Uh Oh continued

What was I talking about? Unexpected things. Yes. I don’t really know that I had any great point. I was just thinking about it. It reminds me of the way we are all surprised when something unfair happens, as if it has never happened before, as if the world was fair or somehow owed us fairness-none of which are true. We keep (well, at least I and many of my acquaintances) expecting everything to go as planned, even though the most consistent thing in life is inconsistency. I never expected massive brain farts that knock me out for days, I never expected Miranda to die, I wasn’t even really expecting India and I sure wasn’t expecting the last 15 months to be the way they were. But then again not all of the unexpected is bad. I never expected to be able to buy a house. I never expected that my unexpected child would be so very smart and cute. I never expected God to be, well, all that he is.

In The Last Battle, the last in the Narnia series, the characters, the heroes of this story, are set to do battle with villains that they almost certainly cannot defeat. In one scene they are afraid but determined to do what they know they must and their leader encourages them by saying (this is a paraphrase) “We rest between the lion’s paws, let us take the adventure Aslan has set before us.” I love that line; it is one of my favorite lines in all of literature. In the midst of all the unfairness, the unexpected events, the sorrow and the joy-everything, there is Aslan with his giant paws around us (or, in our world, God with his strong arms holding us). So with that in mind, let us take the adventure set before us.

To Do List:

1. Write and get published. Write some articles for an ezine, like Open Source Theology or Relevant. Write for some hard copy periodicals. Finish that stupid book and publish it, then write another (and publish it).

2. Find a job that I am excited to go to everyday.

3. Travel to Israel again, and again, and again (do it a bunch)

4. Go to Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Vatican City, France, England, Germany (been to the airport-want to see more), Mexico, Canada, Africa (somewhere), Jordan (again), Iraq, Cuba, Haiti, The Galapagos, China, Japan, some other places too.

5. See every state in the union (yep, every state). That makes about 30 left to see.

6. Climb mountains. Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, The Three Sisters, Adams, Jefferson, Bachelor, whatever else presents itself.

7. Learn Spanish

8. Learn to play the harmonica

9. Buy a little beach house

10. More tattoos. Many, many more

11. Teach a college course. Twice.

12. Start something new (I know what the something is, I just don’t want to say it)

13. Finish my masters(‘s) and get a doctorate

14. Protest

15. Participate in some criminal activity for the greater good of mankind

16. Find artifacts

17. Go skydiving

18. Try reverse bungee

19. Own a pet pig

20. Restore (or create a replica of) a Queen Anne Victorian and live in it all the rest of my days

21. Adopt children

22. Swim with sharks

23. See a whale up close (in the ocean)

24. Testify before congress (the state legislature would do, I suppose)

25. Restore that old truck of my grandpa’s and drive it all the rest of my days

I’m sure there’s more. I better get started on this though.

Uh Oh

I JUST saw a commercial (interrupting Judge Joe Brown) telling me that epilepsy medication was linked to suicide and if I killed myself I ought to sue someone (or something like that). Litigation is fun.

Anyway, this whole epilepsy thing has got me thinking-I don't like having it. I've been dealing with it for years now, as in multiple and many, and it still surprised me that I have it. I suppose it's one of those "I never thought it would happen to me" sort of things. Does everyone have one of those? I suppose if everyone had something like that then maybe we wouldn't be so surprised when it happens. But, well, stuff happens.

Now that it has happened to me, it makes me worry what might happen next. How far will this go? What damage will it eventually do?

Of course this has been a week of unexpected and unplanned things. Ugg, my kid is trying to crawl through the cat door, more later.

Snippet: I'm Wounded

I got a spiritual ass kicking yesterday. I totally wasn't expecting it, which was stupid. It was good for me, but I'm still a little sore.

Snippet: I want to go home!

Life isn't Fair

The closest brother in age to me is 5 years my senior. When we were growing up there were many things that he was able to do that I could not. For example, he was able to ride his bike quite a bit further than me. He was allowed to stay up later. He got to do everything first. Often times this was met with my cries of “Not fair!” Now that, in retrospect, was all perfectly fair. But certainly there were plenty of things in life, both as a child and now, that weren’t and aren’t fair. Often times our efforts to point this out are met with an all too obvious response that goes something like, “Well, life isn’t fair.” Of course it’s not fair. We all know that it’s not fair, and yet we still live life expecting it to be fair. We are still so surprised and offended when we don’t get the recognition we fairly deserve or when we are accused of something that we have not done. We still cry out for fairness even though we know it will not come.
But here’s the thing. Not only is life not fair, but God isn’t fair either, and we are so lucky that he is unfair! After all, it is certainly not fair that someone who lives a perfectly righteous life should be executed on a cross for my sins. It’s not fair that though I break the law I am still counted as righteous by God. It is not fair that I who use way too much of my portion (as if I actually had a portion I could claim as my own) of resources am still granted ever more blessings. Let us never ask God to be fair with us, for we could not handle it if he were.
So how do we handle it when life treats us unfairly? We remember that God has treated us even more unfairly and we are the better for it. I have a friend who, whenever he is asked how he is doing he replies, “Better than I deserve to be.” So true for us all.

Random Blog

HEALTHY DAY

I suck at eating healthy. I love chocolate too much. I really think there is something to the whole food addiction thing too. Yesterday was not a good day for Dan’s insides, but today is better. Today is salad and Sobe Lean. I’m still planning n that whole bowel cleansing thing too-I look forward to describing it to you.

LAST BIT ABOUT BOISE

My bad bathroom karma culminated in multiple attempts to use the facilities only to be thwarted by the toilet paper, or more specifically the lack thereof. I was finally rid of the bad karma when we went out to lunch with the Jillemiah Project and my lovely friend had to borrow the car to find a bathroom. It appears that I passed my bad karma off to her. Sorry about that.

I went arrowhead hunting with Jeremiah and found some nice treasure for my collection, which is nice because I would have been thoroughly disappointed had I spent an entire day in the sun taking baby steps while I stared at the ground and getting eaten by bugs only to come home empty handed. But my hands were not empty-they had a nice specimen of an arrowhead and another piece f obsidian that I really think showed some initial work as well as a piece of pottery that I have determined to be officially old (though not Native American). I also got some really cool rocks. We stopped in a small town with a population of about 2 and visited the store, which was in every way an old fashioned country store; it even sold the majority of its products from behind the counter. They happened to be filming a movie while we were there for an upcoming film festival. I think the most interesting bit of the trip was when we arrived in the town of Ola, which unlike the other town has a population of about 6. We went into the restaurant and found most of the residents there waiting for us. Well, maybe they weren’t actually waiting for us, but since everyone in the building stopped what they were doing to look at us it sure felt like it. We weren’t there for food (they only serve food on Thursdays anyway), we were there searching for a man named Bear. We were told that Bear was out chopping wood and given some very round-about directions on how to find him. But find him we did.

Bear is an interesting fella. We found him in the middle of nowhere camped out with three trucks, four dogs, a trailer, and a campfire that never went out. He was out there “choppin’ wood and trainin’ dogs” and had been there for some time. He wasn’t sure when he would be back, probably eight days or so. He thought the wife (who ran the restaurant) could use a break from him anyway. He invited us to sit down and we chatted for quite a while about the neat things he’d found and what he planned to do for the summer and so on. I called him ‘sir’ once, which offended him quite a bit. What really impressed me about Bear was that he was so hospitable and kind, even when he didn’t have to be. The man lives in a tiny town most of the year and in the wilderness for the rest of it. He seemed to have no real connection with the outside world and no desire for one. There was nothing to gain from befriending us or helping us find our treasure that day; if anything we were just getting in the way. It was refreshing to meet someone who was kind just because that’s the way he is.

Anyway, that’s the last bit about Boise I plan on writing on. I’ve forgotten everything else that happened anyhow.

Some Emergent Quotes (good and Bad)

"The church has been preoccupied with the question, "What happens to your soul after you die?" As if the reason for Jesus coming can be summed up in, "Jesus is trying to help get more souls into heaven, as opposed to hell, after they die." I just think a fair reading of the Gospels blows that out of the water. I don't think that the entire message and life of Jesus can be boiled down to that bottom line." —Brian McLaren, from the PBS special on the Emerging Church
(That was good)

"Emergent doesn't have a position on absolute truth, or on anything for that matter. Do you show up at a dinner party with your neighbors and ask, 'What's this dinner party's position on absolute truth?' No, you don't, because it's a non-sensical question." Tony Jones at the 2005 National Youth Workers Convention
(That was stupid)

"[W]e should stop to reflect and to treasure the words, to turn them over and over in our minds, repeating them ..."—Richard Foster, Renovare
(That was good)

“It is my opinion that tens of thousands of people, if not millions, have been brought into some kind of religious experience by accepting Christ, and they have not been saved.”- A.W. Tozer
(Good)

“Much of “traditional” Christianity gives the impression that God has these rather arbitrary rules about how you have to behave, and if you disobey them you go to hell, rather than to heaven. What the New Testament really says is God wants you to be a renewed human being helping him to renew his creation, [...]- N.T. Wright
(Ok)

Am I Amused or Mad? I Don't Know

30 Signs You Might Be Emergent
Posted by Symphony of Scripture on Thursday, April 17, 2008 Category: Emergent Church, Humor

30. Your church has replaced the pulpit with a bar stool (and possibly a bar or your church is in a bar).

29. You once read a good story about some Jewish people and a cross.

28. You engineer every conversation so you are able to use the phrase, “you can’t put god in a box,” and laugh like you’ve said the funniest thing in the word.

27. You make everyone define everything before you begin a conversation. Since this takes forever you never really have a conversation.

26. You think hell is a construct somewhere in Tennessee.

25. You think everything is a metaphor for something else.

24. When you hear the word “Orthodox” all you think about is the great food at the Greek Festival every year.

23. You think “Patristics” is a new brand of snack food.

22. Church history started when your pastor was born.

21. The only Creed you know is a once-popular musical act.

20. You only curse around fundamentalists.

19. You leave your church because the sermon was not obscure enough.

18. You refer to your local assembly as “church,” “synagogue,” or “mosque” depending on who you are talking to.

17. Your blog is a rant about how everyone else rants too much.

16. You brag that you have never been pinned down theologically on any issue.

15. The only thing you are sure of is that others cannot be sure of anything.

14. You bring your own wine to communion.

13. You are offended when someone says they are going to “Preach the Gospel” or “Teach the truth” believing they should just “Tell a story.”

12. Instead of a tract, you carry a can of Play-doh in your back pocket.

11. Your website links to Green Peace and the Democratic National Convention just because conservatives are against it.

10. You start a Christian blog, but leave it blank, fearing that you might offend someone.

9. You are not any good at art, yet you continue to present the Gospel by painting stick figures on recycled paper.

8. When you present the Gospel, Heaven is renamed The Matrix and you call Christ Neo.

7. Your church caters from Whole Foods.

6. Every sermon illustration begins with “The other night I was drinking a beer and . . .”.

5. You have yet to read the book of Romans believing Paul was too modern in his thinking.

4. Your car has a bumper sticker that reads “I think my boss is a Jewish carpenter but I can’t know for certain.”

3. You don’t worship on Sundays because everyone else does.

2. You evaluate truth by asking how many people hold to it. If it is too popular, then it is wrong.

1. When someone calls out your name you get angry saying, “Don’t label me.”

Too Poor to Sleep

It’s 5:00 in the morning and I am at work. I remembered that I was scheduled to come in at 5:00 at some point in the coming days, but I couldn’t remember hen, so I called and they said this was the day. They were wrong. I’m not supposed to be in until 8:30 or 9:00, and even then I have official errands to run which would have kept me away until almost lunch time. Oh well. I can use the extra money.

But I’m one of the richest guys in the world! Seriously, that’s not delusional or metaphorical. If you take into account the population of the whole world and how most everyone else on the planet lives I’m pretty stinkin’ wealthy. But it sure doesn’t feel like it right now. I commented the other day on the irony (tragedy) that Americans are dieing from eating too much while much of the world dies from eating too little. This same dichotomy is present in our consumption of stuff too. The irony of course is that the more stuff we get to make our lives more convenient and comfortable the more we become a slave to material things. I get a new lap top, that way I can write a school paper no matter where I am at. I get a nifty cell phone, that way I’m never out of touch with work. I get a new remote control so I can sit on my butt all that much more and get fatter while I watch my giant screen t.v. that is all that much more damaging to my eyes. When I do have to force myself off the couch I get in my fancy new car; funny how much more effort and stress is required to worry about a fancy new car than a crappy old one. Whoa, diatribe.

My niece is one of the more popular girls in her school. She’s pretty, and works for hours everyday to stay that way (slave). She wears only specific brands of clothes, because to do anything else would cause her social status to plummet (slave). And of course she has her cell phone with her all the time because to lose contact with a supposed friend and miss any gossip will rob her of the chance be the one with the knowledge (slave). Insert lengthy quote here:

“Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply `things.' They were made for man's uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him.
But sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul.
Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and `things' were allowed to enter. Within the human heart `things' have taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne.
This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets `things' with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns `my' and `mine' look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.
Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples, `If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.' (Matt. 16:24-25).”

That was from The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer, from the chapter titled “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing.” I wish I could live a life free of possessions. Understand what I’m saying and not saying: I’m not saying I want to give up all my stuff, I am saying I wish I were strong enough that I could want to give up all my stuff. But I like my stuff, so rather than remove the “stuff” I will try to remove the “my.” I will try to remember that I am a steward, a care taker, not an owner; this is a freeing thought-if I can do it.
He who collects the most toys—dies anyway.

Snippet

I'm still irriated that I misspelled "existentialist" in the url. Grrr....

Just an Update

HEALTHY DAY PART 2

Last night I continued to eat healthy with heaping amounts of garlic (clears the bowels and other good things) on my sea food pasta (omega-3, the good fat). I added lots of spinach too, which is good for, well, everything. And of course this morning more lemon water and this afternoon many vegetables. Now after two grueling days all I can say is I WANT ICE CREAM REALLY BAD. It’s like a fetish. Ok, so it isn’t really like a fetish. But it’s still pretty sick the way I like ice cream so much.

BOISE TRIP PART 2

The trouble with writing about something that happened this far removed from the actual events is that I can’t remember the chronological order of things. I do remember my bad bathroom karma continuing as I was searching for a place to utilize (this was still when we were on our way there, just shy of the Idaho border) and every toilet there was had been previously used and abused and left in a state of utter grossness. I ended up using a women’s restroom that didn’t have a lock (the scenarios for what could have happened are just scary). I was hoping that would be the end of my bad bathroom karma, but sadly it was not. After we had finally made it to Boise I once again had to, well, you know, and the facilities were adequate but alas there wasn’t a roll in sight. Thank goodness I looked before I did anything everyone would regret! More on the bad karma later….

We spend a lot of time visiting with our friends the Wiesel’s who live in a cool old house with four rowdy but wonderful children and two massive dogs. They work with refugees from Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and so on, mostly Muslims. They do their work out of their home, which makes for much random fun when the ethnics come over. I have begun speaking to the about the Emergent church movement and now they want us to start a church up there. That would be fun….

TODAY
You’d think I could manage to get to work on time (8:30) when I woke up at 3:30, but no. No worries though, today was a day of meetings, also known as a throw-away day because nothing useful happens. Dinner with the parents tonight, some healthy salmon.

Blog 4: God Won't Let Me Sleep

I received my wake up scream at 3:30 this morning. For whatever reason India was having trouble sleeping last night. I went into her room several times to sing to her and rub her back, which helped each time, just not for long. By 4:30 or so it seemed apparent that my technique wasn’t going to work so I got her out of the crib and took her into the big people’s bed. That didn’t work well either, so Jenny got up with her and took her downstairs for a while. Frustrating. She has been sleeping through the night for so long now and then…..then she shows me once again that she is the greatest theology teacher I have ever had. It is, as one might imagine, not the most pleasant experience to be woken up half-way through your sleep by a screaming baby. It takes a certain amount willpower to stand at a crib and sing and soothe when really all you want to do is sleep. It takes a whole other type of willpower to not give in to the urge to pick her up and hold her and rock her until she falls back asleep. As a dad I really can’t do anything else but respond to her crying, but sometimes I don’t respond in a way that she wants me to. Of course that makes her mad and frustrated, and I SO want to make it better, but it would not be good for her in the long run. She needs to be able to put herself to sleep. She needs to learn, by experience, that she doesn’t need to be rescued every time she has some distress, that she can handle it herself.
I think God must have a similar struggle with us, his children. I know that as a Father he responds to our cries and feels our pain with us and I bet he just wants to fix it and make it better for us as well-but that is not what we really need. He is more than our Father, he is our teacher. Even if it feels like God is ignoring me I am convinced that because he is totally good, because he is the author of love, even in the midst of any of my turmoil he wants nothing but the best for me. We he needs to he swoops me up in his embrace, but when that doesn’t happen then I know that it is time for me to learn something and he must believe that I can do it. Who am I to argue?

Snippet: Ooops

Well, I did have a meeting today. Luckily I wore some shorts that used to be pants but I cut all uneven and this wierd but kinda cool t-shirt that is iteself not altogether whole. Oh well. And I can't clean out the conference room cause there's something happening in there and it involved key-lime pie. Why would anyone want to involve key-lime pie?

Blog 3: Update, In Case You Care

HEALTHY DAY

The obesity epidemic. Is there anyone who is untouched by this savage disease? Ok, I don’t want to make fun of it too much, because it can be a horrible thing for some people, but seriously, we (the collective, American ‘we’) are killing ourselves of our own free will! And sadly, I am not immune. Like any lazy American I have declared that I will change my poor eating ways many times, only to fail miserably each time, after a day or a week. But today, today I try again! I have two more things going for me this time. First, I drank a glass of water and lemon juice this morning on an empty stomach to begin this bowel cleansing thing, and if I’m going to do something like that I dang well better be committed. Plus I drank tea with almost no sweetener. The second thing I have going for me is that I’m going to write about my progress here, and I know at least one person reads this so maybe I can be held accountable. Our country is dying from over-eating while other countries die for lack of food; somebody is going to have to pay for that someday and I don’t want it to be me.

SMOKING GUY

There’s this guy who lives across the alley from us who is a regular smoker. I know this because not only do I see him outside smoking on a regular basis but I also hear him. From any place in the house I can hear him coughing and hacking and coughing some more. And this happens at all hours of the day. ALL hours. Seriously, I think he must not have a job and I think that he must regulate his sleep patterns around his smoking habit; now that’s dedication. He has really annoyed me for a long time, and I really wanted to make some sort of snide comment about him the other day as I was putting my kid to bed when I had a reality check (my kid often provides me with a reality check). I wouldn’t want her to say what I was about to say (no, I don’t remember what it was I was about to say, only that I was embarrassed for having almost said it). Smoking man must have a pretty horrible life, out there smoking all the time. I wonder what it was that got him started doing this, and what it is that prevents him from stopping. I know some of the reasons, I’ve read the literature, but there is always more to it. Maybe some day I’ll be brave enough to talk to him.

BOISE TRIP

A few weeks back the fam and I took a trip to Boise. It was good fun and I promised everyone I would write about it, so here is an installment. We left at 3:30 in the freaking morning, or maybe 4:00, but at any rate we made it to Pendleton by 7:30 and had breakfast there (India slept until Pendleton-it was great). There was an old man sitting across from us whom India called “grandpa”, I think she probably made the guy’s day. The rest of the trip took quite a it longer, what with an awake toddler. At one rest stop I used the bathroom and refused to flush the toilet because I couldn’t stand the thought of touching it. This would be insignificant except that that was the start of bad bathroom karma (the only type of karma I believe in). But more on that later.

TODAY

I have no meetings today, I am excited. My hope is to organize the conference room for a MASSIVE meeting tomorrow. Plus I’m all excited about having this new blog. God just kicked me in the head again (seriously, just now). “What is it that I want you to learn from your coworkers? What am I trying to build in you? What part of me can you show them? And stop ignoring me when you’re at work!” I think that’s about what the kick was about.

Just a Snippet: Too Much

Snippet: Noun; clip, snatch, morsel, small thing. Just a tiny little thing to say!

So I'm about to leave work (yes, I blog at work, I'm not that good of an employee) and I feel like I've been kicked in the crotch and smacked in the head repeatedly. So many people, so badly damaged, it's like their humanity has been stolen from them and in a very realy way they are less than human. I can't imagone what it's like being God (well, duh) and really being so much more invested in their welfare than I am and knowing every intimate detail of every hurt of every person. This is one of the reasons I am convinced that God is real: I have to believe that someone will make it better someday. And I do believe that. And I have to go home now.

Blog 2: Messianic Existentialist (part 2)

Here is the second part of my long-winded explanation of my personal philosophy of messianic existentialism.

The third ultimate concern is freedom. We are intentionally designed as free moral agents with the ability to think through what is right and what is wrong and the capacity to choose one or the other. To put it a simpler way, we have been granted free-will. The extent of this free-will is a subject of much debate; I don’t think that to assert that I am a free moral agent in anyway compromises the sovereignty of God. Let us state this, for the record: Nothing happens that God is not aware of, nothing surprises him. He either causes it to happen or he allows it to happen and everything that does happen he can use to carry out his ultimate plans, which can not be frustrated. Therefore, God is sovereign.
Now that we have established that we can return to the issue of freedom. Having been granted free-will and the capacity to choose also endows us with the responsibility of the consequences of our choices, and this, when really thought out and contemplated, is daunting. I frequently hear the phrase (and I confess often use the phrase) “I have to…”, as if I have no choice in doing whatever it is I am saying that I have to do. “I have to go to work in the morning…I have to go to the store…I have to go to bed at such and such time…I have to have my coffee in the morning…I have to smoke this cigarette…I have to have my pills…” and so on and so on. My answer to ANY “have to” is “no, you don’t.” I readily confess that there are consequences for every choice, perhaps unpleasant consequences, but the unpleasantness of the consequence does not mitigate the presence of the choice.
It is a tendency in our society, or perhaps just our nature, to seek excuses for what we or others do because we can not handle the idea that they actually chose to do whatever horrible thing it is they did. When a woman returns to a batterer we say that she has a syndrome and she can’t help but to return. When a young man abuses a younger girl we look at the abuse in his past and that that is why he did it. When a city riots we say that it is because they are oppressed and discriminated against. None of these answers are wrong, but in the end, there was always a choice to be made.
Closer to home, that means that when I am mean to my wife or yell at my child or ignore my work or eat poorly or don’t get some chore done, despite the many excuses and explanations I may have, these were all things I chose. The responsibility for my actions (or lack thereof) is mine and mine alone. One way humans have come up with to combat this horrible feeling of responsibility (other than clever excuses) is to live under rules and laws. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing either; clearly we are creatures in need of some guidance. But where the law increases guilt also increases with it and it is but another chain to burden us.
But then, Jesus. The Messiah does not remove our choice nor the consequences of our choices, but he does offer us a way to face them. First, he sets us only under one law, the law of love. We are to love God and love others; that will look differently for different people, but so long as we are acting in love (towards God and others) we are acting rightly. Second, he offers forgiveness. Indeed, the consequences for our choices go well beyond what we see and experience in this life and have effects on us for eternity. The ultimate consequence for our poor choices (or sin-whatever misses the mark of God) is death. Jesus took our place on the cross, taking our death and served as a propitiation, turning away the wrath of God and reconciling me, just as I am, to my creator. Thus I am no longer afraid of freedom. While I still must face certain consequences for poor choices I know that in his sovereignty God will make all things right and new and that in the end I will be ok-that is to say, I have been and am being saved; this is a tremendous burden removed from my soul.
The final ultimate concern is death. In addressing this I could just refer to all that has been stated already and that would cover much of it, but alas it would not satisfy my desire to write about it. So…..the fear of death and the instinct to try to survive is present in all creatures. For example, how long can you hold your breath? Let’s say for the purpose of this illustration that you can hold your breath for 30 seconds. By around second number 25 or so you are feeling a bit uncomfortable, your lungs may even be starting to hurt a bit, but in just 5 more seconds you get to breathe. Now imagine that you are forced suddenly to hold your breath. This lasts for 30 seconds, but you don’t know that. You have no idea how long it is going to last. Probably in this scenario by about second 5 you are already in pain. By second 10 or so you are panicking. By second 25 you are convinced you are going to die and are starting to give up hope. Second 31 is the greatest moment of your life because you are breathing again. We fear death.
We fear the unknown, and death is the greatest unknown there is. We fear what may be waiting for us, or not waiting for us. But Jesus tells us what is waiting for us. We know that the one who has trusted in Christ is saved from death, that when he dies he will be with Christ in Paradise and we know that the one who has not accepted the invitation will find himself in that place called Hades; so the unknown is removed. We know that there is nothing to fear for those that are saved, that they go to a place where there are no more tears. And, we know that death is not permanent. Christ has shown this by what he said and by the fact that he beat death. The resurrection began with Christ himself and will continue until all people are raised and receive their final rewards or condemnation. This is what we who like big words call inaugurated eschatology. The final stage has begun, but it is yet to finish. And so death has lost its sting for it is defeated; it is but a moment but eternal life is, well, eternal.
The ultimate concerns of the human condition: meaninglessness, isolation, freedom, and death, are all resolved and being resolved by the messiah. Because Yahweh is rapt with meaning and purpose, so too am I who am made in his image.

Blog #1 What Do You Mean Messianic Existentialist (part 1)

I Googled the term “messianic existentialist” today and I found exactly two items on the search, both of which were things I created. If you Google the term “Christian existentialist” you find considerably more entries, none of which quite capture what I mean when I describe myself as a messianic existentialist. So, for my first post, let me tell you what I mean by the term; hopefully I will be able to do so without contradicting what I said in those other two items I mentioned.
Let’s start with the existential side of things. Existential philosophy recognizes four ultimate concerns in life: meaninglessness, isolation, freedom, and death (Yalom, 1980). These come as no surprise if we consider the human condition as one of constantly searching for meaning and purpose. I really believe this to be true of all people, even the stupidest, most shallow of us is still searching for meaning and purpose, just in horrible, stupid, shallow ways. The impetus behind this search is the image of God inside of us-his touch, his breath, the echo of his original intentions for us in our design that remains inside us all calls to us and compels us to seek this image and the one behind it. Our nature is fallen, however, and thus we are unable to ever fully realize the imago dei, especially when left to our own devices to search for it (I know the fallen nature has many other consequences as well, but we are not addressing those here).
Now back to the ultimate concerns. Again, these are all byproducts of the intersection of our nature and the image of God inside us. A non-theistic take on existentialism holds that life is essentially meaningless and that we as human beings must struggle with this meaninglessness and somehow come to terms with it. Sounds pretty hopeless, but it’s not fully wrong. Consider how long your life is in comparison to time in general, the whole of our existence, with all its passion and desire, its joy and sadness, its moments of fear and courage and embarrassment and happiness and love, all of it is but a spec of time, a brief instant along the continuum of existence. And the fact of the matter is most of what you do simply will not matter in the long run. This is true even within our short lives. Most if not all of the issues and events that were so life-altering to me in my childhood are of no consequence now. How can I expect anything I do to be of consequence to anyone else in this life, much less in the years to come after me, if it can not even matter to me in my own time? I save a life-they still die eventually. I help a man break an addiction to drugs-he becomes addicted to alcohol. I teach the truth-they believe a lie. So much is meaningless in this life.
But then there’s Jesus. Here is a peculiar belief: I believe that about 2000 years ago in the Middle East a man was born. He was not born in the natural way, however. His mother was a virgin when he was born. Peculiar. I believe that that boy grew into a man and followed the law of God perfectly, where no other human being in history ever could or ever would. Peculiar. I believe that that same man taught truth-not truth that is “true for me”, but truth, THE truth. I believe that he was an innocent man and in many respects an insignificant carpenter who managed to scare those in power so much that they decided they had to kill him. Peculiar. I believe that when he died the whole relationship between God and man was changed forever. Peculiar. And I believe that he didn’t stay dead. I believe that he came back to life, got up, took the grave clothes off, and appeared to many. Peculiar. I believe that he rose into the air and is with God and will someday return. Very peculiar.
What Jesus left behind, besides a whole new way of relating to God (and that’s a pretty big deal) is a whole new way of life-life in the way of Jesus. Living life in the way of Jesus is a life that leads to revealing the imago dei; and this is the goal, the meaning, the purpose of life, to live fully in the life of God. I am not left to find meaning and purpose on my own (though I am welcome to shape my meaning and purpose with God) but I am shown meaning and given purpose by Jesus. What I think and say and do as I live life in the way of Jesus has eternal repercussions because the only one who is eternal grants them this honor-life is meaningless no more.
The second ultimate concern is isolation. By this the existentialist means that we never truly, fully know another human being and more to the point another human being can never fully, truly know me. No matter how well I express myself or how close we live in proximity to each other, even if you were to observe me all day long and I were to tell you my life story including every juicy secret there is, still you would not be able to experience life as me and therefore you can not fully know me. In one sense this is a bit of a relief, because I don’t want someone to know ALL my thoughts. But then again, we all struggle from time to time to be understood; sometimes it is all we want out of life-just someone to know us and understand us, but alas….
And then there is Jesus. He is the one who created me. He not only knows my thoughts but my intentions behind them (i.e. he knows my heart). And he knows my destiny. Yes, he knows everything about me, even the juicy little secrets. Moreover, the believer’s body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. He indwells and he knows-I am isolated no more. This is so much so that the Bible says that the Spirit Himself helps us to pray when we don’t know how or what to pray-He takes the groans of our heart and translates them for us. I am known.