Spectrum of Life

A lot happens in a year, a month, even a day.

I’m married, and I was not.

Arguments regarding LGBT in the church community.

Legal suits in town against the yearly meeting of friends.

I’ve been surprised how quickly people rear up with opinions like king cobras. Beliefs on wedding timing and relationship mantra, or arguments against persons – all with such violent strikes. Less than the content of the arguments, the entitlement and anger with which people defend their beliefs can be appalling. And frightening.

Not that such a righteous anger is always wrong. Au contraire, a righteous anger is often warranted. The scary portion is the direction of the anger targeted towards persons rather than ideas. Rarely is hate an agreeable ideal. Rarely is vindictiveness a moral imperative. It’s that same quality of person that stands outside an abortion clinic killing doctors in the name of Christ (or any higher cause).

I haven’t written in forever, and my first is somewhat angry, itself. Shoot. And that’s what I’ve noticed. Anger begets only anger.   

I think what’s been a joy to see in the passing weeks is that the flipside is also, often, true. Generosity, grace, and mercy often beget similar reactive replies. More than all of the miserable actions, more than all of the hatred and anger and angst of an uncertain people, the generosity and kindness of those loving persons in my community sticks with me.  At the wedding, people jumped into action to help, even without being asked. Whether it was pushing tables outside, organizing books, or grabbing Ems and I a bite to eat, people leapt into action. I couldn’t help but smile. It’s reminded me of all those times I’ve had the opportunity to help my friends, and how it’s never a chore, but a great blessing to be that servant. I remember how lucky I felt getting to look after a friend following a surgery (dental) and just hang out and make sure everything was okay should anything need doing. I feel similarly blessed helping each of my friends when they have to move (packing, and lifting) even if I’m the least qualified person for the task (have you seen these biceps? Most people’s ankles are bigger).  I honestly love it. And that’s what fills me with so much joy. When Ems and I wrote our prayer for the day, we hoped that the day might be filled with joy, and that that joy would be an evident reminder of our beliefs and hopes and joys. Our wedding was.

I hold these two great  scenes in balance, teetering forwards and backwards into each. The anger that bubbles up in reply to such, and the grace I force myself to remember, having been shown so extravagantly where joy is begat. These weeks have travelled fast, and are filled with great and weighty feelings, spanning a sea-wide spectrum of emotions. But I’m happy. I’m joyful; full of joy. There are heartbreaks, and there are moments so perfect I’m brought to tears.

I’m thankful for this and my community. In sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, I’m married to it in my spirit and I love it. I’m learning a lot about community and belief through my marriage already, and I’m only getting started.

Here’s to many more such days, weeks, and years. Here’s to life.

Warriors, Superheroes, Hope

So many thoughts running through my mind, running, racing, rumbling by: I’d planned on writing a memorial day piece, but spent little time on the train writing such things; I’d meant to write a piece on friendship, a piece on where I’m going, and why. But not tonight.
I’m thankful for the men and women who have died fighting for our freedom, for our peace, for our security and country. I’m thankful for the men and women who continue to fight for these values. Recently I read Iron John by Robert Bly, and a passage I’ve been thinking about is his passage on warriors. Our culture does its best to remove the warrior from boy-children as soon as possible. We medically diagnose rowdiness and antsy behavior with calming medications to stifle the warrior, the hero, the fighter in the child. If you’ve never seen a boy pretending he has a gun, shooting baddies, or wearing a mask and cape made of ribbon and a ratty blanket, or counting down the timer at a basketball court, making the shot that will win the greatest title in history, then you aren’t paying attention.  Boys gobble these heroics up.
In addition, until proven wrong, little boys often think their dads are superheroes, capable of astounding feats of strength and mechanical aptitude. Did my dad just chop down that tree? Did my dad just DUNK that basketball? The warrior mentality is strong in the younger children, but we lose it. Schooling squeezes us dry, proving we’re being trained for desks and computer screens, not battlefields, horses, sweat, victory, and flight. Never is gravity so profound as that holding a boy to an elementary school desk, teaching him he can’t fly and will never do so.
And it’s not like we’re doing things any better for women and girls in our culture.
So I respect those warriors, those people out there fighting for something. Sometimes they are fighting for something internal as much as external.
But tonight, no more on that.
I had a rough week, but the end struggled to rectify the pains. I’ve had friends praying for me, with me, and I know the Spirit intercedes on my behalf. Yet now and then, life is just tough. At least the skies are on my side, alternating between sunny blue and dark, brooding clouds to simulate my emotions on a heavenly canvas. The firmament understands, and the seas reflect the skies reflecting me, and even I’m reflected in the waters, so the circle goes.
And my week ended so spectacularly, I’ve nothing to complain about, I think: pickup soccer, beautiful sunsets, mountain driving, family coming to town, a hilarious DnD adventure, and hope. Only two weeks until my best friend in the world gets married. Only three until my best friend gets married. Last week was the one year anniversary of my good friends. I don’t think I got the memo – I just want to explore the world, read, write, play soccer, run, hike, find secret rivers and splash and play, and pick my way up mountains.
Oh hey, I love you. Don’t forget it. Rest well this night.


(Did I ever write about my superhero dream? It's my favorite dream. I'm a superhero, and my power is I can turn into an oil slick)


http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/warriors/ ‎

Message in a Bottle

I love hope, with its mercurial-Janus cruelty. Tantalus' hunger, a Sisyphean trial, Danaides filling of urns without bottoms - hope is constantly in the sway, a pendulum of the soul, between incredulity and faith. But I always believed, ever persevered, and without doubt there is no rest before the breaking, burning, bleeding burden carried by a heart - by such a heart. 

It was impossible; it's always impossible. Intractable love only makes miracles of divine sacrifice the greater. And how can one submit to half-love, when one has seen the perfect?

Message in a bottle, tied on balloon strings

hope is your wings, take flight 
soar high above, pass over 
everything, my letter-lamb

and land where a heart makes room.

lead the road back home;
remember

if the message is an ocean 

(of hope or love)

where can you put the bottle?

only heaven knows

Tuesday Night Lights

Autumn appeared and Summer played its last mischief. The sky was beautiful tonight, like a shadow cast over the purest lapis lazuli, fading into a dull ember orange near the skyline. With a foxtail moon and a dusting of stars, the temperature and atmosphere is perfect for thoughts and simply laying in the grass, staring into the heavens and asking questions of eternity. Where next, Lord? Oh, never mind, it matters little, doesn't it? I can't see very far, truly, when contemplating the greatness of this world, this universe. What's it like, Father? Do you eternally see it as good, each moment since creation?
Silly questions, frivolous questions, but Cassiopeia  smiles and rocks in her little wooden chair as she listens, and pulls up a glass of water with the dipper, though the bear, whose tail it is, was not impressed, and Orion chuckles as he holds aloft his hunter's prize.
Every year, I think, has held its ends and beginnings, its hopes and queries, its trials and joys. What would it take, I ask, for a fulfillment of my dreams? What must I do? The stars just twinkle in response, and the divine is silent, this time, though the breeze over the hills is not. There are a lot of questions, a lot of loves, a lot of thoughts, a lot of wishes, broken or filled or patient, swimming across my mind like those satellites in the sky. Many of these will be broken, shortly, but they'll be replaced with new dreams. Is that the way of it then? Why bother fretting, when all will be clear as this sky, eventually?

We're alike, the moon and I.
Wax to life, wane goodbye
Shedding silver light by night
Shift away by day
No argentine remains to grace
Fae forgotten dreams
I'll trace your name among the stars

Lyrique

Thunderstorms rage outside as I listen to melancholy musique, tearing up at the somber poetry and its symmetric outpour. Do not decry those tears; rain seeped through the window into my soul. I pen, in the silence that is the storm.
Where I stay up all night / And all that I write is a grey grey tune
Even the dim light of this laptop screen draws moths towards the window - night creatures eager for light. The bats soon swoop in for the feast. A great silk moth latches onto the window, and in my fright, I thought it a bat. Are they here for the light or the shelter beneath the eaves?
Are you looking for answers / to questions under the stars?
Dimly, the street lamps flicker through the valley beneath, illuminating needles of heavenly weeping falling onto unyielding asphalt. The souls of a thousand faces, spread across countless spaces, struggling, fighting, praying. I imagine a web of intersecting colors, illuminated by the cracks of lightning splitting this sky, a network of all our spiritual supplications. I read the Genesis, I read Psalms 23, I read Philippians 4, and I read Revelations 22. Listen, the storm is a song.
Oh I'll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away
Dreams collide, dreams of balloons and skies and transparent goodbyes, but distant, distant, as though a painting of a photograph of someone else's lives. It is a speculum of silver and stained glass, showing clearly nothing of love and hope and love, and the drums of the stormy night rage unending, though it is not rage, but the humming of bass strings.
All I ever learned from love / Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.
Small rivulets burn their whispering paths down the hills into the valley, into the creek in the hammock of the hills. I suspect the salmon leaping upstream to love and death, inextricably bound, mind this not. I can hear their splashes, a counterpoint. A coyote howls, an owl shrieks, the creatures stand still. But not the rain. I smile, and wonder what whispers the wind to comfort the clouds. May those words be carried far and fair this night.
Won't you come away with me tonight? /  We can fly past the moon and the starlight
What the water wants is hurricanes,  / and sailboats to ride on its back
And I ride the storm into slumber to swim with the salmon, gallop astride the lightning, and follow these rivers unto the vastness of the ocean, so I may gaze in its reflection and witness the sky.

And then, there are no words. Only the weeping of violins as bows breathe across silver strings.

The Most Telling Move

Late. On a day of complete freedom, with few predetermined appointments, I still failed in running until far too late into the evening, and thus haven't started writing, reading, or preparing for work tomorrow as yet. I went to a games store (and bought a card game - I haven't done that in some time), went to a used bookstore (and bought only 3 books. What restraint!), played some disc golf, read a bit of Everything is Illuminated, skyped the guys, ate dinner, played a board game that lasted all night, and only just now finished running in the light drizzle for a while.
In other bright news, I fixed my desktop drivers and wireless such that I can use it again (I can work on dual screens instead of lappy386 all the time). A pleasant day. As I was running and listening to my audio book (best way to run ever), I was contemplating subtlety and cunning. When I compete, I often pick what I deem the most effective strategy. I know some people who always play aggressive, always play sneaky, always play through knowledge. I pick the most effective strategy, whatever it happens to be, and mold my tendencies into that strategy. Yet, if I had to select my favorite, cunning was always my preferred method of conquest - winning through intelligent process and careful analysis.
I enjoy games, but I enjoy them far less than people, now. This was not always so. And in the games today, as I lost and my opponents asked me how my horrible game felt (they are competitive sometimes in a bad way. I was there once), I simply smiled and said, "It's good to be outside with friends." They had no response. In the greater game, I made a move they could not counter with their existing strategies, and it captured their hearts a bit. Sneaky? Perhaps. But a good move, I'd like to think. I've made another move today, the most telling one, perhaps. Now we just have to wait and see whom it heals, and whom it breaks.

A friend of mine's mother may be dying soon. Pray for them, and her. And everyone else. I've a tough decision to make here soon, so pray I make the wise one. Lord, please help me make the right one.

Belief

Amid other deep or casual conversations yesterday, I was asked at one point, "Do you ever find it difficult to believe in God?" I responded no, with a little explanation, but it's actually quite a difficult question. There are a couple of ways this can be interpreted, even, so I'll start with how I responded. (These are my answers, and not indicative of actual apologetic arguments. I'd have to write a book to explain everything, not a paragraph)

1. Do you have trouble believing that God exists?

No. I've read numerous essays and books on apologetics, from Christian, Jewish, and Muslim writers. From ontological arguments to arguments of design and existential arguments and arguments from morality and meaning - all of these and more I've delved into, searching for various proofs. I've been moved by each, and I certainly have been affected by some more than others. I've even read their counter arguments, and arguments from the problem of evil or chaos or arguments on why there does not have to be a being beyond existence, beyond time, beyond space for such things to exist.  But at the end of the day, my experience and my belief and the things I've seen and heard and felt propel me deep into the heart of God and knowing. I don't have any trouble believing that God exists, but that does lead me directly into the next question.

2. Do you ever have trouble having faith in God?

I think one of the biggest cultural blows to religion was at our nation's foundation, when our nation spurred our culture in a very individualistic, deistic direction. I remember a story I was told, about a missionary who went into a small third-world country devastated by famine, war, and sickness. When he was helping at the church, he struggled every day with the hardship, the pain he saw, and asked the priest, "How do you stay faithful when you see such pain? How do you endure when surrounded by such trials?"

The priest was a bit surprised, but responded, "How do you have faith when you want nothing? And culture tells you happiness is simply another toy easily within your grasp? How do you have faith when it is harder to see what you are being saved from?" Sometimes I do have trouble having faith. Not often, but it happens. I heard once that if you do not doubt, you are not asking enough questions. Sometimes, doubting can spurn you into greater wisdom or into seeking more fervently after answers. Yet if doubting turns you bitter, perhaps you are more angry than curious.

If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

~Yann Martel Life of Pi

3. Do you believe that God cares? Or believe in God's interaction in your life?

This comes back to the topic of deism. Yes, I do believe God interacts with me on a personal basis. I have some different perspectives than many American Christians, but I very fervently believe that God loves ME and died so that I could be sanctified by his blood unto salvation. So do I believe that God interacts with me and my life? Everyday. Do I believe that God cares? Absolutely. Do I always feel comfortable in that belief? Certainly not in the most difficult circumstances.


There are difficult times, and there are less difficult times. Sometimes it is like when I have a runny nose or stomach aches. Whenever I suffer such symptoms, I regret not being thankful when I am in good health. You only remember how difficult times are when they are difficult, and how much of a struggle doubt is when you are doubting. The wider view is the tougher one.

Destiny

Walk any path in Destiny's garden, and you will be forced to choose, not once but many times.  The paths fork and divide. With each step you take through Destiny's garden, you make a choice; and every choice determines future paths.  However, at the end of a lifetime of walking you might look back, and see only one path stretching out behind you; or look ahead, and see only darkness.
Sometimes you dream about the paths of destiny, and speculate, to no purpose. Dream about the paths you took and the paths you didn't take... The paths diverge and branch and reconnect; some say not even Destiny himself truly knows where any way will take you, where each twist and turn will lead.
But even if Destiny could tell you, he will not. Destiny holds his secrets. The garden of Destiny. You would know it if you saw it. After all, you will wander it until you die. Or beyond. For the paths are long, and even in death there is no ending to them.
~ Season of Mists - Neil Gaiman

This is one of my favorite beginnings to any story, though the beginning of Season of Mists holds a special place in my heart. It is certainly one of my favorite Sandman novels, which makes it one of my favorite books overall. Choices are an interesting quandary, in retrospect. With an omniscient God, sometimes I have difficulty reconciling predestination and free will, though that's a philosophical topic too deep, perhaps, for this setting. But I can't not believe in a semblance of free will, for without free will, I'm not responsible for my misdeeds nor, even, for my righteous ones.
So, assuming I must claim responsibility for my actions, and the consequences of such actions carry me along a lane in Destiny's garden that cannot be unwound, I often deliberate overlong about meaningful decisions or happenstance in my life. This is not always detrimental. However, I'm also something of a personal perfectionist. It may matter little whether my friends  live perfectly, choose perfectly, behave ideally, but this is my life. With careful choices and faithful movements, should I not be able to live perfectly? Write perfectly? Be perfectly kind or loving? If the possibility exists, with enough rigor and rigid control, surely perfection is not out of reach for the rest of my life, right?
I don't actually think these things. But sometimes, in the aftermath of foolish choices, I wallow. I read a particularly insightful blog post the other day on this topic, and I'm going to shamelessly quote it here: (on the topic of a spiraling downward of shame)
...And you’re not allowed to shame spiral, either.
Why? We both have a life to live. Words of wisdom to offer. Gifts God has given us. And once you and I allow ourselves to be shut down and chained by guilt or mistakes, we are rendered ineffective.
And we both know who does that.
So let’s not let that happen to us, okay? I’ll make you a deal: If you don’t let it happen to you, I won’t let it happen to me.
Let nothing silence you. You have things to say.
And God still likes you.
(Thank you asparaguslane. I appreciate your words and the tactfully blunt way in which they are spoken. I wish I had your talent. For now, I'll just borrow your words)

No one is perfect. Sometimes I feel like I just see my foibles too clearly, like muddy palm prints on crystal-clear windows, or droplets of blood dripping into a glass of clean water (that was a bit gruesome.. make it blue dye). Now that water is undrinkable. Spread it around in 10 gallons so the blood is so diffuse you could not dream of tasting it, and still I'd know it was there, polluting. And it is in these times that I'm thankful for my friends. I often mistrust their kindness, misinterpret it as lying on my behalf, as flattery. Friends don't flatter, they compliment.
But, the reminder is there. I do have things to say, and God (and my friends) still likes me, loves me, even when I make mistakes, and then more mistakes, and even when I make the same mistakes again. While I've not shame spiraled recently, I remember times of having done so. Thankfully, my friends are wise, gentle, and knowing. What I want more than anything is to be there for them when their shame spirals begin, preventing that slippery slope and catching them when they fall. I want to do more than just pray, though sometimes the distance is too great. I want to be there for my friends on every branching path their walk through the garden of fate takes them. Then, when we reach the other side, I want to celebrate at our faith and faithfulness to each other.

Jig is up

Sometimes you pray for a window, hope for a door, and receive a concrete wall. Glancing right and left, you pace alongside its flat façade, and no cracks are found.  Desperate, you lean close, pressing your ear against the cold surface, knuckling the wall in a silent supplication for a hollow echo, a whisper of direction from opposite this obstacle unjustly impeding your earned, deserved path. It says nothing; it's a wall.
Shortly, you discover your tantrum solves nothing, your whining echoes irritatingly off that haughty wall. You settle your back against a door opposite the wall, fixating your gaze on that inconsiderate slab - if it moves, you'll know. Why is it there? Won't you please move it, Lord?
If walls could smirk, especially plain grey walls, this one's smugly blank expression was enough to drive one mad. The wind sighs through the door at your back, the autumnal smell bringing to mind thoughts of fallen leaves, golden, orange and crimson, and mountain pines with a trickling burn meandering down in a gully, joyful fish leaping out and catching water-skippers. You hear a blue-jay whistling the song of the hills. What is with this abysmal wall? Just. Let. Me. Through. This is my dream!
The sound behind assumes a dull ambiance, and the fragrance melts into the backdrop of your mind. The jig is up. Is that a ram caught in the thicket on that mountainside?


I have an old, old, yellow-leaved copy of a Kierkegaard book that contains two distinct essays he wrote: Fear and Trembling and That Sickness Unto Death. The latter is an assay into the contemplation of despair, beginning with a reference to the story about Lazarus. It discusses different forms despair may take, three in particular, with the conclusion that faith is the opposite of despair. The other story is, to me in concept, more intriguing. Fear and Trembling embarks on a journey into the mentality of Abraham on his journey of sacrifice and faith. Kierkegaard travels through the stages of Abraham's resignation and hope and inner dilemma. It is a fascinating question. What was Abraham thinking as he climbed the mountain towards the sacrifice of his beloved son. There's a metaphorical connection to Christ's own sacrifice, and the faith requisite of the son. I remember a sermon that I heard as a child where the pastor discussed how Abraham had faith, despite the grim outlook, and what he never knew was that a ram climbed the other side of the mountain, a ram destined for a thicket. Seems a grim end for a ram - I'm uncomfortable with the death of anything - but the ramifications are worthy of contemplation (I made that pun un-sheepishly. I apologize to ewe).
Now I'm bashing my head into walls, and maybe I'm not seeing the mountainside, maybe I'm not seeing the Autumn, maybe this obstacle is still too concrete in my tunnel-vision. You have to back away, sometimes, from your tunnel-vision or microscope vision, where a tiny fiasco looks like the whole of things.

My Hope is in the Lord

Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Shabbat Shalom, everyone. I admit that, sometimes, the busyness of life prevents me from taking needed Sabbath breaks. "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." I used to believe this meant that as long as we *could* keep going, Sabbath wasn't requisite. This is true, in some sense. But if you ask any authentic Jewish man what the most sacred of holidays is, he won't answer Pesach (Passover) or Yom Kippur (the day of Atonement), or Rosh Hashanah (feast of trumpets), but the Sabbath.  It was the first holy day, set apart from the dawn of creation.

Another interesting point is that "holy day" and the word for "festivals" in the Bible can be translated appointment. I was reading an interesting book on Messianics (Jewish Christians), and it mentioned how the festivals and holy days were greater than simply vacations from work, they were, and are for many Jews still, appointments with God. And the Sabbath is the greatest of these. I wouldn't miss a dentist appointment, or a doctor's appointment, or even an appointment for a phone call, but, many weeks, I so blithely ignore an appointment with God? I go to Church, I read my Bible, I philosophize about theoretical Christianity, and, when possible, I try to share my beliefs, but there is something intrinsically fantastic about an appointment with God.

I'll explain it this way. I'm something of an introvert.  5 years ago, when taking the Meyer Briggs test, I scored over 90% in all my categories, one of which was introversion. Years later, my score has dropped more towards the median point, a bit, but suffice it to say that shyness understates my original introversion. I was downright petrified of group situations. So in Church, the times I most feared were greeting times. A whole bunch of smiling faces mingling and sharing tiny tidbits of their lives - not my favored activity. It was almost a nightmare. (this has all changed to some degree) Once I started talking to any individual, I immediately felt more comfortable, as if I'd entered into a zone of communication, and fenced off outside elements. So yes, stamp me an introvert and ship me into a corner with a book. 

In the same way, giant group Bible studies and open-speaking scenarios frighten me. I'd rather talk to individuals, small groups (small = 2-3). I'd rather interact with people on a personal level, so why not God? I like the idea of Sabbath because I can choose a personal appointment with God, I can meet with God with friends, I can rest in a meditative contemplation of a divine who has tucked me under his wings, congratulating me for a week well done.

There aren't many weeks where I'm destroyed by the end. My job is gentle, and I've time in my life on the side for writing, reading, playing in the great outdoors, friends, and so on. But I still desire a specific time where I can rest, Sabbath, in the Lord. I can appoint a time where it's Yeshua and I. And when the week is tough, and there appears to be no path of escape, no solution for problems, no winning an intractable situation, God speaks those words from Zephaniah into my ear. And then I always hear my favorite verse: "Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near." (NASB)

Let your hope rest on the Lord, He is near. Shabbat Shalom.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I'm not much of a television person, and I suspect visual media mattered little in my psychological bloom.  What captured my interest most was literature.  As a child, my heroes were not like Disney princes or Star Wars' jedi, but characters like Ender Wiggin, King David, Benny from the Boxcar Children, and the Stainless Steel Rat.  I wanted the kindness and loyalty of Sam, or the wizard powers of Gandalf; the bravery of Peter Pevensie, or the charismatic wisdom of Ged. I expected, given my literary earnestness, I'd develop into a hero, not vapid like the beast-slaying princes of movies, but honest and true, as Taran Wanderer or Peter Pan.

I was wrong.

Biblical literature is full of fantastic stories, many of which may surprise the most conventional, conservative Christian.  One of my favorites is the story of David and Michal.  King Saul requests that David produce a hundred Philistine foreskins as dowry for Michal's hand in marriage.  David, pleased with the arrangement, kills two-hundred Philistines and returns with double the endowment. I'm not even certain whether I should be impressed, or disgusted, surely.

Would that I were such a hero! (Though I suspect such a prize, currently, would not garner much approval in American households) David's faithfulness to God is astounding - why is mine not so?  As such, I've dedicated fifty days towards a fast of my own, a fast in faithfulness and, perhaps, a desperate prayer. Let the games begin - or, as Sherlock might say, the game is afoot.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.
~Yeats

As the sun rises, and my journey ambles from night into day, perhaps this is the tale of:
Voyage of the Dawn Treader.