May18

A world died today,
the bones of the universe
are out of joint, and the day
of its healing remains unseen.
Yet who hopes for what he already has?
There will be a restoration of all things,
when He comes who made Pleiades
and formed Orion.

One way valve - installed the wrong way.

A strange bit of reasoning I've seen pop up several times in reference to different popular vices.  The most recent of which was part of a conversation where some Christians were urging others to be part of homosexual 'weddings', but I've seen it used in other disputes as well.  Here it is:

“Well, we don’t confront [some established sin] when it occurs in the Church, so it would be hypocritical to confront [the sin currently being pressed on the Church]”.

In the particular conversation I mentioned above, the argument was "since Christians don't distance themselves from remarriage weddings (which Jesus said -w/possible qualifiers- are adultery), they should not refuse to be part of homosexual 'weddings'."

Don’t the people making the argument realize that such a policy is basically a one-way valve allowing all sin to be normalized into the Body of Christ, and for no sin to be expunged?

Doesn’t it make more sense to say that since Scripture speaks against both practices - the established sin and the one they’re lobbying to introduce -  we should obey God and curtail *both* sins? 

As difficult as it has been, I've intentionally not gone to several divorce-remarriage weddings of people I love because they had not had Scriptural justification for their divorces, and I am convinced from Scripture that it would be false to God and to them to affirm their remarriage with my presence.

Mnemonics

My shoe box has filled up with days
a hill of pages, stacked in reams
while I on top
look back on youth
from traveled age.
The cord, I feel, is growing thin
the process has long since begun
when heaviness to soil consigned
gravely planted for a Son to find
my waiting breath then carried up
wrapped about with every page
remembered,
to wait through my long cold December
in that presence I have longed to see
with friends to wait for every spring
I once, so many years ago
was born with skin,
and will yet wake
a child - and a man,
with my children all around me.

1 Sam 15

This is the story of how Saul lost the kingship of Israel.
I find it interesting how at the end Samuel announces to Saul that this "tearing away the kingdom" from him will without doubt happen because God is "not a man, that He should lie or repent".  Yet, Samuel grieved over Saul, and it's noted that the LORD also repented that He had made Saul king.
So, The Lord doesn't repent, but He repented of making Saul king?

What if Saul had refused to believe that the LORD doesn't repent, and thought "Perhaps, if God can change his mind about me being king, then maybe - if I repent -  he will change it back?"

Of course, Saul seems to have no real regard for the LORD, since during the account he constantly calls the LORD "your [Samuel's] God", and rather than even trying to repent (even if all to be gained from repentance were a restored personal relationship to the LORD) He gets Samuel to go through the motions so he can be honored before the elders of his people, but isn't exerting any energy to be honored by "Samuel's" God.  Saul's attitude reminds me of a verse from Isaiah: "Stop regarding man, in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?"

1 Peter 1:8

All best dreams find flesh and bone
as in your footprints they are sown
surge up like mountains from seeds of stone
who thought, to see you bleed & groan
was cursing coming all unwound?
The first day saw you break the ground
of newer earth, of fresher years
you rose up, casting off our fears
the Wind rushed out, He washed us clean
and made us who we'd never been
betrothed in water to worlds unseen
once caked with death, now scoured clean
with songs and strength to fight within
to face the night, and standing, win
bind up wounds, and cast down gods
with shining feet, prepared and shod
for every good work done through pain,
until we wake, with You again.

Mary New Year's Eve.

Old Year was more like four
-Since Eve brought in the dark;
Had all the world, but wanted more
And got trespassed from the park.
New Year is still going strong
Her Eve was full of belief;
She said “let it be”, and sang up a psalm
bringing fruit that would bear up our grief.

(not my artwork)

Death, death, death...will be undone.

This whole life and universe were a dead body of mine,
a scab to cover all my flesh and seal my breath
to get out, to pull it off me
but I had to walk in it until it rotted off instead.

My prayers had no power, they were a gun that wouldn't fire
those weapons mighty to pull down strongholds
were not mighty in my hand
I swung them, they cut only me.
the strongholds held
and the light fell.

I entered a new and older world
full of wrinkles, and the smell of age.
Every day a weary turning and every chapter a dim-lit dream
I saw color though, false color-
every time I woke up blind.

Every time the voice of the prior world
couldn't make it - wasn't loud enough
for time makes us all deaf
and does not heal,
but cauterizes.

But there is another world
and there is a living body
and there is a real daylight, real color,
and nothing good - no one small
is devoured when they are swallowed
we will see there
that every bullet found its mark
for it will,
this corpse it will,
rot away.

And behind it?
Behind it?
Lies the Day,
lies Himself.

Tattoos, blood, and dubious appeals to context.

A while ago I went on a short rant about how often I see an unsupported appeal to "context" to explain away all sorts of uncomfortable scriptures. While cataloguing my books, I ran across an example I'd like to share with you. The author is dealing w/ Lev. 19:28:

"If we study Leviticus in its context, we see that it isn't talking about tattoos in general, but tattoos that identify a person with a pagan deity or pagan practice. Two verses before, it forbids the eating of meat with blood in it. Does this mean you can't eat your steaks rare? Not at all. This is talking specifically about the meat that was offered as a sacrifice, not an evening out at Mortons..." (Kimmel, 'Grace Based Parenting', pp. 155,156)

Ok, so we have an appeal to context, and an absolute claim (unsupported in the book) that the prohibition unambiguously applies only to pagan tattoos. Then even more troubling, a similar unsupported appeal to context is used to say that the prohibition against eating blood applies only to sacrificial meats, which is a very, very dubious bit of exegesis! By the same token we could say vs. 29 means we can't sell our daughters into *pagan* prostitution, but regular prostitution is OK. Do a search for "eat, blood" on biblegateway and read how many vss. prohibit it strongly. Also, read Deut. 12:20-25 and ask yourself if that sounds like a general prohibition against eating blood or not. Read Lev. 17:14 and ask yourself if that seems like a rationale for the prohibition. And then look at Acts 15:20,29 and 21:25 and see that the prohibition carries into the NT, and if you feel inclined to say that there too it applies only to blood sacrificed to idols, then ask yourself why you don't say only the sexual immorality prohibited in the same verse only applies to that done in worship to idols.

All that so say, a well-supported understanding of the actual, demonstrated historical and textual context is very important to interpretation, but don't let writers sucker you with appeals to context that aren't carefully supported and especially when they ignore the whole testimony of Scripture.  I'm sure we've all imbibed bucketloads of asides like this on our course of reading books and listening to sermons, and probably repeated them too, not without effect. My advice would be when someone is telling you the bible doesn't mean what it seems to be saying, don't take their word for it, even if they say the magical word "context", until you've verified that it indeed IS the context and that it doesn't go against the rest of the witness of the Scriptures.

The Risk of Obedience Vs. the Risk of Inaction

In several conversations with friends about Abolition, it has come up that we are at risk of “judging” and it is often pointed out what our Lord, his brother, and his apostles said about judging others.  Now the proper understanding of what kind of judging the Lord was warning against has been dealt with elsewhere, yet even with a proper understanding of the sin of judging in mind, I’ve never brushed aside the concern when my brothers and sisters have brought it up.  I agree, it IS a risk.

Yet to live is to risk. In God’s appointed order time pushes us on, through crossroad after crossroad where we must take risks in order to obey, and when we reach the Celestial City, we will not be asked how studiously we avoided risks.  This applies even to risks of sin. To avoid risk is not to avoid sin.  In Galatians 6:1, Paul directs us to risk sin in order to help a brother.  Every act of obedience carries with it a risk of sin.  The risk is unavoidable, and we aren’t too busy ourselves avoiding it.  We are to obey with open eyes, watching ourselves lest we be tempted.

If we fear the Master, thinking Him a hard man, he will try us by our own words and ask why we did not invest his gifts in the necessary risks, risking failure to give him a return.  There will be, he has told us, those who come cringing out holding the gift returned, unrisked, unprofitable.  He may well say to them on that day:

“I gave you a task, I have you my Truth, my Spirit, my gifts, and you did not use them to pray with your every action that my Father’s will would be done on earth as in heaven; you did not use them to cry out against murder and mayhem, to follow your master in driving out Beelzebub and destroying his works.”

Action, obedience, is risky.  Our judgment is never guaranteed to be perfect – it is true that with crying out against murder and oppression comes the risk of sin, yet not to do this comes with risk as well! A great and terrible risk: to neglect the command to love our neighbor as ourselves, to fail to take into account the weightier matters of the law. 

There is something further. I suspect that what prompts so many to point out the risk taken by abolitionists is not a genuine fear of the possibility of unrighteous judging.  I am afraid that it might be something less noble, less spiritual – that it might be the fear of man, the fear of contradicting the spirit of the age and facing a dragon’s wrath.  They know that the dragon only pursues those who keep the commandments of God as well as the testimony of Jesus (Rev. 12:7), and this makes them not very eager to keep those commands. 

In short, I am afraid that this is in many cases nothing but cowardice.  Now I sympathize with those who fear man, I have felt that fear myself.  We are commanded to have mercy on those who doubt.  Yet we are, at the end of the day, not those who shrink back and are destroyed - but those who believe and are saved.  The coward has no lasting refuge in inaction; we know this and have a sobering warning from our Lord.  Turn to the twenty-first chapter of Revelation and read; in the list of those who have not conquered, the cowardly who shrunk so studiously from risk and the fear of public scorn will have the reward for their great care: their portion in the lake of fire, along with the faithless, the detestable, murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars.

And what of those who risked, watching themselves to remain unstained yet always striving towards the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, keeping His word? “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”

Beatitude #2

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” – The Lord Jesus Christ

Some interpret this as those who mourn over their sin, in keeping with the “blessed are the poor in spirit” that comes just before it.  Others affirm that it applies to those who mourn in general, over the sorry condition of the world, death and wickedness.  But can’t it be both?  Trace both of these back; the external evils of the world around us, and the evil of indwelling sin. Both are good reasons for mourning.  Both have a common root in a single event: “The tree of prohibition, root of all our woe.”  And how can we be comforted?  How is it possible to reverse something so far upstream?  To undo the transgression that the whole creation -including we who have the first fruits of the Spirit- have been mourning over?  For that we would need a new temptation – but this time overcome.  We would need a new Adam, a new Eve for that Adam, a Tree of Life, a New Heavens and Earth!  And that is what God has begun to do.  Well, we have the comfort of knowing we are forgiven, we have the comfort of seeing present victories over indwelling sin through the Spirit, and now and again we are comforted when God through His mercy heals physical ills when we pray in Jesus’ name.   But we look for the day when the deal is done - when all causes for mourning, within and without, are done away with.  And those who hope for just this (and rejoice in what measure they have presently received it) wait for the full overturning that will bring them the comfort that they mourn for.  Only those who hunger and thirst for the setting right of everything will be satisfied.

M25

Does fear pith our volition when

It feels like guesswork to begin

The land ahead was never mapped

The signal’s dead, and knowledge sapped

And you must forward, forward go

Build on fragments of the known

Does it feel unfair, and make you squirm

To be tested in what you’d never learned?

Our days are not a paper test

To judge our gleanings from a text

The eyes that see, the fire tries

The central stuff with this assize

Know: steadfast love is what’s desired

Producing poor from wealthy liars

Sheep and goats will both say “when”

As test results are coming in

On the rock, or on the sand?

The Storm assays the sons of man

A Comparison of Abortion to Slavery and Genocide.

Here's an article I published on Wordpress:

THE ABOLITIONIST: The Comparison of Abortion to Slavery

The comparison of abortion to slavery/genocide is usually dismissed for purely visceral reasons (are those really reasons?), so I thought it would be worthwhile to examine how the comparison is accurate and in which ways it may not be.  Let’s begin with genocide.

Genocide is the systematic murder of a people group, and abortion belongs in this category inasmuch as there is a subgroup of human beings, those still in the womb, who have been dehumanized in order to justify their destruction.  How is abortion unlike other genocides? Well, firstly the preborn aren’t part of a different ethnic group from their attackers, and secondly they have no means of resistance.

Next we come to slavery.  With slavery the “owner” was free to choose whether or not a slave had value and would survive.  Slaves were a commodity, and usually their lives weren’t ended unless the “owner” thought it would be more lucrative for the slave to die.  Likewise, babies en route to birth are treated as items for the auction block.  If unwanted, they are judged by society as having no value and are likely to be killed.  If they are wanted, society decides to treat them as human beings after all and act accordingly.

Is human worth based on nothing more concrete than a community’s estimation?  Are you only what other people think you are?  Do individual members of society alone determine the value of life? Is perception truly reality?

Thank God this isn’t so!  There is a reality that exists and to which all perceptions must conform or be revealed as delusions. The author of reality is not you, or I, but the God who made us both and all else. You bear his image, the divine impression – however marred – and so does the human being now developing in her/his mother’s uterus.

To play at costs and benefits in deciding whether or not to kill such a being as you, I, or our counterpart in utero is no different than a slave owner deciding whether or not to sacrifice the lives of his human “property.” The mass-murder of the pre-born population accompanied by a campaign to dehumanize the victims and cover up the aftermath is no different than genocide. Allow your conscience to be informed by reason, and then let conscience dictate your actions. And if, like us, you accept the revelation that God made human beings in his image; welcome to Abolitionism.

"Manipulation"

What IS manipulation?  Or, at least, what do people mean when they say it?  It's usually used in a negative sense,  to discount a person or their behavior.  I am motivated to write this after a local pastor said that my friend and I showing images of children killed by abortion came off as "manipulative and unloving".

First off, we ought to acknowledge that it is much easier to accuse someone of manipulation than to clear oneself from the charge of being manipulative.  But why is it so hard to prove innocence here?
I think it's because the word like others (i.e., "hate", "extremism", "sensationalism" "uneducated") is used far more often than it's understood.
So, let's try to understand it.

Firstly, it doesn't (or shouldn't) mean simply "deception", or similar words.  If that's all we mean, then we should just say deception and stick with words we know the meanings of.

I think what people mean most often when they say "manipulation" is close to the neutral definition: "to handle or control".  We don't like the idea of being "handled" or "controlled", of course, but this definition is problematic.

Why?

Well, because almost every effort to persuade, including every argument, story, and every educational talk is meant to bring about or control a state of affairs in the listener's mind and behavior; i.e., to "manipulate" a situation for good or ill.  We seek to get people to see things a certain way with argument, to bring them to the state of being entertained, intrigued, or enlightened by a story, to thinking along a common line by "education".

If someone is arguing or telling a story for the sake of arguing or telling a story, we'd barely bother to listen; (they may as well be speaking to a wall if the listener's response to their words doesn't matter.)  I honestly don't think this happens very often.  Usually when people speak, it's to elicit a response from their hearer, and the speaker usually has a specific desired response in mind.  If the speaker is successful in bringing about the desired change, they have "manipulated" their hearer (for good or ill).

So, the mere fact that we attempt to move the people on the receiving end of our communication can't be what we mean (or think we mean) when we accuse someone of manipulation.  Here's what I think we mean, or ought to mean, when we cry foul and object to "manipulation":

In a word, we mean behaviorism; or rather two words: "Mere" behaviorism.
When someone uses the predictable laws of psychology to get desired behavior out of you
(and here's the clincher), without regard to whether or not you:
a.) Are being motivated by the truth
b.) Understand what's causing you to behave in the desired way (the methods used to persuade you)
c.) Are helped or hurt (that is, without regard to you as a person).  


"Manipulation" is an umbrella word then, which could entail deception or facts, intimidation or kindness, appeal to emotion or reason.  (I include c.) because parents do "b.)" to their children pretty often; when they offer them rewards for doing beneficial things (e.g. reading, going to the dentist) they do not fully understand the worth of, or punish them for the converse.  The same goes with societies and economies (carrot/stick methods), and I don't think without "c.)" most people wouldn't consider this kind of thing manipulation.)

But allowing what I've written above is true, does that mean that manipulation is always wrong?  If I'm hiding Jews from the Gestapo, and the Gestapo shows up at my door, I'm not terribly concerned with engaging them as authentic human beings.  My aim is to get certain behavior out of them: i.e., leave -without discovering my Jewish friends.  Whatever I say afterward, true or untrue, is by our definition manipulation.
Or, say I'm on a bus and I see a young girl getting aggressively and unwelcomely hit on by a Very Large and Threatening Man. There are few other passengers on the bus.  I could a.) confront the man, get pummeled most likely, and in an unconscious state not be able to help the girl any further. Or b.) attempt to distract him. So I attempt to engage the man in harmless conversation, asking about the time and the weather.  I don't care terribly about him, the time, or the weather, I'm just trying to get some behavior out of him; i.e. stop harassing that girl.

Both of these scenarios involve manipulating a dangerous person or persons, but most people would rather congratulate the manipulator in these cases on his/her "quick thinking", rather than turn the nose up at the method.  Yet even this must be a desperate method, since Paul (in Acts 24) seems a little conscience stricken at his use of manipulation (recounted in Acts 23) to get out of a mock trial where he was beginning to get slapped around.  Perhaps this is because he was doing it merely to save his own hide, or perhaps I've misinterpreted his words as a confession of guilt. Either way, it seems that it's the same sort of thing as violence or outright lying: methods only excusable when we're trying to save innocent parties in our care from evil ones and have no other recourse.  Acts of virtue at its wit's end.

On a tamer note, don't we "manipulate" all the time?
For instance - I'm nice to service staff for two reasons.  One, sympathy and recognition of their humanity, in God's image (so far so good). Two, because I am convinced of the maxim "you get more flies with honey than vinegar" (manipulation). Now is this properly wrong?  It's obviously not ideal, but it's hardly something most people would object to. And we do this constantly in our human interactions.  How many of you act deferentially to your supervisors because you pure-heartedly honor their position of authority?  How often do you act in a certain way to supervisors/co-workers in ways calculated to win acclaim/security without all that much thought to their individual God-given value?

Or, take the military.  A commander isn't terrible concerned that the units under his command understand why they're falling back now or attacking this spot or advancing there.  He isn't even (with exceptions I'm sure) ultimately concerned with the individual soldier's well-being as much as the outcome of the battle/war. In fact, a lot of basic training is specifically to ready men to be "manipulated" by commands; and most soldiers know this to be the case, even as it's happening - it is (if it were possible) consensual manipulation.

But what's my point in all this?  What am I trying to get you to do or think?

Precisely this:  Be careful, please, when you use the words "manipulation" or "manipulative"; that you're using them appropriately and fairly. Don't just use it to point out that someone wants a specific response from you, (because everyone does, and that's nothing remarkable).  They might even want a good, right and true response from you, and your objecting to that response doesn't justify calling it "manipulation".  Rather explain why you disagree with the rightness of that response.

If someone IS using predictable laws of psychology to get desired behavior out of you without regard to whether or not you:
a.) Are being motivated by the truth
b.) Understand what's causing you to behave in the desired way (the methods used to persuade you)
c.) Are helped or hurt (that is, without regard to you as a person).

Then, by all means object to it as manipulation, and even do them a favor and explain where they crossed the line.

The first breath of Galatea
as a coal first taking flame,
to see through eyes that see an author
to feel a presence through the frame,
Patient are the patients,
being born from tin to flesh;
who would have thought by crucifixion
we could become immune to death?

Prayer.

Indwelling fire from a higher plane

You who hovered over first waters

intercede, please, for me.

You will funnel me towards

the well's living mouth

to see His words.

But now, I am trying to speak

break through my frail utterings

and carry my thought to God

tempered with salt to rise

acceptable, pure,

something worth saying

with weight and draw-

nothing vain;

to turn your ear to me

my Father, Father,

to hear.

Peace when there is no peace.

Why is it that peace in most situations means simply "people not bothering me"?  As long as the wheels of an organization are turning, anyone that points out an injustice are labelled disturbers of the peace.  If you're at work and point out harassment to or from coworkers, it might be forgiven by management once, but any more than that and you'll be labelled as "not a team player."  A government can fine you for something you didn't do, and place the burden on you to prove you didn't do it or else you're stuck with the fine.  And this is peace, as long as they aren't bothered by your protests.

As long as the powerful aren't feeling bothered, there is "peace".  If the weak protest against abuse, they have disturbed that peace.  This is not "peace".

Was reading and interpreting some of T.S. Elliot's "Four Quartets" to the kids this afternoon before work.  They've memorized the ending line, which reads as follows:

"And all shall be well
and all manner of thing shall be well
when the tongues of flame are infolded
into the crowned knot of fire
and the fire and the rose are one."

(Which I take to be referring to the great Restoration of All Things/Descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem to the New Earth.)

So today we were working on a passage previous to that which reads:

"Ash on an old man's sleeve,
is all the ash that the burnt roses leave
dust in the air suspended
marks the place where a story ended."

Jaelle already knows that bit pretty well,  I've explained it to her as the resolution of the human body (after death) into dust/ash, the end of the story of our bodily life on this present earth.  As best as I can figure out what Elliot was writing about, the quartets are about creation, fall, redemption, death, and re-creation.   The rose seems to be a symbol for human bodily life, and the fire is a symbol for God's power of life (in the spirit of "our God is a consuming fire").   

We also read and recited together a really neat section (as we threw a medicine ball back and forth) which I take as describing the Spirit's work in death to self/life to God (preempting the "final death" of the lake of fire), referencing the "fire" Jesus said he came to cast on the earth.  We read through that bit too.

"The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire."

Prior to all this my mind was really cloudy, not sure if that was because I'd slept too long, or eaten too much last night; but somehow the poetry cleared it up considerably.  It's been a while since I've gone through any poetry aside from constantly reciting "Jabberwocky" with the kids. 

Speaking of which, we just finished "Jabberwocky" by Daniel Coleman.  It was really good, surprisingly so - especially for a young-adult novel I got free on Kindle.  He's since re-published it on paper and there's no more kindle edition.  It's $15, but very much worth a library trip.

But back to the poetry - or at least the clarity of mind it lent...

My presence of mind was restored enough to deal with Josiah's crisis on the porch, as the contractor's little terrier/terrorist charged him as he was playing near a tree.  It was all bark, but did its best to act threatening, and didn't respond until the owner had spent some fifteen seconds calling it off.  It had scampered off before I figured out what was going on and came over to the scene of the crime.  Josiah was pretty shaken up, which surprised me because when I'd arrived he kept up a brave front and was smiling.  Brandy could tell he wasn't quite all right though and as soon as mommy started asking if he was all right the tears came.   I talked with him for a while, asked if there was anything he'd like me to do about it, and he hesitantly suggested I ask the owner to put it on a leash. I thought that was a very reasonable idea and asked the owner to put his dog on a leash, and he complied.   I reminded Josiah he could easily kill an animal that small if he picked it up and threw it or gave it a good kick, and I had him try and work it out on a punching pad until the shock of dog-attack wore off.  It's rough being a kid.

The Urge of Him Who Lives Forever & Ever.

"Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created."

What is the meaning of life? Why did God create the Universe? Who made God? What's it all about?

All these questions are shadows, haunted hollows.  It is these and more that the vision given to John on Patmos fills and answers with fire.

"You Created all things" 

This is Divine data, written on the fabric of the Universe like a watermark and received by  all, though suppressed by some.  This is the "what".

"...by your will they existed and were created."

What is deeper, further back, more fundamental than the will?  When we speak of causes, reasons, and the like ("I did this because I was low on sleep/had too much coffee/grew up in a broken home/didn't take my meds etc...), we aren't talking about the will.  

The will is uncaused, it doesn't exist as a cog in the mechanical cause & effect realm (though it dialogues with it).  The will perceives possibilities, and chooses.  God's will, the source of all created wills, is infinitely more so uncaused.  There is no sense in asking what caused God to will the universe, seen and unseen, into existence.   

This is not to say that God's decision to create was arbitrary or frivolous.  We call decisions without thought arbitrary, and decisions without serious purpose or value we call frivolous. But this cannot be applied to God, and may be misleading even when speaking of human wills.  God is personal, and is the ultimate ground and source of thought and purpose.  If such a being has a desire, it will not (by nature of its source) be thoughtless or purposeless in the sense connoted by "arbitrary/frivolous". 

The will (θέλημα, in Greek as used in the verse above), is synonymous with desire. And persons desire. Mechanical flowcharts (of the kind many neuroscientists and psychologists want to reduce us to) do not.  The will is a fundamental thing, which is a source of other things - it is not a product,of other things. Our wills are informed and presented with possibilities by the external created universe, but God, at the point of Creation, was limited by no such externals.  Only the council of the Father, Word, and Spirit.  The desire of God.  His Love - for what is Love but a fundamental preference, or desire?

As God showed Julian of Norwich:
"He showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding, and thought: what may this be? And it was answered thus: "It is all that is made". I marveled how it might last, for I thought if might suddenly have fallen into nothing for its smallness. And I was answered in my understanding: "It lasts, and ever shall last, because God loves it."

Or as George MacDonald says it:
"We do not, I mean, to speak after the manner of men, come of God's intellect, but of His imagination. He did not make us with His hands, but loved us out of His heart."

And as such things loved into existence - or even, thank God, more than things: persons with wills in God's own image! - what can we do but say with those in the vision:

"Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power!"

Job 19

There will be a day when scarred feet stand
upon my dust and say the word
and every cell that burst, each broken strand
will stir as if it heard
My own eyes will see the one who lives
my own eyes, and not another’s
No transmigrant soul slipped through a sieve
of flesh - I'll be me; my brothers, brothers.
Who can pay the price to reverse decay?
pull us back from event horizon?
could the shimmering red of the primal Way
bleed the strength of a new sun rising?

And like a sun, that burning one
as an elemental forge
tests with pain
those born again
til we pass
through New world's doors.

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.