Icebergs

Lettuce, or large chunks of ice floating in the ocean, it adds up the same. There are parts you can see and parts you can't. There are things that don't show. How come we don't use artichokes as a symbol for the human condition? Or rocks?

If we were able to unwrap one another, if we we're able to dive below and see what's underneath, I think we would have a very hard time living with each other. Sure, there would be some good stuff living in there that we didn't know about, but we tend, I think, to show the good. Of course we do. It's the other stuff that sits and waits for some tragic moment of opportunity to strike out at the world we fear.

Perhaps our ignorance is a kind of grace.

But what if you knew it all? What if you knew every tendency toward the darkness in the people around you? What if you knew every single dehumanizing thought that came to mind in the people in your life? Where would love be then?

For us, I think, it would melt like ice on a hot stove. Wilt like lettuce in the sun.

But the Creator sees it all and somehow still finds a way to love. It is astounding to me. And all I really have to go on is myself. I can only guess at the darkness in others. But I am fairly well aware of the darkness in myself. And even that is a guarded self awareness. After all, we have to live with ourselves, don't we? Don't we?

The truth is that I don't deserve any of the love I have in my life. But it's there anyway. And I'm thankful for it. And it teaches me to love in spite of the darkness; in spite of the things that are not seen.

© LW Publishing 2015

Unbalanced

There it is. A painting of Isaac Newton. He looks like he could have been a member of Kiss. He would have been chased out of the Bible Belt in the sixties, right?

According to Mr. Newton, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

What this has to do with figs, I have no idea.

But I find that this truth is remarkably untrue when it comes to emotional energy and the realities of everyday life. In particular, it doesn't apply to the arts. Using religious ideas to express it, it seems to me that Karma is not only not true, it is practically a joke. No offense intended to those who embrace the idea, but almost every aspect of life among humans demonstrates that there is no balance to the force. Everything is about as out of balance as you can get, and there aren't enough Darth Vaders in the universe to bring it into balance, no matter what anyone thinks about it.

And then there's God. The real One. Who doesn't seem all that interested in our sense of what is balanced and what isn't. He's got his own scale and we aren't allowed to touch it. So sad, too bad. But, the truth is, we'd only mess it up anyway because we simply don't know the true value of things.

Anyway.

How have you been?

I've been enveloped in the process of change. I'm changing in subtle but distinct ways, and it's making me a little nervous because I'm not really sure where it's all headed. I wonder if I'm going to end up being someone I don't care too much for, or will I be someone I could hope to be? I'm starting to feel the inevitable pull of "aging." And I'm not really what you could call old yet. Or at least I hope you don't.

Thing is, you'd think that if you put in a lot of effort, you could count on the results to some degree.  You'd think you'd end up with some control over what comes next. But, alas, that's just not the way it goes. At least not always. Then again, who knows?

Certainly not me.

And by the way...

I've been writing a lot of new songs after quite a long dry spell.

Why?

I have no idea.

I like it but it can be a bit unnerving how things come and go. And they do. Come and go, that is.

Turns out that some beasts require a lot of fodder to produce a few little morsels of meaningful something or other. And feeding those beasts can get very tiring.

If you don't believe me, just ask all of those artists with unfinished works.


Peace to you.




© LW Publishing 2014

What You See On the Side of the Road

So, last week, I was in the foothills of the North Carolina side of the Smoky Mountains. We were driving, following my brother in law on a road that basically takes you along the edge of the mountains, and we were a little confused about where we were, so we stopped for a minute on the side of the road to get our bearings. Maps were consulted, GPSes were explored, but they seemed more confused than we were.

(Side note: we found this funny thing with our new GPS on this trip. When it gets confused it starts mispronouncing road names, sort of blurring them, as if to avoid making any commitments that might get it into trouble. It sounds like Bill Murray in Caddyshack.)

So, anyway, we were sitting there and, just outside my window on the driver's side, I noticed that a spider had somehow gotten up onto the mirror. Not sure how it got there, but it was furiously making a web. And I do mean furiously. I’ve never seen a spider move so fast. It spun a web out from the rear view mirror to the corner of the window, then in another direction, then it cut back across, really fast. As I watched, I was wondering what I was going to do about this spider, if anything. But it didn’t care about me. It made a kind of triangle and filled it in very fast. It was amazing.

And then, I am not kidding you, or joshing you, or making any of this up: it carefully cut the web loose from the car and rode it like a kite on the wind away from the car toward some trees on the other side of the road. It was so small and almost transparent that I lost sight of it after a few yards, but it was headed in the right direction.

It was a flying spider.

Now. I don’t know about you but, to me, that is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. It was no accident. It happened fast and it happened on purpose. This spider knew EXACTLY what it was doing. I found a description online from an entomologist. They call this behavior “ballooning.” But they don’t seem amazed by it at all. As if spiders creating flying vehicles is just, you know, something akin to taking a pee or something.

To me, flying spiders are amazing. Pure and simple.

I think this is God’s way of laughing at our unbelief.



Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Here

I’ve been trying to not think about God in an abstract way. I mean, very purposefully trying to not think of God in the abstract and, instead, think about God as the very present reality that God is.

I find this hard to do to some degree.

It’s so much easier to think about God as “out there” somewhere, or to think of God as an idea, driven by a set of definitions.

Not that these ways of thinking are totally wrong. God is out there. But God is also here, and it doesn’t matter where here is, he’s there. And God is definable to some degree because God has chosen to reveal some things about himself that are definable. But the fullness of God is more than we could ever imagine, and God’s fullness is present everywhere.

So, what if you considered the presence of God as just that? As just what it is? God is present where you are, right now, and where everyone is, right now, and he’s God. Everything that God is, God is that, right there with you, right now where you are. God is aware. God is present. Not ambivalent. Not unconcerned. Not apart, but present and active, right where you are. Where we are.

Does that change anything for you?



Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Rain

Woke up this morning to rain, with cool breezy winds blowing in the windows.

This kind of weather makes some people depressed, but not me. Too much sun and dry heat, with the grass turning into brown hay is what gets me down. Rainy days like this make me feel nostalgic and peaceful for some reason.

I love the smell of the air when it’s been raining. I like the way things look shiny.

I feel like a kid when I write the word "shiny."

It’s like God runs the world through a car wash to clean it up a little.

And it could use some cleaning up, don’t you think?



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

Massively Massive

From what I’ve read, the amount of atoms in one molecule of DNA is pretty close to the same as the number of stars in a typical galaxy.

Is there any way at all to actually understand that reality? I don’t think so.

Creation is massive, both in the macro and the micro sense. Massive, massive, massive. Mind bogglingly massive.

There’s something about the scale of the Universe that messes with my mind. And it keeps messing with my mind. Not just that it’s so big or so small, but that it’s so big AND so small. Like, on any beach, there are countless grains of sand, but there are also these single grains of sand that make up the whole thing. The single grain has its complexities, and the whole beach has it’s complexities. It seems to me that being human isn’t much different in some ways. It’s estimated that there are nearly 7 billion people on the earth. I am 1 of 7 billion.

Seven. Billion.

And how many mosquitoes are there? And how many ants? And how many birds? And leaves? And flowers?

In my front yard there is some grass. It’s not the nicest grass in the neighborhood. That award would go to my next door neighbor, Jerry. But it is a marvelous layer of grass, nevertheless, simply because it is massive in it’s way. How many blades of grass are there out there? A million? Who knows. And yet, each blade has it’s own beauty and complexity. The whole thing boggles the mind. At least it boggles my mind.

And then there is space. Outer space. The galaxy. The Universe. It is massively massive. How many rocks are there in the universe? How many packets of light? How many stars?

Just our galaxy, the Milky Way, if you were to drive across it at around 60 MPH, it would take you about a million billion years to cross it. It is approximately 620 million billion miles across. Million billion? But the universe makes that look like a drop in the bucket. They say it’s around 90 billion trillion miles across (if “across” even makes any sense with curved space).

So. Why do I mention all this?

Just because.



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

Lama Sabachthani?

Do you have problems and challenges and personal issues that make you crawl?

I know I do.

I have some pretty good days. I have some not so good days. And the bad days can be really bad. Only God and my wife know exactly how bad. But even on the worst days, when I feel abandoned and alone, I know I’m not.

Jesus said this thing on the cross that is often quoted but not really thought through. He quoted King David from Psalm 22:1. He was claiming the words for his own life. He said, “"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

In a very real way, Jesus was experiencing the tortures of Hell in that moment. If Hell is anything, it is a place that is God forsaken. And the point of the cross was for Jesus to take things on himself so we wouldn’t have to have those things put on us. Things like the wrath and punishment of God. But, also, I think, is this thing about being forsaken.

We have every reason to feel forsaken sometimes. We do things wrong. We cling to sins. We make huge mistakes. We hurt the people we love. We do things and we can’t even figure out why we’re doing them half the time. And I think we realize that these things rob us of our innocence.

Or other people rob us of our innocence.

And we feel forsaken because that’s the feeling that goes with these things. Sin should cause God to turn his face away...

But...

If sin is taken care of – if what is broken is made whole – then there’s no reason for God to turn his face away. This is one of the reasons I trust Christ. Jesus has taken care of things. He took God’s wrath so I wouldn’t have to. He was forsaken by God so I wouldn’t have to be. He said he could do this and I believe him. I can accept that some people don’t want to believe him, but I do. And, because of this, no matter how I feel, I can know that I am not alone. I am not abandoned. I am not forgotten.

Ever.


Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2011

Life, the Three Stooges and Everything

I wonder sometimes if God is watching from on high, a little bored or something, and we make for some good entertainment.

We watch the Three Stooges. God watches us.

I’ve heard people (mostly women, but my daughters as well) say things about the Stooges over the years, things like: Why are they doing that? They’re not making any sense. That was kind of random and pointless, don’t you think? Why do they keep hitting and hurting each other? You don’t really think that’s funny do you?

These criticisms are fair. But it’s funny anyway. And in many ways, the Three Stooges are a perfect metaphor for the human race.

They are we.

I’m not talking serious theology here. Not really. It’s more about trying to get into the heart of God, which seems kind of inscrutable to me at times. But I imagine God watches us, and he gets tired of crying about it all the time. Wouldn’t you? There’s a lot to cry about, you know? The human race is very good at stupid. So, just from a love standpoint, it must get emotionally draining, all the heart break and sorrow. Even if it doesn’t make God “tired,” he probably still wants a rest from it all. Kind of like he rested on the Sabbath.

So I imagine God, turning the sound down on the earth, putting on a pot of whatever spiritual thing passes for coffee, and watching the chaos while humming the tune of Three Blind Mice.

He stops weeping, for a little while, and he laughs.


Psalm 2:4
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011

Definition

Pilot asked Jesus, “What is truth?” It seems to have been a rhetorical question. Pilot’s answer to his own question would have probably been, “Truth is whatever I need it to be” or “Truth is what works for me.”

How about...
    “Truth is what is.” Given some contexts, you might say, “Truth is what is, independent of what we think or know about what is.” Einstein would have agreed with that, I think. If and/or how we know what is, well, that’s a different subject. But if something is, then its existence isn’t shaped by what we think or know about it. If it’s physical, and we touch it in some way, say to measure it, or whatever, then maybe it is shaped by our touch. But to measure it in our minds doesn’t change anything except, maybe, our minds.

So I think about God. God said, “I AM.” Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I AM.”

We can talk about God being there or not, but in the end, it doesn’t matter what we think or say about it. Our “experience” of God (or non experience) may be subjective by degrees, but God is not subjective. God is either real or not.  God exists or does not exist as a person or a thing (though not a physical thing, unless some people are right, thinking the universe is a "god"). If God is “there,” then God isn’t shaped by our opinions anymore than the Grand Canyon is. We can talk subjectively all day long about whether or not we think the Grand Canyon is a beautiful thing or a big, ugly hole in the ground. But arguing about whether or not it’s there wouldn’t change whether or not it’s there. That would be the kind of empty philosophy that makes people want to stay as far away from philosophy classes as possible. It’s either there or it’s not. Opinions don’t matter. It’s not subjective. It just is. Or it isn’t.

I remember once (and I hate to admit this), I was watching the old Sally Jesse Raphael show. She had some overbearing “religious” people on with some carny show types who were completely over the top and she just let them at each other. The conflict was the point of the show. It was quite entertaining in a despicable sort of way. But Sally herself became frustrated with the “religious” people. They were, after all, kind of idiotic. And, in her frustration, Sally put her face right up in the camera and said something like, “I will NOT believe in a hateful, vengeful God.”

I get what she was saying. I get what a lot of people are saying when they try to define God. They want God, if God exists, to be a certain way. They have some personal ideal that’s subjective. And on an emotional level this is understandable. If you’ve been hurt a lot, you want a “god” who will stop the hurt. If you’re full of doubt, you want a “god” who will affirm your thoughts against doubt.

But if God is there, if God is, God can’t be defined by what has been created. God can only be discovered in some way. If God exists, and I believe God exists, our discovery of God does not change God’s nature. God is not whatever we want God to be. If God is there, then God is the one who does the defining.

God is not defined by us. We are defined by God.


Peace to you.




© LW Publishing 2010

Hate

I admit it. I’m a little tired of people using the word “hate” for things that are unimportant and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. I’ve done it myself. You hear it all the time:

“I hate that song. I hate broccoli. I hate that movie. I hate it when people do this, that or the other thing. (Why? Because it inconveniences us in some way. Because it annoys us in some way.) I hate my job. I hate having to clean up my room. I hate homework. I hate losing money. I hate cows.” Whatever.

There is actually a website set up for people to talk about what they hate. And boy do they. Everything from Brazil to Windows Vista to parents and ex-girlfriends. Nothing is out of bounds, and sharing your hate with the world is encouraged.

Nothing is beyond the hate of a human being.

It’s really out of control. We’ve taken an extreme word and used it in petty ways, which makes us petty to the extreme.

Consider, by comparison, what God hates. It’s in the Bible. Read it for yourself and see. God hates:

Sin and evil. Arrogant, bloodthirsty people who deliberately work against God to bring evil and pain into the world. Taking advantage of the poor. Religious hypocrisy. Those who lie and deceive for personal gain. Divorce. Idol worship and the sinful things it causes people to do. Violence and those who love it. People who arrogantly look down on others. A lying tongue. Hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that devises schemes to hurt the innocent. Feet that are quick to rush into evil. A false witness who gushes with lies. A person who stirs up dissension among brothers and friends.

Some people trust that God exists. But they hate a lot more than he does. They are very free with their hate. Other people don’t believe God exists. But they do seem to believe in hate. Like a religion.

It seems to me that if we could reserve our hate for things that genuinely deserve it, our world would be a much more gentle place to live in.




Leviticus 19:17-18
Peace to you.




© LW Publishing 2010

It's Complicated

Hey!


I had a rare professor once at Eastern Michigan University who expressed amazement about creation. I don't know if it was on purpose or not, but he was talking about the structure of the human ear. He was taking us through the stunning, mind numbing complexity of it – the obvious “design” – when he stopped and said something like, “Anyone who says this happened by accident has no idea what they’re talking about.”

And it’s not just the inner ear. To me the human eye is another perhaps even greater example of this. And “color” is what really fascinates me.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been fascinated by color. I’ve read about it over and over again, but it still leaves me in awe. The way I understand it is that color (the way light works) has been designed for the eye and the eye has been designed for color. They work together in a completely non accidental way.

Different colors are different “lengths” of light. Long “lengths” are red. Short “lengths” are blue. Green is in between. It’s how the surface of a thing reflects the light that determines the color. Depending on what it’s made of, the object will absorb some wavelengths of light, but it will reflect other wavelengths. If it reflects long light, it’s reddish. If it reflects short, it’s blueish. I’m not sure how orangeish comes about, but I imagine no color rhymes with orange.

But then our eyes have to pick it up. Our eyes are the “receiver” of these light lengths. And the human eye is MASSIVELY complex. We have rod and cone shaped receivers in each eye ball. They take the light that goes into the eye and translate the light into what our brains perceive as color. And please understand, that’s what they’re there for. Rods and cones exist to receive light and send it to the brain to be perceived as color.

You can learn more about the human eye at the link below. If you do, realize that this is a simple breakdown. Entire books could be written about any one design piece of the eye. Probably have been.

I’m thinking the prof was right. “Anyone who says this happened by accident has no idea what they’re talking about.”

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/V/Vision.html




Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Reified Beans

Hey!

I’ve been reading this book on economics called Wealth and Poverty by a guy named George Gilder. This is not my usual turf, but I was drawn into it by a bunch of different things it would take too long to explain. It’s a good book. Talks about distinctions between “supply” oriented and “demand” oriented economics and the philosophical ideas behind both. Yawn. But this book turns out to be pretty good because this guy is a good writer. He appreciates the taste of words.

What I’ve found especially interesting so far is this one section where the author goes over what he calls “fallacious modes of reasoning.” Even if you have no idea what he’s talking about, you’ve got to like that combination of words, don’t you think? Sounds like a song title from an east coast indie band.

So. One of those “fallacious modes of reasoning” he talks about is the act of “misplaced concreteness” or “reification.” I didn’t remember hearing that word before. It’s where you treat something abstract as if it was a real thing instead of an idea, and the worst example of this kind of thing is when we create a label for something we observe and then use the label as if it’s the cause of the thing. A common way of explaining this is with the idea of gravity.

1. We notice that when we let go of a pencil it falls to the ground.
2. We call the “pull” that takes the pencil to the ground “gravity.” “Gravity” is the label.
3. Someone says, “why does the pencil fall to the ground?”
4. We respond by saying “gravity.”
5. No real knowledge or understanding has taken place. Nothing has been explained. A label has been falsely used to “explain” something. The label of “gravity” has been reified.

Here’s the truth. No one really knows what pulls the pencil down. We can only explain the conditions under which it may fall.

I heard a theologian at a conference once say, “You say it’s gravity. I say it’s God.”



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010