A Musing for Saturday

If one would write without a breath to speak of and ignoring the protocol that forbids what we call run-on sentences he would soon learn of sentences akin to those called Pauline and also akin to long words beginning with "super-," for there is discussion afoot about the need for clarity in writing and it helps if one is actually saying something worthwhile and there are others who rightly warn of careless speech or words that harm or simply stuff more nonsense in the soul.

So now I catch my breath and wonder what I said.

This writing journey has been good. I am beginning better to know that volume is important, as is sheer hard work. Consistency helps, and the daily blogging has been good to that end.

In the mean I have been doing a fair amount of poetry on personal matters and finding volume is good there, too. Every time I unearth a poem I gain a bit of facility. A class would be good to examine all that is involved in meter. I find I have some innate ability to feel the rhythm of a written line. If I am seeking the same meter and accents in the next line, I sort of naturally do so. So that helps, though I am seeing there is no end to developing as a poet and I am in early stages.

For now I will share this muse of free verse on my dear friend Jamey, about whom I posted Friday. I am going to keep trying my hand at this, with love for Jamey and his family. He was indeed a wonderful man.

I stand among God's choicest people,
a man who as a child was with great men
who were becoming what they were:
the great I Am within brings forth.

Jamey was one, a man among men,
and known by all as such.
He has left us, needing not to think of 

work undone or loves unloved, 

yet dreaming of the more he longed
to do, to give, to love.

We'll not continue in his way, 

for none feel we can, not being him.
But we will remember and love and give and be,
hoping to be as good.

My Friend, Jamey

My friend, Jamey, died this week, leaving a loving wife, four wonderful children, and a beloved daughter-in-law. 

I first met Jamey in his white convertible VW Rabbit, driven all the way from Oklahoma to Florida so he could attend Bible College. I was a staffer, he was a freshman. He loved me anyway and showed it with simple honesty. 

"Not sure how I'm gonna fit in with all these rules 'round here. Not sure they're all needed, to be honest," he said with a grin, followed with that signature chuckle of his that starts with several "ha's!" from the chest and becomes a hearty laugh. The laugh was his love and the word was his love and he really didn't know how to think about life without love.

This mix was a wonder, really. His appetite for life was all-consuming and yet not. He knew his energy and eagerness could be overmuch and he had to work and learn how to calm it down. But it was him so very much and no one wanted it to die. No one wanted him to die, or thought he ever would.

Love never dies and so Jamey never dies. It is an old truth and all the more real for that. Love never fails. The eager roofing he did as a young man in Oklahoma, the diligent studies in College and Seminary and beyond, the full self-giving he gave to Cara and their family, his passionate pastoring in Morgantown and elsewhere, his gifted teaching.... All of this was in love and from love and for love.

Love energized his life and came from his soul. It was born of a father and mother who loved him well and gave him to Christ. And in Christ he found all he needed to be free to give away all he was. And give away he did, blessing everyone he met.

Now he is gone from us and from his precious family. And in their lives and ours in measure, the world will know this remarkable man who thought life was for love and little more. 

I'm glad I knew him. I will never forget him. I hope to live as well as he did.

Obscurity's Falsehood: Delving into a bit of Theology for Thursday

"On the topic of obscurity and a life mostly unnoticed: most of the physical universe is almost completely obscure to us. Or for a different audience. Perhaps that is the point."

So said my beloved Uncle as he considered what I attempted in verse on the question.

And this gives cause for praise, for worship, for jubilance. Most of the life of every person is lived in relative obscurity. Most of the life of one's own mind is only partly known to him, less known to others, not at all known to most. We are obscure to our own selves.

It is curious why we want to be known, even be famous. Something about it is ingrained but I cannot trace it out to the root. We just do think - some more than others, no doubt -- that being known is good and being known on a grand scale is all the better. And because that is a fixed good, to be obscure is a fixed bad.

And yet obscurity is the lot of most persons in all of time.

This innate desire to be known is partly solved in small communities. A mother is the most important thing in the infants' world. That's fame, but the sampling size is rather small. Depth over breadth? To be sure, but most mothers still feel obscure.

But my Uncle's comment suggested something else, something like this: if we live for God in all we do we have an audience of the grandest possible scale. Nothing is obscure if done for God, for He sees all, knows the motive, loves the person for their own sake, joins in the song of glad creation that was the original genesis of every action and word.

A happy corollary is the reminder of nearly infinite bits of nature never seen by human eye. Sea-life at 20,000 feet expresses the sheer delight of their Creator and He is the only One who will ever see them. Obscure? Not at all. God Almighty delights in them.

Everyone throughout time, with extremely rare exceptions, has toiled in obscurity, their work unnoticed by all except those closest. Even if their work benefited a great many people, most never knew nor cared.

But my Uncle's point is that nothing is obscure because everything is seen by God and He is the greatest possible audience. We could put it this way, echoing Jesus. 

    You have two options:

• Live for this world and you get this world's reward. You will be scarcely known, all your work will be done for the here and now, and you will die.
• Live for God and you will get His reward. He will know you, all you do will be done for Him, and you will live for all eternity.

I think this is the key problem with what we call "worldliness." It is a basic orientation to this present world as our comprehensive value system. And when oriented solely to this world we get only what this world can offer. But when we invest our life with God and for His pleasure, we get all that He is. A dying world vs. an eternal God: the contrast presents a simple choice.

God offers more. I pray for the grace to walk His way and someday enter His eternal Rest.

What Makes Words Matter? [100WW]

This should be one hundred words worth reading, not just writer's diversion. Words should both stir and evoke thought. We prefer stir over thought and call it escape, like a thriller. There is thrill in thought, too, and good writers draw it out. The best writers do this with native skill but surely it's also learned. Wendell Berry's essays thrill with excellence. A book of concepts conveyed by a master, like Polanyi's Personal Knowledge, brings thrill along the spectrum: precision, deep understanding, accessibility, meaning. A novel like Brothers Karamazov mixes thrill with thinking such that you get both or nothing.

"Don't refer to yourself!" The Psalmist ignored the memo. Should we? [10"Tu]

I have loved inductive Bible study since it was ingrained in me via so many assignments in Seminary. And then I had the privilege of trying to teach it. It starts – and ends, one could say – with observation. As Dr. Oswalt used to say, "You can't really know what is there until you know what is there." Huh?! It is true. We readily jump to conclusions without due observation, which I am likely going to do in a moment.

I only have 10 minutes – less now. But I want to look at my Psalm for today, 116. What rises to the surface?

• Lots of first person. About 35 1^st person pronouns (2-3 are understood). This is over 10 percent of the words. So much for avoiding reference to oneself!

Well, time's a wasting as it often was as I punched out assignments before class. So I will take this one observation of continuing use of 1^st person.

• It is repeated. 

• It is pointed toward God: “Truly I am Thy servant.”

• It plainly reveals the self: “I said in my haste.”

• It makes promises: “I will pay my vows.”

The person is involved in relationship. I think we knew this. There is an “I”, a “me.” When we approach God it is ok to be personal. Very personal.

Perhaps keep it to oneself? David didn't. I'm gonna try to follow his example.

Thy Will be Done

To write an essay is to push a rope. To bring someone else along on the ride is another tier entire. But the pushing the rope can be easy enough. You say something – anything – and you see what else comes to mind.

Musing on such a matter brings to mind the question of ideas, specifically, “Where do they come from?” Or perhaps proper grammar will better serve the query: “From whence do ideas come?”

One of my best friends once challenged me with a similar question about desire. “Where do we get our desires?” he asked. I did not know how to answer. He suggested if God is Sovereign then all our desires come from God. He directs every detail of our lives and does so, in part, by moving us into His will by way of our desires. I did not, nor do I now, have a very good answer, for this is in the very heart of free will vs. Sovereignty.

Perhaps an example will help – help me at least. Of a sudden I am tired of writing. Why don't I quit? Because I would like to finish though no one says I must. Why do I want to quit? Because I lack inspiration, because I am writing with little point, because I feel weary and there are easier things that beckon. Our motivations are all over the map but they are usually self-serving. Does God really cause all we do down to the very nitty gritty?​ I have never thought so because I imagined I had free will, that I could choose to disobey or obey and such choosing gave my actions true agency and thus true accountability.

So surely this same applies to ideas, for they are very close to desires, free will, and the will of God. As is my wont I will side-step this a bit and go to a truth I have found helpful. I have learned to pray “Thy will be done” and to believe He is working it out in spite of me and, yes, sometimes by way of me. This answers the problem in measure because I am asking for God's will, I am leaning on Him, and I believe He in turn is giving me the ideas and desires that will accomplish His will. And His will is always good. Nothing better!

This keeps personal agency and real personal choice intact while bringing the 'agency' of God into the picture in a real, tangible, relational way. He doesn't force but he persuades and uses a compendium of circumstances at His disposal to bring about the Good.

As Solzhenitsyn said, “He will see that all the ways of Goodness are not stopped.”

Where do ideas and desires come from? From within, from our innate self-serving bent, from our training, from a variety of motivations we can scarcely anticipate, understand, or control. And from God.

But especially from God when we pray as Jesus taught us: “May Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I'm learning to pray this all the time, and I commend it to you as well.

Neither politics, nor religion...

"Neither politics, nor religion," goes the line,

should you discuss else decorum and some such

you violate and good sense you afront.

"What else would one talk about?" one mutters, glancing

to be sure none within hearing take offense

nor none could possibly think it too blunt.

"Politics is poor man's church," someone fairly said,

knowing not nor caring what offense some take

when to one gender one refers for ease.

"Poverty of soul is what we mean," then we say,

and steal for solace to our well-worn comfort

where self is all that matters, if you please.