At this point in time, I have been getting agitated about my job. I keep pouring myself into activities, and I'm really enjoying them, but I want to be done waiting tables. It is the least fulfilling thing about my life. Everything else is exciting right now. We started playing Ultimate Frisbee every Saturday at noon, and that's been really fun. We've been doing dancing lessons on Saturday afternoon. I started playing bass for the worship team at church this weekend. A friend of mine and I are planning an Improv night, where we will be doing improv games and activities. I recently finished a shorter book called "Trumpet," and I'm planning on sending it to a publisher. It's an inspirational book that I think is really creative and I really like.
So I'm doing a lot, and I'm enjoying life with my wife and our friends here in Utah. And then I go to work, and all that excitement goes away. All that fulfillment disappears. I feel I need God's favor more than ever, but I'm in this balance between being responsible and thinking maybe I'm just supposed to trust him. I mean, I know I'm supposed to have faith - it's just figuring out what faith is telling me to do. Maybe it means I keep going to work and trust that God will keep me going until such time as other opportunities present themselves. I don't know.
Part of me hesitates to ask God for "favor," because it sounds like a televangelist or something like that, but I think the bible paints a pretty good picture of seeking God's favor. I just don't want it to sound like it lacks depth or reveals some kind of unwillingness to endure or to give my all for God.
Anyway, the point is, I try to think positive - and maybe I don't spend enough time in prayer and meditation, but I want my life to be led by the voice of God, by his Spirit's whisper in my mind, and sometimes it just feels like I'm just fumbling my way through.
People talk about living life by God's power or living on your own power. But no one has ever been able to explain what that really means to me. I mean I understand the idea, and maybe there's some truth to it. But what is the difference, specifically. Suppose God asks me to plant a tree. Don't I simply go out, dig a hole, fill in the hole with a little sapling, water it and watch it grow? I mean, is there a way to do that "On my own power" that actually looks different than doing it "by God's power?" Or say I want to tell a friend about Jesus, but I get in this attitude of not needing some extra boost from God's spirit, and I go try to speak to people "on my own power." What does that mean? It seems like what people mean when they say that is that there is some indistinct inner attitude or feeling which, felt a certain way, is centered on God, and felt a different way is relying on the self. But I don't know what that means exactly and I certainly don't know how to measure it or gauge how well I'm accomplishing it.
I get this suspicion that what we're really supposed to do is pray, ask for God's guidance and assistance, enjoy his presence, and then act. And this is what I've been trying to do, perhaps not enough of it, and I've ended up where I am now. And of course, I have a lot of things going for me. I just find that I let a lack of money control too much of my life, and I limit my thinking about what I can do and what I can experience, when God says "I can do all things"
"Through Christ."
So I'm back again at the question: what does that mean, "Through Christ?"
Monday, May 11, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Till we have Faces
I just realized that I neglected to blog about the book I read a few months ago: Til we have Faces, by C.S.Lewis. I will try to dredge up my thoughts from memory with as much freshness as possible.
As usual, Lewis writes with a compelling clarity. In this case I found it difficult to see where he was going with the story, and I wondered several times if there would be a "point" to it, or if it was merely for our enjoyment, to delve into the genre of "myth" and maybe feel something. And I did not see it all coming until the very end, when it suddenly rose up and overwhelmed me.
I first came across the book in high school. During my senior year I had a study hall hour, during which I often went to the library. I found the book there and read parts of it during that hour, picking it up off the shelf several times on different days, but I never actually checked it out, though I don't know why. The story stuck in my mind, the feeling of it, the depth of it, and I didn't know why that was either, for there was nothing I could really point out about it to say, "here's why everyone must read this book." So I held it in my heart for years that I wanted to one day pick it up again and read it all the way through. There were always other books to read and other tasks to accomplish. So recently I read it, not ever having found out the meaning of the Title. Til We Have Faces always seemed odd and strangely interesting, but the full line comes in near the end of the book.
A woman in the story has a complaint against the gods, because of the sorrows in her life, and finally she faces them, and she makes her complaint, only it wasn't the carefully crafted thing she had been writing, building her noble case against them. It was the ravings of her heart that she read to them and her complaint, heard aloud, became her answer. And she reflects on it as follows:
"The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, 'Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.' A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?"
Somehow it took all our bitterness and suffering and put it in perspective so grand we cannot even fathom the whole truth, like Jonah whining about his vine, chastized by a god who sees ultimately greater and more. I cannot communicate here fully what this accomplishes for me, but I can say that it is a treasure to hold.
As usual, Lewis writes with a compelling clarity. In this case I found it difficult to see where he was going with the story, and I wondered several times if there would be a "point" to it, or if it was merely for our enjoyment, to delve into the genre of "myth" and maybe feel something. And I did not see it all coming until the very end, when it suddenly rose up and overwhelmed me.
I first came across the book in high school. During my senior year I had a study hall hour, during which I often went to the library. I found the book there and read parts of it during that hour, picking it up off the shelf several times on different days, but I never actually checked it out, though I don't know why. The story stuck in my mind, the feeling of it, the depth of it, and I didn't know why that was either, for there was nothing I could really point out about it to say, "here's why everyone must read this book." So I held it in my heart for years that I wanted to one day pick it up again and read it all the way through. There were always other books to read and other tasks to accomplish. So recently I read it, not ever having found out the meaning of the Title. Til We Have Faces always seemed odd and strangely interesting, but the full line comes in near the end of the book.
A woman in the story has a complaint against the gods, because of the sorrows in her life, and finally she faces them, and she makes her complaint, only it wasn't the carefully crafted thing she had been writing, building her noble case against them. It was the ravings of her heart that she read to them and her complaint, heard aloud, became her answer. And she reflects on it as follows:
"The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, 'Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.' A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?"
Somehow it took all our bitterness and suffering and put it in perspective so grand we cannot even fathom the whole truth, like Jonah whining about his vine, chastized by a god who sees ultimately greater and more. I cannot communicate here fully what this accomplishes for me, but I can say that it is a treasure to hold.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
"What's Your Story?"
It's been a long time, I know, and I still don't really know what to write about, but I'm in one of those moods, and I wanted to get something down. It seems like not much has happened since last I wrote. We had our first Arts Group presentation soon after my last post, and it went over very well. We had Christmas and New Years. I wrote a Mafia Murder Mystery party, and our group of friends went through it on New Years, and it was a huge success. Since then, life has kind of just gone by.
The Arts Group is now planning a new presentation event, centered on the theme entitled, "What's Your Story?" Our first event was on the theme of Freedom, and while it was great, we wanted to move into a different approach to art. After hearing my brother speak at church over Christmas and talking about my parents' church "telling each other their stories" as a vital role of community, we decided we wanted the arts group to do something a little more intimate. We wanted to do something that forced the artist (or pseudo-artist) to delve deap into their experience and inner person and communicate their story with the community. We wanted to tell one another the intimate core of who we were and what we've gone through.
For this event I am actually working on a puppet show. Strange as that may sound, it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It just so happens that the pastor of E-vin and his wife are pretty much experts on puppets. We've been spending the last few weeks working hard on making puppets (not just for my show - there's a lot of interest in utilizing them for children's activities). It's a little difficult for me to visualize "telling my story" through a puppet show, but my ideas are coming together just fine, and I think it will work out.
So what, you might ask, is my story? I hesitate to share, if only for the people who might see the puppet show and miss out on the suspense. But I think I need to:
When I was in High School, I remember going to a play at the Chanhassen dinner theatre. I don't remember what the show was or what it was about. All I remember was that at some point, the leading male role did a song and at the end of the song he had his arms spread wide, soaking in the applause of the crowd. I thought to myself at the time that that was what I wanted. I wanted to play a great leading role, be a hero, maybe kiss the girl, and soak in the applause of an appreciative crowd. I think there's a difference between mere vanity and truly relishing the moment, and I now see nothing wrong with this desire. My senior year in High School, I played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. Now you might say that this was just high school, nothing special, not anywhere near the big leagues. But you need to understand that I still get comments to this very day about my performance in that play. And the scale is not really the point anyway. The point is that I got a great role, played it very well, and at the end of "If I were a Rich Man" I had my hands up in the air and I was soaking in the applause of an appreciative crowd. There may have been no kissing girls involved, but the heart of the idea was there. I saw myself in the spotlight and it came to be.
When I got to college, I had a conversation with a guy who was a senior at the time, when I was only a freshman. I remember very well that he told me when he first got to college, he thought he would be the big man on campus, leading all the great Campus Ministries and heading up vibrant activities. But it didn't happen. It was like he was telling me, "I'm nothing special and neither are you." I journaled recently, "In college I started to believe I was nobody special, and I thought I was learning to be humble. I want to believe once again that I am destined for great things."
When we are young, many of us are told that we are special, that we're raally going places, that God has great plans for our lives. Then many of us go off and meet people who have become jaded through disappointment and failures. And they'll tell us how they used to think like we did and how "life" showed them otherwise. We start to believe that maybe our parents just thought we were special because of how much they loved us. Maybe it's not right for us to think so highly of ourselves. Maybe we shouldn't expect great things to happen.
I don't know exactly where I've been since then. I just know I haven't been in a play with my hands outstretched, soaking in the applause of an appreciative crowd. So in the past few years I've been engrossed in the attempt to start thinking positive, and that has led me full circle. I lament the attitude of self-abasement that I absorbed, and I've come to a new strength of faith. I've come to believe that if we are to live our lives in faithfulness to the calling of Christ upon it, we have to believe and think positive. I've been delving into what it means to ask anything in jesus name and believe we've received it. There is a lot of controversy in the church over what that means, but at the very least I am sure that it means we're supposed to dream big and believe. We're supposed to believe in the unseen and we're supposed to live a full life in the spirit of God.
So that's my story, and I'm going to try to communicate it through this puppet show. I'm writing two songs. Cassie is playing one of my puppets named Starla, who will be the voice of positivity and happiness and faith, and she'll be singing one of the songs. And my other puppet is Joe the Vampire, who will be the voice of Mediocrity, cynicism, and self-abasement. It should be fun. I'm really glad I wrote all this down. I'm really enjoying making the puppets, and it's one of the few things happening right now to really mark the passing of time in my mind. Anyway, the presentation is going to be two weeks after Easter, so I've got some time still, but there's a lot left to do. I look forward to it.
The Arts Group is now planning a new presentation event, centered on the theme entitled, "What's Your Story?" Our first event was on the theme of Freedom, and while it was great, we wanted to move into a different approach to art. After hearing my brother speak at church over Christmas and talking about my parents' church "telling each other their stories" as a vital role of community, we decided we wanted the arts group to do something a little more intimate. We wanted to do something that forced the artist (or pseudo-artist) to delve deap into their experience and inner person and communicate their story with the community. We wanted to tell one another the intimate core of who we were and what we've gone through.
For this event I am actually working on a puppet show. Strange as that may sound, it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It just so happens that the pastor of E-vin and his wife are pretty much experts on puppets. We've been spending the last few weeks working hard on making puppets (not just for my show - there's a lot of interest in utilizing them for children's activities). It's a little difficult for me to visualize "telling my story" through a puppet show, but my ideas are coming together just fine, and I think it will work out.
So what, you might ask, is my story? I hesitate to share, if only for the people who might see the puppet show and miss out on the suspense. But I think I need to:
When I was in High School, I remember going to a play at the Chanhassen dinner theatre. I don't remember what the show was or what it was about. All I remember was that at some point, the leading male role did a song and at the end of the song he had his arms spread wide, soaking in the applause of the crowd. I thought to myself at the time that that was what I wanted. I wanted to play a great leading role, be a hero, maybe kiss the girl, and soak in the applause of an appreciative crowd. I think there's a difference between mere vanity and truly relishing the moment, and I now see nothing wrong with this desire. My senior year in High School, I played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. Now you might say that this was just high school, nothing special, not anywhere near the big leagues. But you need to understand that I still get comments to this very day about my performance in that play. And the scale is not really the point anyway. The point is that I got a great role, played it very well, and at the end of "If I were a Rich Man" I had my hands up in the air and I was soaking in the applause of an appreciative crowd. There may have been no kissing girls involved, but the heart of the idea was there. I saw myself in the spotlight and it came to be.
When I got to college, I had a conversation with a guy who was a senior at the time, when I was only a freshman. I remember very well that he told me when he first got to college, he thought he would be the big man on campus, leading all the great Campus Ministries and heading up vibrant activities. But it didn't happen. It was like he was telling me, "I'm nothing special and neither are you." I journaled recently, "In college I started to believe I was nobody special, and I thought I was learning to be humble. I want to believe once again that I am destined for great things."
When we are young, many of us are told that we are special, that we're raally going places, that God has great plans for our lives. Then many of us go off and meet people who have become jaded through disappointment and failures. And they'll tell us how they used to think like we did and how "life" showed them otherwise. We start to believe that maybe our parents just thought we were special because of how much they loved us. Maybe it's not right for us to think so highly of ourselves. Maybe we shouldn't expect great things to happen.
I don't know exactly where I've been since then. I just know I haven't been in a play with my hands outstretched, soaking in the applause of an appreciative crowd. So in the past few years I've been engrossed in the attempt to start thinking positive, and that has led me full circle. I lament the attitude of self-abasement that I absorbed, and I've come to a new strength of faith. I've come to believe that if we are to live our lives in faithfulness to the calling of Christ upon it, we have to believe and think positive. I've been delving into what it means to ask anything in jesus name and believe we've received it. There is a lot of controversy in the church over what that means, but at the very least I am sure that it means we're supposed to dream big and believe. We're supposed to believe in the unseen and we're supposed to live a full life in the spirit of God.
So that's my story, and I'm going to try to communicate it through this puppet show. I'm writing two songs. Cassie is playing one of my puppets named Starla, who will be the voice of positivity and happiness and faith, and she'll be singing one of the songs. And my other puppet is Joe the Vampire, who will be the voice of Mediocrity, cynicism, and self-abasement. It should be fun. I'm really glad I wrote all this down. I'm really enjoying making the puppets, and it's one of the few things happening right now to really mark the passing of time in my mind. Anyway, the presentation is going to be two weeks after Easter, so I've got some time still, but there's a lot left to do. I look forward to it.
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