Making Maps

Soccer is war; the field is Normandy, fresh for the storming.  I was a soldier there, storming the ramparts and bringing victory to the allies.  As a twelve year old, I had seen my share of combat; every other Saturday new villains appeared and the fighting began all over again.  Further, I had done drills to sharpen my skill in our weapons of choice; a foot and a ball.  Things were riding on our battles.  Heavy things.  Important things.

Pictured above: Jimmy;
Age 11; Midfielder.

That's what we believed anyway.  Soccer is something we, as twelve year olds, needed to understand.  Battle was how we were told to understand it.  Combat.  Serious stuff.  

Stuff is serious in battle because there are grave repercussions for losing.  In a war, everything is on the line because we understand war as a fight for your life.  When soccer is a war; soccer is a fight for your life, which makes things difficult when soccer isn't your life.  So, seeing as how I made a pretty terrible soldier, I quit.

If you need to get somewhere, you look at a map because you trust that piece of paper you're holding to be a pretty accurate representation of that somewhere you're going.  But anyone who used Mapquest before five years ago can tell you that not all maps are created equally.  Some maps are more accurate than others...for some people.

Poems are famous for using maps and getting the girl.  I speak for all men when I tell you that we sometimes have trouble expressing our feelings.  So we use a map to get the girl.  

"I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea, 

And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships; 

But the loveliest things of beauty God ever has showed to me 

Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips."

The best maps we use are the maps that best explain the world.  Some people think soccer is best explained as a war and some people think the girl they're smitten with is the loveliest thing God has shown them.  Even if you disagree, the world is a complex place.  What kind of meaning will you make?

Professionally Speaking

I like to dance but I am strictly recreational.  However, I do consider myself to be professionally recreational, which just means I have confidence in my inability to do the true art form of dance any justice.  It was only just a while ago that I decided to go professionally recreational.  But the important thing was that it was a choice.

One of my only moves:
"the elbow drop."

A professional is someone who does something for gain and when I dance I gain something.  In the past, I always wanted to sustain when I danced.  I wanted to sustain my image, my pride, my dignity.  But to be a professional, you have to give something up.  In order for life to come, it must first be given up.  That's a hard teaching but anything worthy is hard.

Only a professional dancer can profess dance because that person is giving something up to gain.  The difference between a professional and an amateur is that a professional makes his trades his life for his work while an amateur works his life for a trade.  Professionals are different because they chose to go on when what they do doesn't make sense anymore.

If you're ready to gain life then you're ready to give it up.  If you profess something, what is it that you're giving up to get it?  

Irrationally Rational

It would be nice if everyone simply acted solely on rationality, but people can't really be rational when they're angry enough to kill.

I don't see that as a problem though.  There are those that say rationality is the ideal; if we could all be perfectly rational, we'd all be fine.  That might be true, but we'd also be terribly boring.  We act in ways that don't always make sense, and sometimes we even know that we're not making sense, and that's ok.

The deepest and most life giving parts of your story are deep and life giving because of something that you felt in that moment.  The worst and lowest points in your story are the worst and the lowest because you felt worse than low.  There was more than emotion in that moment, but to put yourself back in that time; to flip the page back and scan across those words of joy or words of pain, you have to immerse yourself in that joy and in that pain all over again.

This remembering is an emotionally hard thing to do.  Hard things are the most worthy things though.  In relationships they move us the farthest. This is true for God too.

In the one hundred and sixth Psalm, the author recounts how God heard the cries of those He loved.  This caused God to remember the agreement He had made with them, and instead of destroying His people, God shows mercy.  God is moved.  Man moves with Him. 

Humanity can get very frustrated with the fact that we are made in the image of an irrationally rational God.  It's that very frustration that proves our emotional nature.  We're predictable sometimes, but our deepest places aren't places of calculated thought.  No, we are beautifully flim flammy.  Our deepest places are merely tear ducts full of salty joy and pain.         

You Are Not Enough

Someone who has 14 or so speeding tickets is cool.  That person is a rebel; someone who seems to be deliciously aloof; all on purpose.  A true civil renegade who spurns the law because of some higher knowledge and authority.  This person is the archetype aimless drifter who throws off the restraints of society and makes his own path.

I've now received 4 speeding tickets which is just a stupid number of speeding tickets to have.  It means that I'm too fast to be lawful and too slow to bash on the establishment.  I'm stuck in the speeding ticket middle; a place where it just seems like I can't commit to being on the side of good or evil.  Soon the police will call me up and ask me if they can really count on me to uphold the precious pillars of social normalcy or if they should just issue a warrant now.

When you're in the middle of the maverick and the mediocre, you're nobody.  Having 4 speeding tickets is the worst when you live in a world that's stuck at the ends of the spectrum.  You're either all in or all out.  You should know that you're now on the scale.

On the scale it's better to be a quitter than a trier and a failer.  It's best to be a succeeder but if you can't then definitely be a quitter.  Being a quitter is not so bad because you can survive on being a succeeder on a scale of your own design.  But not if you have 4 speeding tickets.  You're sunk if you've got 4 because it's too many to be too few and too few to be too many.

If you're a 4 speeding ticket person then you'll always be just on the cusp of enough.  You'll run run run run run and it will not be enough because you'll never be close enough to 14 tickets to have what it takes.  You'll have to be a quitter if you ever want to be a succeeder.  But having your own scale just makes you a quitter who's a succeeder at being a liar.

No one wants to be a liar and no one can really be a succeeder.  So we run run run run run and realize that we are running in a straight line on top of a sphere.  We're walking a tightrope that is lying on the ground.  We're believing in a south that exists as only one small direction of a compass rose.

There's only one thing to do.  Step off the scale even though you can't see anything else.  Fall off the edge of the tightrope even though there appears to be no ground.  Do it because you'll never reach the end of your run.  Do it because you're not enough to be something and too much to be nothing.

The Weight of Substance

When we say that something has no substance, we are saying that it isn't worth anything real.  It has no weight or meaning.  Substance means you can hold it in your hand; you can have it and it's yours; it's something that lasts.  Something that has no substance cannot be redeemed because it's only purpose is to be stripped away.

Athanasius, one of the early Church fathers, wrote that mankind is constantly worshipping the "pleasures of the moment," which are merely an illusion.  An illusion is something that one believes to be real yet is not.  There are plenty of times in my life when I chase something down, only to find that it had no substance at all; that it was merely an illusion.

I've found that it's easy to believe in the substance of illusions.  Believing in something that isn't there is easy because things without substance aren't heavy.  Sometimes, even when I know the illusion isn't real, it's easier to just go on believing it.  But when that illusion is stripped away, you're left with nothing.

What if instead we chose to chase down weighty things?  What if we believed in difficulty and opposition?  Lifting weights only works because you're lifting weight.  Tricking yourself into getting in shape has never worked for anyone.  When you're holding something of substance, you can have it and it's yours.  Maybe it's not yet completed; maybe it's not even good yet, but at least it's real.

Illusions don't make you, weight does.      

A Word on Hope

You are in the middle now.  You are where the conflict is.  This is not an easy time; it's a time that is designed to rip away what you do not need.  But remember that conflict is written into a story in order that resolution would come.  This is hope.

Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthian church that our earthly house is being destroyed and a new house is being made for us in the heavens.  We are constantly being given over to death so that life can be seen in the stories we live out.  The more we are crushed, the more provision from God we receive.  Christians are most faithful in death because it pushes us toward the reality of what we hope for.

This is why Jesus told His followers to pray for the ones who crush, and love those who destroy.  In their attempts to harm, they only end up bringing more life.  Jesus proved this in the most literal way possible.

If you are in the middle, know that it is designed to bring you closer to where God is.  You will find that clinging to what God is taking away only brings more pain.  Hope suggests that running forward despite the blindness of unknowing will lead you to the home God has had for you all along.

(2nd Corinthians 4:7 - 5:10)

A Matter of Life and Death

Imagine for a moment a duck.  Continue imagining the duck.  Now, stop imagining the duck.  Is it gone?  Good.  This is not a story.

Imagine a new duck, and for the sake of clarity, let's call him Ferdinand.

Imagine that he looks kind of
like this, only bigger.  And more real.

Once, Ferdinand was by a pond.  After seeing some of his duck brethren fly by, he decides to join them.  They fly to a lake and Ferdinand finds a new place to hang out.  This is a story.

A while ago I mentioned Aristotle coming up with the idea of a story as a beginning, a middle with conflict, and an end.  Now you can see why the first section of this blog was not a story.  There was no conflict.  There was a beginning and an end; arguably, even a middle.  But a duck is a duck is a duck.

Ferdinand tells a story, albeit a fairly uninteresting one.  The difference is that Ferdinand did something.  There was a conflict because Ferdinand was not where he wanted to be and he had to give something up to get there.  He flew.  He moved.

The etymology of the word conflict shows us that it came from the meaning "to strike together."  Conflict. When two forces strike together, they lose a part of themselves.  Just look at swords that clash together.  They come out all chinked and janky.  That's death.  When you're in the middle of a story, you're going to experience some sort of death.  A part of who you are is going to have to be given up to reach a resolution. 

There's conflict in every story because there must be.  Otherwise, nothing happens.  There is no narrative without struggle.  From the conflict however arises resolution.  Resolution means to settle, or to come to rest.  With rest comes new life.  Every story is a matter of life and death.

In a letter that a guy named Paul wrote to a church in a city called Ephesus, there's a line that says Christ put hostility to death through the cross.  The hostility that Paul is talking about here is between the Jewish folk and the non-Jewish folk.  Paul says that because Christ died, those two groups have a new life together.  Christ's death brings a new life of peace between communities.

You have the power to make new life where there is none.  The way this works is by you dying.  Not physically, maybe, but in the stories we live out everyday, resolution of conflict comes when a force dies.  If you want to live well, die better.  Maybe you think dying means the end of things.  Think again.

Community and Store Bought Shiny Stuff

The great thing about rocks is that they are all over the place.  This makes having a rock collection fairly easy, but rock collecting professionals know that in order to have a good rock collection, you need some shiny stuff.  Shiny rocks are not found on the side of the road unfortunately.  The are found in caves and quarries and other dangerous places.  They're also found in souvenir shops in Arizona.

The shiny stuff in my rock collection mostly came from a cart shaped like a covered wagon from various stores in semi-exotic locales.  However, these shiny rocks made me feel pretty good; they made me feel like a true blue collector.  Since you can't really feel any pride from store bought shiny stuff, I always bought more.  In fact, rocks were one of my favorite things to buy.  In the end though, while these rocks look good in your rock box, they aren't really yours.

This can not be found in caves; only in
small satchel looking bags with tiny drawstrings. 

If there is a God and He is giving us life that is too abundant for just ourselves, what does that mean for us?  It means that Christianity must be based around interaction with others.

When we are fully taken care of, there is no longer a need to search for life.  We are in fact given the life that we've always been searching for.  So then, where do we turn our attention when we turn away from ourselves?  There can only be two answers; God and other people.  

Relationship with God is God moving us and us moving God.  This is where we receive the life that allows us the freedom from the rat race of survival.  With God, we survive, we thrive, we win.  And more.  Relationship with others is where we turn next.  Since we no longer have a need to find life for ourselves, we seek out those who are in death and bring the life to them.

The crazy part is that we are all in that death, Christians or otherwise.  This is why we need community.  We receive life, offer it to those who need it, and have it returned to us when we squander it.  This process occurs over, and over, and over.  This is what Christian community looks like.  It's the shiny stuff.  And it is only found in dangerous places, because the hearts of people are wrought with peril.

The temptation is to seek out life from a source without being in community with it.  But store bought salvation is only good for looking nice in your box.  It isn't really yours.  Real life comes from the caves and quarries and other dangerous places of life.  If you stay away from danger, the shiny stuff you'll have will be as fake as the rest of you.  And you'll never have enough.          

Me, the Sermon, or Running Despite My Self

Strange things happen to me when I run.  I've been shot with a pellet gun, hit on by fourteen year olds, and chased by dogs.  All in the last month.  I consider the stuff that happens while I run to be a spiritual gift.  Because it's different from "the norm".

You should know that I hate running.  It's difficult and makes me feel unpleasant.  And right now it's cold.  Often, I'll get to my front door in my shorts and just think about running for a while.  Because really there are lots of reasons why I shouldn't run.  One of my favorite excuses is school work, which, if you didn't know, is best complimented by a sleeve of Oreos.

If my rationalizations fail, I hit the streets.  The first thing I notice is the awkwardness of my shadow.  "I look like that?"  Yes.  I look stupid.  It's okay though, as I conclude that everyone looks stupid when they run.  Next come the cramps.  First in my left shoulder, then in my stomach if I had eaten in the last four hours.  I shake those off and then it's my legs burning.  Before I can think about how bad I feel, I become acutely aware of my breath and wonder why it's so heavy at this point in the run.  This is about the time I realize that I've only been running for five minutes.

One of the best things about running on a foggy day is that you never know what's coming.  This is especially true when you hear a woman's voice singing in German that is slowly growing louder.  It's even truer when you realize that the woman in question is sitting in a cart being pulled by a miniature pony.  When it's foggy, I'm not thinking of how I'm feeling; Im excited and anticipated.  Because something's coming.

Miniature ponies in the fog, the pellet the hits you in the back as you see the blue SUV drive away, and the dogs that seem to hate accelerated moving are all important to me.  Because the thing I'm most concerned with when I'm running is me.  When I turn the corner only to find that a frisbee is coming straight toward my face, it puts me back in the fog.  I'm excited and anticipated.  At that point, my world is more than just me.       

You, the Sermon

The end of Romeo and Juliet is messy.  Both of the main characters die, largely because of a misconception.  Yet, because of their deaths, peace comes to the warring Montagues and Capulets.  The story is labeled a tragedy, yet it ends with renewed relationships and hope for the future.  Sorry if I just spoiled your efforts to relive the ninth grade English class you chose to sleep through.

"Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow."

Our culture has a fascination with redemption.  We're uncomfortable when a piece of art leaves us with only tragedy.  "Where was the redemptive value in that?"  We'll ask it every time, if only in our hearts.

The stories people tell through art can be grim.  But the stories we tell through redemptive art are grimly hopeful.  Art that redeems has a characteristic that moves us.  Stories of redemption move us toward redemption.

Movement is something that occurs through relationship.  What relationship do we have with the stories that we know and love?  What draws us in and causes us to invest in narrative?   

Aristotle is actually the guy who came up with the idea that a narrative has a beginning, middle, and end.  Now you know who to give the credit to.  But this is actually important, because it helps us apply the concept of story to stuff.  The most relevant of this stuff (for now) is the story that unfolds throughout the Scriptures, or the Biblical narrative.  Right in the middle of this grand narrative that documents the rise and fall of everything, we find that this story is a redemptive story.

The relationship kindled through the stories of wrongs being made right is formed because of our place in that sweeping Biblical narrative.  We are living a story within a story.  When we take in redemptive art, the story we're absorbing speaks to the story we're living, which in turn mimics the meta story of everything.  Moving stories move us because we can relate to them.  The story we're living testifies to the story of Scripture.  

Sometimes redemption is hard to see.  Not every story redeems.  Our stories are messy.  But I'd like to think that they're messy in a hopeful sort of way.  

Keep this idea in your head.  You'll start seeing examples everywhere.

A Learned Form

There's more than one way of understanding the act of learning.  Our culture's means of explaining learning is more reminiscent of industrialized nations.  Our kind of learning views knowledge as a sort of stack; the more you learn, the more information is added to the pile.  This learning is focused on the acquisition of information.

For other cultures, learning is seen to have taken place when the learner becomes more morally upstanding; the more you learn, the more you change.  This learning is focused on the acquisition of formation.

The latter was most likely the case in the middle east during the time of Jesus.  We can deduce then, when Jesus talks about seeds and dirt in the parable of the sower, He's referring to how people's identity is changed when exposed to the Word of God.  For some, the devil steals the Word away from them.  For others, the flesh begs to be spared and the Word is lost.  Still others have the Word choked by the lust for the world.

Those who hear the word however, produce more than they ever thought they could.  Simply by hearing.

Information is cold and dead.  It's only good for stocking on piles, and if you read the story of Solomon, you'll find that hoarding is not one of God's favorite practices.

Formation, on the other hand, gives away.  It yields one hundred times the fruit.  When we let God form us, we receive enough to give away, over and over again.  That sounds a lot like justice and restoration.  When we're formed by God, we're given much more than enough for ourselves.  We're given what we need to change everything.

When you learn, does it disturb you?  Does it take you from where you are and put you somewhere else? Many would say that if you are not moved, you are not learned.

Understanding Infinity

There's always more to everything than you think there is.

Let me give you more for that statement.  My home church's sanctuary is divided into two parts.  The main space is a large and open area with vaulted ceilings and giant pewter lights that dangle.   There's also an annexed section which served as a classroom that makes the entire room into an upside down "L" shape.

If the pastor was speaking from the right side pulpit, he could sometimes be completely unseen by those in the annex.  This was the case for me one particular Sunday, which led my young self to ask my parents if the person who's voice I was hearing was in fact God's.  Surprisingly, the answer I remember receiving was "yes."  I remember that day clearly; to hear from the voice of God gave me an incredible feeling of invincibility.

I know now that the voice was my pastor's, but I don't believe that my parents lied to me.  God was speaking that day.  I don't remember the sermon, but my pastor's voice made me ponder a great mystery.  God speaks to us.  I had learned a deep truth, but to comprehend it, that truth had to be presented in a way I could understand.

Certainly, there is more to the concept of how God speaks than I could know that day.  In fact, there is more to that concept than I could ever know.  That day, the infinite was reduced to the finite.  Only then was I able to grasp what God was trying to tell me.  This works in the opposite way as well.

Some therapists who work with survivors of child sexual abuse use games to evince the stories of abuse children hide away.  Kids have a difficult time talking about sexual abuse because it's such a large and abstract thing.  Children need a medium they understand to express themselves.  The simple is used to understand the complex.

You and I practice this kind of reduction everyday.  In fact, we do it every time we speak.  Think about why we express things.  It's because we need a way to explain an implicit thought or feeling we have.  We reduce what's inside of us into words we can command.  We can't use abstractions that float around within our minds and souls.  Even our thoughts are reductionistic.  One may understand something that can't be put into words, but in order to hold it in the brain, one needs a label for it.  The incomprehensible is reduced by our own need for comprehension.

Jesus, who some believe is God, understood this.  That's why He used imagery, stories, and metaphors when He explained the Kingdom of Heaven.  Because how do you explain the infinite to people with finite brains?  You reduce it.  We run into huge problems then, when we take reduced pictures of the Kingdom as absolute and literal truth.  That's like saying that voice I heard was literally and in every way God.  I did hear God speak that day, but I also heard my pastor.  And the words weren't even the important part.  It was the mystery.

I've come to the conclusion that trading in mystery for answers is a bad idea.  We're not going to see the whole picture now, so our best truth is always going to be a bit off.  Instead, consider living up to the truth that you have attained.  There's always more to everything than you think there is.

*Thanks to Matt Brown and 509 Community for inspiring some of this post and just generally being awesome.

Taste the Honey

When I was three years old, my parents were horrified to learn that I was a biter.  No parent wants to believe that their precious angel would ruthlessly rend the flesh of another, yet I stood before them; guilty.  What was the reason for this heinous act of deviance?  Another toddler had stolen my chair, and I wasn't going to stand for it.  I knew that seat belonged to me, and that day, justice rolled like water.  I took what was rightfully mine.

My friend Jason wrote recently that children are great and terrible when it comes to different aspects of what we consider love.  I would echo his words when it comes to the concept of justice.  If you don't believe me, take a child's toy while they're playing with it and see what happens.  Or go to an elementary school and watch what happens when a kid cheats at kickball.  Things get bloody fast.  Because kids have a really great perception of justice.

What's tough for kids is when it is they who are being justified, or disciplined.  Likely, you'll hear the words "it's not fair!" at some point in the discipline process.  Kids have a hard time realizing their need for correction.  But parents know it must be done to make the child's future brighter. 

After being in the presence of some of the freakiest creatures described anywhere in Scripture, Ezekiel is told by God to eat a scroll.  This scroll contained words of "lamentation, mourning, and woe" meant for Israel, which is described over and over again by God as "rebellious."  Despite the situation being real weird, Ezekiel eats the scroll, and discovers that it tastes like honey.  He's then told to go and minister to the hardhearted nation in exile. 

Israel was about to experience movement from captivity to freedom caused by the union of God's people and God's Spirit.  How was that going to happen?  Through justice.  What Israel had made wrong, God was about to make right.  This meant that God was going to have to take something away from Israel; thus the words of woe.  But it's going to be sweet.  Things were going to be made right again, but not just for Israel.  When everything is right, the world is as it should be.

We're typically interested in justice when it applies to us.  When someone takes something that's mine, watch out (I haven't bitten anyone in a while, by the way).  But what if we're the wrong ones?  Do we want justice then?  In this way, maybe we have yet to truly grow up.  God shows Ezekiel that Israel is about to face correction on a pretty big scale.  But Israel will also taste the sweetness of the results.  Because when God makes things right, we can taste and see that it's good.  

God sent His Spirit to move Israel out of captivity by forming a relationship with them and making them righteous.  That sounds a lot like the God I know now.  Do you want movement from where you are?  Come and taste the honey of justice.

Driving the Story

When I started my undergraduate work at Shippensburg University, I was swooped up into a very unique group of people.  These folk played tag with fruits, turned dorm rooms into coffee shops, and went to Philadelphia for no reason other than cheesesteaks.  They knew how to be, and they lived out their lives and faith authentically.  After experiencing the Spirit of God through them, I moved from where I was to a new place.  I became different.

God has been working this way for a while.  As I've mentioned before, the Spirit of God in relationship with people causes movement.  In fact, the Spirit is a movement.

In the first chapter of Ezekiel, the titular character is witness to a vision involving four strange creatures.  These creatures, in addition to having four faces and a variety of other curious features, had four wheels.  Verse twenty says that the Spirit of God led the creatures, as the creatures' spirits were in these wheels.  There is some pretty heavy symbolism at work here.  The Spirit of God is causing movement.

Ezekiel is a prophet for God while Israel is in exile, separated from their land and temple.  For these imprisoned Israelites, to hear that the Spirit of God was on the move would have been comforting.  God is sending His spirit out before Him, and He's a Spirit of movement.  A movement is always what brings change.  That's why we call it a social movement.  Things were about to change.

Notice also that God's Spirit was interacting with the wheels in the vision to move them.  He was leading them.  The Spirit does His work in us via relationship.  So what does this mean for captive Israel?  It means that the Spirit of God was coming to form a relationship with them to move them from bondage to freedom.

This sounds much like the God I know.  When I experienced the Spirit through my friends and other ways at Shippensburg, I gained a new freedom.  When God sends His Spirit, it's to help us understand a new way of living.  A way that is free of some sort of slavery we're in, even if we don't know it.  We're moved to a new place, turning over a new page in our story.  If you're ready for a new page of life, the Spirit is hovering over the waters, waiting for the pen. 

Togethering Somethings

For some reason, I've taken five classes on statistics in one form or another.  There's few reasons someone should take five statistics classes, and there are even fewer reasons for a person as terrible at math as me to take five statistics classes.  Nevertheless, I have taken them, and if I've learned anything, it's that variables can be very significant (I am so sorry for that joke).

You can do a few things with data from a single variable, but you can do a whole plethora of interesting things with the data from two or more variables.  When analyzing two variables, something interesting happens.  Data from one or both variables can be significant, but the interaction between these two variables can also be significant, even if the two variables themselves are not.

You may not care about statistics at all, which is most likely justified, but they show us all kinds of information about relationships.  Namely, that when two somethings act in conjunction, stuff happens.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that without a relationship, nothing happens.  Everything in the whole world is happening because two or more somethings are coming together to make it happen.  Without relationship, there is no movement.

This means that when entering into a relationship (of any kind) with another person, the interaction between the two moves both individuals.  Relationships cause interaction, and interaction causes movement.  That's why, in a counseling relationship, technique accounts for only fifteen percent of positive change, while the relationship itself accounts for eight-five percent. There's power in coming together.

This relational principle is the same reason God chooses to make relationship with a group of people on earth.  In the tenth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses urges the people of Israel to dedicate their hearts to the God who has freed and restored those in relationship with Him.  When people and God come together, miracles happen, the captives are set free, and there's jubilee.

Relationship has always been the vehicle through which God has moved.  As I said last time, what we form relationships with has the power to harm us or heal us.  When you join with something, movement occurs.  Are your relationships taking you where you want to go?

Making Heaven Suck

While in twelfth grade, a friend of mine told me something that changed my life forever.  He told me that I should drink coffee.  This friend of mine was a rugged dude; the kind of guy who would be featured in a Carhartt jacket ad.  When my friend told me this, it clicked.  I had been a fool up til then.  If Carhartt ad guy thought that I should drink coffee, who else held this belief?  My conclusion was probably everyone.  From then it was sealed; I would become a coffee drinker.  And here I sit, writing this as I sip a latte.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say that they are sick.  It wouldn't be that big of a deal if they weren't so sure of themselves.  I hear some people tell me that they are sick so often that it's hard to remember anything else about them.  I look at them and I can't help but think, "Oh yeah, she's sick."

The sad thing is that they're right.  Sickness is a role, and if one constantly puts himself in that role, well then by golly, he's there.  No one would ever admit to desiring sickness, but if one thinks about it, sickness is kind of attractive.  The sick role get lots of attention, it gives an excuse for bad performance, and an excuse to lavish blessings upon oneself.  You know, to heal.  But being in this role has the obvious downside of "you're going to feel terrible."  And you will.  Because you're sick.

This works with anything.  It certainly did with me and coffee.  I put myself in the role of coffee drinker, and it became true.  When we tell ourselves who we are over and over, we're going to act that way because it's the truth we know.  But when we listen to who we tell ourselves we are, we're bound to get it wrong.  Because we have a horrible perception of what is true.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells His disciples that He will give them the keys of heaven, and whatever they "bind" on earth will also be "bound" in heaven.  When we declare truth on earth, heaven follows suit.  So when we say to ourselves that we are a certain way, and we believe with absolute certainty that it's true (whether we realize we're doing this or not), it's true.  We're making heaven suck.

This is why I believe the Bible also calls us to speak the truth in love to one another.  Because we are bad at perceiving the truth, God calls our brothers and sisters to help us establish it.  This should frighten you.  Because it means when you speak truth to someone else, it affects their eternity.  For better or for worse.

You are not sick.  Sickness may visit you, but you are not sick.  If you're choosing to form a union with sickness, you may want to stop.  It's going to make you feel terrible.  What else are you telling yourself that is not representative of reality?  Since there are those of us who claim that God is reality, maybe we should speak the truth that He sees.  Anything less makes heaven suck.  And a sucky heaven is just hell.          

The Essay Question

The essence of an essay test is that you write everything you know about the subject at hand.  This is true of our lives as well.  We live out a way of life that represents everything we know about doing life well.  That's why life has no multiple choice.  Because the way we live is our best answer to life.

Recently, I tried to Google "how many self help books are there?," and I couldn't really get a solid number after looking for about 5 minutes (which is all the time I care to spend on trying to find out how many self help books there are out there).  Regardless, there are many.  It seems we are culturally obsessed with becoming better than we currently are.

I have read none of these books, so writing a blog post on this subject is probably a bad idea.

The first few days of a new year probably means thinking of how to better answer life's essay question.  We all want to make our lives better.  The problem is that whatever your idea of better is, it wasn't your idea.  The idea of a "good life" is just the general consensus of what a "good life" is.  Self help books will help you become the self that someone else thinks is best.

Throughout history, many people have said that being "good" is what God wants you to be.  But this idea of good didn't necessarily come from God.  It came from people's ideas of the best way to answer life's essay question.

In the book of Habakkuk, the prophet asks God why He is acting against His own people.  God responds by saying that His people are acting in ways that are unjust, or unrighteous.  Since this is the case, God is going to make things right, or just again.

It has nothing to do with who is "good" or who is "bad."  All people seem to have a tendency to make things wrong.  We live in a world full of injustice; a world of unrighteousness.  The Psalms say that God's hands are full of justice.  So when God acts, things become right.  Things become just.  It only makes sense that those who are called God's people would be made right by Him.  To be made just, God needs to take away the parts of people that were steeped in injustice.  That's a pretty painful process.

In 2012, lots of people will try to write a good answer to life's question.  Maybe a better idea is to resolve to answer the question rightly.  Maybe a better idea than living well in 2012 is dying well.