Make War

            Buongiorno e benvenuto to the sixth entry in my compilation of subtle epiphanies. This debriefing comes from the majestic city of Urbino in the beautifully hilly region of Marche, Italy. The very landscape provokes pensive sentiments, which is manifested in this account. I shall cease apologizing for the dolorous tones in my writings, for my entire log is ripe with melancholy, and an apology would negate any true emotion. Now for the matter at hand:

            “I am a rock. I am an island.” Among my fondest memories of high school lies the precious singing of Simon and Garfunkel by dear Sharon Tracey. Never before had I mulled over what it is to truly be an island (nor metaphorically on one). Not until my journey to Italy have I known isolation: isolation from family, friends, home, and most importantly teachings of mentors and parents. All too easily, solidified doctrine becomes muddled with the surrounding world, and (if not careful) the shallow promises of the world can supplant your formerly immovable foundation. Where righteousness once made its home, secularity and sin invade. It is all too easy for the uplifting blessings bestowed by the tongue to be replaced by vulgarity and gossip; for the fun, wholesome evenings with friends to be deposed by nights out at bars. Sociologists, psychologists, and even biologists have debated for years and decades over which influence reigns supreme: nature or nurture? In the brief eighteen days I have been in this country, I can, without a doubt, confirm that the two coexist; either one reinforces the other, or the two clash vehemently. Within my being, I have felt the nurturing of my mentors, teachers, and family being contested by the feral nature that lies within each of us. As the disciple Paul says in his seventh chapter of Romans, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” It is from this internal struggle where I can pinpoint the legitimacy of spiritual warfare. Though I experience a more fleeting and feeble version, I feel drawn to the testing of Jesus in the wilderness. Daily we (in the States and abroad) are challenged by the accuser to embrace the world’s canon. He paints sin with broad, beautiful strokes, enticing the fundamentally shaky to fall prey to his trap. When caught unaware, it is but a short (nevertheless hard) fall. This writing comes amidst the fall; I have merely the foresight to recognize descent’s onset, and so I can offer no sagely or battle-hardened advice for those who are experiencing this particular internal struggle. I merely can point you to the only remedy necessary.

To you in skirmish with the world look to the fourth chapter of Luke. Know we can indeed do all things through Christ who strengthens us. To my colleagues and friends, bear the standard. Ensure accountability amongst your peers, myself included. I am continually ever thankful to have a savior through whom there is no condemnation. Thank you for your devotion. Hold me accountable and challenge me. When the world around you seems all too enticing, and the king of deception whispers sweet lies into your ear, remain strong in the fact that 1) the tomb is empty and 2) God is faithful.

Give me liberty, or give me death

Tonight’s soliloquy should not be too astonishing, as everyone has been providing his input ad nauseam. However overplayed, I as a “writer” felt obliged to contribute my two cents. Forgive any redundancies in this account, for as a Christian I feel that some of my points should have been approached already. I shall keep my primer brief, for the crux of the matter is what is vital.

Though standing twenty years young, I can confidently say that I have only been “in love” once in my lifetime, if even once. My experience in the matter is unsurprisingly innocent and a measure naïve. And so when approaching the topic of love, I as a student in the scientific field must approach it as such. There are two stages to love, the initial “falling,” and the later progressed intimacy. Falling in love is triggered by three neurotransmitters: norepinephrine, dopamine, and phenylethylamine. For simplicity’s sake I shall dub these “hormones,” and when combined, these hormones trigger the euphoria and other feelings of “love.” A firmly established love then introduces two more neurochemicals: oxytocin and serotonin. Suffice it to say, love truly is chemical and just as complex as depicted. As scientists, we can scruple the process of it all, but we never will truly be able to fathom its contexts. Never will we be able to quantify love’s ups and downs, its hurts and elations, or its freeing of the soul as well as its captivity.

If you’ve been living under a rock I will go ahead and fill you in: the Supreme Court has overruled the ban on gay marriage, and now Dick is no longer limited to just Jane. In my young life, never have I seen the country more divided. Some declare this the end of days, while others proclaim it’s the beginning of the golden days. So where shall we as Christians stand on this matter? There is no simple answer. I shall omit any superfluous “I believe” statements because, being my blog, I have the floor. The Supreme Court made the right decision. As a body, our government’s responsibility is just that, to govern. Their duty is not to mold we the people into their “ideal citizen,” instead they’re role is to ensure that we have the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for what Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the revolutionaries fought and died. If America truly is the land of the free and home of the brave, why should we be denied the paramount pursuit for which we all strive? As a body of believers and disciples of Christ however, we are called to live apart from this world. Homosexuality is wrong, God decreed it, but I remain the one with a plank in my eye. In the sixth chapter of Luke, Jesus proclaims, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.” These red letters dictate exactly what is expected of Christians today. Our responsibility is not to hate the gay community nor condemn them to Hell, but as a friend said, our job is to “love, love, love… endlessly.” We combat the ways of the world with the five most powerful aforementioned neurochemicals. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. The only way to expect Christ’s kingdom to come crashing into this worldly empire is through the power of love. To the gay community I say I love you. I’ve seen your strife, and I apologize for the treatment my brothers and sisters have placed upon you. To my brothers in Christ I say love and never cease loving. Love until the earth falls into the sea. Lord come quickly.

These words are sour on my lips, for I am just as guilty as you, but all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But we are promised no condemnation through our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. Thank you my dear readers for your support of an impassioned soul. As the world changes around you, and you long for God’s eternal kingdom, take heart in the fact that 1) the tomb is empty and 2) God is faithful.

Shall we take things at face value? I doubt it

            This marks my fourth entry of my literary endeavor to avoid the ennui of life. With each consecutive tirade I cannot help but feel some disconnected closeness to you my anonymous readers, and I thank you. Your devotion (a word certainly overestimating your interest) to my reflections means a great deal to me. Now for the matter at hand: in this I journey to the boundaries of conventional thought to introduce a possibly uncomfortable notion.

            God’s word is law. This declaration is one standard to we who mentally check the disciple of Christ box in our yearly tax forms. The Bible is His inspired word. Again, another statement less than revolutionary to our faith. But God created mankind, a creation claiming possession of His image, and in so are granted freedom from several constrictions: one being from predestination (apologies to the Presbyterians in the room). In this gift of free will we are no longer constricted to simple existence on this rock, but we are capable of philosophical imaginings that can seemingly reach the heavens. Humans are endowed with the ability to think not only freely, but with the highest of intellect, producing blossoming thoughts, which make feats such as the iPhone and the International Space Station possible. Higher thought breeds brilliant minds such as Svante Arrhenius, Emil Fischer, and Linus Pauling (appropriately all chemists). But is it logical to believe these sophisticated men produced their work without first some measure of skepticism? Critical thinking is just that: critical. So, is it unhealthy to have some measure of doubt in your faith? I say no. God gave us minds to think, and to accept anything without some portion of analysis is a poor use of God-given talents. Jesus did not blatantly dictate his answers as basic principle, but he responded with parables. These parables prompted thought on behalf of his audience, so they could fully grasp for themselves the teachings of Christ. Now would be the time where from the trite pulpit, the story of Peter springs to the forefront, but for the sake of critical thinking I shall omit this slightly overused anecdote. I take solace in the fact that the Bible asks more questions than it gives answers, because in this questioning we can produce for ourselves a true, tested faith. Profound philosopher Rene Descartes states, “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” So when you find yourself doubting any aspect of your faith, do not shrivel into a corner feeling discouraged as a “doubting Thomas,” but instead persevere through doubt knowing that through the testing of your faith, true knowledge will surface.

            I, fittingly, have barely offered a rubric for issues of doubt, but am reassuring those who do. Do not fear when doubt arises. Steel yourself when it comes. I thank you once again for your repeated audience and pray you return asking more from me. I leave you with the simple, undoubtable truths that 1) the tomb is empty and 2) God is faithful.

Jesus Wept

            I pray forgive the absence of my farfetched, brazen ideology. The tribulations of life occasionally imprison even the most well equipped. I bid you also forgive the morose motif of this entry, for it is a matter that has weighed heavily on my heart of late.

            Through many long nights and deep theological discussions, I have surmised that one of the most fundamental traits of God is that he desires above all else companionship. From the inauguration of humanity, one did not exist without another: Adam had Eve. Moses had Aaron. Jesus had his apostles. Proverbs 27 states, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Man is not meant to live alone. Through friendships and various relationships, we surmount obstacles only with aid from others. But what happens when companionship is torn apart? A loved one dies, or the distance is overwhelming? What then? English poet Robert Southey says, “The loss of a friend is like that of a limb; time may heal the anguish of the wound, but the loss cannot be repaired.” Though I have lived merely twenty years on this earth, I have experienced my portion of loss. I have trudged through the depths of humanity’s loneliness only to verify that the loss of a loved one is the single greatest tragedy to befall us. But I say to you, we are not alone. The entire Christian faith recognizes John 11: 35 as the shortest verse in the bible with its two words: Jesus wept. This statement, if nothing more, is the affirmation of Jesus’ humanity. Our savior too dealt with loss. Lazarus was not only a symbol of His divinity, but evidence to His companionship. Lazarus was a dear friend to Jesus, and though he knew the inevitability of Lazarus’ resurrection, the recognition of his loss brought our Lord to tears. Not a soul who has walked or who will roam this earth will live without loss. It is a tough pill to swallow but as Psalm 30 states, “weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” We all weep for those we’ve lost, but rest assured, for through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ death has lost its sting. Death has not the final say!

            I write these words with a heavy heart. Kory, Sydney, and Isaiah I write this for you. You will never know the influence you have had on a (not so) humble twenty-year-old, and words cannot convey the love I have for you in my heart. But know this: we will see each other again. And to each and every one of you I say thank you for your devotion to an impassioned soul, and I plea, do not give in to loss. May God bless you all and remember 1) the tomb is empty and 2) God is faithful.

Why worry when stress is stressful enough?

                   Here I am, once more endeavoring to delve into the depths of young adulthood and the tribulations that this stage of life carries. I am but a humble servant to age’s woes and cannot claim to have surmounted them all, yet I beseech you to consider my voice. With increasing frequency of my entries, I strive to connect more with you peers and with The Father, and so I ask each of you to hold me accountable for the substance of my transcriptions just as He does, that it may not be simply pabulum or other insipid babbling, but words that, once spoken, plant seeds within each of you and sprout to produce new life. With my overly verbose and silly preamble concluded, I now turn to the heart of the matter.

Generation Y faces a unique predicament. Generations past have taken a short leap from adolescence into maturity. We millennials now face the quandary of an intermediate stage thrust between the juncture of boyhood and manhood. This phase in development, rather enigmatic, boasts new challenges from which prior generations have been shielded. Young adults are presently treated as Frankenstein’s monster. We are no longer children, yet by society we are not deemed fully adult, and so we oscillate between the two, blindly tackling the challenges set before us. Consequently, our generation is plagued with unprecedented quantities of stress. Now, I postulate that stress intrinsically is not the beast to be conquered, but the worry that follows. Austrian author Hans Selye once said, “It’s not the stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.” I claim that stress, in a healthy regimen, is beneficial to the soul. Stress demands timeliness, which prompts action and dissuades laziness or complacency. The obstacle arising is not the stress in itself, but the worry. Even the tritest of ministers in their pulpits proclaim the message in the sixth chapter of Matthew stating, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” None other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ decreed this message, and so is it logical to conclude that worry and all of its cohorts serve no purpose in our being? I insist no. Jesus himself in the garden of Gethsemane met unparalleled portions of stress, so much so that he sweat drops of blood. I take heart in this example, knowing that my savior endured identical tension that we encounter daily. So to you my readers I say, delight in the stress bestowed upon us because it is through the fiercest fires that iron is tempered.

This brief hoorah declared by yours truly stands not as a persuasion to dismiss stress, but an encouragement to weather the storm. We must march forward with heads held high and with the fortitude to tackle life’s contests. I thank you all for your growing intrigue toward an impassioned individual, and when worry begins to engulf the world around you take heed that 1) the tomb is empty 2) God is faithful.