wisdom

"[Martin] Buber admired how the Hasidic communities actualized their religion in daily life and culture. In stark contrast to the busy Zionist organizations, which were always mulling political concerns, the Hasidim were focused on the values which Buber had long advocated for Zionism to adopt."

I think the parallels are evident.

When Your Heart Stops Beating

[reposted from an email originally dated 1/7/10]

Hey, friends;

The title of this email comes from a song by (+44), a little-known (I guess?) band, better known as a side project started by two of Blink-182's members while the latter was on hiatus.

Now, I haven't actually listened to this song in a while; but as I reflected on what God's been working on in my life over last couple of days, (+44)'s lyrics just leapt up from my subconscious:

I'll be there when your heart stops beating
I'll be there when your last breath's taken away
In the dark when there's no one listening...

Take a look at what that chorus is saying - and then take a look at these verses:

"Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel
"without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved—and that by God." (Phil 1:27-28)

This isn't really a secret: in high school, I was a pretty emo kid. There may even be (there are) a few composition books back at my parents' house filled with scribbled, angsty poems and lyrics. OK, actually I was a super emo kid - pretty out of control. To the point where my emotional baggage actually got me rejected from MIT (ask if you want to hear the story some time).

Thankfully, God has since changed me radically, into a very different person - in my attitude, hopes, dreams, and thoughts. But, when it all comes down to it, I still find the same desires that fueled my pubescent angst comprising a large part of my motivations.

What are those desires? Pretty simple, really: I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be a failure. I want my life to have meaning, shape, direction.

I thought, when I began seeking God at the end of high school, that I'd put all that in the past: I truly listened to the Gospel for the first time, accepted Jesus as the Creator, Sustainer, and Savior of my life, and found Him to be The Answer:
Lonely? "I will never leave you, nor forsake you."
A failure? "By grace you have been saved, through faith; not coming from your own works, so you cannot boast about it."
Directionless? "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

So, Jesus is The Answer - right?

...

For the past few days, I have found myself repeatedly agonizing over some things that have been laying heavy on my mind. Last night, chatting with Steve Yu '07 for commiseration and advice, he encouraged me to place myself again in front of God, in His hands. OK, I thought to myself - haven't I been doing that? And still, the worrying, the anxiety, the background angst, continue.

Still, knowing that it was the right thing to do - and having thought it over til my brain whirled - I laid down, prayed, and picked up a daily devotional by Charles Spurgeon, which referenced Philippians 1. And so I read the verses above:

"Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Whatever happens?

"This is a sign ... that you will be saved—and that by God."
Hmm... I will be saved... by God.

And I had a moment of clarity. In which I realized:

God is my life.

Joy and hope in my life don't come from my job; my girlfriend; my health, finances, or any other measure of success.

Over the past few days, I had been inadvertently narrowing down my focus, closing my eyes against everything else except a few, specific, areas of my life.

But, last night, God forced my eyes open again, and reminded me where my future is actually centered. He is the one who redeems my life; He is, as I've heard - and even said - so many times, the Creator and Sustainer of my soul. So, whatever may happen - personally or professionally; physically, emotionally, or spiritually - it is to God that I will look for salvation.

It's funny: for the past few days, as I felt myself wrestled down by worry and anxiety, I tried everything (well, not everything) to comfort myself. And most of that just came down to me thinking around in repetitive circles, listening to my own internal counsel repeat endlessly. And not a single bit of that brought me any relief.

But as soon as God reminded me that my life is not, ultimately, about my self but rather about Him, all the anxiety, the concern, the worry came crashing down. And I could even laugh, knowing that, in the end, all of these concerns are truly miniscule compared to the very good, very beautiful, utterly satisfying and hope-fulfilling end of a life lived in the presence and glory of God.

I'm sad and glad, friends.
Sad that I have so easily let my vision narrow down into a tiny sliver of what vistas it could be perceiving.
Glad that I remembered the one thing of value that I have: the God who is always there.

I'll be there when your heart stops beating
I'll be there when your last breath's taken away
In the dark when there's no one listening...

Thank God.

A mid-morning antiphon

Hello hello
We're at a place called Vertigo
Lights go down and all I know
Is that you give me something

I can feel your love teaching me how
Your love is teaching me how,
how to kneel.





Bono: ''Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff''.

Assayas: ''I'd be interested to hear that''.

Bono: ''That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep shit. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace.

"I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity''.

Praying hands.

[Image source: Microsoft Word Clipart]

Since my youth, I have long felt little connection to the many visual postures of prayer that often populate our Christian lives. The traditional image set forth of our pleas and petitions to God - two hands pressed lightly against each other, palms gently folded together in quietude and stillness of mind - was so thoroughly static, so devoid of vitality and vivacity, that it assailed even my young, malformed images of entering the Presence.

So it was that, even in my old listless dearth of faith, showing up to church with no pleas, no longings, and no desire for renewal, I began praying with fingers interwoven, hands clenched together, grasping at one another for support and mutual affirmation. Even as my heart and soul shrugged their way methodically, mechanically, through a yet-another (as in, "yet another Sunday service, prayer meeting, family prayer, etc."), at least my body found tension, dynamism, movement. But not growth.

Still, this manual configuration, of digits weaving and palms pressing, was the natural mold into which my hands fell even as I found - again, or for the first time, depending upon whose soteriology and ontology you lean - the brilliance and joy of a life lived in concert with that Holy Love (ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ), the Divine Father, the Great Friend. As my soul began wrestling with Truth - with conflict, with the ideal-real disparity, with the weight and depth of my own sin (and the corresponding value and immensity of Grace) - the twists and turns of my hands were filled with new spiritual life, a physical metaphor of the incredibly more real spiritual struggle and discovery.

Recently, however, I've been rediscovering the classic posture of prayer. It's not that I've altogether abandoned my childhood or the ways of my younger Christian faith in favor of a mature devotion: that would be giving my contemporary practices far too much credit.

Rather, I've unearthed the traditional configuration of praying hands for what it ought to be: these hands are not destined to merely be soft planes joined palm-to-palm in silent, motionless repose. No, they push together, inwards. They splay together, forearms pressing, fingertips tensed against one another; they stand at rest, but not for lack of intensity. No, tension is in them; it may be inherent, or potential. There is potency in each half of a pair of praying hands; they are joined together not of convenience or aesthetic ease, but because the forcefulness of each plane, on its own, needs its twin. And yes, sometimes my joints slide past one another, and the digits interface; but when my hands interlock in this manner, it can often feel as though I have simply come to a conflicted standstill.

When my hands press and push against one another, though - as my thoughts do, as this world and God's Word do - then sometimes I feel my spirit rising up.
Knowing that conflict, even unresolved, does often stand as the breath of wind's currents, pushing up against me, prompting, provoking, pressuring me to less of me, more of You, God.

Prostitutes and tax collectors.

[Adapted from correspondence]

At my church this morning, our associate pastor gave a really moving (well, it moved me) sermon about...

OK. To be honest, I was not paying attention during a massive portion of the sermon, because I got like 4 hours of sleep last night during a sleepover at Adam Y-V's house (4 Christian brothers = hallelujah, a Godly confraternity!). I did gather, in between desperate attempts to at least appear attentive, that, in general, the pastor was talking about the salvific power of Christ: how He can reach anybody, regardless of where they are coming from or located at in their lives. A good topic, one with which I'm sure we are all more or less generally familiar. Good stuff, good stuff... but not really one (at least when broadly approached) likely to be provoking a lot of introspection for me (this is a sad truth, and more likely just about my own foolishness than the weightiness of the topic).

But, towards the end of the sermon, the preacher started talking about how the depths of sin from which God had saved him. He is an ex-gangster/drug dealer/adulterer/etc. He's been jailed multiple times. But the point that he kept hammering home was that God had always walked there beside him and before him (that is why we call Him a God that is previous). When he was dealing drugs, God was there with him. When he was sleeping with whoever, God was with him. When he was putting a needle in his arm for drugs, God was there with him. Kanye West might say that Jesus walks... but the truth is, He does so in such thorough ways that we got no clue.

And then the pastor drew a parallel between Jesus' always being with us (even to the end of the age) and Jesus going to be in tax collectors' houses, down to be with them after - and while - they partied. Tax collectors, prostitutes, these were basically the two sides of the "immoral" coin: few men could be more despised than a tax collector, and few women regarded as more shameful or less worthy of respect in that culture. (And of course, we could talk on and on about gender roles in 1st-century Israel/Judea and what it means and signifies that a man would become a tax collector or a woman a prostitute.)

Now, as he started talking about these people with whom Jesus associated himself, my mind started wandering again... but, this time, I think it was a Godly wandering; less a loss of focus than a purposeful redirection of it.

I began recollecting how, so often, I have held a sanitized view of Jesus. About how I intellectually assent to the fact that Jesus hung out with "bad people", but I somehow disengage those "bad people" from their "bad acts" while Jesus was with them. As though He existed in a little bubble of goodness and moral rectitude that somehow charmed the corrupt moral fibre of those around Himself into marginal and temporary sanitation.

But the thing that I realized today was... nope. Basically: the parties to which Jesus went to were not saintly affairs. Jesus hung out with tax collectors. And prostitutes. Let's run over that again:
-Tax collectors (i.e. men who, by virtue of their corruption or/and low moral standards, had a lot of money).
-And prostitutes (i.e. women who, for whatever reason, did... things... in exchange for money).

And ummm... I'm sure that those tax collectors and prostitutes were not just getting together to chill and read the news. While I'm sure that they might have felt ashamed by His presence there - or, more likely, odd and a little weirded out (all ay yo who is that dude hanging out outside talking to everybody but not coming into the party? why isnt he gettin down with the ladies; he shy or gay or somethin?) - but I'm also fairly sure that His presence didn't change all that much of their behavior, and certainly all their behaviors (Isaiah 53:3 - "He was despised, and we esteemed him not").

So this is our God. Going back to a devotional I wrote a little while back, this is our real Hosea: our Christ. He loved each and every one of those people in those parties more than anyone we have ever loved, and he was there to watch them forsake Him for cheap, quick, objectifying lustiness. And He was, so much, Loving Grace, that, instead of fleeing from the scene, unable to handle it, He remained with those people, utterly in love with them.

Can we do this?? I can still remember the dread heartache I felt this one time in high school, when I was dating some girl and she basically started falling for this other guy. I could see it coming, I could hear it on the phone; and she probably could, too. I can still recall so vividly well the sinking emptiness of love taken and rejected; or worse, a love accepted but left without reciprocation.

To use a gross term: love abused.

It's the same feeling you get (well, I do anyhow) when you see that girl (or guy, though I wouldn't know about that.... im guessing it's the same) you have a crush on, or even just sort of fancy, talking a little too closely with some other person, or coming to the party with them, or (ha ha here do I give too much away?) going back and forth avidly from facebook wall to wall with a few too many ;)'s and =)'s for comfort (yeah that was a little of a stalker-ish example. I don't actually do that, promise).

You know that feeling? That hollowness which shakes you in your very heart and to the pit of your stomach? Your very essence of being?

Now imagine Christ - Lover and Husband and Knower of every individual person - not only not avoiding that feeling (magnified by an infinity of comprehension, I'm sure), but seeking it out.

Desiring to give us grace so much that, instead of fleeing when we adulterers approach Him, instead of simply standing still and waiting for us to come to Him, loving these sinners - we prostitutes and we tax collectors - so much that He actually sought them (us!) out, even in the midst of their (our!!) very moment of consummated adultery?

That's a God I can cry out to. That the God whose grace can (and did) bring me to my knees during worship after the sermon, literally crying out for His Cross to be mine. And I hope - I think - that my tears might be the same as those of Mary Magdalene (also a woman with a sordid past... as are we all [not women. Having sordid pasts.]), which watered His sore feet.

This is the God who is seeking me out, to embrace me, as I go to Internet sites that I shouldn't go to, or talk to girls that I don't really need to be talking to, in ways that I don't really need to be talking, about things that don't really deserve discussion.
This is the God who is desiring me, when I'm obsessing over clothes, or money, or sneakers, or any of a thousand other things which could be good but are too-often idols.
This is the God who loves me when I commit adultery with the manifold succubi of my own creation;
and one day, one day soon, one day already, this is the God whose love will be so greatly and obviously revealed to me that I will finally turn back and fall in love with that God once and for all.

Reflections on the Seoul morning.

(Adapted from correspondence)

A thought at 6:40 AM.

Just a quick thought, not really a devotional.

I was just walking along the street this morning alternately praying and singing quietly. The 6 AM street in my corner of Seoul is bright - a touch hazy - quiet and cool. Older men and women wander the streets, but I live in a low-traffic suburb so, by and large, I was alone with my thoughts and my God.

Walking along, I was struck by the way that God has constantly been using ongoing relationships between myself and non-Christian friends to continually draw me closer to Him.

It can be incredibly frustrating to see close friends go through recurring struggles with sin. But I can't help but be awed and astonished at how uniquely God reveals Himself through seeing my friends' struggles with themselves and their compulsive needs to rely on inadequate sources of succor. I see truth occasionally breaking through in moments of honesty and reflection, and this must be exactly the same way that God sees me struggling with myself and my foolish, contemptible pride.

The life of the Old Testament prophet Hosea is one of my favorite stories in the Bible, hands down. Dude was a prophet and God had him marry a mad um loose woman. Why? "The people in this land have acted like prostitutes and abandoned the Lord." Burned.

God had Hosea go out and marry an unfaithful woman precisely so that he would have a personal experience of sin, from the other side. So often we sin and see the grievous marks it leaves on our own souls and lives; sometimes, even, we get a glimpse of what it means to grieve God or the Spirit, and we get a jolt of repentance and humility from that. But to understand Sin, even if only briefly and vaguely, from the point of the person pursuing the lost, rather than being pursued as the lost, is also a great (and terrible) gift.

I'm not advocating going out and trying to fall in love with/marry/invest in the most tragic person you can, simply to have an experience of what it's like to be God. That sounds vaguely blasphemous, if not explicitly foolish.

But I think God does sometimes put us in situations where He desires to teach us some specific lesson about what it means to Trust Him and, yes, even to Be Him (this is the same reason that the "Dark Night of the Soul" and the stigmata are considered gifts in various Christian traditions: they are experiences that allow us to partake in Christ's suffering and share a deeper understanding of His spirit).

I've heard multiple sermons about how difficult it can be to raise children without the assurance that they will follow after the Lord.

In the same way, it can be incredibly difficult to be so deeply invested in a person, without any assurance that they will be able to bring themselves to care about their own future. There is a lot that I have seen friends do, see them continue to do, and know that they will do that grieves me personally and spiritually; and I can only imagine how deeply it grieves our Maker.

But if I myself have sinned as much as I have, and yet God loves me; and yet He loves me; and yet again He loves me; then who am I to not extend that same forgiveness? And, in extending it, I feel some of the joy - and deep tragedy - of what it means to love an as-yet unregenerate soul; I can only imagine what it is to be really in love with every one of those souls. I know I couldn't bear it.

So, it's a good thing that I don't have to; not alone, anyways.

A thousand times I've failed;
still, your mercy remains;
Should I stumble again,
still, I'm caught in your grace.

Everlasting, your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, your glory goes beyond all fame