Knowing

I read incessantly. I have for years. All kinds of books. I'm partial to the classics though. My wife and I even read together...outloud to each other. It's a great way to share something together. As we've entered October my thoughts have turned to fall...the cooling, the spookiness. I love it, even if it is still hot as blazes here in Florida. Anyway, I took the opportunity to finally tackle a book I had wanted to read for some time simply because it is so famous. It's one of those reference type books that you need to read becasue so many other things play off of it. The book is Dracula.

I had avoided it thus far because I do not like horror at all. I tend to internalize things far too much and a twisted movie or book will haunt me for weeks, years even. But I figured I'd just quit reading it the moment I got creeped. But surprisingly, I am enjoying it tremendously! I haven't found it scary at all! Dark, yes. Gothic, yes. Spooky, a bit. But not scary at all. I'm not done yet though, so stay tuned on that.

I only mention it because I have actually found parts of it so relavent to my own life. Maybe that's why I'm not creeped. I kind of live in a world like that...Obviously I don't know any people who change into bats or anything, but the air of mystery and a world where there are beings and forces at work that the regular world is oblivious to...that is very much my world.

I was struck by a couple of themes in the book. First is the idea that if your mind and senses are in doubt, nothing can be certain. Many of the characters face this when they experience things that should not be. Van Helsing, whom I dearly love as a character, points this out at one point. Sometimes all we need is confirmation that we are not nuts...then no matter how fantastic, we can deal.

Secondly is the idea of little truths and big. When attempting to explain his theory to Dr. Seward, Van Helsing starts by telling him all kinds of stories that seem fantastic, but are true. Seward is lost and finally gets Van Helsing to tell him the point...That when we learn something is true, we have a tendency to use it to exclude many other larger truths of which it is a part. When it would be far better to cling to the small truth, understanding that it could be a strand in a much larger tapestry that we do not yet understand. It's a matter of open-mindedness.

Lately, I have been experiencing some things, learning some things, that came to a point this week. Where previously I would have rejected them, I recently had confirmation much like I speak of above, so I knew I wasn't nuts and that gave me the freedom to open myself to possibilities that could expound from some of the little truths I understood. The result was amazing and produced further confirmations that I am not nuts, and therefore more openness to larger things!

If you've never been in doubt of your senses, you can't possibly understand what I mean. But once you find yourself in the paradox: being certain of something you experienced, that logic and common sense tell you couldn't be, the world is no longer solid. Everything we know is mitigated through our mind and senses. If either of these cheat, we are lost. How could we know anything? It is not a pretty place to be, trust me. Just think it through and imagine. Did you do what you thought you did? Are all the people you meet really there and did they say the things you remember being said? The world becomes an illusion and one is constantly afraid of falling through it. I guarantee if you put yourself through this thought experiment, you will come away with a much softer heart toward those who have serious mental illness.

But if in that storm of illusion, someone bearing authority steps in and says, your senses are fine, your mind is sound. Now you find yourself in a whole new world, a bigger world. One that you now realize you understand very little of, but as long as it's real, all is well! And if that one thing turned out to be real, what else that I may have discounted, what more that I haven't experienced could be! Even if you haven't ever doubted your mind or senses, you could still grasp this second part. We've all learned things at some point in our lives that we were totally surprised to find were real. But once we accept that truth, we must also allow that there could be other truths we didn't know. Of course ultimately truth must by definition be one unified thing, but I'm talking in the realm of our own experience and not in theory here, so in our finite experience there will always appear to be many truths that agree and disagree to varying levels.

Now I have intentionally avoided describing my own recent experiences that have been so well echoed in the book. And that is for good cause. If I were to describe them, you would undoubtedly evaluate and classify them into nice neat boxes in your own mind. And that would color your opinion of me and everything else I write...not based on reality, but on your own third hand interpretation of it. Good or bad, it would be incorrect. Further, since great truths are usually unflinchingly simple, the power of the moment often falls flat in the retelling and people miss it entirely anyway. So, the metaphor of the book and the round-about description will have to do...at least until we are face to face in a quiet discussion somewhere.

Frustration

Ever have one of those weeks? You know, the kind where nothing really major happens but everything seems to get in the way of everything else. All week I've felt like I was spinning my wheels at full speed and only inching along in the slick while throwing up a huge mess all around. I honestly don't know what to do about it.

I imagine it has a lot to do with recent developments. Rest assured, spiritual warfare is very real, though not at all like what most people might think. And when we make headway in areas that could take new territory in our own souls or in the world, we become the target of increased attacks. Not that these attacks can amount to much for those who know their place, but they can be very annoying, or should I say, frustrating. Afterall, that is their purpose. To frustrate. And by frustrating, keep us on edge and preoccupied so that we can't focus on the more important things.

Worst of all is when the attacks come through or toward those we are close to. I often find that the easiest road onto my nerves is through my family. And when I feel like the most at peace you can count on the fact that very shortly, my family will start doing all the things that grate on me.

We all have those things and we overlook or see past in others because of our love for them. But once in a while, the things seem to prick beyond toleration. That has been my day. Edgy, irritated... following a week of endless irritations. No more. I don't want to play anymore.

I will recenter myself by stopping everything for a little while. I will be still and know who is God. And I will float these irritations up to Him. Then I will re-enter my life focused. I will keep that focus by 'doing one thing'. And I will make everything a prayer. When those irritations come I will see them for what they are and will not play.

Evil is not a thing, but the negation of a thing. What is as it was created to be, is good. What isn't becomes evil proportionate to the degree that it is not what it was created to be. It is a lie. It has no substance and therefore no power other than what I give to it. Fighting it gives it power because only something of substance can be fought. The only way to win is to see the truth, that evil is nothing, and the battle is over.

I think of the classic film Labyrinth. The Goblin King had no power other than what she gave him, and upon realizing this truth, the battle was over. Similarly, the dark eldilla surrounded Ransom's house to frustrate and irritate, but had no power if ignored. Neo had only to realize that the matrix did not exist. But I am weak and easily distracted. So I will focus only on my God and will rest under the shelter of His wing.

Metanoia: Simple

Metanoia is the Greek term that is often translated as repentance. It means to change one's mind. In behavior science, metanoia is the crux of change. Especially in deep personal change, metanoia occurs at the bottom of a long decline, after which a personal reformation begins the climb back up based on the new psychological foundation.

I recently had a metanoia experience. I had felt it coming as I slid down, down, down in the confusion over suffering and faith. I think it has a more personal meaning for me than my posts may have reflected because, simply, I suffer. I don't pretend to be special at all in this. It's just that I am the person I know best and it is therefore keenest to me. I am no stranger to sufferings that cannot be released with any amount of prayer or behavior change or what have you. I don't go into the details here because it is very personal, but I'm sure many who read this can relate in your own way even without the details.

I couldn't get past how the medeival mystics talk SO much about suffering as a virtue that many of them inflicted things on themselves! I don't want these sufferings, but since I can't be rid of them, there must be some good in them...am I supposed to relish them like these writers did? I can't!

But then modern people, good, respected modern people, say that God doesn't work like that. He desires healing and peace. This is true too! So I'm missing something! This was driving me crazy and I was so bound in it that I became aware of it and started consciously trying to come up the slick wet slope...hence the joy post.

Then today, I crossed the watershed...or rather God opened the solution for me: Simple.

Oneness. The worlds build so much on top of what is real and important, even the Christian worlds, that sometimes I get lost in it. The simple truth is Jesus. I don't even remember how I came to it, but I found an anonymous article today that reminded me of it. Jesus is our model. More than that, the firstfruits. He is what we are becoming. He didn't strive. He didn't complicate. He simply loved. ALL other additions to this are artifice...artificial...built on top of the truth. I recognize that like most personal revelations, this falls far too flat in writing. The simplicity confounds.

My intellect is a gossamer sham. Our systems, medeival or modern are too. Jesus said that to be saved we must simply come. I have come. Grace abounds. I understand it more now. Pieces of the clockwork puzzle of my life have again fallen into place and the gears have rotated one more tic. In my mind, I can jostle this simple truth and see just how many silver strands of reality vibrate throughout the whole ecology of the universe. It is a nexxus moment. A metanoia.

Joy

Looking back over the past few posts, I have realized they are quite heavy. I tend to be a bit dark by nature, so that is not strange for me. I can accept that about myself, but I also recognize that where some people may be in need of some gravity, I must consciously find levity.

I have been told that my personality in writing is vastly different than my attitude in person. This is not strange among writers either. Writing is a way to tap into and express things that can't be expressed well in other means. I am actually more suspicious of 'posery' (to coin a term) when someone is one way through and through. We are full of so many attitudes and emotions, to be totally dominated by one thing does not seem natural.

So, this post is an attempt to think gravely about light things...there's a Navajo concept!

There are many kinds of simple graces, or blessings in life. Sometimes we are so caught up in them that we do not realize them. We can all think of those Hallmark moments and they have their place...but I won't delve into that sap. Rather, have you ever felt an inexplicable joy rise up inside you? Sometimes it is triggered by an event, but not the ordinary happiness from circumstance. I mean the real, crazy, deep bubbling over type of joy that can't be contained! It is simple in that there are no parts or angles. It is simply joy. This is what our poor worship leaders strive for in their various styles every Sunday, but very often have to fake because it just can't be achieved on cue.

Of course there is the very mystical kind of joy that comes at seemingly random moments. But there is also a joy very nearly like it that comes when we are operating in our place...filling that spot for which we were made. This doesn't have to do with a vocation necessarily, but can come with an activity. This joy feels like God smiling and cheering on us to go and do, like He is there doing it with us and we are experiencing the full exhilaration of God in that moment.

The truth is, He is there with us and we are feeling His exhilaration. Our infinite God has made us all to express a unique portion of Himself. In that way He loves us all uniquely and completely. When we do what it is that we are made for, we can't help but be caught up in that cosmic elation for the thing.

I know that I feel this kind of joy in several places. One is wilderness. When out beyond human things and hanging on my wits and God's grace...at times literally...I feel alive and full, and God is palpably present with me. When swimming, I also feel this. As the water slides by and wraps around me gliding through my skin and hair, I am at one with the water and God is closer to me than the liquid that surrounds me. And when dancing to the raucous joyful music that I love so much, not in a polite behaved way, but in the full-out violent way of King David himself, I am also whole.

Sadly, knowing these instances so well, I find every obstacle in this world climbing up between me and them. Gee, I wonder why that is? It's almost like someone doesn't want me to experience them...hmmm.

What's your joy? Do you do it often? Don't lose it.

Death

The last couple of posts have led this way and I have been reluctant to tackle it. All the more reason to do so, I suppose. It's not that I am uncomfortable with death; exactly the opposite. But it seems to me the greater portion of people I meet are very uncomfortable with it and that is the issue. How can you talk about something that freaks everyone out?

I'm not talking about one of those melodramatic goth type discussions...I'm talking about real and valid consideration. This is something everyone should consider. Afterall, we will all die! That is as certain as anything can be in this world. I suppose we could argue the finer semantic points on that too, but as I always say, feel free to comment to that effect and we can do it.

I suppose the uncomfortability with death comes at the root from fear. This is of course built upon by the culturally expected reactions to death and exacerbated by certain groups' over-stressing of physical life.

Regardless of what you believe about death, some things are indisputable. We will all die (leave this world). Everyone before us has. We are never safe from it, no matter how we manage risk. Others will be left alive after any death. Given at least these things, we ought to all make a much better effort to come to terms with it. Yet most of us spend the bulk of our lives ignoring it until it thrusts itself into our lives like an unwelcome and ugly spector. But it is no spector. Death has been our constant companion since the day of our conception. And you can't get much more real than the finality of death. Nothing spectral about that at all.

Certainly, your worldview will highly influence your view of death. Since I am a Christian and this is a blog from my perspective, I will address it in that way. But even if your faith is different, I bet you'll find these same currents of thought in your own tradition.

I have been accused of being callous and repressed, but I rarely cry at funerals. In fact I very much hate them simply because I can't react to them the way most people do. No Christian ought to be surprised by death, nor even concerned by it. I'm not saying we shouldn't grieve. That is a necessary and natural human reaction to loss of someone close. But we ought not to grieve as if there were no hope. We have given ourselves over to God's will. We have relinquished control of our own souls because we believe them to be the rightful property of God in the first place. We trust that He is good. If we truly believe that, how can we not hold that in our view of death? Even in the death of one we know rejected God, do we then think our God, who is Love, lacks any love for that person? No! That is why to my thinking a funeral ought not to be a time to make up half-truths about someone, but a time to celebrate who they are and to pray for their soul and for God's mercy. For all our theologies in various traditions, we don't know jack about how God handles a soul after death! And are we to think that the soul no longer knows anything of this world? Why wouldn't they? In fact we may not be as far apart as we think! Think Obiwan, Luke!

I recently heard a friend who lost her mother very recently saying that she missed her mother terribly and that she was certain her mother couldn't see her because if she did she would see her sadness and that would make her mother cry, which couldn't be in heaven. But how innaccurate! First of all, that was Clapton, not the Bible. The Bible says that God will wipe away our tears. There are tears of joy as well as tears of sadness. To this person, I wanted to say that her mother knows so much more about her life now that she is in the presence of God. She knows much more fully the joy behind life...the divinity in it. So if she sees her daughters tears, it doesn't mean she would also be sad! (Plus, if you really get into it, her mother has stepped out of time, so for all we know she and her mother will effectively arrive in the afterlife at the same moment!)

I also think that part of our Christian fear of death stems from an overimportance given to physical life. If you haven't already, look over my previous posts on suffering. Or just look at the world news! People are dying all the time. The good and the bad. The deserving and the undeserving, the young and old. It is clear that God obviously does not hold the same inviolable view of physical life that we do! How could He? He IS life. He gives us our span on the Earth, and He knows what is beyond that. Can we honestly, in our temporally disabled minds, possibly presume to think that death is the end of life? The line is not so solid! Rather, as my teacher Jack says, those who choose Heaven will likely find that this life is merely one of the lower lands of that High Country. But those who reject Heaven will find Earth to be just a region of Hell.

Death should not be feared. We can't escape it anyway. And Christians especially should celebrate this crossing of the Jordan, this coming home. We believe that we are moving into the unmitigated presence of the source and author of all goodness and life and can do so boldly by the blood of Christ! Truly, we have been there far before our physical death, though our senses were too dull to perceive it. Think on this and tell me if you can't at least acknowledge that one who really ...I mean really believes this like we know we can't breathe water, can fear death! Quite the opposite; the danger would be wanting it too greatly!

A Painful Corollary

After posting last night, I continued thinking about the problem when my teacher Jack reminded me that he had written a fabulous book on the subject. Not having a copy on hand, I went to the trusty internet and found exactly what I needed. As usual, my thoughts on the subject were highly influenced by Jack's book, even though I didn't realize it at the time. Refreshing my memory also helped refresh my certainty of his answers.

Since I can't possibly recount them as well as he does, I highly recommend that anyone reading this and interested check out his book on the subject, The Problem of Pain.

These things though, I would add to my previous thoughts on the subject. Going through suffering, or pain, is not at all the same as writing about it. While the two influence each other, I would in no way presume that suffering people need only to reason their way through it.

That said, the solution lies in our definition of goodness. I approached this and couldn't articulate it in the last post. As Jack says, it is not a difference like black from white, but like a perfect circle from a child's first attempt at drawing a circle. The one of course perfect, and the other approximating it, but very irregularly. While we think of goodness as mostly kindness, true goodness is composed of all the virtues and seeks to perfect the object of its love, where kindness would simply seek to spare the object of its affection any pain.

With that in mind, we can see how pain can serve a refining purpose. It teaches us that things will happen to us without our consent. It cannot be ignored. It shows us our weakness and need for rescue. It forces a rebel to submit. Thus pain can be viewed as a good thing. The result of force applied justly and beneficently to perfect what is imperfect by its own perversion.

Again, I don't think this fully explains all forms of suffering. In particular the more brutal and horrific kinds. But if we can accept that self must be abdicated (this is the perfecting I mention) and suffering is the tool to effect it, this may take us far enough down the road to trust that it will take us home even if we can't yet see the end of it.

Thanks to Jack, as always, my ready teacher. Your clarity is a gift from God. As my friend Brother Lawrence says, we ought not to be surprised at the badness in such a wicked world, but rather surprised that there is not more of it. This is echoed by one of the most thoughful modern bands I have heard. Flyleaf says, don't be surprised that people die, be surprised you're still alive.