Marvelous Humanity

I went and saw Tara Leigh Cobble play a show tonight here in Denton. She is, by far, one of the most unique and personable human beings I've ever seen on a stage or met after a show. In addition to her outright kindness and her bold-as-love talent, she is amazingly honest. I mean, as far as I can tell, she is completely genuine. And that is what is most attractive to me in any artist, politician, pastor, florist, engineer or what have you.

On the drive home, I marveled at the sheer humanity that she displayed, with all of her candor, joy and sincerity. Then I began to think about art in general. Then I began to think about honesty in art because it was her honesty that attracted me to her art. When I listen to a string quartet by Shostakovitch or I listen to "This American Life" or I read some Mark Twain, I can always find the beauty in their art. And it's very good. But no matter how beautiful it is to me, it's never completely fulfilling to my soul. It never leaves me feeling absolutely content, with every appetite of my heart sated. It's food for the world inside me, make no mistake. But it always fails to hit just the right spot. There's always an itch I can't scratch and a star I can't wish upon.

I'm racking my brain for the exact quote but (like most quotes in my brain) it's smeared with the sap of minutia and the honey of fantasy. That just means that most quotes get lost in the jumble between my ears. But I think I can grasp the gist of the quote and, just as important, cite the author as Francis Schaeffer. He said that when people create with themselves as the ultimate end all-be all, they start their work from a finite reference point. There is nothing greater outside of themselves and so their beautiful work and creation is finite. Their starting point wasn't transcendent and so their ending point (the art) was very earthbound. However, when you start with an infinite reference point (i.e God), then you're working from a point of view that sees God as greater than yourself, as the Creator of your creative ability. Your art is able to honestly and emphatically transcend mere finitude because the lens you see reality through recognizes an infinite Creator; an infinite Artist to emulate. (I capitalize those titles, in keeping with a dead man's tradition, to let you know that I'm referring to the God of the Bible).

So, theoretically, people who love Jesus and worship Him as God should make the best art. They have the best reason to make excellent art. Plato said that the human experience of living breaks down into three general areas: truth, goodness and beauty. The church has dealt thoroughly with the first two (theology and ethics) but they've never really seemed to figure out what the third one was for. It's like the church abandoned beauty and art and imagination and let the world have them. I'm not going to take pot shots at Thomas Kinkade or the Hallmark quality kitsch that litters our Christian bookstores. I'll save that for later. I just don't understand why beauty and honesty have been neglected for so long by the children of our most beautiful and honest Father.

Ramble Rumble

A blind man can't love a rainbow. He can only love the idea of a rainbow.

A read a lot this past week. I was home in St. Louis for spring break. I took things really slow and savored all the things that probably weren't healthy for me to savor. Things like Dr. Pepper, loss of consciousness and imaginary dinosaur battles in my head. All good things, I guess. But when clung to for a week, they start to go bad. I ended up writing a lot of "poetry". It really was just me rambling incoherently on a blank page for a couple of hours. But it was so cathartic and relaxing that I had that Saturday sofa feeling. You know the one? Where you sit there content, doing nothing, and you kind of just baste in your own inactivity? That's a good way to describe the majority of my break.

I've still been thinking a lot about honesty and how I lack it in all of my various facets. Those gaping defeciencies are probably why I took to writing. Probably why I haven't been able to stop.

"The Christian is the one who's imagination should fly beyond the stars." - Francis Schaeffer.

Then, what in the world is the church doing with the arts these days? I ask you.

Naked Humanity

I couldn't get everything out that I want to say on one blog. Much like I can't fit everything I want to say in one moleskine. So, I've decided to restart this blog for some amateur exposition of life and love and why. Or something like it, anyway.

One of my roommates has gotten me into a public radio show called "This American Life". I've always been a bit suspicious of NPR or anything like it, having heard it been called "communist radio" growing up. However, the show isn't a political platform. It just tells stories of American lives. It's a pretty honest title, right? And it's the honesty that I love.

I'm not talking about telling the truth. I'm not talking about simply not lying. Honesty is much too massive an idea for those correct, but ultimately parochial, assumptions. Honesty is sincerity. Stated negatively, honesty is not pretending to be something else. Honesty is one of the most attractive things in life.

I love it when a person is honest. I love it when a book is honest. I love it when a movie is honest. Honesty is naked humanity and humanity is messed up and creative and capable of wonderful things. It honestly makes me praise God that He made creatures like us. Creatures that are so capable of emotions and actions and thoughts and words that effect each other in such trivial and profound ways.

On the flip side, I hate it so much when I fail to be honest. I hate it a little bit less when other people fail to be honest. I'm mildly disgusted or moved to apathy when I see a piece of art (a movie, a song, a book, a poem, etc.) that fails to be honest. This is just a piece of honesty.

The ritual of asking "How are you?", when we see a friend, has become so trite. It really has lost all its power as a question. It just doesn't perform its function well at all. A question is an interrogative sentence used to gain information in reply. Ideally, the information sought should be true. It should be sincere. But "how are you?" doesn't cut it because nobody ever wants to answer truthfully. So we answer with "fine" or "okay" or "living" or something equally banal. It's just another facet of life that has lost all vestiges of honesty.

I honestly hope that I can do better at my sincerity. Good afternoon.

I've moved. http://texanpuddleglum.wordpress.com/

Do enjoy!

A Brief Check In

Well, I'm back in Texas. Perhaps I should state that I left Texas before I announce my return to Texas. I've tried to write this post before. It's been a very slow process and I've given up more than a few times.

I miss my Danielle something fierce. In addition to the beauty of being with family, it was incredible to be with her for the Thanksgiving break. I know have only two weeks before I'm hanging out with her again.

This won't be anything deep or colorful. I just wanted to let the two or three readers that I still breathe and I still think. Good things are forthcoming.

Musings From a Whore

I'm back in Texas. It's an odd feeling. It's sort of bittersweet. As much as I love Texas and my roommates and my guys, I miss home. I miss family. I miss the lovely girl I left behind. I know that Texas still has a few years left for me. It's not easy being away from the ones you care about. I'm thankful for the family of friends I have down here. They are extremely sustaining to me.

The Cardinals continue to give me hope. While the evil that is the Chicago Cubs have pretty much run away with the Central title, the Redbirds are still in the running for the Wild Card race. If we can catch up to the Brewers (and if the Phillies slump and distance their third place slot from us), we'll have a shot for October. Yes, those are big if's. But that's what September baseball is all about. Time and chance. It's kind of like life.

My heart has been shocked and rocked these past couple of weeks. I've started reading Jeremiah. The first three chapters alone have shook my bones and ripped my heart. It's hard to leave them. The language is extremely gripping and unapologetic. God straight up calls Israel a whore. Not only that but a sex addict of a whore. He describes her as a wild donkey, sniffing the air in her heat, looking for someone to mate. He calls her a wayward bride who bows down like a whore under every green tree, on every hill. She scatters her favors to every foreigner.

As God is laying down His list of truthful charges against His faithless people, He asks them the key question in chapter 2, verse 18. "What do you gain?" He asks them why they chased after the Egyptians and the Assyrians and sought the benefits of their gods. In Ezek. 23:20, He calls Israel a whore who goes after Egypt and Assyria for the size of their genitalia. Such is the weightiness of God’s grief over a people who are faithless. But I see my own reflection in Jeremiah 2. What do I gain when I chase after my own interests? What do I gain when I establish my own happiness or my own satisfaction in anything other than God? Have I not come to realize that it is an evil and bitter thing to forsake my Lord? Then God goes on to describe in 2:20-21 how it was He who liberated them from Egypt. It was He who planted them like a choice vine in the land of Canaan. Israel had lost sight of how great and awesome and terrible and beautiful God is. They forgot that it was Him who liberated them from Egypt with the most colossal displays of splendor and power. They had no long term memory of what He had done for them.They’d simply forgotten. And so, they ran rampant from place to place looking for satisfaction, bowing down like a whore under every green tree.

It’s so easy to shake my head in disbelief. How could anyone leave the greatest good in all existence? But isn’t that true of me? Isn’t it true of all the children of God? This is me. I forget that He liberated me from the bondage of sin. I forget that His grace overran my evil and recalcitrant will. forget that He rescued me from the domain of darkness and transferred me to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom I have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Jeremiah 2 is me! My face is hauntingly clear in every word. Every time I let the gravity and blazing wonder of what the Lord did for me at the cross fade, I become vulnerable. My heart is prone to wander and I’m inclined to bow down like a whore to lesser things. I lose all fear of God and sin becomes a much less dangerous thing in my mind. I give Him my back and not my face.

Now, the heartbreaking truth of my faithlessness in Jeremiah 2 is healed when I read chapter 3, from verse 12 onward. Though God could be eternally angry with His faithless people, He’s please to instead be merciful. Oh, thank God! What did God require of His wayward love? 3:13: “Only acknowledge your guilt.” And what guilt was that? Their guilt (and my daily guilt that is covered by the blood of Christ) was rebellion, the scattering their favors among foreigners under every green tree and a failure to obey His beautiful voice. But, if they would only return, the Lord promises to no longer look at them in anger, to heal their faithfulness, to return them to their home (in exiled Israel’s case, Jerusalem), to give them teachers after His own heart and blessings. The only thing more overwhelming than the thought of my own infidelity is the promise of His constant and unconditional fidelity. If He were not faithful to His own word to never leave nor forsake me, I would be hell bound and loving it. Thank You. Thank You for what You bring to mind when I reflect on my own faithlessness. Thank You for capturing my devotion and love as a husband captures the affections of his bride.

The Lion Has Roared

I'm convinced that no good thing dwells in Chicago. That's the Cardinals fan in me talking. Chicago, particularly Wrigley Field, is a breeding ground for evil.

I would like to take this opportunity to spread the word about www.noisetrade.com. It's an amazing website that lets you download great music at very little cost. You either tell 3 (three) friends about an album or you pay what you want for it. It's that easy. Go try it out! I've found William F. Gibbs to be a perfectly incredible musician and I'm enjoying his album tremendously.

I was reading Amos today. It's sad that he's not as famous as his cookie counterpart. But the Old Testament Amos has so much more to offer than a popular baked goods franchise ever could. Remember that, please.

Is God secretive? Is He the unknowable shaker of nations? Does He operate behind a black veil of cosmic espionage? Does He act and leave humanity with no clue as to His motivation? Certainly, the greatest King in existence and conception need not justify His reasoning to a people born from dust. How wonderful, then, and how thrilling is it that God does not act without revealing His motives to His people? Amos 3:7, in the midst of imploding and burning nations, states with a full and undisturbed confidence, "For the Lord God does nothing without revealing His secrets to His servants the prophets." Praise falls short by light years to express the gratitude due to a merciful God who gives warning shots. His wrath is not blind and puerile, like a whimsical 2 year old that throws a fit because no one will play nice.

In chapters 1 and 2 of Amos, the Lord describes plainly and in unsettling detail why fire and wrath is destined for these certain peoples. And where are God's secrets crystallized? How can we know His motivation, His mind? In the words of His prophets! Those words have been entombed in paper and leather and they scream comfort to His troubled people. They scream comfort to me. The Bible encapsulates the thoughts of God. It doesn't reveal all God intends or purposes. The secret things belong to the Lord (Deut.28:28). But He has made clear to us what He would have us know. There is no need for guess work when it comes to figuring out what the Lord is like and what He demands.

I love 3:8: "The lion has roared. Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken. Who can but prophesy?" Warning! There is a danger out there and it will kill you! That danger is God. You will ruin yourself if you keep living with a blind eye to consequence! God will undo you! What person who knows that can but prophesy? Meaning, who can but proclaim that truth (prophesy meaning to declare truth, not only to foretell a future event God has revealed)? I have heard the lion roar. I have heard and I have read. My heart has been run through by Romans 1:18 that says that "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." So then how can I not but shout it? How can I not make it clear that God is furious, and rightly so, with what the peoples have done and who they are? If I truly understand the fearsome qualities of that mighty lion and the danger He poses to those who are deserving of His wrath, how can I not be moved into action? It's a question that will haunt me and stick in my mind like shrapnel. I thank God for such haunting thoughts.