Dead

I can see how I was led here. How God has brought me along at the pace at which I could learn, and yet did not let me languish, even when I questioned Him. A lot. I still only have a vague idea where I'm going, but I know where I am now and I know that's it is just where I should be.

Over the course of this week, I have finally come to see a part of my life, my former relationship, as dead. Not “not breathing but might gasp for breath”-dead. Not Princess-Bride-“mostly dead is still partly alive”-dead. Dead. We're talking about “dribble your handful of dirt on the coffin and step along” dead. “Leave your flowers at the headstone” dead. “It's been three days and surely [it] stinketh” dead. (There, got my Scripture in there.)

For weeks, I have sat quietly at the base of the freshly-turned dirt, waiting in vain for some miracle. Do I believe that God is all-powerful? Yes. Do I believe that he could make the dead walk, and the dry bones live? Yes. However, it would always have to be in his timing, not what Kenton imagines God's timing to be. And there is no miracle today.

Is there a time to mourn that which is past? Of course, such is natural and good. Is it healthy to remain in the grief forever, though? No, it's healthy to live and live your life right to its edge. It's time for me to get up from the grave, from the dirt pile, and move on. Life awaits, and to honor the one who has given it to me, I walk on.

No more am I to be chained down by the past. The past is the past, and although our choices have consequences, I serve a God who forgives and redeems. I serve a God whose plan for my life is so much better and bigger than I can imagine. The past will not bind me.

Neither will I feel bound to a destiny. My destiny is mine, mine and God's alone. Though I may have felt “locked in” to a plan and a trajectory, the entire world is open to me, both better and worse than that for which I thought I was headed. Again, I find that I must trust God to direct my steps and trust that He will keep me back from the precipice and on the razor-thin path to His very best in my life.

Already, I'm finding dusty boxes that I threw onto the back shelves of my life while I was dating. Their contents are neither good nor bad, but stuff that I had either neglected or actively left behind for various reasons. The past couple weeks have been a time of “Oh, I had forgotten about this” and “No way, I didn't know I could still do that.”.

Onward and upward, to quote C.S. Lewis. Life feels like a runaway horse that I'm riding bareback, but I have both hands wound into the mane and know that it won't (necessarily) dump me into the ground at high speed.

Life Is A Game (?)

“Game? Or no game?”
- (Some French movie) that I watched a while ago and can't decide whether to recommend or not.
“So far, so good”
- attributed to a guy falling from a 25-floor building...as he passed floor 20.

One of my friends remarked that I always start my blog entries with “Life is interesting” so I'll dispense with such trivialities this time. Life is a game now. I know the rules and I know how the game is played. It's up to me to play it well, such that I win in the end. It bears stating explicitly that life is not a zero-sum game – just because I want to win doesn't mean I want others to lose. We can all win at the game of life, and ideally it would be that way. Anyhow, the game awaits...I shall explain.

I've been walking a deep dark valley in my life for several weeks. The road of life was level and beautiful, but then it plunged headlong into a place rife with heartbreak and struggle. The road seemed to dead end into a wall, a wall into which I've been pounding my head. First, I asked God “why”, but that subsided after a while, only to be replaced with “what now?” God has been pretty quiet, even when the quiet “now what?” gives way to the “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME??”.

Finally, though, there seem to be shallow handholds in the wall ahead of me. There is a way out of the valley, or at least something that looks like it. To mix metaphors, the river is still rushing, but is overflowing its banks less and I can finally see where the fording stones are. Both the handholds and the fording stones are far apart...really far apart, but I can see them. Oddly, though, there seems to be two sets. They both lead “out”, but in very different directions. Neither seem to be easier or more promising, there's just two paths.

The path ahead will be hard, but I can do hard. I have Jesus on my side, and even if I fall, He's always been there to catch me. I can follow His footsteps, but I've been waiting to see where they go. Hard “ain't nothing but a thing” when Jesus is with me. Impossible, impassible, implausible – these things are difficult. “Hard” is doable.

Two paths, though. Let's call them Path 1 and Path 2.

Path 1 is very likely to not show positive results for a long time. The path starts out vertical, with even a slight overhang. It would be really hard and push me to the limits of myself. There's a small chance of a huge payoff in the end, which might be (OK, is probably) worth it. But my friends say that this path will destroy my life in the short run.

Path 2 starts out flat, maybe even a little downhill. I guess that it might eventually lead out of my valley, but it might also lead right over a cliff with little to no warning. This path offers a very quick return on investment, potentially showing good results immediately. Somehow it seems less likely to succeed in the long run, but that's not for sure either. Oh yeah, and I know that I might destroy my life down this road in the long run.

There is probably a path 3. There's always another way out. It would be like finding a pebble between two mountains, though.

I've seen this setup before in my life. It happens frequently in everyone's life. Jay calls it “God's way” and the “attractive alternative”. “Just before God brings His best,” Jay says, “Satan brings his best.” The idea is that it's a trap, something to lure you into falling just short of the great plan that God has for your life. This is notably a bifurcated structure in my life. Two big broad paths with little to distinguish between them.

For my Vineyard friends, Pastor Jim has a similar analogy. At Flatirons, there is “...always two deals on the table.” One is God's way leading to a better life, one is the way of the unredeemed flesh leading to the same old stuff your life has always. You can pick whichever you want without judgment. One leads to life, one to death, but it's always your choice.

Part of the problem this time is that I don't know which is which. I'm pretty sure that one is good and one is great, but I can't tell which is which. On this point, God is still silent. I'm reduced to the way I've been “following God” for the past month – take itty-bitty baby steps the way I think I'm supposed to go and wait to find the wall with my nose (or my toes, however that goes.)

That's all the words I have – here are some words from other people that I've been enjoying this week and last.

“Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless, I will argue my ways [to His face].” - Job 13:15

“And it will be said in that day, 'Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.” - Isaiah 25:9 (v.6-9 is better, but long)

Hillsong - Love You So Much

Hillsong - Healer

Hillsong - Stronger

(No, I don't have a Hillsong thing going on at all)

Temporary, Part 2

After all the writing I did for the last entry, I still forgot to put in the catalyst that moved me to write. A frequent fixture in my life is watching movies with friends. One of my friends has Netflix, so we always have 500+ movies on tap in whatever style the night deserves. Recently, I've been in a horror movie mood. Don't judge me, Jesus still loves me. Since I do have some taste in movies, we've tended away from slasher horror and towards psychological horror.

Last weekend's movie was “Village of the Damned” (IMDB link). It was a successful pick in that it was unsettling and thought-provoking, without gratuitous amounts of objectionable content. The basic premise of the movie is that after an entire town blacks out, several of the women are found pregnant. Oddly, the children are born simultaneously and seem to be rather, well, otherworldly. Turns out they are the children of offscreen aliens and have strange psychic powers. (Sorry if I spoil the movie for you a little bit...but it supports my point)

Since they aren't truly human, they have no emotion and no morals. The children, particularly Mara (the leader), are brutal, serving out harsh retribution to any and all who threaten their plan for world domination. Any person who dared to oppose them or even voice any doubt, no matter how tentative or innocent, quickly and violently met their end. By halfway through the movie, the entire village is pretty cowed, but the death only slows. Oh, did I mention that the children are also telepathic? Even your inner thoughts could betray you.

I guess I saw some of my life in the actions of the onscreen characters. My life used to be idyllic and peaceful. Then something evil got in and there was little to no hope after that. Doesn't matter how hard I try or if I contain or refute my thoughts, things around me still fall apart. It's like the movies you see where the protagonists are huddled in the middle of an area as building chunks or rocks or other such detritus falls around them. No matter where they go, they'll be in danger. No matter what they do, they won't be safe. Is nothing safe?

Zooming back out, I guess that's the way the world is, too. God made an ideal world, but then sin entered the world and we all pay the price. Every day, in one way or another, sin touches and pollutes our life. Nothing is safe save God. Your thoughts? Not always yours. Things you believe from others? Maybe God's words, maybe something that's just waiting to kill you.

And thus concludes Kenton's lesson from a horror movie about aliens. Thoughts?

Temporary

“Life; at its best, you are doing fine
But you're blind, it's china you hold
As it breaks, suddenly it's clear; beautiful but transitory

But we won't break easy, we won't give in to all unbearable pain
We'll pull through, we won't crack, we'll endure and survive...

Life; all you've got, all was swept away
Now you see what there is to miss
Suddenly you're stronger than you thought
As you know it's transitory

Cause we won't break
Survival is all we've got and our unbearable grief
We'll hold on and won't crack
And we'll value all life

Oh, transitory
Pain is as life itself
Evanescent as it fades”

After Forever, “Transitory”

In my heart, I become more and more convinced that Flatirons is the church I'm supposed to be at right now. It's kind of uncanny - this week was the fifth week in a row that the sermon has seemed to be for me. It's the second week out of five where I go to church, hear a sermon, and go “gee, this is good. I wonder if it's for me”, then I go home and the rest of the day brings the sermon home to me.

Pastors Jim and Scott have been going through the book of Jonah. The first three weeks were on storms in life, God rescuing us, and second chances. This week, Jim spoke, starting with “And I wish the book ended here. God had compassion on the Ninevites and they all lived happily ever after.” I thought that was a strange start to a sermon, but Flatirons can be the church of the strange sometimes.

To summarize the passage, Jonah 4 seems to be the chapter where Jonah pouts a lot. After God forgives Nineveh, Jonah gets ticked. He tells God, “See! This is why I ran from you. I knew this would happen, that you would give them another chance. Now take away my life because I'd rather be dead than live to see this.” God criticizes him and asks whether he has a right to be angry. I mean, after all, Jonah got his second chance too, even though he smelt of fish.

Thereafter, Jonah hikes to a place with the good view of the city and waits for God to go all Exterminatus on the city. (Yay obscure nerd reference, but it's so much better than “nuke” in this context) I can see him getting his popcorn and soda and just waiting. When's it going to start, God? When are you going to go all smitey on them and give them what they have coming? God sends a nice shade vine (which makes Jonah's life good), then a worm to kill the vine, then a hot wind seemingly just to drive Jonah nuts. Jonah gets mad at God (again) and goes all emo (again), wishing to die rather than live.

Again, God calls him out, saying “You didn't do anything for this vine. I gave it to you. I took it away and you worried more about this stupid plant than about the thousands of people in that city over there. That's right, that city that you want wiped off the face of the planet.” God doesn't even call the people of Nineveh hopeless or bad, but implies that they're just very confused (“...cannot tell their right from their left...”) Interestingly, nobody gets to hear what Jonah's answer was. Did he get his stuff figured out again? Did he just give God a rude gesture and walk off? Who knows?

The first application was that, as Christians, we often have lists. God, you should treat me like this (which is to be treated well). You should treat those people OK because they're not too bad, but boy howdy, pour out the rear-kicking on those people because that's what they deserve. In fact, I'm going to sit here and watch until they get theirs. I have a friend who only has three questions he wants to ask God. One is where he can get popcorn and a good seat to watch Armageddon. I kid you not. While sometimes I'm also in an “angry mood”, I'm not sure I've ever thought one of my requests of God would be to watch someone else get judgment poured over their heads.

The second application was about the brevity of things in this life. If you watch the text, the vine that Jonah enjoyed greatly and “knew God loves me because He gave me this plant” was given and taken away in a matter of a few days. We all know that life is temporary and only God is forever. How often do we think of things like jobs or friends or even significant others in the same light – that they will only be in our lives for weeks, months, maybe years?

Many years ago, it seemed that my entire social circle was a fan of the Michael W. Smith song “Friends”. I know, it's kind of an oldie now. Whenever someone moved away from our small, closely-knit church, someone would drag that song back out and we'd all be sad because our friends were leaving. Back then, life was a world of brightness with some dark spots. Now as I'm older, my life looks different. The bright parts are brighter, but there seems to be so many more dark spots and they seem darker. Instead of a field of light with dark spots, it seems that “real life” is dark grey with the occasional bright spot. Instead of sadness being a perturbation, an oddity, it seems that the world is a cold dark place. God promises the abundant full life and occasionally there's a bright flash such as that from a meteor, but then it burns out and the world is dark again.

It's not just my life. The more I do life with others, the more brokenness and darkness I see. Maybe it's just my choice of friends, right?. Let's look at the world as a whole. How many people's lives were irrevocably changed in the last few weeks? Across the world, around the Pacific, how many people are living in chaos and disorder? I know, it's the age-old question “if God is good, why do bad things happen?” I'm saying if God is good, why does life have to be a scavenger hunt to find the good parts? At small group, we were talking about how straying from God's right path into error “eats the sweet parts” out of your life. But why does so much of life have to bitter and hard to swallow if God is good?

That didn't quite end where it started. In my head, this wasn't meant to be quite such a depressing blog. I'll try to pull it back onto a happy track. HAPPY TRACK!

I guess the takeaway I took from Pastor Jim's sermon was that things are wont to leave and that I should value them while they are in my life. That seems like an interesting life lesson – OK, whatever. Later that day, I found out that one of my good friends is leaving the area because her life isn't working out here. Although part of me expected it, it was still sad news – we've hung out for the last three years or so, and now my life will be significantly less interesting.

Over the last few months, I've watched my life slow to a relatively uninteresting standstill, then the last few weeks, it seems to have fallen off a cliff. At some level, I wonder where the bottom is – what else is God going to take away from me? What else do I not value enough? Do I live like everything can or will be ripped out of my life at a moment's notice? Should I live like that? It's hard to think about making long-term investments in ministries or people if they're just to be “taken away” whenever.

Being A Consumer

My life is interesting. It seems like every one of my blog entries should start with “my life is interesting”. If life wasn't interesting, what would I have to write about? Sometimes my blog and other writing is like Dumbledore's pensieve – something to allow me to take thoughts of my head, put them somewhere else, and watch to see how they look when they settle. Except writing takes more effort than just using a magic wand to drag thoughts out of my head.

Recently, I've had occasion and time to observe myself and my own reactions. A few weeks ago, the wheels came off of my dating relationship, resulting in something I imagine like a train exploding while at full speed. There was an abrupt transition between cohesive motion in one direction and suddenly BOOM, pieces everywhere; some flying backwards, some flying forwards at greater speed. (The physics major in me wants to point out that in an idealized case, both energy and momentum must be conserved, leading to pieces going all different ways) After taking a tumble in the crash, I've been getting back on my feet, only to duck as heavy things go whizzing by my head occasionally.

I've had a lot of free time lately, leading to empty spaces in my life. The first week of my “new life situation”, I was in emotional shock. Except for the friends who came alongside of me, my life would probably have completely stopped. Food? Sleep? Work? What are these things? All I knew was darkness and the crushing pain inside. I had questions, but didn't know where to find the answers. More often, there just were no answers no matter where or in whom I looked.

The next week of my life was marked by a profound emptiness. Were there friends in my life? Yes. Was there God? Of course. Still, though, when I got home from work, there was a boredom, an apathy. One of the things I observed was a change in my email and Facebook habits.

Usually I infrequently post status updates because Facebook is often a place where people with strong opinions and nothing better to do lie in wait to pounce on people. That kind of clash is not something I need in my life, so I stay out of the swirl. I've been posting again, but only in what one of my friends describes as “cryptic” thought fragments. It's a challenge to distill hours worth of thoughts and feelings into 420 characters that describe my feelings without assigning blame or projecting emotion onto others. There has also been a winnowing of my friend list, which will be long-term healthy for me.

The net result of all the changes in my life has been a significant drop in intellectual stimulation provided in my life. Part of my personal being requires that I have access to large amounts of information in order to stay engaged. This culture provides this in spades, but most of it is unimaginative dreck meant to garner attention, not to edify. I had my life all situated – the websites that provided info I thought educational, the people with whom I shared my day-to-day life, the few sites I follow in Google Reader, and so on. Now, the “people I share with” part has dramatically changed, requiring a far higher threshold of interesting before something is worth sharing. The sites that used to feed me with all kinds of thought-provoking happiness are now empty and stupid.

I notice that my new favorite keys on the keyboard are F5 (which refreshes Facebook) and Ctrl-Shift-T (which checks the emails. No, I'm not an Emacs convert “Ctrl-Meta-LShft-M-X-C-GFGSRDGSFGHSF”) It's funny how life works, though – pushing Refresh or Get Mail more often somehow doesn't bring me more content on demand just when I want. Then I remembered that someone has to create and someone has to share for something to exist for consumption.

I was listening to a sermon the other day about relationships and things that will tear them apart. One thing the pastor highlighted as toxic to relationships was the idea of being a consumer. When one is in a marriage or a “big R” Relationship and insists on being a consumer without bringing anything to the table, that relationship is doomed. Instead, one has to be thoughtful of the other person and giving of themselves. When both people in a relationship do that, the relationship will be sound.

See, my relationship with “the world” kind of works like that. If nobody posted on Facebook, there would be nothing to read. If nobody recorded the music, I would have no way to put on my headphones and be transported to another place. Therefore, it is slightly irresponsible of me to expect others to contribute to my informational appetites if I don't do anything for theirs.

The two philosophies, consuming and producing, don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. Last weekend, I was in the midst of a long writing project. The thing with the headphones? It's not a simile or an abstraction, it's real in my life. With a word processor in the foreground, I just threw album after album into my Foobar queue. When the music stopped, the words would stop coming, but when the music kept going, the words came back. In this case, I was consuming music in mass amounts, but producing words in fitting quantities. (To the tune of over 7000 words, which I'm a little proud of.)

I found myself this week with thoughts in my head, but waiting to hear the detailed thoughts of others. Waiting is OK (they do say that patience is a virtue) but being paralyzed because you're waiting for someone else doesn't seem a good practice for life.

With my newfound free time, I've been trying to find new and productive pursuits. I was invited to a happy hour on Friday, but chose to visit the shooting range instead. The monetary and time costs were pretty similar, but the range time helped me to develop manual skills (shooting) and better myself, rather than sit behind a pint glass and pretend to solve the problems of the world. I had an informal dinner party this week just because I could, and plan to go outside and enjoy God's creation with (new) friends next week. Are these things required or essential to life? Of course not. But they are activities that create fellowship, meaningful experiences, and iron-sharpening-iron moments rather than just sitting back and consuming the stories and emotions of others. Creation. Sharing. Not consumption. This is one of the ideas I'm trying to implement in my life.

So what do you think? Are you a consumer or a producer or both at once?