Renewing our minds so that we don't have to have an existential crisis

Have you ever come across someone who reminds you (uncomfortably enough) of yourself? Not necessarily in a negative way, but perhaps someone has similar passions, similar mannerisms, even similar features. And then you are faced with that moment of comparison - how am I different from this person? What makes me worth something compared to them? I find it even in the more trivial things; consider a strong attachment to your favorite book - in my case, when I come across another Tolkien fan I invariably start the comparisons running through my mind. And if my identity is resting in what I'm able to accomplish and be (even if it be my knowledge of Tolkien), then I may find the biting sting of jealousy, or insecurity, or just plain weariness of "me."

There are all sorts of situations where we find our existence under question. And even today I've been reminded of the absolute necessity of grounding ourselves, our hopes, our being, our worth, our past, our future, our everything - in the person of Jesus Christ. The way to fight insecurity about who we are is truly to cast ourselves on Him. And the way to fight existential insecurity in our daily existence is to participate in Paul's command that we "do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds"! (Romans 12:1-2) We must begin and continue in changing what we think and how we think, so that we conform to Him.

Lloyd-Jones' thoughts are very helpful:

The principle is that in the Kingdom of God everything is essentially different from everything in every other kingdom. For, He says in effect, the Kingdom of God is not like that which have always known, it is something quite new and different. The first thing we have to realize is that 'if any man be in Christ he is a new creature (he is a new creation), old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." If only we realized as we should, that here we are in a realm in which everything is different! The whole foundation is different, it has nothing to do with the principle of the old life. We have to work this out in detail, but first let me underline again that new principle. We must say to ourselves every day of our lives: 'Now I am a Christian, and because I am a Christian I am in the Kingdom of God and all my thinking has got to be different. Everything here is different. I must not bring with me those old ideas, those old moods and concepts of thought'. We tend to confine salvation to one thing, namely to forgiveness, but we have to apply the principle throughout the Christian life.

(Lloyd-Jones Spiritual Depression, 128-9)

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Fathers, Mothers and Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

I'm so thankful for my parents. I realized that yesterday. For my dad, for his commitment to truth and his wisdom. And for my mom, who like no one else can just sit by me and listen as I try to explain myself through sobs, and then encourages me to keep perspective.

And for the writings of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I've read snippets of his exegetical work in his book on the first chapter of Ephesians, as well as The Sermon on the Mount. Yesterday I borrowed my father's copy of "Spiritual Depression" and am looking forward to equipping myself to fight against the spiritual, emotional, mental and physical slog that has become each day!

In regards to overcoming spiritual depression Lloyd-Jones looks to the Biblical precedent to preach to ourselves. He writes,

"I say that we must talk to ourselves instead of allowing 'ourselves' to talk to us!...Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man's [the Psalmist of Psalm 42) was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" he asks. His soul has been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: "Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you." (Lloyd-Jones 20-21)

Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. "Spiritual Depression." Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Printing Company, 1965.

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The Tension of Vision

Two quite different poems, yet both reminding me of the tension within our vision, of that deep conflict of the 'now and not yet.' The yearning for a heavenly perspective. The straining of one 'yet earth-bound mortal.'

I stood a mendicant of God before His royal throne
And begged Him for one priceless gift, which I could call my own.
I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart
I cried, "But Lord, this is a thorn, and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a hurtful gift, which Thou has given me."
He said, "My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to thee."
I took it home and though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face.
(Martha Snell Nicholson)


Do I watch the gulls blow,
the wind flinging go over and
under the remnants of air?
Do I callously know
the fierce thrill of Your singing
and yet choke on the chill and stare
at the smudges of concrete and smoke?
O soaring O flailing and flipping
the breeze, O silver in swinging
the currents and space - you poke
at my knees, at my sinews of stone,
at my turf-sunk jaw, my self-pitying
groan. O! bursting grey visions
O! torrents of dust, you scavengers
thirsting and twirling, pursue
the alluring frictions of joy.
Do I watch the gulls toss,
stretch back the glum clouds and
tease at the snow-starched sponges
of white? Do I sigh to my loss
and sneeze at the tickling, prickling,
piercing bright blow: O my sight cannot go,
cannot up that way wind,
when I seek what I seek,
what I seek I still find.
(Yours Truly)

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And the point is...?

A month ago I sat in this orange and green, pheasant-decorated armchair, frantically typing my little Medieval heart onto the page of yet another paper. "Ugh," I repeatedly thought to myself. "I wish I could be doing something else right now - like drawing or writing a story, or cooking."

Yesterday I had a pretty well-rounded day. I spent some time preparing for the course I'm the tutor marker for this summer. I answered a few e-mails. I prepared for the DVBS teacher's meeting. I cleaned the dishes and re-lemoned the linoleum beneath our door to keep the ants out. I even spent time reading the Word and praying. But when that was finished, and I had no other responsibilities, I wandered aimlessly around the house. Should I draw? I looked down at the scene I had started a number of months ago, now about two thirds finished. "But what's the point?" I wondered. "So I draw this, and in fifty years it gets thrown out in the trash - what's the point?" These thoughts kept coming back to me as I considered other things with which I might occupy myself.

Later in the evening, when my husband dropped me off at the skytrain, I was expressing to him my frustration with this strange depression - this purposeless in living. "At least with your paintings," I said to him, "You get paid for them." He shook his head and said, "That doesn't give them any more meaning than yours. They'll still end up getting thrown out in a few years. I make them for someone else - whom I don't know - to hang on their wall. To be consumed - but neither producer nor consumer is doing anything terribly significant." Except of course for trying to make meaning in their life through controlling the material things around them. Josh continued, "I paint them, so that I can make money to buy food, so that I can stay alive to paint more paintings. The meaning has to come from somewhere else - and it does. You have to entrust yourself to God, and entrust to Him to your time and what you are doing with it, to build a foundation for the eternal."

The point is, nothing here will last. Ultimately. But everything here - everything around us, what we do with ourselves, what we think, buy, build etc - can become a part of the kingdom-building if we are surrendering it to Him and working it in His power. It can lay the foundation for the work that we will get to do in heaven, that work which will be so saturated with God's glory that its meaning will be radiant to everyone who comes in contact with it. But it starts here.

My husband said to me, "Go, write a story that is going to make a thirteen year old girl get excited about being a Christian."

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Love through Oppression (or, the Proliferation of Paradox part II)

In this post I want to briefly address the paradox we find in the Christian life, that of 'slave' and 'free.' But rather than going to the more obvious passages that deal with these (such as Romans 6), I'd like to approach this topic through the letter to Philemon. This is in part because I was reading Philemon in my devotional time and God really blessed me through it and I wanted to share those thoughts, but also because as I considered Philemon, I was swept away by the strangeness of God's ways in comparison to our ways. And that is a sure indication that paradox is present.

Philemon is a short letter Paul wrote from prison to a man named Philemon. The letter commends Onesimus to Philemon: Onesimus who used to be Philemon's slave, who ran away from his service and stole from him, and who God saved through Paul's ministry and has been serving Paul in prison. The language in this letter is remarkable. The heart of it is astounding. Within the Roman context, Onesimus' actions were punishable by death and this shows the actions of Paul and the anticipated actions of Philemon to be astounding. Paul is sending Onesimus back to his employer, knowing that in a normal human context, he would likely be killed. And Philemon is accepting back to himself a man who culture dictates should be killed.

Paul commands Philemon to received Onesimus back, "no longer as a slave, but much more than a slave, a beloved brother" (1:16) and he concludes by saying:

• "Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, since I know that you will do even more than what I say." (1:21)

This is incredible. In this we see the heart of God. From broken lives, fractured relationships and even oppressive social systems, God makes good to come. Let no one ever say He is a god of oppression, that He is evil. He restores us, transforms us into new - holy! - people. He delights in reconciliation and healing.
And it is clear that Paul views this all as God's work, as he says:

• "For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever..." (1:15).

For this reason indicates that there is purpose behind all of this - that it is not mere happenstance. And we know from the context that it is God who is behind it.
And this is where I suggest that "oppression" comes in. In his cultural context, Philemon would be expected to at least hold a grudge, remain suspicious, treat Onesimus poorly, even if he didn't have him killed. And let's go a step further - from a much more 21st century perspective, Onesimus would have every right to be resentful, not wanting to return to his position as slave/servant and perhaps feeling betrayed by Paul. But this is not what we see here. Instead we see a network of persons, related to each other through human institutions but more significantly, through Christ. And Christ makes all the difference. It is as a prisoner of Christ that Paul writers to Philemon, and Paul himself hints at the fact that Philemon is likewise under Christ's command as well as indebted to Paul who was the instrument of his salvation (8, 19). And Paul refers to Onesimus as "my child..begotten in my imprisonment" (11) and "my very heart" (13). These men are all utterly enslaved to Jesus Christ. But the result speaks for itself: Christ's power works heavily in and through them because they have been bound to Him. Other chains are broken when Christ's chain is placed on them. The chains of revenge, retribution, hate, guilt, and fear are absolutely shattered when allegiance is given over to Christ. The results are instead life and freedom: "refresh my heart" Paul says!
I'm of course being facetious in my title, "Love by Oppression." Poor Philemon, being oppressed by the power of Christ working in Him so that he must receive back Onesimus - must forgive him, must love him, must hold him as dear as a brother! Truly Christianity is an oppressive force - but oh what freedom and glory comes about!

What I hope the title does is draw attention to the prevailing conception of Christianity as an oppressive institution, and then undermine this conception. That is, the title embodies the layers of revelation one will experience if they take a closer look at Christianity. The surface-viewer sees a regime of oppression, but one who has experienced God's salvation realizes that he or she has literally been set free and experiences all kinds of freedom: from guilt, from the power of sin to dictate all areas of our lives and being (such as self-protection, fear of man, lust for money and comfort, desire for fulfillment through fashion...whatever!), from death, and from God's holy wrath. And as we've seen in the case of Paul's letter to Philemon, God's heart is so set for freeing us that He enables us to be free in ways we find totally mind-boggling from a strictly fallen-human perspective. But, as we grow in our experience of God's salvation, we also find that He is also an immensely oppressive force - He presses in upon us, He does not leave us, His Holy Spirit pushes and prods and bears us down. This is not "oppression" as its current meaning dictates - but more as its etymological roots reveal: God presses upon us.

I love that imagery. For one thing, it reminds us of the physicality of our nature as human beings. We have bodies and God is not ambivalent to this fact. But what this "pressing" really is, is God's refusal to leave us. He does not save us by suggesting we have some sort of esoteric sense of salvation. He does not leave us. He demands we bring our whole being into surrender before Him - our bodies, our minds, our emotions, our wills. And He is passionate to sanctify - to save - us now. He works life in us as He wears away the sin nature in us. This is why the book of Philemon is so powerful for me: God's life-transforming Spirit works in our very real, fleshly world and experience to create beauty and holiness in our lives and relationships.

It is a paradox. God presses in on us. He oppresses our sin-nature and fallen-will, and presses us down: and by doing so, He frees us from the oppression of sin and gives us life and joy and freedom. He creates the unthinkable in us: holiness.


One last note. A P.S. if you will. Paul addresses the letter "To Philemon our beloved brother and fellow sister, and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (1:1b-3). Speaking of oppression, I note the reference "to Apphia our sister," who is in this case clearly a woman (the church is referred to later, and thus "Apphia" appears to refer to an actual woman, rather than metaphorically for the church). So may we just close our mouths, when we the ignorant feel the temptation to repeat the mantra: "Christianity is oppressive to women - especially Pauline theology." Here Paul specifically includes her in his address. As Onesimus is coming back to be reintroduced to the Christians in Philemon's house, Paul makes sure to include the many people who will be involved in this relationship: Philemon, Archippus, the church who meets - and Apphia.

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Time for God

"O good, now I have time to devote to God."

I hate those words. Hate them. They're mine. Every time the end of the semester rolls around they spill out of my mouth.

I really believe I'm missing out. This last paper was particularly brutal for me - the mental and emotional blocks I've built up around the writing process flamed in full force. But it has made me feel a little more keenly the cold, hard edge of my life: the frailty of my life and my own potential to consume myself. There's a harsh light that shines on me, the weight of my own self-destruction. Am I being dramatic? Not really.

A few songs have been running through my head these past few days: Captivate Us by Watermark, What do I know about Holy by Addison Road, Before the Cross by Sovereign Grace ministries. And the words in these songs thrust before me the disparity of how I'm living (truly) and the call that is on my life, how God calls me to live.

I am starting to honestly think that if I don't change my day to day approach to life, that eventually I will stand before that awesome throne - before all the glory of my God, the Living One, whose eyes are like flaming fire, whose mouth is a double-edged sword and whose voice is the sound of many rushing waters - and we will both know just how much I've wasted "it." I will have missed out on immense joy and passion and purpose (and suffering and sorrow) in this life, and I will be utterly ashamed and disappointed.

When I look at myself honestly, I see that I am neither consumed by a passion for God's glory nor empowered by the life of Christ in me; I am consumed by myself and weakened by my repeated attempts to do this life-thing myself. Even when I cry over those I love, when I pray for His grace in the lives of those around me, so much of it is motivated by fear. I feel bad for people and I fear what will happen to them. And God, God teeters dangerously near a crevice called "to blame," and sometimes I push the image I've constructed of Him down there.

But what does it feel like and look like to want to see His grace in the world so that His glory would be magnified? That people would know that all-sufficient, all-satisfying grace of the infinitely glorious One and in doing so, declare His worthiness above all else? For Jesus' sake? For Himself?

I know what I have to do. I'm just afraid to do it.

How can I just chose to be totally honest with people about who He is? How can I just chose to trust Him regardless, and actively give up the passions I'm giving myself to - school, money, friends, self-image, respect, comfort, happiness? How can I?

Oh, but I need, need, need to. My time is shriveling up without Him. I'm dying without Him. I need to die with Him.

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Perseverence

"Time is my Ally in proving Your love to be true."

Although it is in time, and through the endurance of hardship over time, that we are tested and tire and sometimes flail about on the brink of despair, we must keep fighting to believe and experience this reality: time will only ever prove God's faithfulness and love towards us, never the opposite.

"All things work to the good of those who love God, who are called according to His will." (Romans 8:28).

All things. All times.

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The Proliferation of Paradox

I'd like to spend a number of blog entries exploring what I've named the "proliferation of paradox," that is, the reality that paradox is an intimate part of our life in Christ.

Paradox as a concept has drawn and fascinated me ever since I was presented with John Donne's poetry. It's difficult for me not to do a double-take when I read lines like, "Death, thou shalt die" (Holy Sonnet X) and "Nor ever chaste except You ravish me" (HS XIV) and "Therefore that He may raise, the Lord throws down" (Hymn to God, my God, in my sickness).

Paradox was brought to my mind again today as I marked a number of student paper proposals, and I was flooded with a tide of arguments that were predicated on the idea that although a woman (in this case the Anglo-Saxon heroine, Judith) may side-step social gender roles when empowered by God, she really isn't exhibiting feminist resistance because she is actually still submitting to and being domineered by a male authority figure (this said figure being God). Again and again I read these outcries. Alas God, how you bind us women! These are the moments when it is very difficult being constrained by the roles of the institution and contract I have signed; O! how every ounce of me wants to burst into an explanation and hymn of the glories of God, and not simply write, "Consider how you might complicate this argument. Is it a simple dichotomy of either/or?"

To most of my students, there is no paradox present. Only religious patriarchal oppression. But as I was out walking today, I was overwhelmed by the preciousness of the paradox: indeed, Donne captures this particular one when he exclaims, "Take me to You, imprison me, for I/Except You enthrall me, never shall be free" (HS XIV). It is absolutely incredible that our freedom is inextricable from our captivity to the Lord. O how utter submission and abandon to the lordship of Jesus Christ is beyond comparison the most freeing and enlivening place to be!

As I meditated on this, I realized just how tightly paradox is woven into the Christian life. Why, I wondered?

As a cross-section in my learning this week, God has also been teaching me about the necessity of suffering for His name, and that this must be built upon a passion for His glory. I picked up The Pleasures of God and was confronted with the fact that the gospel is "the good news of the glory of the happy God" (Piper 25). I realized (O that I might REALize it more!) that my fear of suffering, my shame at not being bold in sharing my faith, my desire for comfort and my preoccupation with trying to control and plan out my life stems from my refusal to pursue and seek to enjoy what God enjoys: Himself. (It's an excellent book thus far, and I've heard nothing but good reviews - check it out if you're interested!). But how does this intersect with my discussion of paradox? Simply put: paradox is but a word that describes the reality that God is gloriously God, and we are not, and yet God wants to share Himself with us. Paradox must result when we, who are not God, encounter He who is God. And thus the Paradox is an expression of the deep, deep joy that is ours in God!

It is utterly beyond me how enduring suffering can be the path that God demands we follow in order to enter into His joy. At least, this is how I feel as I write. Prior to suffering, I am in trepidation of suffering; and potentially while I'm going through suffering, experiencing suffering, I will be in bewilderment and confusion. But as I've been listening to people share from their hearts about their suffering, I've seen that when they bear witness to God's grace, they have far more joy and confidence than I. I think about the apostle Paul - who was this man to be able to urge, exhort, command the Philippian Christians to "rejoice always!"? Only a man who had been stoned, beaten, attacked, slandered, and left for dead. Only a man who pleaded with God to take away a source of suffering in his life, to which God replied, "My grace is sufficient for You, for power is perfected in weakness." Talk about paradox.

And then we read: "Jesus...who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God" (Heb.12:2b).

This paradox of suffering and joy is one that I cannot humanly understood. But everywhere that I see the presence of God, I see the reality of it. O how I want it! I really, desperately want it! I'm terrified of the suffering - and yet - O let this be true!! - I'm more terrified of missing out on the joy!

I close. The proliferation of paradox, as I have just defined it, is then a nuanced re-proclamation of the ultimate goal that guides my life in Christ. The refrain: the glory of God.

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Inklings (various slightly related thoughts meandering towards the best)

A few thoughts of varying consequence have flitted through the wax tablet that is my mind.

First of all, I had dinner and beer with one of the Anglo-Saxon arena's most preeminent scholars. I had a headache the next day because of the beer, but came away with much invaluable insight, and a story to boast about, so it was of course much more than worth it.

Second of nothing, I won a coffee with Roll up the Rim, and when I picked up my free coffee, I promptly won a donut. However, this was rather to my disappointment because it was neither the laptop I was hoping for, nor the self-perpetuating opportunity for this said laptop (in other words, another free coffee would have been preferable, if only for the rim to roll again).

Thirdly (and to include a third point is a standard rhetorical technique meant to instill a sense of weight and gravity to what I am saying), I have realized this past week just how much I enjoy the so-called 'dead' languages (and if we realized how much they impact our current speech and thought, we might not so impertinently label them so). I know that life is short and I need to be wise about what I devote myself to, but I genuinely think that a moderate commitment to Old English, Middle English, Anglo-Norman, koine/classical Greek, and Latin will be worth it. At some point in time, when the end-of-term papers are less pressing, I will lay out my reasons for thinking so.

And left as the tag-line, the last thought, that inconsequential 'p.s.' which often in fact carries the most force of emotion and conviction, that which we panic over as we close our letters because we fear we may have been misunderstood or left out the most important, that is this:

When I started graduate studies, I had this horrible fear that I was running ahead of God, that I had not waited for His leading and that He was therefore disappointed or angry at me. Believing this, I left Him out of my academic life, feeling that He didn't want to be included and indeed, would not help me even if I asked Him. I will leave it to your imagination as to what the consequences were of such a belief my first semester.

After He showed me that He more cared that I glorify Him wherever I am, and that He is more concerned with me seeking His face in whatever situation I place myself in, I began wrestling with my own tendencies to worry about my inadequacies as a student (and, of course, as a person). In this vein, there were weeks when I was in the tedious 'depths of despair' and ready to leave my studies for a multitude of possible reasons: I am too tired! I have perpetual writer's block! I have no one here who understands me! I can't understand anything I'm reading! This is keeping me from the glories of serving Him in overt ministry positions! Of course, the practical inconvenience of going through giving up and dropping out has, I'm sure, kept many a grad student in grad school. These times would fluctuate and with feathered wings the sun would rise and shine over other, cheerier weeks, when I would be excited about what I was learning, excited to be getting to know my grad cohort, excited to be teaching, excited to be challenged and stretched as a student (and, of course, as a person).

Yesterday, He whispered something to me, something that I don't think I've thought about for a very long time. If you will allow me to translate the Spirit's movement into cyber-text English, He said, "All that is good in Anglo-Saxon studies is Mine."

O my God, I thought, what have I been doing?! Do You wait beside me and sigh, because here I am, pleading, begging, sobbing that You would just help me get by? When all the time, You own it? It's Yours: every good aspect of it belongs to and is an expression of You.

As I thought about this, the commandment, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for men" hit home for me more than ever. Before, I was approaching my studies as if they were gods threatening to tear me from Him, as if this was their primary relation to me. And truly, how often have I struggled with depending on achieving good grades, as well as my professors' and peers' approval, for my own self-assurance and significance. How often I have lamented that my schooling requires me to spend much more time reading texts and articles than meditating on His life-expressing Word? And yet, my primary relationship to my studies is not of my studies as potential temptation. What a subtle, sneaky, suffocating snippet of a lie I have been swallowing! Rather, it is my studies as potential glory.

You may say, what's the difference? Aren't these simply two sides of the same coin: either you give glory to God or you give in to temptation, giving glory to other gods? But I think there is a profound difference. It is all about our position, our orientation. It is true that life is a battle, that there is a war waged over souls, and that we struggle against the spiritual authorities in the spiritual realms. And yet. And yet. And yet we are not on neutral ground. It is not as if we stand on the narrow plank of a fence and with every step must either tilt to the temptation or tilt to God. Why do I say this? Because the Spirit of God abides deep, deep within me, deeper than I can conceive. That there is a narrow neutral fence plank is an illusion. My starting place is this: His Spirit is already at work in me, sustaining me and empowering me to live to His glory each day. It is true that I may be tempted and I may start worshiping my damned gods at any given minute - but I do not have to. That is not who I am.

Here it is, my thesis: I am doing my studies because He is in them in the most intimate and ultimate way, and I want to enjoy Him in them and glorify Him in them with all people as witnesses to His glory.

O, I'm so familiar with the distortion that permeates life. But I want to increasingly see the face of God everywhere I look! And believe Him (I originally wrote "me" there, but it certainly isn't me), the reality is that every place we go, every circumstance we find ourselves oppressed or delighted by, we Christians experience in Christ. Therefore, when I go to class tomorrow, my primary position in relation to that experience is not my own internal/external/may-feel-like-eternal struggle against sin and death, but rather my primary position in relation to that experience is that Jesus owns me in it, and Jesus owns it, and Jesus says, "Come, follow me."

Yes, He tells me to pick up my cross, to count the cost. But based on my very limited experience and on the Bible's binding authority, as we do this, as we follow Him, as we keep crying out for Him and thirsting after Him - as we rest in Him, we become enamored with Him and increasingly experience and realize that we are actually in Him.

And He is glorious beyond all memory and imagination.

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and the most eager to win fame

The Beowulf poet (or the collective that laced the threads together, of which the sole remaining manuscript is only one permutation) may be correct in his theme. Not merely the angsty, bloody battle-driven warrior cult of the Anglo-Saxons, this obsession for fame proves wedged deeply within the most tedious individual sitting at a microfilm machine making photocopies for five hours.

I keep finding this desire for fame swimming uneasily around the more self-conscious parts of my mind these days. What I mean is that all the different occupations and preoccupations that I have been giving myself to, those by which I frequently define myself, have this desire within them.
 
School. And this is not so surprising, seeing as the catalyst for actually doing the paperwork to get in was the simple phrase, "You look like someone who has the Master's glint in their eye." (And lest this come across in a spiritual sense, Master's in no way refers to my most awesome Master). But it is never enough to just think, or to even just write, or even - o even - to just enjoy! No. It must be that I am known.

Home. Why is it so easy to imagine taking the bus with my [future] children, the perfect little images I have made them to be, and to see only myself in every corner of the vision? My aspirations. My perfections. My good discipleship. My boast to holiness. My gift(s) to the world. My bus ticket the crucial one.

Love. There are moments when I seriously doubt that I have ever grasped even the slightest shiver of what it means to be possessed by the all-powerful constraints of Love. "For the love of myself constrains me!" The most well-worn path down which my mind, emotions and body travels is that which ends in "What about me?" Truly, it is so easy to think, "But you should not be treating me like this! But you should know what I want! But you should be Christ-like and forget yourself and just focus on me." (I'm aware of the misunderstanding in this last one. But then, it is at the core. Christ humbled himself, remembered me, gave himself for me - but he did not forget 'himself,' did not give himself purely for me. The greater glory: He went to the cross for the joy set before him, that joy which was indeed the redemption of a people for Himself, but there! For Himself. For the glory of the Father. To the glorification of the Son. His very purpose - how could my very purpose be any less? Why do I keep Christ in a bracket? O self, o self, o self! The love of myself constrains me! Let me out! Let me decrease; let him increase! Out of the brackets in the paragraph that is my existence, my life, my being).

A poet once described the humbling: "...still enough to finally tremble..."

O may our bodies wait, still enough in the presence of the Almighty, that we may start to tremble in the presence of the Almighty, his power pulsing through our bodies as the love of Christ sustains us so as to constrain us.

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