Gregory of Nyssa watches me sleep in Arius' shadow

i arise from a little death every morning.
i have been passive, dead to the world,
Living, yet not lifelike.
What death have i died?
What is the same?
What is different?

For, surely, the pain of yesterday
Arises with me not today;
At any rate, the death i died decreased it,
Leaving shadows and vague recollections,
Stuff not being memory.
It should be clearer, not nagging,
And painfully bright -
Or, rather, bright even though painful.

What death have we all to die?
We were all born to die.
To live, and to die - to both.

Can we accept this?
Can we become death?
Can we aspire to death?
Is that what He did,
making Himself nothing,
Desiring not equality with life,
the Source of all life,
Not to be Life;
And yet...

He was.

He, wanting not life, found life.
He, aiming for death,
Found life's target.

But the not life he wanted was life,
And the not life we want is also life,
But life for ourselves, and not for all.
Can we ever be life for all?
i think not.

Thus, we are adopted,
Being for ourselves,
where He is naturally
For ourselves.

kenosis drove Him to not life,
And weariness drives me to a little not life.
i am sad at my limitation, my weariness,
And i don't usually like embracing little deaths,
Though i always do,
Craving not life at the expense of life,
Not driving toward not life for the expense of life,
as He did.

Will the sorrow i feel, when judged,
be why He does not
Consign me to forever not life?

But sorrow comes from failure,
And failure comes in living, or,
Not living
as He did,
As i should have.

Life,
Not life,
Living,
Not living,
Sorrow -
Being born into sorrow,
Sorrow borne out in life -
Living.

we cannot be what He is,
we cannot become what He is,
we have only the adoption of His sonship.
He gives it, to us in our sorrow,
He who knew and knows our griefs -
The ones from when we didn't live, anyway.

Judge me,
Waken me,
Raise me,
Drive me to not life,
empty me to life for You.

I hope for nothing more.

Mosquito

Ouch! That hurts!
SLAP!
Something's died,
In which the LORD
Of all took pride
And fashioned by His very hands -
Not that you would understand
The role they play-
That made the night
And made the day.
They're not Creation's blight!

What Do I Have Left That Is Not Wrong?

This morning I sat
And consumed my Life,
Slowly.
Usually I go fast enough
That things don't get soggy,
But not today.

Consuming my Life,
Pondering milk-absorbed thoughts,
I wonder if there is a fluid
for my heart to drown in.
Slowly filling,
Watering it down,
Until it can not absorb any more,
Or is barely recognizable.

Do my smile and small laugh
Ring false
As I take my iPod headphones out
Of my ears, to better hear
You, listen to what
You have to say?

Your look as you pass by,
The one that
You think I didn't notice
Answers
My question.

Remember hope?
Be filled with joy?

Oh, I would
Love
That, if only
I knew how.
I did once, and either
I've been
Killed,
Or I've killed myself.
Both suck.

I drain the milk from
The bowl, and move
On to tea.
It still heats my hands,
Or the spot where it
Rests
Against my leg,
Even as I sit here and type.

Am I right now just
Cutting
Myself off again?

Psalm 12 + Anne Rice

Your words, LORD, are flawless.
And mine?
Mine are well;
< perfect
You might say.
And, You would be right,
Your words being flawless, and all.

And aw(e)ful.

Why do we not fear You?

And why do I -
We -
Not use Your words to speak?
Greet each other with
Psalms?
Hymns?
Spiritual songs?

That would be a step up,
I suppose.
Do You?

But even then,
Those songs whose lyrics we sing
Think
Speak
Write
Are still

NOT
YOUR
WORDS.

Speak Your words,
And even Your name
Into us,
Onto us,
Through us.

For us.
Pro Nobis

Give us ears to hear.

Give us hearing hearts,
So that our ears might want to listen.

And the lies that are around us?
The words that are not Yours -
The words of society,
Trends, norms, fads, friends, ends
That come now (what?!?) -

Dim them.
You have spoken.

Help us remember.

Contractions

I have recently decided to use as few contractions as possible. One, because it is simply poor writing to do so. My sister and I were just talking (well, about an hour and a half ago) about how our writing is so much more mature, so much prettier than our talking is. Our vocabulary is larger, our thought patterns are more well developed; it is just better to read our writing than to listen to us spout off about nothing.

Another reason is because of a sentence I wrote during some reflection time earlier tonight. The sentence: Why is it that we do not talk about Jesus relationship to the Wisdom Literature?

While that is a huge topic in itself, and one I plan to spend a lot of time contemplating and exploring this summer (secretly I have wanted to since a peculiar conversation (see end of paragraph) I had in Australia), I found something rather sinister in that sentence. If I were merely to say "Why is it that we don't talk about Jesus..." it could be taken as a suggestion, a somewhat lamentable fact of life, a passing idea that floated through my brain and right out your other ear. But to say that "Why is it that we do not talk about Jesus..." seems to me more sinister a thing. We do not talk about some way we could understand Jesus. That thought strikes me as a problem (unrelated to the problem of the general topic) is just that we do not talk about Jesus! I find myself having a lot of meaningless conversations about alcohol or about girls or about whatever, and they don't contribute anything to me loving the Lord with all my heart or soul, or holding fast to Him.

Anyways, the general topic. After one service at St. Paul's last fall, I was talking with Mat and his brother-in-law about something or other, and made some kind of offhand remark meant as a joke that Ecclesiastes tells us that life is meaningless! And Mat's brother-in-law quickly made the remark "But ONLY before the incarnation!"

Since then I've been rather struck at the relationship between Jesus and the Wisdom Literature. The sum of my rather paltry thinking thus far is that perhaps the Wisdom literature an help us to make a link between the God in the Old Testament that is often preached as an angry God of Judgment and Fire and the God of the New Testament, the Jesus obsessed with love and non-violence and acceptance.

Obviously that generalizes the pictures of God found in the Old and New Testaments, but I feel as though those generalizations are preached and talked about a lot. There really is something to the need to study and think about and write about God, to let him inhabit and renew and even enlighten our minds, so that when we KNOW Him more we can then love Him more, and give more of ourselves to Him.

College Choir Reflections: Contemplation

I have repeatedly told people this semester that singing with the College Choir is the ultimate experience to be had at Houghton College. It is an experience that has challenged me on so many levels; and it constantly keeps challenging me, calling me deeper not only in my faith, but also in my identity.

Growing up, I was a mile-a-minute kid when it came to everything. I rushed around everywhere. This was partly a reflection of the fact that I had moved 14 times before reaching the age of 14, and partly just the result of being a little child with way too much energy.

This pattern continued into my high school years. Despite learning in my philosophy classes that the good and virtuous life involves a good deal of contemplation, I didn’t slow down at all. I was on the varsity soccer and golf teams, did tech for the school musicals, acted in the spring plays, refereed soccer, played piano for my church worship team (as well as in youth group), sang in a barbershop chorus, sang in my high school choir, sang in my high school madrigals group. I was, as my friend Tineke wrote in her honors project, a little child roaming around (as the devil prowls) seeking for all kinds of new experiences to devour.

This introduction doesn’t have anything to do with the college choir experience, but it is necessary to understand how being a part of the college choir has profoundly affected and changed me.

But one last thing – every summer, I would go to youth camp. It seemed to become the trend over my last few years there for all my walls and defenses to break down. I would once – or maybe twice – completely break down, sobbing uncontrollably as all the stress and the pain and the hurt and the fears that were within me rushed forth, let loose for the first time, loose from the cage of my constant rushing about and total lack of contemplation and rest.

There are two kinds of fun: the kind where you can go out and do something on your own and have an enjoyable in-the-moment experience; and the kind where you can come together with a group of people and work towards creating something so much more than any of you could ever achieve – or experience – on your own. College choir is this second kind of fun. It is not about the fact that I enjoy singing, and certainly not that I think the rehearsal process is fun. It is that we are coming together as a body to do something so much bigger, so much grander – and I might even dare to say so much more holy.

I spoke at choir retreat about the relationship of the tangibles to the intangibles. Having three times joined the choir in the spring, there are so many tangible stresses that get in my way of giving my all to choir. I’m stressed about learning music. This is often aggravated because I get frustrated in rehearsal with people who I think are not taking the process as seriously as they should. But, as Jesus reminds me, I must worry about myself first: and the ‘intangible’ of my own heart and my own attitude in the process.

It is in contemplation of these things that I learn to let go; in the fact that I am only one cog of the wheel. That’s a scary thing to say, think, or admit in today’s individualistic culture, but it’s something that when I stop to think about, I find inexpressibly beautiful. I can give up my own will, my own ambition, my own anger or frustration and lend my whole being to the building of a greater cause. This is what Christ did for us: and I’m thinking specifically of the Christ-hymn in Philippians 2. He made himself as a servant; something I must do when I give my voice and my attitude and my heart to the choir.

Like many people in the choir, I was captivated all semester long by the idea that my singing may become healing. Yet again, it is the second kind of fun that can lead to this. If we were to go on tour never having put in the hours of rehearsal and practice and effort to mesh and meld as an ensemble, our singing will be a show. And it might not even be a good show – it could just be a spectacle of what happens when many people with the ability to sing sit and sing for themselves and their own enjoyment, with no thought given to the audience – or to their own body.

This is why I view tour as the ultimate experience of choir. Yes, I just alluded to the importance of the rehearsals – and without that, I think it would be irresponsible to go on tour. But it is on tour that I have found my own healing, and witnessed the healing of others. But I think that is because it gives us the opportunity to escape from the lifestyle that I portrayed in my introduction.

Tour is a time when the single place that we spend the most time is on the bus. We spend some time in silence, some time singing, and some time laughing and talking and getting to know each other. And much of that time is given not to chasing after another experience to devour – though you could, if not thinking about the second kind of fun but only the first – but to the buildup of something greater. The meaning of the words of the songs that we sing; the meaning of what it is to sing together; the meaning of what it is to form the truly unique body that we make up; the meaning of surrendering ourselves in the name of something better.

The meaning of offering up our humble and feeble and fallen and broken efforts to a holy God who can make something out of them. Who can bring healing and restoration. Who can, even as we sit in silence and meditate on Him, and giving ourselves to Him, bring healing to us, and make us instruments – jars of clay – through which He lets flow His power, His healing, His life.

That life isn’t about just what we can have in the moment, rushing around and only thinking about ourselves. That life is the abundant life, the full life, the restored life, where we are sewn together into the body of Christ, the love of Jesus in the world. And that is impossible unless we take time to consider the greatest gift that God has given the world: ourselves, as gifts to each other. When we slow down and contemplate and realize that, and let Him work through us, we can have a greater kind of fun that can bless us with joy, and bless others with our singing made healing.

At the very least, I think on and pray for that to happen.

Ameen. Ameen. Ameen.

Why would you do that?
You really don't know?
You really can't see
I don't know if I can -
But there are limits to what you should do.
And to my grace, but you didn't extend those.

Why would I care?
Why was I angry?
That much you saw
That scares me -
But you didn't run away,
And you might have even understood.

Why would you talk about it?
Or tell someone that I know, and would mention it to as well?
That just confuses me -
And I'd made up my mind never to say anything.
Maybe I won't.


I don't know,
For seriously,
I'm upset,
And silence is safe.

When did we get so confused,
To think that it's ok and normal to be hurt,
When scripture clearly says
"Guard your heart"?

I don't believe in no pain,
But I don't like hurting.
I am, I think.
Maybe I'm not, or at least
I shouldn't be,
Maybe,
We'll see.

Really, as I meditated,
The future and the present aren't the same,
And I need to be in the one where I can.
But now,
Sitting at my computer listening to music
Going to bed with the end of the song,
I can think about the future;
Or how the present relates to it.

And I'm scared yet again;
I'm lost and alone
Way outside of
My comfortable zone.

So what?