Old Man

I renewed my driver's license today (42 days overdue). I looked at the pic from 2000, and compared to the new ID ... apparently I am aging along with the rest of the sea of humanity. 39 is not exactly ready for the folks home, but it ain't no high-school deal either. I get sore more often. I wake up with aches and ailments. I am slowly dying. This is easy to deny when you are young and virile ... I don't mean to wax melodramatic ... but I see the giant coming over the hill.

I am looking forward to being a dirty old man. Since I am an upright dirty middle-aged man, I doubt that I will change that much.

There's the thing. Change. I hate it and I love it. It scares me. I see my philosophy of life and my core assumptions shifting and changing far more frequently than I would have expected for a guy approaching 40. That's for college students, eh? Apparently not. What a wild ride this is.

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?"

The Christian faith at it’s core offers the most ridiculous propositions: the Creator of the universe, being both separate from it and actively sustaining everything within it each moment, has somehow become a creature, and offers to live within each person who receives him. This is all logical impossibility. If this first and central idea (Trinity) is paradox … if the ball gets rolling on the acceptance of “truths” that betray my very understanding of what can be true, then it seems probable that this would lurk elsewhere. If I decide to pitch camp in this faith, I need to stop insisting that things always make sense.

The irony is, the older I get, the more things seem to make sense. The problem of evil is a necessary result of freewill. Legitimate tensions of ideology: liberal/conservative, Catholic/Protestant, rational/intuitive, change/permanence, etc. seem to serve as discouragement to make an idol of my own convictions.

My own inclination to regard the world with a fundamentalist mindset is a good example of this temptation toward idolatry. I use that term to describe my strong impulse to draw black-and-white conclusions about things. The difficult and fearful concerns of the world need to be placed in tight, convenient containers that allow me to secure explanation and then move about my business with smug confidence.

I am not master. I have not called everything into existence. I find purpose and freedom in submission and dependence.

A Nation Divided

"America has two great dominant strands of political thought ... conservatism, which at its very best draws lines that should not be crossed, and progressivism, which at its very best breaks down barriers that are no longer needed or should never have been erected in the first place."

-- President Clinton at the Dedication of the Clinton Presidential Center 11/18/04

self forgetfulness

It's like in the movies: the projector shouldn't be seen as part of the screen. If it is -- if a part of it is hanging loose, say, and blocking part of the lens -- then the picture is messed up. You see, the projector isn't designed to project itself, but to project the movie. We're like that projector. We were designed by God to know and love and praise and enjoy him and his other children and his world. Instead, we keep getting in our own way. Selfishness and self-regard are like pieces of self, pieces of the projector hanging down and blocking the light. They get in the way of what we're designed to do. In self-forgetfulness ... we approach our original design, at least a little closer, for a little while.

-- Peter Kreeft, Prayer: The Great Conversation

Kerry Consolation

Potato Hugger

It happened this summer at least three or four times. I'm cruising along a quiet road by myself early on a Saturday morning, drinking in the air and sun. They are usually perched in a low bush -- maybe 5 or 6. Male goldfinches. I roll by their hangout, and they must recognize me. Except for the bike, and a helmet that would make a bald head sunburn like Darth Maul, I look just like them. I have on all black, and a bright yellow "breast" (easy now).

So these little guys all jump out of the bush and fly alongside me for (I'm not making this up) at least 200 yards. They bob up and down like poppers on big waves, but they stay with me. I have convinced myself that these birds, being pretty and everything, get harassed by larger, uglier male birds. They hit jackpot when they see a 165lb goldfinch. "Steve! Did you see the size of that guy? He'd make a crow crap the nest! See if he wants to hang out." Then they figure it out, and shoot off to the right.

Every time I go riding, something unusual happens. When something unusual doesn't happen, it seems weird. Most often it's just the person I meet mid-way through the ride. Cyclists as a group are friendly, talkative, and interesting. That, of course is true of almost everyone (if you ask them questions), but the bike-comrade factor is powerful. We have a common enemy: rednecks in pickups who hug curbs and yell profanity.

Today I rode past a huge potato relaxing in the middle of the road. He wasn't sunning -- there was too much shade. I really don't know what got in to me, but I stopped and relocated the spud to the side so it wouldn't get plastered. Why the hell did I do that? I felt embarrassed as soon as I got back on. The thing is a root. Was I actually trying to save a root? I suppose that's better than aiming for the squirrels that jump out in the road. I do that sometimes too. Go figure.

Chutzpah

“… you rebuke offenders little by little, warn them, and remind them of the sins they are committing, that they may abandon their wickedness and believe in you …” Wisdom 12:2 (yes, that’s from a “deuterocannonical” book not found in your average Protestant Bible)

Word. This has been the picture for me lately, and it’s undeniably divine mercy that I don’t see the whole state of affairs all at once. These small steps are all I can normally handle. The frustrating thing is that I can now see more clearly the damage that I have done (and that still to play out), and wish that I knew earlier. I suppose I just wasn’t ready. Cripes ... what else is out there?

I have been protecting myself. I want approval, and I don’t want conflict, so I have not been honest with people, even those I care about. I know I don’t need to sling around “truth” like a RPG launcher, but I hold back to keep safe even when I know that the other really needs it. This week I have had the opportunity to cross my threshold of fear and try out the dangerous truth. What a relief for everybody involved.

Habits

Jon replied to the 10/29 entry: "Sometimes repetitive sin that you openly are aware of creates guilt and an undeserving feeling." This was such a good reflection; I figured I'd add a new entry as a reply.

I think the danger of habitual sin is not that God is watching to see when we will finally cross the line ... so he can squash us like bugs or exclude us from His presence against our will. The danger is that if we keep asking, just like the persistent widow, to repeat a theme: he gives us what we want.

Over time as we entertain habitual sin, we gradually loose the desire to fight it. If you are alive reading this, chances are, you know precisely what I mean. We become contented with our patterns of sin, and potentially, in the end, we prefer it (self) to God.

It may seem like a stretch, but I believe that in every case, sin is the search for some good, just using a wrong method or under the wrong circumstances. The adulterer is trying to obtain intimacy: significant connection with another. This desire in itself is very good -- we were designed for it. Even self-destructive behavior is often linked to God-given desires planted deep in us.

The deception is to think that either our internal desires, warped and corrupt as they may be, are the issue, or that our behavior is the issue. Rather, it boils down to selfishness – often choosing a very good thing instead of the best thing. Preferring creature to creator. That’s quite a mental shift. I suppose that’s why “conversion” is an apt phrase. We don’t just work on being good, and little by little score an A+. We are offered the change that radically transforms us from slavery to self, to being enabled by God to give ourselves away (even if there are frequent lapses into old habits).

But for most of us, those habits are just too comfortable, and change is just too scary. We don’t need to be good boys and girls. We need to get rid of our cowardice. Or, at least act like we are brave. Leaping is more courageous than having no fear of the drop.