Debridement

As the time gets closer to a fill year from when our much loved Elias's spirit left us to be received by Christ, I (we) have a lot to remember and think about.  It's very difficult not to think about his dying, and the struggles of his body; not to let those thoughts rule and blot out all else.  My sky grows dark like the hour of the Lord's death whenever I remember those things.
So, along with that, we remember all the wonderful days we were given.  We remember what a great blessing and gift it was to have Elias with us.  We try to remind ourselves that he is still ours and will be with us again someday soon.
Also, I do remember regrets.  I regret my sinful hesitation in giving thanks for Elias' healing earlier, when in answer to prayer his serious liver issues disappeared in an hour at church.  I regret not more eagerly and fully fulfilling my vows when we returned from the tests showing that his liver was functioning properly. I regret every hint of complaint at how tiring it was to be in suspense over his respiratory problems.  I have asked for forgiveness for these things, and know that the blood of Christ has washed away those stains, but still I hope and pray that the lesson was learned.  I ask for a pure and grateful heart that doesn't betray God's generosity with reservation in thankfulness or hints of complaint.
I'm not saying I know that God took our son because of my sin.  I don't know that, and unless God were to tell me clearly and specifically, I wouldn't say it.  But I do know that my hesitation to fulfill vows, to pour out generous thanksgivings from a pure heart for such a great and precious gift as the life of my beautiful son was sin.
Sure, we were "victims of a tragedy", and I know many people who would rush to reassure that it wasn't our fault, wasn't my fault, or even that God doesn't work that way.  But being party to great suffering doesn't make anyone guiltless, and our 21st century ideas of how a perfect father ought to act does not supersede the revelation of the real Father's apostles and prophets.  While I confess and greatly regret my sin, I trust in a God who forgives sin, and puts away iniquity.  I trust in a God who does not punish the guiltless and who holds my son in His hand still.  I trust in the resurrection of the dead by the power and work of Jesus Christ the Son of God.  I trust that I will see my son again and hold him.
Until that day, I do hope and pray that I wouldn't repeat my failings, and I give thanks that despite our failings we have the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.
Thankful, always.

Where to Stop the Buck?

Short note.  In Philosophy class, we were going over Descartes' Mind/Body dualism and the question posed by Princess something-or-other to Descartes: :"By what means can a pure thinking substance (mind) cause a material substance (body) to move?  After some banter back and forth, and progression on to Malebranche's occasionalism, I noticed that there's always the next question.  What I mean is, you can continue asking "why" and "how" of every explanation given for any state of affairs ad infinitum.  As some atheists love to do in the following manner:
Q. "How did the Universe come to be"?
A. "God made it"
Q. "Who made God?"

You see what I mean.  But here's the thing: The Scientific endeavor that is now in progress won't take "just because" for an answer on anything.  There must be an explanation for everything, every process, every motion, every force, EVERYTHING.  Yet Science is in search of a "Theory of Everything" (T.O.E.).  But if Science remains consistent, it can never have a TOE, because the moment it decides that everything reduces to strings or whatever, then there is still the inevitable question "what causes those thingamajigs to exist and act that way?" and the search must go on infinitely.

So it seems to me, as useful as this habit of questioning has proved to be, there must be at least one place, possibly many, where the buck stops, where the questioning process itself is meaningless, where we have something, someONE, of Whom when asked "Why does He/It exist and function in such a way" the only answer possible will not be "because of this or that internal mechanism/thingie" but must simply be "just because" - NO FURTHER EXPLANATION POSSIBLE.

Something like when you have a guy who sees a flaming bush that tells him to take his shoes off and go tell the Egyptian dictator to let the Hebrews go, and the guy asks "Who should I say sent me", gets the answer:

I AM THAT I AM.

Alzheimers, Identity, Covenant.

What if I don't remember God?  What If I stop being "me"?

That is, what if I get alzheimer's?

A conversation with a fellow student/co-worker @ SPU who's been assigned this book for her psych class made me think about something I once wanted to write a blog about.
One of the chapters in the book talks about Alzheimers, and asks "if you have a soul, how come neuron degradation causes you to lose your memories and sense of God, and even your recollection of being a Christian?" I don't know what the book says in reply, if anything (from her description, it sounds like it just presents several accounts as challenges to the idea that we have souls and non-material memories).  That's not necessarily what I had to say.  But I have thought about this before.

A couple months ago I was listening to a John MacArthur sermon on being a pastor and he mentioned his old mentor Charles Feinberg who had died of Alzheimers.  He told (in brief) the story of how this ridiculously intelligent and holy Messianic Jew had deteriorated to the point where he no longer remembered that he had believed in Jesus as Messiah, and thought he was still a rabbinic orthodox Jew.

Needless to say, that thought troubled me quite a bit.  Macarthur didn't seem to think of it as a problem, but to me it was a horrible thought...that I (or anyone) could possibly because of a degenerative disease reject and disregard God?  Wouldn't God keep that from happening?  Apparently not.  So, disturbed, I searched for other stories of people with alzheimers who had during that time lost their memories of God/scripture, prayer, became nasty and foul-mouthed, etc...

But after having thought about it, I realized that there are many temporary times that I "forget God' - when I'm waking up after a hard school/work week and no sleep, and it takes like 5 minutes to remember my own name.  Am I no longer "me" then?  Have I lost my salvation?  How about when I'm asleep?  Obviously, the "real me" is more than whatever consciousness is getting processed through my neurons at any given moment. Well then, what am I?

Scripture says that "Your life is hidden with Christ in God"  "We know that we are children of God, what we shall be is not yet known." "You are seated with Christ in the heavenly places"  It sounds as if the real you, the real center of you-ness, is in the hand of God somewhere, safeguarded despite whatever nasty things might happen to your body or mental acuity.  So you being you doesn't depend on any absolute continuity of mental function - thank goodness!  Otherwise you would constantly be blipping in and out of existence every time you zoned out, were on heavy medication, fell asleep or got hit on the head.

And as far as "losing your faith" via Alzheimers, I recalled that our relationship to God is based on a covenant, like a marriage covenant.  And that made me think of the movie "The Notebook" (yes, yes, I know.)  In the story, a man cares for his wife who has alzheimers and doesn't remember him, even telling him to get lost at some points  of the movie.  The husband, of course, doesn't leave her but continues to care for her very lovingly.  If a human being responds in such a way to the other member of a covenant when they contract alzheimers, then how could we think that God, who allowed his creature to contract the disease, would do any less?

Alzheimers is terminal, but just like zoning out after a hard day's/night's work, it's temporary.  It doesn't last forever.  God will raise you from the dead and renew your body in the pattern of New Creation - all neurons intact - and you won't have alzheimers' any more.  Yes, it lasts longer, but it is ultimately just as temporary of a condition as any other we experience.

All that to say,

1.) our "souls", our authentic selves, are in God's hands and are being formed by a process connected to our lives here on earth but in a way so little revealed it's difficult to speculate how it works until the day "the sons of God (you &I) are revealed".  Therefore, we ought not to be bothered by the conundrums of consciousness here on earth.
2.) God's in a covenant relationship with us, like marriage.  There are certain conditions to covenants (if we deny him, He will deny us), but inherent is the fact of God's faithfulness even if we lose faith for some time (if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself).

The prospect of Alzheimer's or other Dementia is still pretty terrifying, but it is comforting to contemplate that they are not the end, that even if we forget Him, God does not forget us - that we are in a large and compassionate Hand.

Walk by faith.

"How can a man be pure?" So says Bildad.
Yet Job maintained his innocence, and when God appeared, Job responded not with repentance for previous sin, but repentance for uttering what He didn't understand concerning God's judgements, though God says that Job spoke of Him "what was right".

I'm reading through the historical books, and just finished up the last several chapters of Judges. To think of all the rape, lies, cowardice, and slaughter of innocent women and children! And much of it by "the good guys"! Even when they inquire of the LORD as to whether they ought to fight their brothers, and He says yes, they're still slaughtered by the evil Benjamites.
There is no explanation, no apology. God does not say whether or not He approves of them slaughtering the mothers and babies of Jabesh Gilead along with the men. These things hold true, and we see them. We see the victories, too, when we're told, like the Israelites, to fight, and are slaughtered when we do, but in perseverance see the victory even though it's not what we expected. Defeat even in victory. And even Phineas was there! The priest who stayed the Judgment of God by spearing the Israelite and midianite woman in the Torah.

What can we say? I came across some verses of Job's:

"Behold, I go forward, but he is not there,
And backward, but I do not perceive Him..."

We don't see Him at work, so often. Yet does this mean He is not there?

"...on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him;
He turns to the right hand, but I do not see him..."

So he IS at work. Though we might not, most of the time, see it. We don't see God at work, but does he see us? Even if not seeing, are we at least seen?

"...but he knows the way that I take;
When he tries me I shall come out as gold..."

But how? How to follow an unseen God, when we don't hear a bell of approval for good actions, a thunder of heaven when we do badly, Nor a vision of angels when we need guidance? How can we please a God shrouded in such mysterious silence if he will not show himself?

IS He silent?

"...I have not departed from the commandment of his lips,
I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food..."

So He Is there, He is not silent. He has spoken to us with certainty in His words, his revealed commandments. And this is enough for faith, and faithful walking. Enough of a word to pass the test.

But does He care? Are we only rats in a test, some sort of experiment? Who is this tester, and what are his intentions towards us? Are we only pawns, disposable lab rats, small bit and unmemorable players on a great stage? Who thinks of us?

"...for he will complete what he appoints for me,
And many such things are in his mind..."

He is there. He is not silent. And he watches. With great care and with much thought towards you, towards me, towards all.

Thoughts on Samson::Or, Not just a hoormonger.

 It is an odd thing to think, sometimes, that Samson's mentioned as a man of faith in Hebrews 11.  Reading over Judges 13-15 though, I saw a lot that didn't really stand out to me before.  For one, Samson was announced as being in special covenant with God "from the womb".  This means that babies are ALIVE, not potentially, (whatever that means) but actually, in there. Not only alive but in relationship to God. And there's recognition that what a mother eats affects her baby, since Samson's mom ('the woman', we're not told her name) is told not to eat any grapestuffs.
Interestingly, the Angel of YHWH only seems really interested in appearing and talking to Samson's mom.  Manoah has to go where she is to talk to Him.

Then once Sampson's out and about, he chooses the uncircumcised Philistine woman.  We could chalk this up to "the heart has reasons which reason does not know", but in this case, that reason is "It was from the Lord".   Granted, how could his parents know that, especially since it was against general policy to intermarry with pagans. Doesn't mean it was a good idea maritally though.

Then, Samson tears lions like young goats (nobody I know of tears young goats though, so maybe "like a bag of potato chips" would be a culturally appropriate).  But the oddest thing about this, aside from the fact that he just tore apart a lion, of course, is that HE DOESN'T TELL ANYONE!  Think of any young man you know.  If they tore apart a lion, would it not appear in their facebook feed? I mean, guys make a big deal about killing a fish!
Is this modesty? It would seem like it, since there doesn't seem to be any other reason for him not to tell.     So, plus one for Samson.

Next, one normally gets the impression in messages about Samson that he's an uncontrollable womanizer. But when he storms out of his own wedding, and leaves and comes back to find that his wife got given to another man, he doesn't just say, "meh, sure, I'll take her younger sister - she's even prettier!"  If he were "that guy", we would expect him to do just that.  But he doesn't.  And he still doesn't seem to have given up on that girl, either, because he takes the Philistine's attack on her (some kind of 'honor killing') as an attack on him.  So there was some real attachment there, he wasn't (it seems) just after anything with a certain curve to it.

Then his own people come to arrest him, but he doesn't blow them off or fight them.  He could have easily said: "Forget you guys, just try and arrest me and see what happens" but he lets them save face before the Philistines by their act of submission before he goes to town with the jawbone. So he seems to have a concern for his people, and a certain humility about his own strength.

Then, exhausted from cracking Philistines over the head with Donkey-parts, he does a bit of improv spoken word, a Hebrew Haiku of sorts.  Not my taste, maybe, but it's good Hebrew poetry and done on the spot.  So most likely not a mere meathead.  I don't know many football players that compose witty limericks after scoring touchdowns, usually they just jump around and slap someone's butt (don't they? I guess I haven't watched anyone score a touchdown in ages, so maybe this is just my own stereotyping at work.)  Anyway, Sampson's doing pretty well.  AND his following prayer acknowledges that the great salvation was granted not by Samson's awesomeness, but by the LORD.

OK, so next he's at a prostitute's place in Gaza.  And probably not for tea and conversation. And it doesn't seem that a whole lot of thought or confliction went into this decision.  So hence the title "Not Just a Hoormonger.  But sadly, he does seem to have been that.  At least this once. In his favor though, he does show some strategic thought and humor in waiting wil midnight when he could've just run out swinging, and carrying off their gates.

And then he pretty much goes down.  Delilah doesn't seem to have liked him, but he seems to have genuinely liked her.  And for all his whacking people with whatever came to hand (fists, foxes, temples), he never seems to have hit a woman (well, except with the temple).  This is something in his favor characterwise.

Is it sin to tell another Christian they're wrong in front of pagans?

Here's a late night conversation Brandy and I had over whether it's lawful for Christians to do something like, say, go to a church that supports and donates to abortion clinics and hold signs calling for them to repent.

See very low quality video HERE.

The Mere Christian...On Faeries and Goblins!

Began reading through Richard Baxter's "The Certainty of the World of Spirits" and quickly came across an interesting passage:

"...Yea, we are not fully certain whether these Aerial Regions have not a third sort of Wights, that are neither Angels, (Good or Fallen,) nor Souls of Men, but such as have been there placed as Fishes in the Sea, and Men on Earth: And whether those called Fairies and Goblins are not such.
But as all these, and more such, are unknown to us, so God seeth it meet for us that it should be so, and we should not so much as desire or endeavour that it might be otherwise."

That's certainly in line with a lot of my own personal speculation (and my reading of the bible!), both in the possibility of what might be, and what our reaction ought to be to it all.  As much as I love fantasy, I can only wonder.

This is why I am sending you prophets, sages, and scribes.

If no prophets' heads were filled with sights
had they not eaten the Maker's scroll
those gifts from the Father of all Lights
would not have planted in our souls

Who can hear without a messenger?
Who has ever lassoe'd God?
those who cast aside the primal word
were cast from Eden into Nod.

with eyes drawn by the founding Word,
the Spirit of the King,
prophets wrote bright times to come
times which blood would bring.

Do we not hear the voice of prophets?
Are apostles turned away?
can we reject His every messenger
but tell the Lord himself to stay?

"You are not of an age to have thought much" said Reason.

The giant bent forward in his chair and looked at her."Who are you?" he said.

"My name is reason", said the virgin.

"Make out her passport quickly" said the giant in a low voice.
"And let her go through our dominions and be off with all the speed she wishes."

"Not yet" said reason. "I will ask you three riddles before I go, for a wager."

"What is the pledge?" said the giant.

"Your head", said Reason.     -C.S. Lewis, Pilgrim's Regress.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

In conversations and disputes with others I'm often (well, I used to be) surprised with how reticent people are to actually dispute anything.  They get uncomfortable and flustered and often angry, and often after I ask them a question say something like "OK you're right, are you happy?"  Or "you win" as if they're worn out and trying to get me off their back.  Granted, I never wanted to be "on their back" to begin with, and I don't get why people treat approach discussion like a pacifist approaches a fistfight or a fat man approaches a flight of stairs.  My discussion partners and I often seem to have two completely different assumptions about what we're doing.

Rewind 2.5 thousand years, and you get back to some Greek guys called Sophists.  After devoting themselves to philosophy, they decided there was no truth and the real use of reason and language was as a weapon, an instrument of power to exercise your will over others.  Many sold their services to train young men in the used of language and rhetoric this way, as if they were teaching them swordplay.
Socrates disagreed, as did his disciple Plato. They believed that there was truth to be gotten to, a god to be served, and that was the point of language and reason to expose falsehood and seek truth.

In our day, or a few decades back, postmodern philosophers said basically the same thing as the Sophists, and said that anyone that gave an account of anything was on a power trip, trying to get people to buy into and fit into his story.

So, when I'm talking with people, it feels like I have to explain myself often.  I'm not trying to "win".  I haven't invited you to fistfight, or even to spar.  Reasoning is more than fighting.  They have some overlap, I won't deny that, but the fight of reason is hopefully against the common enemy of the combatants.

When I engage you in discussion, my aim is to combat untruth.  It may turn out to be in me.  It may turn out to be in you.  But either way that's what the blade of truth and reason was forged for.  The bladework of language is meant to serve that end. I don't want to "beat" you.  I want to serve both you and I and  even more centrally to serve the God of Truth.

Night Visions

Early last year I began reading through the bible on a general sort of program.  I placed tabs for Law/history, Wisdom/Poetry, Prophets, and New Testament, and then started moving to the right one chapter each.  In the past few weeks I've noticed a few common themes.  One is visions, i.e. dreams.  Most of the visions that I've seen in scripture are dreams.  Or, if not dreams properly, they seem to happen at night when the person is sleeping.  Daniel calls them "Visions of the night" (Dan 7:13).  The one I'm reading now, about the vision of the Ram (Persia) & the male goat (Greece/Alexander) is interesting.  The angels in the dream (well, maybe they're not angels, they could just be saints, it says "holy ones", so they could be holy angels or holy men) explain some of it to Daniel, but really he wouldn't have any way to know what it was about specifically, so he says that

"When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it."

Which made me wonder.  If this were a dream you or I had, we might have dismissed it as just plain weird, a product of bad cheese or a busy day, probably not as a prophecy about raising up kings and deposing them.  But Daniel thought it was significant, and sought to understand.  Of course, in Daniel's case a voice tells Gabriel the angel to explain the vision to him, and Gabriel does.  That would be nice.  But how often to those sorts of visions come along?
Maybe more often than we might think?  Daniel sought to understand when we might seek to fix breakfast. Maybe there is a lesson here.  I don't know.

I do know that prophecy throughout the bible is very important.  It saturates every book I'm reading through.  God chooses someone to speak to and through, and speaks to them through angels or dreams, or personally. Isaiah 3:2 mentions prophets as an aside, like a normal vocation like soldier and judge.  He even lists is with unsavory occupations like diviner and skillful magician (druggist?).  This and lots of other verses seem to indicate that there were always lots of prophets, just many of them were false, and few of them were prominent. We know there were lots of prophets who are barely mentioned or not mentioned at all by name, like the one in Judges 6:8 who comes out of the woodwork, sent by God to answer the people's complaint. This seems to imply that there were many true prophets not even mentioned in scripture.

So why not today? Especially in this dispensation of the Holy Spirit by whom we were sealed for the day of redemption?  So much of God's work has to do with His Spirit. "The Spirit of the LORD clothed Gideon".  Daniel is often recognized with the words "The Spirit of the Holy God/s is in you".

Don't really know, but I am asking and praying for a restoration.  We know that God is with us, but Gideon's question remains:
"Please sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us saying "Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?" But now the LORD has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.

And the LORD doesn't really answer, well, I suppose He does, but He answers by showing Gideon some of His wonderful works, and delivering them from Midian through Gideon.  He doesn't explain why He waited until that moment to do it.  Maybe that's what He's going to do with us? I hope so.  In the meantime, I am listening.

Work, Christ, Horrors, and the Life to Come.

As if Christ Himself lives in You. Because He does.

There is so much to do here on earth, but so much that we really cannot do.  A day's worth of living in this world is like a day's worth of watching a series of train wrecks from behind a plexiglass wall.  And then there is the struggle to wake up to the same wrecks every day, without becoming hardened.  In Psychology they call this hardening to a stimulus "habituation". We become habituated to all this, to the point that we can drink our tea or coffee and debate over which chair is more comfortable on our side of the plexiglass, all the while ignoring the series of daily crashes until the inevitable crash that will one day come through our pane of separation and crush the whole set, ourselves included.
But how can we NOT become habituated? Even in action we are so very powerless. We would quickly lose hope if our efforts were contingent upon immediate success.  After a little pounding on the glass, or for the very athletic, climbing over the pane to wave at the conductor in warning - only to have him wave back in greeting (or worse, try to wave you out of the way); almost all would retreat wearily after a few such attempts and make the best of what life they had on their side of the glass.

Where does Jesus Christ come into all this?  We talk a lot in our chairs over tea about His power, His defeat of evil, His cross.  But can we take Him with us? When we're screaming at the conductor or sifting through the wreckage, evil seems to be anything but defeated, and power seems anything but on the side of right; that is, on the side of Christ.

What do we mean when we say that Jesus has defeated evil then?  Does it mean that the train crashes are just an illusion? Is it license to sit back in our chairs and watch, perhaps shed a tear, and then say with a little bit of theatre in our voices "ahhh, yes, there is tragedy, but evil has been defeated!" and keep up this bit of amateur stagework until we ourselves get caught in the massive wheels?
What does scripture mean when it says He has defeated evil by His cross? In general it has to do with the defeat of sin, through forgiveness on the one hand, and through the injection of Christ-life on the other.  This forgiveness places us in a position to expect a future transfer to a better world in which the trains do not crash and all goes as ordered.  If this were all the Spirit of God in the apostles meant then we could really sit back in our chairs and repeat our lines with a little more conviction as we waited for that one train which would eventually plummet through the glass to take us to the better place.  But there is the injection.

And this injection is nothing other than the life of Christ Himself.  The Lord Messiah who never habituated to this earth, who was a man of grief and acquainted with sorrow.  He didn't merely shake his fist at the train crashes, but stretched out his hands to heal.  He spoke loudly against improper relating to God, and also spoke out against those who devoured widow's houses. He informed us that Love of neighbor is the echo of the Love of God.  And then He walked the road of obedience all the way to the cross - and then out the other side.  In this He showed us that the road of obedience is really a road to the cross, a "bidding to come and die".  But in the resurrection the Father shows us that the cross is not a dead end, but a doorway Jesus' "narrow door" into LIFE.  We don't get to the door or through it but by obedience born of true belief-His own life inside of us.

And with Him inside of us, it can truly be said "As is He, so are we in this world"  Will we speak? Will we act? And if we do, will we do it limply, looking around for Him to come to our aid?  He is inside of us.  We are His hands.  We need only know and believe  His word that we are in the Father as we "do His commands"- and move out.  If we are struck by oncoming trains, so be it. That will be our door. We have met His fate in death, and will meet it also in resurrection.  If His power is in us, can we not stretch out our hands in His name and watch Him heal? It would seem so, and sometimes is the case; God knows that I don't know why this so often fails. I believe we must and ought to cry out for a change in this area, which can be nothing but a deficit in His Church.  But if after our asking it does not please Him to stretch out His hand through us to heal, we cannot let that stop us from living out the life of Christ in every path of obedience which remains open. We must reach the door of the cross and go through.

Christ has conquered, through putting away of sin and its guilt, and cutting off its mastery over us.  To the degree this is not so, Christ's conquering has not yet reached where it must.

We have this power inside of us, a light to the world, and His teaching, which is its seed.  We have also another vision and promise, the promise of that world to come.  This promise that lives inside of us as Christ its Lord lives inside of us, allows us to be habituated to that perfect world, and jarred anew by this broken one with every new day, but stirred up again with the knowledge of what is (His creation, His presence in us), and what will be (that world to come).  Jarred, but not just to tears, rather to obedience.  Never forgetting that one of His commands is that we Believe in Him, believe His word, remembering also that what in the heart we call faith, in the will we call obedience.

Christ's victory is going to come with power as He comes on the clouds with all the Holy Angels in blazing fire. Yet until that day, that great Sabbath (and in anticipation of it-for us who have entered into the sabbath rest of Christ) Christ's victory over sin, Cross and Resurrection, looks like you and I stepping out into the world to do our Father's will, Loving Him with all the heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving neighbor as ourself.  And it is lawful on the sabbath to do good, not evil, to save life, not to destroy it.  To let our good works (yes, they will be work, and work requires effort) so shine before men that they will glorify the God-in-Christ who works in us, and perhaps welcome Him into their own being before He comes in Judgement and Restoration.

We who are left.

Five months
from last December's end
I held onto the heavens
our warm and welcomed son
And we prayed and held hard
thinking maybe we had won
I'd like to fast forever
let the dry world peel away
like sunburned skin,
a lifted veil
get through
get through and stay.
But who can hold on to heavens?
And who could restrain Elijah?
Until Jerusalem descends
or I am called to rest
I shall walk as half a man
a  limping cripple left for Christ
There's power shown in weakness,
the unexpected power of God
I pray the power to come and fill
the holes that weakness brought
To hold the place of holy joys
-until those joys returning-
To keep the wounds from scabbing, scarring,
and keep the longing, yearning.
if I had the power to hold you here,
come home to see you kicking
in your little chair
arch your back to be picked up
and tell me all your soul
your small concerns, your deepest care
brightest soul I've ever known
-at work, can't cry, I'm not alone
but I'm a broken man now
because you are so much
for a man who's tasted heaven
how could the prison be enough?
God sees the pleading at the door
when like an insane dog
I scratch and scream at the trim and frame
running circles on the floor.
And He knows, he knows, all that I ask
He knows what dreams shall come
He knows the things that are and will be
He knows and makes a home.

Bonhoeffer and I agree.

Bonhoeffer understands!
“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship. Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Implications.

Second time ever taking part in an anti-abortion demonstration outside the local "planned parenthood" (what an inaccurate name!).
The choice was between a women's tea for Brandy and going to the demonstration, and after prayer and conversation, we opted for me going to the demonstration.  There will be other teas.
40 Days for Life (http://40daysforlife.com/index.cfm) only lasts for 40 days, after all, and this was the final time that the local "Seattle Clinic Defense" (http://www.seattleclinicdefense.org/) was coming out to counter-protest.  My first night showing up for a vigil shift the organizer Helen told me they were hoping for as many people to show as possible on Saturday so they wouldn't be outnumbered by the SCD folk.

I explained to the kids why I was going to go stand in the rain and pray, and asked if any of them wanted to come with me.  Enoch immediately said yes, but I backed out of that one knowing he can't stay still for five minutes and would be out in the road getting squished before I knew what was happening.  Jaelle then volunteered, and I asked her if she was willing to stand in the cold and rain and pray with me for an hour and a half.  She said "yes".  I said "dress really warm!"

So we went, and prayed (9 out of 10 of the ppl showing up for prayer were Catholic, so they were all going through the rosary together).  The pro-abortion folks were pretty quiet & didn't really attempt to engage any of us, except for the worn-looking older woman who "booed" me and Jelly as she walked away with her sign towards the end of it all.  I told her that we loved her.  She told me she didn't love us.  They held their slogan-signs though, and got quite a few honks from the deceived motorists of Seattle.  When you don't have an argument, a slogan will serve, I suppose.

Brandy had been waiting with the boys in the van across the street, & told me how excited Josiah had been getting watching the whole thing, even making his own sign in the backseat with crayon.  Maybe next time I'll take him with me.

Maybe it's because I was so blessed by God as to have the mother I have (I think dad helped too, especially in the logic department) and to watch her reactions and actions to abortion in our extended family and the news that I had a healthy sense of shock and grief as far back as I could remember at the thought of someone actually killing their own child in the womb.

As I grew older, I was always willing to respond if asked what I thought of abortion as an issue, but began thinking of it more as just one of those evils that I would not commit but wouldn't really go out of my way to discourage others from commiting.  Even after truly being born again I was taught that it would be futile to hold a sign, because nothing was really going to change.  It's easy to be shushed and awkward-silenced into a retreat into "personal opinions".

When our baby after Enoch miscarried, that forced Brandy and I to look it all in the eye.  Look, that is, at the issue of where human life begins, and what a miscarriage is.  Most of the literature directed towards mothers seems geared to soothe them by telling them that they only lost a few cells.  After all, it would be so much easier if that were true!  A mother would not have really lost a baby...only a few cells, that's not so bad; there would be no death involved.  But we talked, and I cracked open my biology book, and before God we reaffirmed that yes, we'd really lost a baby. About this time we began to research what we might be able to do in the way of combating abortion and helping expecting mothers find other options.  Brandy looked into Crisis Pregnancy Clinics in the area.

Then I went to the Discovery Institute's Summer Seminar, where I met the passionate and innovative crew who started AHA (Abolish Human Abortion http://abolishhumanabortion.com/ ) and had several really invigorating conversations with them.  They were the first group of Christians I'd ever met who believed that by the power of Christ abortion could really be abolished here in the U.S..  They pointed to the work of believers like William Wilberforce and the shocking parallels between attitudes and arguments and public sentiment regarding slavery back then and abortion now. 
I was also priveleged to hear Tracy Deisher talk about her pro-life biotech work here in Seattle (http://soundchoice.org/) regarding the use of fetal cells in vaccines and the uselessness of fetal stem cells (as opposed to adult stem cells) for medical research.

Shortly after this I encouraged Brandy to do whatever it took to start volunteering at the Carenet Crisis Pregnancy Clinic she'd been researching.
Then finally, everything that happened with our beautiful Elias really drove home to me the preciousness of God's little ones, and the unthinkableness of standing by with my private opinions and letting generations of women be deceived into having them killed.  It's not a private opinion, it's Truth, and ought to be public.  Life begins at conception.  HUMAN life. Made in the image of God and precious to Him, and therefore objectively precious.  To kill an innocent human being like the least of these, without provocation, for no crime, is murder.  And who will stand against it?   It is true that no one can do everything - but everyone can do something.

It might be said that it is not the gospel.  This is true.  But the gospel has implications, and if none of those implications are realized in the life of people to whom is preached what is generally believed to be the gospel, then perhaps what is being preached is not the gospel either.

What rewards

Went to a great concert (Josh Garrels) with some good friends tonight.  There was a lot of talk about art and creativity and the reason we were created.   It gelled some of my recent thoughts along those lines.  Is it necessary for us to be creative here on earth? Is there a reward for it?  Is it necessary to struggle, to develop here on earth?

The idea that these things are necessary for human development -that human beings need to be creative and struggle against the forces of evil and temptation here below- is not as attractive to me now as it once was.  It's an inviting thought when your basic needs are taken care of, and you become bored with the mundane day-to-day. When you're headed to and from work and are suffering from that nagging sense of repetitiveness and futility, then the idea that we're here to make some sort of cosmic difference seems like a salvation in it's own right.

But is it really the case that these are necessary experiences? If our rewards and personal development were commensurate with our success in doing that sort of battle down here, then what of all the infant souls that never had the chance to engage in that struggle?  Or what about even the lonely millions starving quietly to death in back alleys, living an animal existence from birth to death without hearing the word of Christ?

What of the stillborn? The miscarried? Will their miscarriage prove to be an eternal handicap, that robbed them irretrievably of the maturity of soul that can only be gained in the trenches here below?
And if it's not necessary to have to go through the gauntlet of a prolonged struggle against temptation and evil on a sinful earth, then why are the majority subjected to it?

In the bible, the story focuses strongly on the important people, the ones in a place to make a difference.  Even when they are of little account in the world-at-large's eyes, they are still agents of change in the present world.  Yet there are other less influential characters. There are Moses' contemporaries, those babies that did not make it into the Egyptian royal house by basket but rather were thrown to crocodiles in the nile.  There are the boys of Bethlehem, the oldest of which were likely just learning how to talk in full sentences, the youngest of which were perhaps not even granted a first drink at their mother's breast before they were killed in some terrible way by Herod's men.  What did they accomplish in their short sojourn?  What eternal reward did they accrue from their experiences of suffering on the cursed earth?  Did they leave any lasting legacy? Did they exercise their wills in obedience to God and so resist the evil one?
What of the prostitute's baby who died in the story of Solomon's wise judgement?  Or the unnamed baby boy of David and Bathsheba who was struck down in punishment for his father's sin?

If there is a universal purpose for life on earth, it must be a purpose that all can attain to - even those who wouldn't be conscious of attaining it.

Perhaps it is merely to glorify God by being what He created you to be.  In this sense even the miscarried children lived their short lives in perfect conformity to the will of God.

But what of reward?

We read of the fate of Lazarus and Dives (the rich man).  Abraham explains that "Lazarus received bad things" as the reason for why he was now receiving the reward of comfort.

But what of rewards for service?  Is suffering or deprivation in itself a service?  Romans says that if we are God's children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

But do babies suffer with Him? Epaphroditus in Phillipians 2 is lauded by Paul as being worthy of honor for having gotten sick and almost dying while in process of helping Christ's apostle. But getting sick isn't exactly a spiritual discipline, or even an act of the will.  He just got sick while doing (albeit intentionally) God's will. I suppose an infant who does God's will -even without express intention- by existing for however long on this cursed earth will be credited for the suffering that accompanies it.1 Peter 4 speaks of those who suffer according to the will of God - and isn't that how our Lord suffered?  Does it matter whether we suffer intentionally or not? As long as we suffer while carrying out God's set purpose for our life-without sin-does this count as suffering with Christ?

Personally I think it would be far worse to suffer as an infant does, without knowledge of righteousness or unrighteousness.  If I suffer, I know that my actual sins would deserve much worse than any suffering poured out on me in this life, and would be able to rejoice in my conscious knowledge of reward for suffering in the will of God.  But babies don't have this knowledge, and so suffer as innocents at the hands of a corruption brought into the world by accountable adults. Their existence for however long it lasts on earth is as the image of God, unspoiled by actual sin.

We are told that we will receive our due at the Judgement seat of Christ for "deeds done in the body, whether good or bad". Isnt' just being a baby a good deed?  It's hard to imagine that God would not judge it so, (for whatever my imagination is worth).  In this case, infants would receive the reward for this deed of being what they were allowed to be here, and then given the task of pleasing God in heaven.

Spirals.

I've had a lot of time to think.  I don't like talking about "how I feel" since what I am concerned about is not me, it's my beloved son Elias, and my God and Father.  But how can we express any thoughts if not from ourselves?  It's still me that's concerned, but I'm not so much concerned about my hurts and loss as I am about Who God is and how my beautiful son is.

A week ago we were at a friend's place.  I was thinking about it and couldn't stop.  How my son couldn't breathe.  I put my hand over my mouth and nose to see what it was like, and it's a terrible feeling.  It comes with panic and desperation.  I couldn't sing praise songs with my friend when he started playing them on his guitar; and he's one of the most honestly worshipful singers I know.  That's what made it worse. Normally I would love to have a chance to join him in worship of our God, but I couldn't stop thinking of what my son went through, and thinking "How could You allow it, God? How could that ever be something you would fit into your plan if You had the chance or ability to prevent it?"  I did not have the ability to praise God honestly at that moment, or for the next several days.  I would go out to pray, but my prayers were not very edifying, and were mostly venting my frustration at how God is everywhere, and Lord of all, but does not answer.  I acknowledged Him as God, and told Him this is why I don't understand why He doesn't show His power, if He has it.  Why He doesn't show His love, His compassion, if He really feels it.  Then apologizing for the "if".  But why would He let such a thing happen to a baby? My sweet baby?  What would be so hard about raising him? What would be so hard about granting a vision of him to let us see that he is well and happy?
What good man would allow what has happened if he had the power to stop it, or refused the requests if he had the power to grant them?

"Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.

He also shall be my salvation: for a hypocrite shall not come before him."

Yet I am not righteous like Job, and if Job did not receive an answer, what hope do I have?  Yet my baby is innocent. And Job did get an answer that satisfied him.  I don't deserve even that, I know, but since when does God give people only what they deserve? I appeal to His mercy and admit my sin.

Most "grief" or "death" books...well, not most, ALL so far...talk about the discipline of suffering, and all the good that can come out of it.  But what about an infant? What sin is a loving vulnerable infant being weaned from by suffering, by death?  Our Lord was an innocent, yet he was and is also a man, a full-grown man who was able to understand why he was suffering, at least understand what it would purchase.  He was able to know and surrender to His Father's will.  But a baby?  What is the point of infants' suffering?  Who would care to "learn" from their child's death, or purchase personal advancement at such a cost?  Who would stand on the body of their child to see farther?

I would cast this stone at satan with spit and hatred, but like Job said regarding another evil: "The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; He [God] covers the faces of its judges. If it is not He, then who is it?"  Who sits on the throne back of Satan, giving free reign to him?
If God did not allow it, how would satan have the power?  Why give helpless vulnerable innocents into his hands? Why, especially in the face of hundreds of Your saints pleading with You not to in the Name which You promised to answer to?


I read Oswald Chambers' "Utmost" the other day.  He spoke about this:
"Be merciful to God's reputation. It is easy to blacken God's character because God never answers back, He never vindicates Himself."

True enough. And what am I, that he should answer?  I do still appeal as a son.

There is so much that doesn't make sense.  And nothing comforts when THAT moment goes over and over in the mind.  

Everything points to God being at fault, being wicked, but this cannot be. If God were wicked, then He would not be God, and there would be no "good", and there would be no me or Elias or tragedy or hope or future.  God must be God, Jesus Christ must be Lord, in the face of this - else there is nothing at all.  And I know He is God.  He must love Elias, because He is God. If he did not, He wouldn't be God.  Yet there is what I have seen.

"We walk by faith and not by sight"

"The things that are seen are temporary, the things unseen are eternal"

Yet, would it be so bad to see?  So many have. It is not unlawful. I still pray to see in the here and now. I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

And I don't want to do anything. If it's possible to pray so hard, to have such strong faith, to fulfill the requirements of scripture, and still not to prevail, then what's the point in any venture? Any action? Any prayer? I feel like resorting to fatalism, to "gods will" in the most unscriptural sense.  Yet I know that would be burying the talent, like Ivan in "Brothers Karamazov" - "It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket."  The ticket to what seems like the sickest game possible-the present life.  Is it the fulfillment of the psalm "To the crooked You make Yourself seem torturous"?  Let me be pure, please! Let me see You.

If it were what it appears to be, then God would not be God, and I would not be me, and Elias would not be Elias.  And these things are impossibilities.  So it cannot be the sick game it appears to be.

Sometimes I pray: "God please let me see him! Just open up a slit into heaven, or open my eyes, so I can see him being carried, talked to, comforted! If I could just see that, I would know, and all would be well! If I know it is well with him, all will be well!"

But all is not well. How can it be well with such goings on? 

Julian of Norwich may have been a prophetess.  "All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well"

Will be. But it's not yet!

And what now?  How many years am I to be forced to slog along through this wasteland? Until I'm old and distracted and forget the baby I love?  Can I forget my Jerusalem?  Can't I die with a fresh memory?  I was talking it over with Brandy (my fear of forgetting).  All humans forget.  Friends drift away, and are hardly ever thought of, their memory and associated affection fades. That is hellish.  But then I thought of how I cried uncontrollably and unexpectedly the day my dad flew back to Korea after over a decade of "out of sight out of mind" and thought, what if it's like that? If you can get to the point after years where you rarely think of someone and your memories are all stylized and hazy, yet when you're brought back together all the feelings spontaneously resurrect?

 I pray that the Lord would reunite us with our baby soon, one way or another.  Is it self-pity to want to die?  I know with me it partly is, and I don't want that.  Yet Paul said he'd rather "depart and be with Christ".  At the moment I don't feel exactly the same.  I want to depart and be with my son.  But I know that the only reason Elias is himself is because of Christ, and the only reason I exist and am capable of loving my son is because of Christ, and it is His presence in it all that makes it all worthwhile.  Yet Christ is nearer than a word, though I don't see Him I sense it-even if He doesn't answer.  My son, on the other hand, I cannot sense until I go to him, or unless the Lord graciously answers my prayer for a vision.

We'll see how long it takes. "So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him". I will have to make this my watchword.  

God MUST be Himself.  Jesus Christ MUST be the face of God, His express image. And therefore, there must be the most glorious reconciliation, something so wonderful as to wash all this away and bring us all together in such a reunion that even this will seem like a "Light and momentary trouble" not worth being compared to it.  This MUST be true, though I don't see or feel it.  I'm still praying for a glimpse, and praying for an assurance and certainty.

The other side of pain.

My heart, half-sleeping, drawn out,

warm and softly beating

Full of every good gleaned from the other side of us

You are hope rung with joy – the best of dreams

I used to hold my breath for you, as if on holy ground

Oh small Heaven! Laying out your modest space on earth!

But this sickness, this god-forsaken leech

Hateful earth

Oh God! This pit turns me hollow now and now-

It touched you with its shadow - my son!

My arms reached for you in desperate prayers

Eyes turned quick from God to son

I would have stood between

Oh God!

But that monster had no taste for me

And no answered prayers blocked its path

My soul drained like urine to the floor

life scraped whole from out my ribs

Tearing from me screams of hollow hell

As it robbed you of your precious breath

My arms hung worthless, worthless

With darkness closing in.

Now you are present on the other side of pain

Those hands of Christ from whence you came

And the weight of you pulls me harder

than all things created

With sweeter weight

Than any roots here in the tortured earth

My weakness now a hungry hope

Someday the beast will taste after me

and winning in death’s jaws

I will rush through that defleshing door

When it cracks for me I’ll drink its pain

In willing gulps

to hold you in my arms again.

My son, my son!

A Circle and a Tangent.

"Just trust in the Character of God!"

But how are we to know His character? By nature and experience?
If Nature and experience, than which shall we choose?  the flowers? sex? sparrows? tasty dinners?
Or maggots? stubbed toes? vultures? poisons? Shall we interpret his character by babies dying of flesh eating strep?

The Westminster Confession says that the Scriptures teach "...what man is to believe concerning God..."

Scripture is supposed to help, but it feels sometimes as if it is part of the problem.

How to interpret it, that is. It seems almost as difficult as interpreting nature.

There is no principle, or set of principles, that can be applied to the scriptures universally and make them speak with a unified voice. Many books try to tell us that there are. I read a book yesterday that tried to say that Jesus often spoke in hyperbole, and this is how we are to understand his words concerning faith.  He said that when Jesus says something that sounds outlandish, he is using hyperbole. Yet this is not always the case. When he spoke to the rich young ruler, he told him to sell all he had, give the proceeds to the poor, and come follow Him.  This sounded outlandish, but everything in the story indicates that Jesus did not mean this as hyperbole.

The Catholic church of the west objected to the Reformation's position on scripture, because they contended that much of scripture was confusing and doubtful, and the people needed the Church's authority to interpret it rightly for them, or else they might start chopping off their hands and gouging their eyes, or become so uncertain and skeptical as to wander off into insanity or infidelity in droves.

The Reformation countered fairly enough that The Catholic Church's interpretations had often contradicted themselves, and were therefore obviously not infallible. Scripture could explain scripture, and even better, each individual believer has the Holy Spirit, who they can trust to lead them into all truth as far as scripture is concerned.

Long after the Reformers were dead, the Neo-Orthodox replied that no believer can guarantee at any time that he has the Holy Spirit's consent to his interpretation.

It would be an extreme understatement to say that the Reformation has brought about no greater unity of interpretation than the system it destroyed, but had fulfilled much of the prophecy of the Catholic church.

And of scripture interpreting scripture, how is this to be done? Which scriptures shall we start with? There is much disagreement here, but no one ever picks out such (gems? open sores?) as Exodus 21:20-21 (and there are many such scriptures). Why not?  Because we pick the scriptures that are favorable to explain the ones that seem unfavorable.  We interpret the scriptures that might make God seem horrible by the scriptures that make Him seem Good.

But how are we to know what is "favorable"? Do we measure what is favorable according to our individual sentiments? To the fashion and feelings of our generation?
Some do.  They say that since it would reflect too unfavorably on God to take at face value his words about an infinite conscious torture for the disobedient as punishment for infinite sins, they overrule these passages with verses about a God who is the "savior of all men..."  They feel and say that it would reflect unfavorably on God to take at face value his words about homosexual offenders being wicked and not entering the kingdom of God.  So they overrule these scriptures with ones about the overruling superiority of "love" and contend that homosexuality is simply an expression of that love which conquers all.
They do this to make God seem good, and measure what is favorable by the spirit of their age.

Is it possible though, to measure what is favorable according to what the majority of Scripture states clearly as favorable?  Then we could give these scriptures the preeminence, and use them to interpret the unthinkable.

God commands babies, infants, to be killed, not spared.  He orders his people not to show them pity.
He tells his people not to kill children for their parents sin, yet all Adam's children die, and David's baby boy was killed by God because of David's sin.  There is no getting around these. Try and read a commentary on these scriptures. If you have an honest heart, you will feel embarrassment for the writer.

There is nothing in scripture that tells us that retributive punishments such as the lake of fire are in principle bad (though we are told God loves his enemies, and that we shouldn't exact these punishments), and nothing in scripture that tells us that homosexuality is love - these ideas must be imported from the Spirit of the Age.

But God himself tells us many times in scripture that Lying is bad, killing the innocent is bad, that babies are innocent, that all men are created in His image, and that He is disturbed by these things.

So when we read His scriptures and how He seems to contradict Himself (i.e. lie), he kills innocent babies, and says that one man made in the image of God is another man's "money" and can be beaten to death so long as it takes him more than a few days to die, we are right to be horrified.

It occurs to me to ask a question, and a particular figure comes to mind.  A lonely figure, a pilgrim and sojourner.

What did Abraham do, with a situation like this?

Abraham had a series of revelations from God, a "scripture", if you will, that he would have a multitude of children, and that these children would come from his son Isaac.
Then God gives him another "scripture". God tells him to kill Isaac.
So, Abraham speculates.

As far as we know, he had no revelation from God about resurrection from the dead, especially regarding Isaac. But rather than running from God because he turned out to be a monster, or deciding that God was after all a very powerful monster who must be obeyed anyhow,
Abraham comes up with this speculation.


"Maybe God will raise Isaac from the dead..."

God has said to Him over and over again that a favorable thing, a reward, was to come from Isaac.

Then there is this abomination of a command, a monster of divine revelation telling him to kill his son.

They both came from the same "book"-the same voice- and so he couldn't pick and choose which could be divine and which were merely the products of the devil or a fevered human mind.  He could have done this, and believed in the blessings, while ignoring the command to kill his "only son".  But he didn't choose which to believe. He believed both, and speculated how they could both be true, how God could still be viewed "favorably" by God's own revealed standards.  He did not interpret all the previous promises for good, all the blessings, by the new revelation about the stabbing to death of his young boy.  If he had, he would have withered them all.  He chose to interpret the horror by the previous and persistent revelations that were given as blessings. He may have come to this principal of interpretation instantly, it took at most no more than three days. So perhaps it is not so difficult after all to interpret the revelations of God.  Maybe this is the Holy Spirit, the "faith" which justified Abraham. Abraham did swiftly what has posed problems for centuries.

And he came up with resurrection.

So do I.

And if your right hand subverts you, cut it off, cast it from you, for it is profitable for you that one of your members be lost, and not that your whole body fall into Gehenna.

I have tried to write something here three times in the last week or so, but each time what oozes out of my mind onto the keyboard ends up being horrible blasphemy. I tried to put a positive spin on a few efforts after I realized this, but then, is it really possible to put a positive spin on blasphemy?
"The things that come out of a man are what make him unclean" - and I've felt that uncleanness when I read my own words, like a black biofilm creeping swiftly over my skin.  So I haven't posted them, since I'd prefer to remain in quarantine until I'm clean; as it is written: "He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp."

And why is this?  I think (I think, I don't know) that it's because I speculate in an effort to understand. Perhaps some abysses are not open for speculation, as Nietzsche said, unless you don't mind the abyss speculating inside of you.

But the abyss has opened a hole in my living room, and I must walk around it every day.

So if I cannot speculate as to why it is there or why there are such things without being sucked into it myself, I suppose I can just walk through the kitchen to get from one side of the room to the other without resorting to walking past IT.

But the abyss is there when I open my bible, and when I get on my knees.  How can I avoid these?

I call to God, to my God, but I cannot exercise my mind towards Him, without it exercising swiftly against Him, pointing out exhibit A, exhibit B, calling me to the stand as a material witness against Him so that it can proceed quickly on to the concluding argument which I can't bear.

I look up to the judge to be excused, and who is the Judge?

So I choose to be silent, in contempt of court,
and am dragged off to remain in custody.

If the Judge is dragged off, then who will give me justice? Who will restore what has been stolen?
If the Maker were cast off into outer darkness, then from His destruction all would unravel, and every good and beautiful thing along with Him - including those things which He is accused of having used amiss, and then what of the lawsuit? The court would be dissolved, the aggrieved would have no loss, as they would never have possessed, neither would they have existed themselves.

I look to the right, a lion
I look to the left, a bear.

Yet I cannot be a sluggard, and remain in bed.
I refuse to say He's a hard man, reaping where He hasn't sowed,
and so I won't bury the talent in a handkerchief.
So I am left as always with only one option:
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him"
And knowing that I am not noble or brave for this
but desperate, and damaged, and wrong.

Ahh, Great Master, come soon!
"In this world"
You said,
"In this world..."
we do, our master, we do have trouble
great trouble as the heathen rage in vain
as your people stumble in the darkness
children of light, when the day is gone
"Take heart"
You said
"Take heart"
And we do, master, when our hearts fail
we take heart, even as they are sorely tried
as they are sad, we dig as through mud
to find the ore of your promised hopes
"I have overcome the world"
You said
"I have overcome the world"
We do not yet see it, yet the star has risen
In our hearts, your morning star - and also
the words of your apostles, your prophets
Master, you tasted dying, and now stand crowned

Crowned.

Yet we still live among thorns,
and these are still our crowns
Master, keep us from stumbling
faithful, for the crowns of life.