just finished the last few lines and figured I would just post it now.

Think it Through (or, Some thoughts on Life and Sharing)
Some unimportant words on the important things in life

A simple little question that so often scares away:

"Sir, would you care to take some time out of your busy day?"

And usually they walk,

But if they stay to talk,

I'll ask them my first question and see what they have to say

"This one's a little tricky" I will warn them in advance.

"Why are we here? For God? For us? Or is it purely chance?"

Their speech begins to stall

But their features say it all:

They haven't really thought about their present circumstance.

The problem isn't time, or "I have better things to do"

(They had the time to stop and talk with me about their view)

It's a pitfall in disguise,

And here's what I surmise:

The problem is they simply haven't thought to think it through.

Either God is real, and Jesus is the Truth, or else He's not.

But if He is, then Heaven is sublime, and Hell is hot.

They say the thought is nice,

And they're open to advice,

And yet they live like atheists without a second thought!

A life that's lived apart from God can never be enjoyed;

No cause, no purpose, no effect; of principle devoid.

The only road from there

Is one-way to despair;

A faithless leap from off a cliff into an empty void.

See, I remember planning out my story like an arc,

But when I reached the very end, I wrote a question mark.

Some day, we all will die;

Why do we even try?

And then I found the One who turned my life to light from dark

Whenever I begin to doubt and wonder what to do,

There comes a time when I decide to question what is true.

And answers can be found

Where grace and truth abound.

I find them every time because I choose to think it through.

God made us all in love, but then we chose to go astray;

We pushed aside his perfect plan and chose a broken way.

But God didn't leave us there

He came down, His love to share,

And nailed his own Son on the cross, our debt of sin to pay.

When I was dead and fallen, I had nothing left to do.

I had no way to save myself, this much I knew was true.

My mind could not conceive

The grace I would receive

Thank God that He's in charge, not me, and He can think it through

So now it's said, and what is said I do believe is true.

I thought it through and made my choice, so now I challenge you:

Don't take life sitting down,

Get up and look around,

And turn your doubts to questions, and then choose to think it through!

The Meadow, the Snow, and the Wooden Rock

The other day, for some inexplicable reason, I decided I should journal and write a free-verse poem. I have no idea why; I am by no means a poet, and when I do try to write poetry, I almost always prefer strict rhyme scheme and metre. Nevertheless, here it is.

The Meadow, the Snow, and the Wooden Rock

While walking through the meadow

I see the clouds ahead

White, puffy masses

Not dark, to bring rain

But they will block out the sun all the same

I stop to issue a brief prayer

Then cautiously begin again

As I walk, it starts to fall

Not in flakes, just drops of snow

The ground is speckled white,
      and soon it is covered

The trees all lose their leaves
      and stand spreading their bare branches
      like open arms,
      looking up to heaven

At first it seems surreal,

A snowy paradise,

A whitewashed escape
      from the meadow path

But as I walk further

I begin to see what I do not see:

An end.

I don't want to go back,

Though I'm not sure I could
      even if I tried

There is nothing but to trudge
      onward

As my feet grow heavier
      with each step,
      laden with snow

Gradually I being to see that,
      beneath the thick white blanket,

The meadow grass is still there.

Here a small hill,

There a dip,

There a shrub.

But in this whitewashed land
      they all appear as merely small defects in the landscape,

like pillows beneath a white comforter.

True, the plants are there,
      beneath the snow

The meadow land remains the same

But as my vision turns to white,

My memory goes blank as well;

The look of dirt,
      the feel of grass,

The slopes between the highs and lows
      all start to fade from thought,

Lost in a sea of blank unfeeling.

And soon the lumps seem to be
      no more than lumps,

Dead remains of the things beneath

Soon my confusion turns to
      anxiousness

My curiosity to hopelessness

In my despair, I remember my prayer

Issued at the threshold where
      the meadow yielded to the snow

I begin to think,

"Surely I have left the trail,

If, indeed, there ever was a trail."

Was there? Was the meadow real?

Or was that the shadow, and this the reality?

Beneath the white sky and the
      white-covered land

There are no signs, no landmarks,

Nothing to help me find my way,
      or even confirm there is a way.

Worry turns to doubt and fear,

To anger, bitterness, mistrust

There is no way out of here

So I do the only thing
      I know to do

I turn around and begin to run
      as fast as my snow-laden feet
      will carry me

Back to the meadow from whence
      I came

As I run past the monochrome landscape,

The unchanging scenery,

I begin to wonder how much further.

"Surely I did not come this far"

And surely I didn't,

But the snow remains, so I run on.

Twice, thrice, four times the distance
    I think it ought to be

But all I can see is white;

No meadow is in sight.

Here I am, my efforts spent,

My best ideas gone down the drain.

With no thoughts left,
      and my energy lost,

I fall to my knees,

My head stooped in surrender

And in this posture,

A familiar prayer returns
      to my lips

A promise echoes across the land

Not heard, but felt, as if
      the thought had been my own

But it is too foreign and
      too powerful to have originated
      from my spent and broken skull.

I raise my head,

And open my eyes,

And I find myself gazing upward

At those two wooden beams from the
      foot of that cross.

This, the first and only steadfast
      landmark I can see

Had always been fixed
      at the end of me.

As I stare at that bloody tree

I see the sky is no longer pale,
      but cloudless and blue

The sun's light shines down
      on a brand new scene

One I have never seen, but know
      all the same.

Behind that steadfast wooden rock

I see the path I am to walk

Through the grass it weaves into the trees

A great big forest, dark and deep

Lies ahead on the path for me

Yet I will walk with courage and humility,

Knowing that, should I lose my way,

There is a path, and an unfailing Guide,

A terrible tree that points the way,
A wooden rock, the light of day,

When I fall on my knees and give my life away,

At the end of myself,

The beginning of eternity.

Now that you have read the poem (and maybe even enjoyed it, though I dare not press my luck), I should probably clarify that this poem is definitely metaphorical and, for the most part, autobiographical. That's all I will say on the matter, at least for now.

My Story of Salvation

I was journaling again tonight, and I came across this question: What is your story of salvation? Here is what I wrote.

What is my story of salvation?
I grew up learning Christian  principles. I "asked Jesus into my heart" when I was about 7. It wasn't until my Junior year of high school that there seemed to be anything more than that.
That's when I sought community. I looked for accountability. I got real with God. I began studying His word in earnest.

After Cru Winter Conference in December 2012, I fasted for 24 hours for the first time in my life to pray and learn about living the spirit-filled life.

But I skipped a step. First, God had me apply to Stanford, Caltech, and the Flinn Scholarship, and get rejected by all of them. But by his grace, I was named a Flinn alternate and was ultimately named a scholar. The message to me was clear: this whole experience is nothing I earned or deserve on my own merit, but it is a gift from God, to be used for His glory.

I didn't plan it that way. If I were in charge, I wouldn't have played it that way. But thank God that He is in charge and not me, and that His plan turned out far better than anything I could imagine.

There's a lot more to this story, specifically about the last six months, but I will stop here for now and save that for another time, when the dust has had a bit more time to settle. However, I will take this opportunity to say that I was so blessed to spend three weeks in China with 21 wonderful people that I might otherwise not have known if it weren't for God's plan.

Love Your Enemy?

The other day, I was going through our Santa Monica Summer Project devotional called "Four Sevens", which goes through the Gospel of Luke. The scripture passage of the day was Luke 6:1-45. Below is an excerpt of Jesus's words:

"But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. 

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back."

Most of us have heard this before. Love your neighbor, love your enemy--wait, what? What is this? I'm supposed to just let people slap me and take my money without paying me back? How does that make sense? Can anyone actually live like this for any length of time? Surely eventually one would run out of money (or patience).

I grew up in America, where we preach the gospel of focused hard work resulting in personal reward. I'm a conservative Republican and Christian. The free market is our guiding force, and we worship at the altar of capitalism. It is so easy to slip that word--"Christian"--into our established beliefs; to add that label to a list of others we've accumulated. But the true gospel doesn't preach hard work resulting in reward. The gospel says that only by dying to ourselves can we truly live. It's not until we come to the end of ourselves that God can give us a new beginning. It's not about adding a label to our list, or reconciling the Bible with our beliefs. It's about letting the list turn to ash and letting our old beliefs die away. We trade our ephemeral happiness for eternal holiness. 

This is the Gospel.
It's not a promise of an easy life. It's a promise of an abundant life.

This isn't fair. It's forgiving.
This isn't logical. It's loving.
This isn't defensive. It's divine.
This isn't sustainable. It's sacrificial.
This isn't capitalism. It's Christianity.

How are you really doing?

"Hey, how are you doing?"
"I'm doing good, how about you?"
"Pretty good, pretty good."

I cannot count how many conversations I have had that began like this. Never mind the grammar mistake (doing well). There is something else about this that troubles me.

When learning Chinese, one of the first thing we learned was "Nihao", which is "hello" in Mandarin. Literally, it translates as "you good" (ni = you, hao = good). It is not a question, though, it is simply a statement used as a greeting. If you add the word "ma" afterwards, though, as in "Nihao ma?", then is becomes a question; essentially, "How are you doing? Are you good?" However, if you ask someone you just met this question, they will likely respond with a very confused look. In China, you don't just go around asking people how they are doing. You only ask this to someone you know very well. Even our laoshi (teacher), who was Italian but fluent in English and Mandarin, told us that when she first went to the U.S. and people asked her how she was doing, she was confused. "Why do you want to know how I'm doing?" she asked. It's a fair question.

All of this made me think about the types of conversations we have, most of which look a lot like the made up one at the beginning of this post. I realized that America is probably one of the only cultures that habitually lies in response to personal questions from almost total strangers as a form of greeting. When was the last time someone actually told you how they were doing when you asked them? When was the last time you actually wanted to know? I don't think we should all cease using this as a greeting. The fact is that it will probably become just a routine greeting, much like "you good" in Chinese, or even saying "go with God" for "goodbye" in Spanish (Dios = god, adios = goodbye). I just think it is worth being aware of how we are using phrases like this, how their meanings and connotations are changing, and where they originally came from. And every once and a while, when you're talking to a close friend, maybe ask them "Nihao ma?"--"how are you really doing?"

Flash Paddy!

Flash Paddy... it's gonna be a thing.

Jichang Village Rice Paddy
Guizhou Province, China

Step 1: Get a minimum of four people.
Step 2: Get paddy hats for everyone (see picture to left)
Step 3: Find a shallow, standing body of water. Fountains, kiddy pools, and bathrooms are good examples.
Step 4: Person 1 runs by pouring dirt evenly into the shallow body of water.
Step 5: Persons 2 and 3 run by and plant rice plants in a grid, using the correct technique (see picture to left).
Step 6: Person 4 runs by playing stereotypical Asian music out of a portable boom box.

Honestly?

"Honestly? I think the world's gonna end bloody. But does that mean we shouldn't fight? We do have choices. I choose to go down swinging"
-Dean Winchester, Supernatural

In a metaphorical sense, I agree. I don't think we should spend every waking moment trying to prolong our own lives and create a false sense of self-righteousness for all mankind. I think man is inherently sinful, and that this earth will eventually pass away. But I also think that God has set eternity on the hearts of men. I think that God actively intervenes in this world and in the lives of people. Good exists, and we can join God in his good work. If we try to save ourselves or this world, our lives and our legacies will end with the world, whether or not we choose to go down swinging. But we can also fight to give it all up to God in exchange for something greater. If we fight this fight, we don't have to go down at all.

The Wise Man's Fear

"There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in a storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man."
-Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear

I told this quote to my mother, and she responded by saying "What about a woman?" I thought about this, then later replied "That's covered under 'the sea in a storm.'"

Test Post. Please Ignore.

Test post, please ignore.