Ecstacy and Delight Quote

I need to interrupt my own train of thought with this, which I just read yesterday:

Ecstasy and delight are essential to the believer's soul and they promote sanctification. We were not meant to live without spiritual exhilaration, and the Christian who goes for a long time without the experience of heart-warming will soon find himself tempted to have his emotions satisfied from earthly things and not, as he ought, from the Spirit of God. The soul is so constituted that it craves fulfillment from things outside itself and will embrace earthly joys for satisfaction when it cannot reach spiritual ones...The believer is in spiritual danger if he allows himself to go for any length of time without tasting the love of Christ and savoring the felt comforts of a Savior’s presence. When Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent search of other lovers...”

--From The Thought of God, by Maurice Roberts

Wow. Embrace your desires, my friends.

Religious Right, R.I.P.

Excellent article. I hope you enjoy it.

The Third Party

I hate to be political, but I don't feel particularly Democratic or Republican. Never have. I have always registered as Independent.

But I never really looked into any other parties until recently. I have recently discovered that I am most similar to a Libertarian. Here's what appeals to me (from www.lp.org):

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.

I think those paragraphs describe me pretty well.

Will I vote for Bob Barr? Who knows...

--Jon

What to say...

Someone I loved died in 2003, a few days after quadruple bypass surgery. I spent the last night of his life with him in the hospital, listening to his breathing get more and more difficult. He couldn't sleep at all, so during the night we chit chatted a little now and then, but the oxygen mask and his own lack of breath made it hard for him.

So he just lay there. And I just sat there, listening to him breathe, looking at him in the dark.

Until the morning, when the nurses came in to see us. Around 9, a doctor came in and decided to move Dad into the ICU. Why they didn't do it sooner, I'll never know. They packaged everything up and rolled his entire bed out into the hall into an elevator, and took him down to the ICU floor.

I followed them as they wheeled him into his new room, his breathing even more difficult than before, and watched the nurses start getting him ready for whatever it is they do in ICU. One of the nurses told me I would need to go back out into the waiting room, so I said, "I gotta go now, see you later, Dad."

He said, "See you later."

I walked toward the door, and at the last second, I turned, and for the first time in my adult life, I said to my Dad, "I love you."

I said it loudly enough that everyone in the room could hear it, which kind of surprised me. He lifted his head up and looked at me, and said, "Love you, too."

It would be the last words I would speak to my father. The last words that he would hear from anyone in his family, and the last words I would ever hear him say.

Fifteen minutes later a nurse came out and told me his heart had stopped, and they were trying to revive him. Fifteen more minutes later the same nurse came out and told me they had stopped trying.

------

So many things I wish I had said. So many things I wish I had asked him.

I wish I had told him I loved him more than just that once.
I wish I had told him that he hurt me when I worked construction with him as a teen.
I wish I had told him that I had forgiven him, and that I wanted his forgiveness for holding it against him for so long.
I wish I had told him that I knew it wasn't easy when he was a kid, being pulled out of high school to go work at the sawmill.
I wish I had told him that I was proud to be called his son.
I wish I had told him that I admired what he made of his life.
I wish I had thanked him for taking care of my mom and all of us so well.

I wish I had asked him to tell me what it was like to be him when he worked for his own father.
I wish I had asked him what it was like raising six kids, working three jobs.
I wish I had asked him what he thought of me as a young man.
I wish I had asked him what he thought of me as a middle aged man.
I wish I had asked him what he wanted me to know, but didn't think I cared to hear from him.
I wish I had asked him how I could become as strong as he was.
I wish I had asked him when I would start to feel like an adult.
I wish I had asked him if he thought everything was going to turn out ok.

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That night in the hospital, it was hard to think what to say. I didn't know he would wake up Monday morning and die before lunchtime. Neither of us realized he would be dying that day.

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What would we say, if we knew someone we loved was dying? What would we ask?

If I had the chance again, I would first take a notepad and start writing, and I wouldn't stop writing until I was empty. I would think of some things to say. And I would not leave anything unsaid. I would not leave anything unasked.

I have watched this scene play out in my head a hundred times. My words gushing out, spilling all over him all over the floor, filling the room with my words, my love, my admiration, my questions, my need of his words. The flood would raise us both up from the floor and carry him to the other side.

He would not die in silence. He would die with the sound of my voice in his ears. He would die knowing that he still had much to give me until the last moment of his life. That I wanted what he had to give, and that I would spend the rest of my life wishing I had more time with him.

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To those who suffer and to those who are dying, I say this:

May you remember now what one day you will only be able to wish you had said.
May you find the courage to say and to ask everything on your heart.
And may your words become like a river of love, like a baptism for the dying one.

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Even so, there will be things unsaid. Memories will come back later, and we will sigh and say, "Oh, I wish I had told him this," "I wish we could talk again about that," or "I wish I could ask her about ---." It will happen.

But I want to give us all hope. Once a person becomes a part of us, they never stop being a part of us. Even now, I can hear my dad's voice. I know him, even now. I know what he liked, what he disliked.

Part of him is part of me. And part of me is now part of him.

Which is actually an answer to Jesus' prayer, fulfilled 2,000 years after He asked for it.

"I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

The distance between Dad and me isn't really that important now, because he's closer now than when we sat in silence that last night. I know that sounds very "Disney," but it's true because the only place I can talk with him now is in my own heart.

Which is the same place I talk with the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit.

I have shared already that I believe we will be raised again to a new life very much like the one we lead now, but without all the heaviness. Without the ache, and the sorrow, and the grieving, and the struggle, and the failure, and the accusation.

We will live life again, but this time the way it was originally meant to be lived.

What will it be like? I don't know exactly, but I keep having these foreshadowings, these inklings...especially when I get to talk with someone I love.

My Word is Me

How are people known?

How can you know me? Of course, there is the easy stuff. I can tell you things about me, I can share my autobiography. I can explain to you a lot of the things I've done, where I've been, how it's been for me. You can ask people who know me about me. If I was famous you would be able to google my name and read a wikipedia article about me.

Telling, sharing, explaining, asking, reading. That's all pretty obvious. But you can only get so far with WORDS, whether spoken or written. You could spend a lot of time listening and reading about me and still not really know me. If that's all you got, then you would be missing a great deal that could potentially reveal so much more to you.

You need more than words to really know me. In fact, you need a lot more than words.

Because there's a lot more about a person than what can be told. It has to be experienced.

Anything that emanates from me to you is fair game as a window into my soul. Let me give you a few examples of what I mean:

Sorrows. You can sense another person's sorrows. Even more than that--this is the good part--you can actually feel them. YOU can feel MY sorrows. And by feeling them, a little part of me is becoming part of you.

Joys and pleasures. You can sense them, and you can be delighted by them. When you are delighted by what is delightful to me, then a little part of me is becoming a little part of you.

Dreams. When you "see" what I "see," when you imagine what I imagine, a little part of me is becoming a little part of you.

Passions and compassions. When I give them away, and you receive them fully, then you are allowing a part of me to become a part of you.

Love. Receive it, and you will become more like me. Return it, and I will become more like you.

Creativity. You can look at what I've made, my handiwork. If you admire it, then my expression might leave a mark. And if it leaves a mark, then a part of me has become a part of you.

Intents and my actions. My animation, my quietness. My anger, my anxiety. Read them. Feel them.

My ideas, my ponderings, my curiosity. "Wonder" along with them, and you will know me.

My humor, my gravity. My calm, and my excitement. My diligence, my rest.

All of these kinds of things (the list is longer than a server can contain) are how you know someone. In fact, they are weightier than all the words you could hear or read about a person.

In short, they ARE me. Collectively, they might be called my WORD. They are the essence of my soul. They don't require anything of me, because they ARE me. I don't have to think about how to present them, because they simply ARE me. They are not an expression or reflection of me.

They ARE me.

Know them, receive them--and KNOW me.

You might say, this is the Logos of Jon. The Word of Jon.

My Word is ME. And your Word is YOU.

-----

Now, this is not a plea for people to care about me. If you are with all this craziness so far, then I want to take this one step farther. As my PASSION is to ME, so JESUS was to GOD. He was the visible form of God's very SELF. God Himself. He didn't simply reflect the Father. He and the Father were ONE. They were one and the same.

Jesus is the Word of God.

Know my sorrow, know me; know Jesus, know the Father.
Know my love, know me; know Jesus, know the Father.
Know my passion, know me; know Jesus, know the Father.

So here's where it gets crazy. In order to know me, you have to "receive" me. This isn't about understanding, or having knowledge. This is about CONSUMING. To know me you must allow part of me to come to be part of you.

You must consume me. (And you must be consumed to be known.)

Same thing with Jesus. You must consume him. Now, most of protestantism would have us believe that reading the holy writings (all the poetry, prophecy, and history of the OT, the gospels and the letters and the revelation of the NT) is how we consume Jesus. I think not.

That would be a great place for anyone to start. After all, if you want to get to know me, then you might start by asking a few people what they think of me. Ask them about the stuff we have done together, what they've seen me do. You'll get a good perspective in their words and their stories. And maybe some of that perspective will hold up once you get to know me.

But ultimately, you might actually forget all those accounts--or they will at least carry less weight--because as you get to know me directly, as parts of me become part of you, eventually your firsthand experience with my pain and dreams and desires will outweigh someone else's thoughts about THEIR experiences with my pain and dreams, etc.

So, the question is, how do we consume Jesus? Just where IS he?

Purveyors of Shame

I was watching some Olymics coverage at lunch today, and during a commercial break I flipped around the stations. Landed on the Steve Wilkos show, which I had never seen before. It was shameful. Literally, full of shame. The point of the show was to get a lot of closeups of some guy who had been bad in his past and was lying about some stuff. So Steve had all the ammo--testimonials, police reports, pictures, videos--and he let this poor guy have it. There in front of a live audience.

It was a show literally built around producing shame. Making money on someone's shame. Reliving evil. Put a guy on stage, show how rotten he's been, prod him into a corner, and see what happens.

Never really watched one of these shows until today, and it only took about ten minutes for my stomach to turn sour. But it made me think...

What if someone built a show like this on glory. Bring some guy up on stage who feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. Who doesn't believe he's ever achieved anything of any consequence in his life. Who already thinks the least of himself.

And let him have it with both barrels. Bring up his third grade teacher. Bring up his youngest daughter. Bring up the boys' little league team. Bring up his sister. Speak of his good deeds, his kindness, his humility, his strength.

Bring out his glory. My, that would be voyeuristic, wouldn't it?

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Now that I think of it, that's why I love watching "Extreme Makeover Home Edition." Lots of times they do exactly what I'm suggesting Steve Wilkos ought to be doing. Tell the stories of the unsung heroes, or those who have suffered long, or who have been waiting for just one chance in a lifetime.

Unveilings are such fun, aren't they?

GTD - Life isn't about Productivity

Recently I spent a few weeks trying to "implement" a system to help me be more productive at work and at home. There's a guy named David Allen who seems to have cracked the secret of helping people live with a "mind like water." His system is called "Getting Things Done" (GTD). Google it and you'll find something nearly like a cult following for GTD. (Computer geeks seem to love it.)

The "mind like water" thing comes from having gotten everything out of your head and into a system, thereby allowing you to think clearly about one thing at a time. You don't have to keep trying to remember everything that you need to do--you have a handy system in place and you relate to it with something like trust.

I'm all for having a mind as smooth as calm water, but it nearly killed me to try and put this thing together. It's all about identifying the "inboxes" of my life (email, desktop, stacking trays, workbenches, etc.), putting everything into them, identifying the next step required for each item, and then doing those steps, top to bottom. Virtually no regard for priority--simply boil everything down into its basic tasks (things that require multiple steps are called "projects") and do them one at a time.

I've never really been a "task list" kind of guy, so this was going to require a Herculean effort to simply get all my "open loops" (stuff that needed action) into my "inboxes." He suggested that to kick off this GTD it may take three full days to simply gather everything and put it all into my inboxes and then identify the next tasks (and create projects for things that require multiple tasks)--never mind actually getting down to doing some of the tasks.

Once you set up your life with inboxes, then you do it every moment of every day. Everything that comes at you is dealt with immediately.

Everything gets identified, gets acted upon or delegated or filed.

The net effect is that every aspect of your life gets broken into and dealt with in its smallest fraction--a task. Allen says that "you must start at the very bottom--with the smallest unit--to truly maintain a high level of productivity." Productivity systems based upon "priorities" (top-down) fail, he says, because your mind still gets cluttered and foggy with all the little tasks that you have to remember.

So, I tried it. Read half of the book. Read a bunch of people's blogs and forums about it. I even bought a label making machine and a whole bunch of file folders.

And I heard the sound of class five rapids ahead.

I tried, and I failed. Achieved a mind like whitewater. Ok, I succeeded in getting a few things filed and organized a couple rooms. I even learned a few things about mentally identifying things as they come to me. But I simply could never imagine actually practicing this system every day, every week, month after month, year after year.

And frankly, if I can't imagine it, I can't do it.

It suddenly occurred to me that I was more curious as to why I couldn't imagine it than I was in actually Getting Things Done. Typical, eh.

According to Myers Briggs, I'm an INTJ (if you know what that stuff is about), so I wondered what other INTJ's felt like about it. Of course, I googled INTJ and GTD. And I found a lady who, like me, forgot who she was while trying to do GTD. Her explanation schooled me--

"GTD boils all of life down into tasks, and disconnects me from the story of my life."

Holy smokes. "Life is a story." Suddenly, my mind was like water again. How could I have forgotten?

Life isn't measured by productivity. Life isn't the sum of all the tasks in my life. Life isn't projects. Praise God that my value isn't determined by how much I get done or how effective I am. There's no job review in the kindgom of Heaven.

Life is knowing what's going on and knowing my role within it. A mythic cannot live without context--because the story is what gives meaning to every task I put my mind to.

And meaning is what it's all about.