.: patterns :.

It is wild to me how I can see such clear cut sets of habits that lie in any given setting that I live. Whether it be up in Vancouver, down in Mount Vernon, hanging with old familiar friends, going to church... there is some set standard of living that I so easily slip into. Our Reading Week break was such a strong reminder of that to me, particularly in the little things (such as sleep, devotions, eating habits, etc.). I seem to possess such a strong commitment to my studies as I remain up here in Vancouver... but once I cross that border, something happens along that stretch of road and I become a different person. Not necessarily something completely reversed nor some sort of evil Hyde, but there is just a change in the way that life seems to go in each place. And the funniest thing to me is that no matter how hard it was to accomplish something at home, I knew it would go back to being a no-brainer once I return to my home away from home in Canada.

And sure enough, today went just as expected! Crazy how life can become so predictable... even somewhat manageable.

.: bound to happen :.

I knew the day would come when this would happen. For all the times that I have witnessed some pretty close calls, we finally have our first "victim" of the common pastoral mistake. You almost hate to see such a rookie error like this happen!

Texas Pastor Electrocuted During Baptism

.: punk'd by penguins :.

So I was all set last night to go see March of the Penguins at a theater downtown (the Lincoln) that I have never been to before. We get there 15 minutes early, and much to our surprise, the ticket prices are a $6 donation. Failing to assess the situation, we pay the lady at the front, we grab our tub of popcorn, and we sit down in somewhat empty theater (there were only about a dozen people in there). So there I am with incredible seats to what should be an incredible movie. Nevermind there is a slide projector right behind my head, and posters for the Humane Society at the front of the theater - I was too caught up in the fact that I finally got to see this movie.

Now the problem is that I have been told that the Lincoln Theater often has extra stuff before and after some of the films they show. They will typically have actors, directors, or some person affiliated with that particular movie come and introduce the film, tell a little bit about their experience making it, and the like. So during the 15 minute slide presentation for the Humane Society, I am just thinking that they are taking advantage of our coming to this movie to make us aware of a good cause. But then, as some old guy took the stage and began his own slideshow of him and his wife's trip to some far-off place to see penguins and other arctic wildlife, I started to grow extremely suspicious of just when the real movie was going to start.

Needless to say, March of the Penguins was not showing last night! Nooo... in fact, it's last night of showing was the night before. Last night was a "special" night in which we could come pay $6 for a slideshow of some crazy people's slides of penguins. 45 minutes into the program, I was furious (did I mention I was sitting right in front of the project, so everytime I sat up to soothe my sore back, my head popped up in shadow form on the screen of penguins?). I started formulating a plan within my head as to how to get my money back, and if they didn't give it back to me, how I could best burn that theater down as quickly as possible. My parents encouraged me to laugh about it, but if they hadn't been there, I was fully prepared to make a scene and get my cash back. Instead, the Humane Society came out $18 richer because I cannot read a simple newspaper ad correctly (it was 7:30 PM last Thursday, not this Thursday!).

I didn't even have fun... that was, until the narrator said "weiner seals". I guess that made the $6 all worth it!

.: the surprise of change :.

The smallest changes can bring a refreshingly new perspective to anyone's life. Granted, for some people, change comes like a virus that can devastate the scheduled predictability that they once enjoyed. But that class of people is not me! I love change, for the most part. And often times, I love having it sneak up on me and catch me off guard... and in a sense reward me with a new sort of life. It can be something as simple as what happened the other day when some of my housemates showed me a back alley path to the bus stop. Rather than walking around the outskirts of the neighborhood, I came to find out that one could simply walk down behind the row of houses and end up a couple steps from the doors of the subsequent 99-er (the straight shot to Regent). And the crazy thing is that something so small and inconsequential put a new bounce into my step and made me feel like everything was new. It's the wierdest thing, and yet it happens every so often in my life. It's fun when you do it intentionally and find a new way to do something... but when it finds you, it makes even the most menial tasks exciting!

.: to love :.

(a quote that has been haunting me for years)
"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." - C.S. Lewis

We just can't do it! It is the impossible feat. We can either risk everything for even the slightest possibility of the greatest thing... or we can remain safe and guarded and unbreakable. All those fears and apprehensions - we are just going to have to learn to live with them, to deal with them as they present themselves, and to push through them into something more magnificant than safety and the promise of ease. We must remain committed to seeking the very best that this temporary life has to offer us, even as we face the strong possibility of some of the worst. For you cannot love someone, nor be loved in return, and at the same time keep your guard up from potentially being wounded by them.

To love is to open yourself up to the possibility of finding both the absolute best and the absolute worst. It truly can go either way... but that's the risk you take to try and experience what very few ever really find: a love that will carry you through an entire lifetime.

"And love is a tired symphony you hum when you're awake... and love is a crying baby mama warned you not to shake... and love's the best sensation hiding in the lion's mane." - Iron & Wine, Lion's Mane

.: no more :.

This tune has been following me around for the past couple weeks. May you be blessed by the powerful realities of which it speaks!

"I Boast No More"
(Caedmon's Call / Issac Watts)
------------------------------------------------
No more, my God, I boast no more
Of all the duties I have done
I quit the hopes I held before,
To trust the merits of Thy Son

No more, my God
No more, my God
No more, my God
I boast no more

Now, for the loss I bear his name,
What was my gain I count my loss
My former pride I call my shame
And nail my glory to His cross

Yes, and I must, I will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus' sake
O may my soul be found in Him
And of His righteousness partake
Amen, amen

The best obedience of my hands
Dares not appear before Thy throne
But faith can answer Thy demands
By pleading what my Lord has done

.: big enough :.

The Father's heart is big enough...
...big enough for my weaknesses
...big enough for my frailties
...big enough for my sinful habits
...big enough for my idolatry
...big enough for my inconsistencies
...big enough for my fearfulness
...big enough for my shame
...big enough for my own hardened heart
...big enough for my carelessness
...big enough for my apathy
...big enough for my foolishness
...big enough for my insecurities
...big enough for my small visions
...big enough for my misspent passion
...big enough for my misplaced sense of security
...big enough for my defensiveness
...big enough for my overreactions
...big enough for my refusing at times to hold on
...big enough for my wanderings
...big enough for my cynicism
...big enough for my tight grip on everything but Him
...big enough for my covered over compromises
...big enough for my investments in my own kingdom
...big enough for my fruitless searches for life elsewhere
...big enough for my acting out of woundedness.

The Father's heart is by far large enough for all these things... and even more! Large enough to still love me, to not forsake me, to not give up on me... to even know me better than I know myself, and to continue to call me to be what I was created to be. And amidst all these shortcomings and failures, it is big enough to still invite me into something that I could never have received apart from Christ's work on my behalf.

.: what awaits :.

I have my Reading Week break awaiting me in a little over a week... but I have some major things that lie before that period of rest... though I am not sure how much of a rest it's gonna be though, what with three different papers to write. Elementary Greek is killing me this semester! I literally do not know how many more Greek words, paradigms, and word endings I can jam into my brain. The teacher is testing us all the time... which is good in the sense that it keeps us accountable... but bad in the sense that I find myself studying for it three times as much as my other classes. I have a "take home" vocab test to tackle today, which is killing what would normally be for me a day off (in the sense that I don't have to head up to Regent, but I can do what I want to do). I keep thinking that I will get a break, though I am getting small ones all along the way. But rather than my workload letting up, it seems that God is providing more grace in each moment... which is offering me the strength to stay the course and get my junk done. And when it is all done... what a party there will be!!!

.: broken :.

For all who were hoping for better days than this...
For all who were thinking that they should have been so much further than where they are right now...
For all who have been places that they should have never gone into...
For all who are broken and dying and desperate for real life...
For all who are so far from where they used to be...
For all who need help and need hope and need healing...
For all who keep catching themselves straying off the path...
For all who are living half-empty lives of busyness and temporary satisfaction...
For all who are buried in the errors of their ways...

There is a hope...
We have a way that the Father has called us into...
And His very Spirit has been fighting, and will continue to fight, for our hearts...
We were never meant to live this life in our own flesh...
We were never meant to wrestle and struggle alone...
We are products of our enviroment...
And imitations of the company that we keep...
But one by one, we are waking up to lives that we never meant to live...
And we want to escape...
And we desperately want out...

The Father is calling us to lay down our own lives...
And to pursue Him with every fiber of our souls...
He is more than enough...
More gracious...
More loving...
More forgiving...
And more than able to heal us as we so deeply desire...

All He asks is that we come...
Come and see...
And believe that He is the source of the real life that we have been searching for throughout all of our years...

And give up on the life that keeps failing us and coming up so tragically short...

Come broken...
Come defenseless...
Simply come.

.: space to speak into :.

Just recently, I have really been wrestling with feelings of being let down by others. There have been a handful of experiences that have left me confused in terms of the space between who I thought they were... and how they end up expressing themselves to be somewhere along the way. Within the past couple weeks, there was an instance in which I tried to take a stand on a particular issue, only to end up being dismissed and laughed at. And I am telling you, being misunderstood like that really makes one not only feel isolated, but the event itself functions in such a way so as to prime you to isolate yourself even more (in a sense, confirming what you already perceived). Another dynamic and potential reaction is the subsequent desire to just remain silent in the future and "go with the flow" (just that phrase alone makes me sick because of it's inherient implications)... which in turn leads me to become - at least in that one moment - someone I am not... or at least someone I do not want to be.

Which brings me to a deeper haunting question: will I ever be able to break the vicious circle of my own inconsistencies? It seems like I cannot even take a stand against anything because, as so often happens, I only later choose to give in. And those whom I once opposed seemingly stand ready to judge me (and hopefully my own words of opposition and/or correction were not words of judgment and condemnation of another individual, but rather words spoken out of wisdom and love). But it seems that because I am a fallen creature, I will never be able to draw a line in the sand and refuse to do something in particular. This is seemingly because I have either done it in the past, or I later soften my once firm stance and choose to do it later on down the path.

The reality is that there is no voice given to those who have already acquiesced. They cannot be the same ones who later steer people away. But interesting enough, no one likes a "stick in the mud" and if you haven't soiled your own hands, people tend to write you off... and in turn, you find yourself with very few friends. Therefore, what I have been coming to believe is the reality that to be a prophet seems to be equated with living on the fringe of culture and society, to be listened to, but to share intimacy with very few others (possibly only other prophets). But to have done something even once somehow implicitly means to have commited yourself to a lifetime of such actions, with no voice whatsoever to speak out against it... for such people are labeled and dismissed as hypocrites.

I am left in a world where I can virtually say nothing because the error of my ways is just as evident as anyone elses... more so at times though, or so it feels that way so often.

.: question :.

Some of the most unexpected questions have a way of hitting you right where you live - this one came from Oswald Chamber's work, My Utmost for His Highest:

"Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?"

That is one that I will have to wrestle with on a daily basis... which explains for the large Post-It note with the quote on it right on the wall above my desk.