Kindness & Love

“…For about a hundred years we have so concentrated on one of the virtues – ‘kindness’ or mercy – that most of us do not feel anything expect kindness to be really good or anything but cruelty to be really bad.”[1]

When C.S. Lewis wrote these words in 1940, “Kindness,” ruled the day, but now over 70 years later, “Love,” rules. Starting somewhere - in the 1960’s I’d assume – love became the new pet virtue.

What we’ve seen is that our definition and understanding of love, that is what we’ve been conditioned to recognize as love, is nothing more than the obtaining of sex. And, therefore, the denial of sex is pure hatred.  We’ve been had. We have been lied to.

The lie is that sex is the true meaning of love. Whether this happened by some terrible accident of marketing, “Sex sells,” or it was some grand scheme of the devil (who needs no congratulations if it was) I don’t know. But what I do know is that the conditioning we’ve been conditioned to know as reality is truly a fiction.

A reconditioning not just of our knowledge but also of our feelings is what is required. We can know all we want about the facts of what Christian (and by that I mean true) love is, but that ought to influence our hearts – our emotions. Our conditioned understanding of love as sex must be reoriented to the true meaning of love, God.

But still more we must understand all virtues in this manner. This is the heart side of the matter of belief. In faith our emotions are impacted in a biblical way. So things that are truly unjust are seen and felt as such; things that are kind are seen as kind; and love is seen as Love.

Yet we live in – as Lewis called them – pockets and in these pockets we have convinced ourselves of our own goodness, our virtuousness. But as we look from our 21^st Century pocket to the pocket of the Middle Ages we call them cruel and mean while they would see themselves as courageous and chivalrous and us as cowardly and apathetic.

Indeed we ought to really be a horror to God and ourselves. Our pet virtue of love is really no virtue at all just a selfish desire of sexual satisfaction and our understanding of our own time’s, “goodness,” is simply because no one has yet interfered with us to the point of physical violence with them (while mental violence has already accosted them).

We must relearn what it is to be truly human and that by the blood of the cross.

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[1] C.S. Lewis. The Problem of Pain. Pg 56

A Moment to Write

My professor, Dr. Greenham, spoke well against reincarnation. He said, “We are made to go on.”

Lewis says something similar. Something of how time is an odd thing and that because we view time as odd that this points to our not being made for the temporal but the eternal. That our terms of how, “Time has flown,” or how, “Time has slowed down to a crawl,” are hints at our eternality. We are not made for reflection or the entropy of reliving parts of life, no, we’re made to go on. Now and now and now, we’re made to go on and on and on, but never made to go back to how things once were. God himself will not return us to the Garden, he, rather, will create a city for our dwelling. Lewis does well to say, “Further up and further in.” For indeed this is what we are created for.

Something of this is freeing. Nostalgia seems such a happy place until compared to reality, then we spiral into the hope of how things were, never thinking of how things are let alone how things will be. But if creation longs to be made new (Rom 8) then ought’n we too? Should we not long for the consummation of all things in the enveloping arms of Christ the King? Yet here Lewis’ voice plays in my ears once more, “News from a country you’ve never visited… echoes of a tune you’ve not heard… the scent of a flower I’ve never smelled.” Indeed our longing for completion is evident in our nostalgia, but we cannot go backward to gain it, we must go on.

I’m finding more and more that I truly only know two things, that I am a great sinner and Jesus is a greater Savior (as Newton would say it). My feelings betray me. My heart is deceitful. My mind is a labyrinth of these's and those's, this’s and that’s. Even reality holds little to know, because I’m certain that just behind it’s frail curtain a war rages - a war of cherubim and seraphim fighting devils and demons - of light defeating darkness for the Dawn has come. There is comfort in seeing my ignorance.

Andrew Peterson has a song that has been capturing me, “Carry the Fire.” He sings, “We dream at night of city descending with the Son in the middle and a peace unending… Where joy writes the song and the innocent sing them…” The more I learn, the more those same two things are all I know. In some form or fashion all things are tied to the sinfulness of my soul and Christ’s redemption.

Preaching/Weekend Thoughts

1) Everyone is staring.

2) There could be at least 26 sermons from John 17.

3) We are not the hope of God and because we are not the hope of God we are free to be free in our radical hope in God.

4) Sunday afternoon.

5) Watched The Goonies this weekend. Success.

6) Went to The Anchor for an 'employee party.' I'm no employee but I work there.

7) Louis Armstrong

8) Getting undeserved grace and it's piling up like snow that never comes to Kansas.

9) "'The Eagle is right,' said the Lord Digory. 'Listen Peter. When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here: just as our own world, England and all, is only a shadow or a copy of something in Aslan's real world. You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or a waking life is from a dream.'" The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis

10) Romans 8

20-somethings

I went on my first walk in a long time last night (I also candied pecans and cooked myself a steak dinner. Bam, domestic!). Walks are therapy.

Quite honestly when I walked out the door I didn’t know which way I’d go, where I’d walk to, or how long I’d go for; I just meandered about until I ended up back on my front porch.

But mostly I walked along the river while the trees cast eerie shadows in the light of the moon. The voices of people far away carrying in the still air, the high thin clouds making the dark darker here and there all of it bursting through the seams of my mind to whisper, “Christ is King.”

Now-a-days weeks feel like years and days feel like months. Hours aren’t enough to measure things by (‘cept college algebra) and minutes might as well not exist. Is this growing up? Continually loosing track of time until so much of it has slipped through your fingers there’s no more left to hold.

I’m still just a kid.

But that’s a lie too. Kids are intrepid little devils who are fascinated by fireflies, clouds, and summer nights (or snow fights). The life of a twenty-something is the life of a wondering dreamer, wanting more to life but facing the constant reality of loosing track.

Yet this too is pointing us back to the whisper of the eerie shadow of the trees, “Christ is King.” We, we bunch of almost-kids who dream big and act small, we bunch of semi-adults who fight hard and believe little, we are part of a story much bigger than ourselves.

The beauty of reality is equal to the wonder of our imaginations. With complications, adventures, and the boring all of it is the story of our lives. And this story is intertwined with the story of Christ is King that we, we rag-tag individuals, ought never to look for more than the wonder of Jesus, because in him is enough to see the world changed and our lives made both whole and worth while.

At least that's the hope. Yet the mind of the cynic will always see the flaws, the failures. Indeed, I rarely get far from Lewis, "We are far too easily pleased."

2011's Favorites

In chronological order:

This Must be Dealt With
I’ve used this one to end two different sermons. The power in it has been captivating to me. There are a few who want me to read it for a poetic reading (that’s a big maybe). I wrote it one cold January night when it was snowing. Looking up all the passages for this one was particularly fun.

I Believe, Help My Unbelief
Written in 2010 for a friend this post kept punching me in the brain. I finally posted it at the end of January and it’s one that still is running through my thoughts.

Quite Frankly
This one was a tough write for me. I’ve thought this for a while, but never voiced it until I wrote this post.

The Armor of God (Sermon)
This one is a favorite because it was the first time I’d ever had a manuscript for my sermon. It worked well for two or three, now I’m back to a half-note-half-manuscript deal.

Letting Go of the Faded Memory
Inception & C.S. Lewis collide. Enough said.

Getting Ahold of Happiness
I wrote this puppy after “AFTERdark” a Christian pep-rally some WSU students put on in early spring.

Common Error pts 1, 2, &3 & A Response to Myself pts 1,2, 3 & 4
These were quite literally me thinking out loud for the world to read. I had always had an issue with the term ‘common grace’ and if you read these you’ll see my reasons plus my own response to, well, me! O and these were written and posted in 2 days.

He is Here
This one is my hand at poetry. You have to be kind to read it. It’s a wee rough.

What is Joy?
The church I work for (Journey the Way) did a sermons series through Philippians and it was titled the ‘Pursuit of Joy.’ This was the ending of a sermon I had preached over the summer, which I thought applied rather nicely.

The Thinker's Thoughts on Thinking
This one still kills me.

A Little Spilled Coffee
This was the first of what I hope to be continuing posts. It’s observation with my own speculation. Watching people is apart of what I do and my mind tends to write a story for each person I never get to talk to. Others like this one are: A Coffee Shop Scene, Tragedy and Two Pairs One Table

Final Stress
This one was good for my heart to write, and my head. Ugh finals.

Christopher Hitchens
I really will miss this guy’s whit and cynicism.

The most popular posts of year:
1. The Hidden Hide
2. Christopher Hitchens
3. A Coffee Shop Scene

The Hidden Hide

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.’” Psalm 91:1-2

I was at a conference last week where one of the speakers spoke (odd, right?) about hiding in God. At first thoughts it sounds like a cheesy Christianise statement, some cliché thought up for the Kindergarten Sunday School class in 1992. But the depth of it is mineable, so mineable in fact that one could mine the aspect of hiding in God for one’s life and never run dry.

At least that’s the thought.

For the flight back I had bought “A Greif Observed” by C.S. Lewis (because the only seventh Harry Potter book the store had was a hardback brick and errbody know my arms are little) wherein he begins to talks about the door being slammed and double bolted in his face when he needs God most.

I’ve felt that, have you? Even though I don’t believe God to ever be silent, I’ve experienced a seeming utter silence. When shouting only compounds the void.

Lewis goes on further in the book to recount the locked door again by saying it was his own cries that drowned out the answer, his own forceful hammerings that caused the small whisper to be lost.

That might be true. But it may be as simple as we don’t want him to answer. Even in our desperate need, with as many pure motives as possible there is still sin. Sin which reviles the shadow of the Almighty because, “I don’t want to live in anyone’s shadow.” Or, “I don’t need to hide, I’m a man.”

Which leads me to the verse I want emblazoned on everything everywhere, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Hoping Against All Hope

Hope. It’s a word I love. Probably, it would be safe to say, this is my favorite word. It’s tossed around in political campaigns and desires for grandeur, fame, relationships, food and money. But hope is such an all-encompassing feeling like joy or love. Yet it’s much more than simply looking forward to something.

I would submit that most of what we feel as hope is something we would classify as nostalgia. Remembrances of our past, good things which cause us to hope for their return, C.S. Lewis hits it square in the face by saying, “These things-the beauty, the memory of our past-are good images of what we really desire… [But] they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.”

Our hope in so far as it is deemed to be true and solid hope is not simply in what we desire for the future, but what we know from the past, mostly Jesus’ finalized work on the cross and victory over death. For if we hope in the future there must be an understanding of this past accomplishment not simply as fact but as faith.

But to hope in things seen is to not hope at all for hope is in the unseen, the eternal rather than the transient. Sure it may be a desire of things to occur, but it is not hope. Hope is founded in faith. But faith in the transient is misplaced faith. For though I can have faith in a relationship working and hope for it to last, that faith and that hope will not change what will be. But faith in the Eternal and hope in the Lasting leads to not simply to momentary satisfaction but lasting joy in the love of God.

So hope is just as complex as joy or love. But rightly placed hope will never put one to shame. For rightly placed hope does not merely look to the future of what will be but simultaneously looks to the past of what has been finished in one’s place for one’s sins.