A few words on Balaam's Error

I'm not sure why I'm writing this down now, but: I don't agree that "Balaam's error" has anything to do with money. Based on his actions, monetary reward seems to be a small concern for him. His error comes from this: He is afraid to contradict the Moabites. He is too polite, too unwilling to offend.
Sometimes things need to be said which are offensive-- causing offense is rarely good in its own right, but offensive things are important. Balaam was too afraid (either socially, or for his life) to tell the Moabites something offense, "God says 'no!'"

We should learn from this.

Balaam

I wrote this sometime last year, but apparently forgot about it.
***

I tread on with the Moabites, seeking their praise, silver and jewels. "I cannot contradict the ineffable," but I march on, afraid to contradict these messengers.

But still my ass, wiser than I, stubbornly refuses to move. Twice she's flogged, and twice she stands up and walks. Again she's flogged, but finally she speaks her mind:
"Why do you treat me so? Have I not carried you from your home?"
And thus I lie: "No."

Divine Hiddenness?

J.L. Shellenberg came up with an interesting argument for the nonexistence of (a Loving and Omnipotent) God. The Argument from Divine Hiddenness (as he calls it) is compelling as arguments concerning the existence of God go. It can be summarized as: If God loves us, he would do everything He could to increase the "good" in our lives. Clearly, if a god like the Christian God exists, this good would be a relationship with Him. However, there are people who, through no fault of their own have not experienced such a relationship (some of whom even undergo emotional duress at the lack of this relationship), and so a loving God must not exist.

This post is a response that is almost as short and incomplete as the summary I gave above.

My response boils down to answering the following question in a different way than Shellenberg: Is nonresistant disbelief something inherently beyond the control of the (non)believer? If it is, than his argument holds sway... a lot of it.
On the other hand, a loving God would allow the beloved the choice to reject Him (I believe Shellenberg admits this.) If nonresistant disbelief is not beyond the believer's control, then the disbelief is still a willful decision to reject God on the part of the believer, and God's actions at that point* cannot be held against Him. If I am in a relationship with you, and you choose to leave, I have no say. Even were I omnipotent, if I loved you, I would value your freedom, and patiently hope for you to return to me. I would even try to convince you to come back, but force has no place in love.**

So, is nonresistant disbelief beyond the believer's control?
More than once I have been on the verge of apostasy. In each case, it was hardly because I was resistant to God, rather, I was feeling something akin to what Shellenberg describes at the beginning of the linked document. I have been one step a way from that discouraged rejection often.
Shellenberg will likely suggest that this is the situation he describes later, concerning God's temporary withdrawal for some sort of spiritual growth, or other higher temporary purpose. This, it would be claimed, is why I was always "one step" away, but I never took that step.
The problem with that response is looking back on each of these situations, I always wonder what I was thinking as I wandered away from God-- he was consistently providing a way for me to come to Him, for me to accept Him again, and grow closer to Him. So why didn't I take these opportunities? I chose to ignore them. Finally, when there was one step left before I did reject Him, I stopped ignoring Him and accepted His hand.

The point is, it was my choice to begin to wander from Him, and my choice to continue to wander. And finally, it was my choice to "walk away", yet I did not make the choice. Certainly, there were influencing factors beyond my control, hence I would consider my apostasy to be "non-resistant", but I was still resisting God, in that I was choosing to separate myself from Him.

And so it is, my experience suggests, with all "nonresistant" disbelief. This does not make nonresistant disbelief any less sad, nor does it mean that people who have so chosen are weaker, or anything else. I have been fortunate enough to always have enough support from community to keep me alive during these times of duress, not all have such a community... a fact which requires constant prayer and action.

****
*I say "at that point" to avoid arguments concerning God's culpability for previous actions... that is a different debate.

**take this sentence with a grain of salt... Again, a different debate.

Father grant me courage...

"Ah, Sovereign LORD," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child."

But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a child.' You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD.

A Note to Most Christians (probably none of whom read this blog...)

Non-Christians-- especially non-theists and anti-theists are missing the point entirely. And it's our fault.

Well, they're getting the message we're sending, but we're not sending Jesus' message of Love and Truth; we're sending some butchered Pharisaic religion that is closer to the legalism Jesus fought against than what he fought for. We need to change that.

Here. Now.

Again I'm taking issue with a note in the Scofield Study Bible. On the whole, I like it, but it is very focused on the second advent. The note on Malachi 3:1-5 reads "[...] the next words [...] are nowhere quoted in the N.T. The reason is obviously that [...] the picture in vv. 2-5 of the Lord who suddenly comes to His temple (Hab. 2:20) is one of judgment, not of grace. Malachi [...] saw both advents of Messiah blended in one horizon, but did not see the separating interval described in Mt. 13 which followed the rejection of the King[.] The Church Age was even less in his vision [.] "My messenger" (v. 1) is John the Baptist; the "messenger of the covenant" is Christ in both of His advents, but with special reference to the events that are to follow his second coming."

I don't read the passage the same; and I think their reading, while not necessarily wrong, is liable to enforce the kind of attitude which Christians must fight, tooth and nail, if we are to be taken seriously, and if we want to glorify God; the attitude is the complacent attitude that God's tremendous work is to be saved for the second advent, so we can wait patiently and complacently, go to Church once a week, and seclude ourselves in little "Christian communities" and forget the outside world, and when Jesus comes back, "Hallelujah! We're saved!"

That's not good enough. I would go so far as to say that isn't Christianity; it isn't faith; consequently, it is not grounds for salvation. We are called by God to fight injustice. We are called to be like Him; to be of one will with Him. So if our Lord was "anointed to preach good news to the poor", we also are anointed to preach good news to the poor. We also have been sent to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for captives and a release from darkness for the prisoners. We are called to live as citizens of God's Kingdom, and to live God's justice, God's hope, and God's love. We cannot afford to be complacent when our faith, and the souls of those around us are at stake.

I'm not saying I don't often find myself being complacent: it's human nature. But we have to understand that we must at the very least strive to be above that. It isn't okay, although, thankfully, with God's Grace, it is acceptable; so long as there is genuine, true repentance.

Getting back to Malachi 3:1-5, the NIV reads "'See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come' says the Lord Almighty.
"But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.
Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.
"'So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers, and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, bud do not fear me,' says the Lord Almighty."
The middle paragraph, I assume, is where the Scofield editors get the impression that only the second coming is being discussed. But who among those who have been saved can say that the process of becoming saved does not burn? Isn't it nearly unbearable? Such warmth, such light, and after such numbing, cold darkness. And surely Christ's coming was shocking and "sudden" to the religious leaders, and surely it burned more than they could imagine; why else would they have him killed, despite the governor's doubts?
And the rest "I will send my messenger" ... "the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple" ... "Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord" ... "I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers, and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, bud do not fear me." Does that not sound like the call for justice that Christ placed on our hearts, that Christ made our mission?

We should be moving, acting-- here; now. And not waiting complacently. Hope does not sit by idly, hope acts and strives for the satisfaction of promises.

Why I don't think I'll read "The God Delusion"

There's a book which has been out for 2 years by Richard Dawkins called The God Delusion. It is, as its name implies, an attack on God. It is, in short, a polemic. I feel that I should read it for the sake of intellectual honesty, if nothing else. But the more I read about it, and the more short excerpts I read, and the more I hear/read from Dawkins, the less I care. And here's why.

Dawkins quite clearly rejects out of hand the possibility that any other world view than his is right. When I say "any other worldview" I don't mean the possibility of God-- that's what he's arguing against-- but any philosophical starting point besides logical positivism. He is a strict materialist, and a logical positivist, and everything else is flatly not worth mentioning.

He makes, I won't doubt (at least until I read his book... if I read it) a convincing argument that a l.p. framework implies that God is a god of the gaps, and that those gaps will quickly disappear, and God with them. But by doing this and only this, he sidesteps the issue completely. He misses the epistemology, which is the most important part in deciding the possibility of God. You cannot tell someone they have come to a false (moreover delusional) conclusion when you refuse to discuss the framework by which they establish truth. The utter arrogance and ignorance of trying to tell me I'm delusional without even so much as mentioning my epistemological groundings makes it impossible for me to take anything Dawkins says seriously.

He (sort of) rebuts such arguments in the preface with "Do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in leprechauns?" This is a fantastic point, but few people are asking him to go through a detailed study of the theology of Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Lewis and Chesterton to argue that God does not exist. What we are asking is for him to discuss their epistemological basis, rather than a priori tossing them aside. To quote Terry Eagleton "What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them?" The question is not about theology, but about philosophy.

Let me expand upon that point; I don't care what Dawkins has to say about scriptural justifiability of The City of God, Fear and Trembling or Mere Christianity. I care about what he as to say about the way Augustine, Kierkegaard and Lewis establish Truth. What do they consider to be evidence of the truth of a statement? What grounds do they use to justify the existence and character of God? Why is this wrong?

Moving past his naive dismissal of several thousand years of epistemology, his caricature of religion shows how little he has even attempted to understand the religious mind. There is far too much to say on this topic, and I could hardly do it justice, so I will limit myself to a one sentence summary of his feelings on the morality of religion: He finds it to be dangerous and evil. If religion is defined to be "irrational, self-righteous, hate-filled zeal", I agree wholeheartedly. But in his religious (in that sense of the word) intolerance he refuses to accept that the source of such religion can be anything besides religion as it is normally defined and he also refuses to accept that religion (as it is normally defined) can create anything apart from such closed-mindedness.

By so vehemently rejecting everything that isn't is worldview, he is making the most absurd straw-man of himself. He claims that atheism will lead to a more peaceful society overall, but he proves himself, through his self-righteous intolerance, to be a poor example of this "truth". So, I'm not going to read The God Delusion unless someone convinces me that his argument does discuss the epistemological "failings" of a religious view, and that he doesn't caricature religion as I claim...

****
My first point reminds me of a quick exchange that was made a while ago... I tend to be bad at "arguing" points, so this is my esprit d'escalier. A friend of mine (who is also very logical positivist, and can't understand other worldviews-- although he tries, at least) made a comment about science solving some sort of subtle and difficult to determine system. Another friend responded with "that's assuming the scientific method is infallible, which it's not." to which the first friend responded "If it were possible to get machines, which cannot make the same mistakes we do, to do it, it would be." Before a rebuttal could be made (or at least before one was made) we got distracted with something else.

Besides the "you're assuming a logical positive, blah, blah..." I realized that the truth of this statement requires that the universe be objectively observable from within the universe-- otherwise there will always be irreconcilable error in any measurement, hence, science is limited. Given our current understanding of the universe, objective observability is absolutely impossible: "Einstein says so." Any observation can only be made with respect to a given object, and at a high enough resolution, everything about that observation is different for any other object.
Further, if we accept a logical positivist view on the universe, and hence, a Fregean view on math, it makes sense that the universe is governed by some mathematical system. I'm getting to a point I've made before, but.. If the universe is governed by a mathematical system, then we must accept Tarski's undefinability theorem and Gödel's incompleteness theorems. In other words, there are limits to how much we can mechanically discover about the universe. Hence, science has limits.

Balaam

Balaam is a figure (apparently a prophet, or oracle) in Numbers (22-25) who was summoned by the Moabites to curse the Israelites as they went from Egypt, through Moab to the promised land. He did nothing of the sort, but still did not do as God commanded him to, and in the end, went against Israel. He is most famous for having a donkey which laid down, and then spoke when beaten. "The way" (2 Pet 2:15), "The error" (Jude v11), and "The teachings" (Rev 2:14) of Balaam are all condemned by New Testament authors.

The teachings of Balaam, which come last in Numbers (and aren't explicitly shown to be associated with him until Chapter 31), quite clearly represent an attempt to subvert Israel by intermingling them with Moabites and Moab culture. There isn't much mystery in them, so I will skip them.

The way of Balaam, often confused or associated with the error of Balaam, is typically taken to be greed. The Oxford NIV Scofield Study Bible has, I think, a mostly correct analysis of the error of Balaam: "The error of Balaam was that he could see only the natural morality. A holy God, he reasoned, must curse such a people as Israel. Like all false teachers he was ignorant of the higher morality of vicarious atonement, by which God could be just and yet the justifier of believing sinners." There is, I think more to this story, but it is details, and not incredibly important, so I'll move on.

The way of Balaam, as I said before, is typically taken to be Greed. This comes as no surprise, since both 2 Peter and Jude mention money (Peter says "wages"; Jude, "profit") when characterizing Balaam's problem. I think this is wrong. Firstly, profit and wages are used throughout the New Testament as metaphor for just about everything-- I guess people thought about money as much in the first century Mediterranean world as they do now.
Beyond that, Balaam quite clearly does not go for money. Instead, I think, he is afraid of conflict... afraid to tell people things they don't want to hear. He is too "nice" to go against them. The following are all quotations from Numbers (NIV); I'll try to edit out only what isn't important, but all quotes are "out of context"...

"The elders of Moab and Midian left, taking with them the fee for divination. When they came to Balaam, they told him what Balak [King of Moab] had said.
"'Spend the night here' Balaam said to them, 'and I will bring you back the answer the Lord gives me.'
[...]
"The next morning, Balaam got up and said [...] 'The Lord has refused to let me go with you.'"

Notice that he does not immediately go with them, thought they represent the king of Moab. He instead says he cannot go.

"Then Balak sent other princes, more numerous and more distinguished than the first. They came to Balaam and said:
'This is what Balak son of Zippor says: Do not let anything keep you from coming to me, because I will reward you handsomely and do whatever you say. Come and put a curse on these people for me.'
"But Balaam answered them, 'Even if Balak gave me his palace filled with silver and gold, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the Lord my God.'"
Again, he does not go for wealth or power.
Later, three times he is asked to curse Israel, by the king Balak himself, and 3 times, he listens to what God says, and tells Balak. Eventually, he is sent on his merry way without gold or jewels.

However, at every point in the story, Balaam is as polite as possible, going as far as he can to satisfy the people who are asking him to do something that God Himself told him he could not do... He is afraid to tell them what they do not want to hear...

insert(Balaam.concluding_paragraph()); //I don't have anything else to say here...

God of Judgment?

A friend of mine recently posted something about his uncle's response to him being gay. It included "I guess that’s why you decided you really didn’t believe in God. Made it convenient to act in ways He condemns.”
this reflects a sentiment which is rather common in modern "Christianity": that the Christian God is a God of condemnation. A cursory reading of the Bible might lead one to suspect this is so, but a little more depth shows something quite different.

I'll start with the "curses" God pronounces. And he pronounces several. But all of them amount to this "The consequence [not punishment] of this action is as follows. Choose wisely." God pronounces several curses before the choice is made (e.g. Genesis 2:16-17, 1 Samuel 8:11-18), and a few after the fact (as in Genesis 3:6-19).

The first curse, in Genesis deserves particular attention. First he says "If you eat of this fruit, you will surely die." After they eat the fruit (and don't die), he says "All these bad things will happen to you."

But what about death? There are two things: They did die... later. Would they have died otherwise? The passage (Genesis 3:20-22) suggest otherwise. Also there is spiritual death, which we as humans, most certainly do experience.

So, why would God condemn us to this, simply for wanting a fruit which made us "wiser"? There is a lot happening in this curse, but it boils down to 2 things:

Firstly, it is not "I sentence you to this" but "this is the result of your action." God wants us to choose to love Him. Choice requires that we can choose not to love Him. Since choosing "not God" is the same as choosing sin (by definition). Choice means sin can exist. The existence of sin implies the existence of evil. So God enabled the existence of evil. His statement in Genesis 3 is that we have actualized that opportunity.

The second thing is that he wanted Adam and Eve to be happy (because he loved them). To choose to eat of that fruit meant to choose not to trust God; to not trust God is to reject his love. To be unloved is to be unhappy, and so choosing wisdom over love is to choose unhappiness.

Beyond that, God pronounces other curses, which contain similar sentiments: "Love me (or come to me, or repent or ...) or this bad thing will happen." They represent the same idea: This is a result that follows from your actions.

There is more to say on this topic, but it really doesn't matter. It comes down to this: God did not create us to condemn us; He did not send His Son to condemn us. He created us, and He sent His Son to love us. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Cor 4-7)

Christianity is missing a lot of things these days, the most important one is Love.

My Servant Whom I love...

Isaiah 42:1-4:
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chose one in whom I delight;
I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.
He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
In his law the islands will put their hope.

***
The note in my Bible says:
There is a twofold account of the coming Servant:
He is represented (1) as weak, despised, rejected, slain; and also (2) as a mighty conqueror, taking vengeance on the nations and restoring Israel. The former class of passages relate to the first advent and are fulfilled; the latter, to the second advent and are unfulfilled.

The chapter goes on with words similar to Isaiah 61: "to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness."

I'm not sure if I agree with the note in Bible, about the second description being unfulfilled. I think that the idea that the "Coming Kingdom" is outside of our hands allows a lot of laziness within Christians. While that interpretation is not wrong, and is certainly not unBiblical, it does miss something. As with anything, especially the Scripture, there are multiple levels to anything-- multiple interpretations-- all of which must be taken into account. I am a firm believer that the nature of God has not and will not change; So Our Lord must have been a conqueror from the start. We must, as his followers be diligent, and conquer. But not, as those loyal to earthly kings, in a physical way. The battles we fight are not for land or lives or power. Nor are they intellectual battles, whose purpose is to spread knowledge of truth. They are battles of the Spirit, whose purpose is to spread the experience of Love.

Perhaps the note is correct, and that those things are unffulfilled, but if that is the case, it is only because we, as His Kingdom, have not fulfilled the prophesy.

Faithfulness...

God just pointed out to me a (sort of) new interpretation of Romans 8:35-39:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or the sword? As it is written:

"for your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

**
I guess it's not so much a new interpretation as it is a new revelation. Once we have tasted of that love. Once we feel that deep bittersweet longing so acutely-- so much more acutely than the bitter sehnsucht we as humans are cursed with-- it is impossible to forget it. Try as our heart might, and despite any laziness, or any apathy, or hardship or distractions, something will always bring that love back into our heart, and like the eager bride before her wedding, we shake with excitement.

God's faithfulness is amazing. It's so incredible how he seeks us despite everything. If only I could consistently nurture that relationship, instead of getting apathetic, I would see more of the amazing things I've seen...

Perl... and the pearl of great worth

Schlomo just sent me the scripts he's using to pick apart Shakespeare plays. They're really not that bad, but since (presumably) he's the only one who has had to deal with them, his documentation consists of #{file does this}. It makes it severely difficult to follow, when there are 10 scripts which assume things about each other. They are fair assumptions, but not helpful when you don't have the context to understand...

****
On another note, God has been active lately. We're all growing closer together, and it seems more people are slowly joining our community. It's really exciting

Romans 8 (NIV)

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Those who life according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace;
the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, or can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation-- but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs-- heirs of God and coheirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-- more than that, who was raised to life-- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Grace, Childishness and Service

Sully wrote this a few months ago; it's one of many truly inspired writings that have flown through him. I hope he doesn't mind me posting it here...

On thought, before I post it. At one point, he mentions knowing something versus knowing about something. I bring up this point often, but only I believe it is a crucial concept to understand. German has different words for each idea. "I know something" would be translated "Ich weiss etwas". The infinitive of the word (to know) is wissen. It implies knowledge of a concept or idea; one would also say "Ich weiss Tom" to mean that he knows about Tom-- has knowledge regarding who Tom is, etc.
"I know Tom" as we say in English would be translated "Ich kenne Tom." The infinitive is kennen. It implies a familiarity, an understand of and closeness with. "Ich kenne etwas" (I am familiar with something) has a similar-- although weaker-- meaning to "I grok something."

Sully brings up this point (briefly) in the essay. God calls us to know Him-- Gott Kennen; not to know about Him-- Gott Wissen.
Anyway, Cheers (I know it's long...):

** The definition and presence of Grace **

The foundation of a Christian life is Christ. This means, more than anything, that we are founded on Grace, for that is Christ’s purpose. He came for us who were unworthy of the favor of God’s presence. We were unworthy not by judgment, but by action because we chose to step from that Presence into the darkness that is absent Him. Thereby we drew ourselves away from God, not He from us.
Having stepped into darkness, we were lost and unable to ever find Him there, for though we may or may not be able to persevere the breadth and width of darkness by religion and other machination, God does not exist in that darkness and thereby can not be found by us who do exist in darkness. Christ is God reaching through the darkness to find us and offer to us His hand that we might again walk with Him. For that was certainly his purpose, that God and all God’s love and blessings should come to us who were otherwise eternally incapable of finding that Presence – this is Grace.
By Grace we are able to enjoy a Fellowship and a Blessing that we could never attain by our own strength. By Grace we who are only capable of at best the most righteous unrighteousness, should be considered (and by being considered, made) truly righteous and able to be near Him who can not coincide with unrighteousness. By Grace, through mysteries indefinite and unresolvable, the presence of God comes without the need of our own understanding or thought.
All Grace requires is choice and by choice action: The choice of accepting the hand outstretched through darkness to us. The choice to recognize the presence of that hand and recognize the necessity of that hand for ever finding God. The choice to give up our comfortable familiarity with uncomfortable darkness and step into an uncomfortable unfamiliarity with all that is truly secure and comfortable. The choice to continue laying every step beside God’s after being brought beside him. The choice to not again step back into darkness. And the choice, when again stepped back into darkness, to accept the loving hand instantly reaching down through darkness to pick us back up from our stumble. Grace is attained only by this choice. Grace is attained only by this action. If we do not choose to accept the hand and choose to walk beside God as he leads and choose to let him pick us back up and choose to simply recognize his hands and our darkness, we have no part with Grace. We then have no part with God and no part with ever being brought out of the darkness. We then choose and by action have sentenced ourselves to living eternally absent God and living eternally absent the Heaven where he does exist.
So it is that only by a persistent walk with God and acceptance of Grace and fellowship with Christ we can receive life. As Christians, we say these things and accept these ideas with lips that swear our hearts know that truth. However, on this point we are liars, for the majority of us are not graceful people. It is this absence of Grace that makes us besmear the label of “Christians”, depend yet on our own strength, judge with envy or malice those around us, and ultimately lose salvation by desecrating our faith down to the same worthlessness of all other religions.
And yet we say, “Yes, I am imperfect, I know that. But that’s just the point. I am allowed to be an imperfect sinner and yet have God and Salvation.” And yet, in saying this statement, otherwise full of truth, we are completely and utterly wrong. For this statement only applies to those who attempt to overcome their imperfection. It only applies to those who begrudge and hate their sin and wish it washed away. Essentially, it only applies to those who hate the darkness and long for the light. As we often say it, and as it was said above, what we really say and really believe is that we are free to yet live in darkness and still have the gift of God’s presence. And this is this same as saying that darkness can exist within full and absolute light - a contradiction that a child can easily see and make fun of, and yet we make ourselves as dumb as adults to believe it.
The true nature of Grace and the true and only power of “Being saved by Grace” are caught up entirely in the calling of Levi. Jesus walks through the city, sees Levi sitting at his tax booth, and walking up to him, says, “Follow me.” Levi could never have brought Jesus there. He could never have found the offering of fellowship with him. And that is why it is an offering of Grace that Jesus walks up and asks him to follow. However, the bestowing and acceptance of this Grace only occurs, that is the fellowship of a life spent in the presence of God only occurs, when Levi responds and “leaving everything, he rose and followed him.” If he had not followed he could not have possibly walked with and talked with and known who Jesus was - he would have refused Grace. Certainly he would have ultimately heard an awful lot about Jesus and possibly even developed an awful lot to say in favor of the things he did, but he would not have know him. This is how we have become as Christians today. We have heard a lot of about God and have developed a lot to say about God, but we know him not. And why? Simply because we choose not to accept Grace and walk with him. We choose to keep our place in darkness rather than be lifted up into Light.
All of us who are offended by these words testify by our own offense that Grace is not in us. For Grace can not be offended, for it is the absence of judgment and prejudice and pride. Grace is the administration of God’s love and as such bears all things that love has and carries nothing that love does not. As Christ says through Paul, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” And yet, how many of us love like this? If we do not appear to love like this, then it must certainly also appear that Grace is not in us.

** The presence of self-righteousness in the absence of Grace **

Self-righteousness is the opposite of Grace, just as the darkness of sin is the opposite of God’s light. Self-righteousness is the belief that ones’ own efforts can bring them into the presence of God. It is the belief that Light can be found in darkness. It is the perpetual selfish searching for things that do not exist at the cost of what little does exist. And yet, is it so surprising that so many are self-righteous? Should they be judged and dismissed for being self-righteous? No! Rather, those who are neither in Grace nor self-righteous are all the more foolish. For the self-righteous recognizes the need to find the Divine above all else and merely disregards the Only Way. The other is foolish enough to also disregard and lie about their own hunger. If one does not accept Grace then what other strength can you possibly believe will ever bring you life but your own? And, as for those in Grace, they will never look in judgment upon the self-righteous but rather look with eyes of patient and empathetic love, just as they will look upon all who are outside Grace.
The pattern of self-righteousness is this, all who are deemed beneath one’s righteousness are generally ‘loved’ and all those who are deemed unfairly above one’s righteousness are always enviously hated. All who are beneath the righteousness of the self-righteous are loved in the most perverse sense of benign indifference. They serve the self-righteous person in that by being beneath him or her, they are believed to lift him or her up closer to the Divine. As such, the self-righteous are willing to be benevolent to these under-souls and also match their benevolence with a thousand times the evil by stepping on the backs of these under-souls and press-ganging them to abide by whatever boundaries of self-righteousness they suggest will lead to the Divine. Those who will not be press-ganged into the self-righteous person’s particular religion, or otherwise suggest the true unrighteousness of the self-righteous, become competition and are hated.
Those who follow the self-righteous person’s views but appear more righteous can either be hated, or accepted in the same way as the under-souls. By being above they can seem closer to the Divine and thereby offer both an affirmation of the self-righteous person’s methods as well as present a human ladder for the self-righteous person to pull themselves higher. In that case those above are ‘loved.’ Alternatively, those above may be seen as obstacles of separation to the divine and by their presence confirm how unrighteous the self-righteous person truly is. In such a case, it is but the logical choice to hate and envy.
Those people who are both outside the self-righteous person’s beliefs of righteousness, appear to be about equivalently as righteous, and who suggest that the self-righteous person is unrighteous, are hated with passion. This is particularly true if such a person otherwise abides by nearly the exact same patterns and beliefs of righteousness. For, in this case, not only is the self-righteous person in struggle for closeness to the Divine, but they are being told that their struggling is incorrect and thereby become even less righteous than they had thought they were.
Of course, all of these words can be confusing, and on this particular previous point it is perhaps of especial benefit to provide an example: Sam believes that it is ok to drink alcohol with friends and be a Christian because Sam otherwise follows all the proper rules of conduct and goes to church and participates in a small group. Hunter, from Sam’s small group, tells Sam that drinking alcohol is ungodly and sinful and that Sam is a poor Christian unless Sam repents of drinking alcohol. They have an argument on this point and begrudge each other about it. Later, Sam sees their pastor give recognition to Hunter for being an exemplary Christian. Sam now enviously hates Hunter. In this case, both Sam and Hunter are self-righteous and thereby both are absent of Grace and thereby also absent of Christ. They have forsaken Christ’s hand for belief that following the straightest lines drawn in darkness will give them a path to Him. They merely argue about whose line is straighter. And yet, both are in fact in darkness. And yet, the hand of God and Christ’s Grace is right there reaching down to them, begging them to take it again or for the first time, depending on if they ever took it before.
Another example that perhaps will touch the reader’s soul better is this: Sam and Hunter have never officially met but are aware of each other’s presence as members of the same church. Hunter has been working hard helping her church. She has been making bulletins and organizing meetings and orchestrating prayer gatherings and leading a small group. Hunter has never seen Sam do anything for the Church. Hunter hears their pastor say that Sam is an incredible Christian and that Sam means a lot to the body of Christ. Hunter now envies Sam and while she will not admit it, actually hates her simply by the fact that she refuses to love her. In this case it appears that Hunter is the only one that is self-righteous and the only one whose monstrous efforts do more to help her reject Grace than bring her close to Christ.
For a final look to expound upon this point of self-righteousness and the absence of Grace, I will return to the example of Levi: Jesus looks across the market and sees Levi, a tax collector, and walking past Rabbi’s and the most ‘righteous’ and worthy of men, goes up and invites the rather ‘unrighteous’ Levi, not the Rabbi’s and Scribes, to walk with him and absorb his love. This simple fact that God is ignorant of all personal effort is what makes grace into Grace. And does this seem wrong? Well, from the framework of self-righteousness it is wrong. If you believe that your personal effort is necessary then you will begrudge those who have God’s love despite lack of effort. That exchange of love is proof that you and all your pride are wrong and that your ideas and efforts are worthless.
The trouble with all this is that it leaves us at the point of the contemporary church, which has accepted that it is not by our efforts but by God’s effort that we know Him. And again, this is true. What is wrong is that we have extrapolated this to mean that Faith only requires God’s effort and not our own. Which really means that we have rejected the idea that we need to take God’s hand to be lifted up by Grace. This leaves us at the point of being able to stay in sin and conduct our lives of darkness, living in richness and sloth saying, “If God intends differently, then He will make it so.” And the truth is that God will make it so. He will overwhelm Earth by the presence of Heaven and the old will go. The new will come – and we will not be a part of it because we did not step from the old when he asked us to walk with Him. We will be in Hell for having rejected Grace.
Now, if we have rejected Grace, then it would seem, as mentioned before, that most of us would fall back into self-righteousness. And that has been outlined somewhat above and many will be able to prove or lie well enough that they are not part of that self-righteousness. However, for us Christians that have rejected Grace by the false belief that we need make no action and that it is all about God, we are left with an entirely different sort of self-righteousness. We come to the point of saying that we have Grace simply by believing in it. That is, we think that it is what we think that grants us God’s love - so we have descended to a self-righteousness not of physical actions but of thoughts.
We argue theology day by day. We pick and choose our spiritual heroes. We form lines in the sand over how we understand particular points. We become upset and horrified at people thinking differently than us - And we are self-righteous and absent Grace and know not Christ.
Now these points are particularly subtle, extraordinarily so. This is why this is the latest and greatest of Satan’s defeats to our Faith. For is it necessary that we believe in Christ and the necessity of Grace and in the love of God? Yes, most definitely – And yet we can believe such words and not have any of those! In fact, we can believe many many more words than all that and have even less!
The trouble comes down to the fact that all these thoughts still have not accepted Grace. You can believe all you want that Christ’s hand is reaching down to you and that it is necessary for you to take it, but if you do not take it you simply do not have it. The act of taking that hand does requires the thought to take that hand and we have failed by equating simply thinking about taking that hand with actually taking it. So in this way we are left in a world of thoughts and absent Grace.
Our self-righteousness becomes one of imagining that if we think hard enough and strong enough and with enough conviction about the means and method of taking God’s hand and the shape of that hand and about where that hand is going to lift us, we will have attained what that hand offers. In simpler terms, if someone invites me and my friend to a walk in the park and we say no and instead imagine walking in the park, have we actually walked in the park? I might make a better guess than my friend at what the weather is like in the park and my friend might make a better guess at how long the walk will be and we both might well enough predict where the walk would traverse, but have either of us actually walked in the park? And yet, we delude ourselves into believing that if we imagine well enough and accurately enough about the walk in the park it is the same as walking in the park! We as Christians believe that if we imagine and believe and know enough things about God and Christ and Grace we will have those things!!!
And so it is that we argue and envy and despise anyone who contradicts us or our thoughts on Christ. We hate and judge in proportion to how overtly contradictory their assertion is to whatever ideas we have accepted. And in all of this, we know the least part of Christ and Grace. To be fair, we may even know accurately about these things, but we do not know these things! Do you meet someone’s strange assertions about God with curiosity and love, or at the very least sympathy? If not, then you are intellectually self-righteous and know not grace. For if you knew Grace you would not need your self-righteousness and would not need to violently argue or judge your fellow human brother or sister. You would not feel threatened. You would not feel frustrated. You would not be absent of love. You would not be absent of Christ. – And yet, even here, in this error, Christ waits with loving arms, not just hands, waiting to pick us up and let us truly know him and love!
To see how incredible this Grace is, let us return again to Levi. When Jesus walked up to Levi, was it necessary for Levi to know this was Jesus? If Levi did not know that this was Jesus. If in contradiction to all other evidence he thought it was some random bum off the street, and yet followed, would he have received any less of the blessings of Christ? Of course not! You see that the Grace is in the following, not in the knowing or thinking. Now, if Levi were to have made believe that Jesus did not exist and that no one was calling him to follow, would he have missed Grace? Yes. However, as long as we recognize Christ’s presence and follow, whether we believe him teacher, beggar, liar, or even Jesus, nothing else matters – there is the same benefit for all perspectives! Levi has shown us that all that matters is following, and that as long as we follow, false beliefs and thoughts can do nothing to us! Such is the wonder of Grace!

** A note on the usefulness of correction **

All of the discussion presented so far has relied greatly on what Grace does not look like to provide proof of its absence. Henceforth, it is of interest to talk, in more hopeful and brilliant life, about what Grace is and how it benefits. In both the former and proceeding cases of negative and positive, the contradictions presented are for the purpose of showing the need to seek out and accept Christ and Grace. On this point, it is the nature of Grace and Christ to point out errors and fallacies, which we Christians certainly do well enough. However, the entire urgency of Graceful pointing is absolutely for the purpose of directing hearts to Christ. By pointing out lack of love to the Pharisees, Christ was pointing out the need for love and thereby the need for himself. It was out of love and the desire to lead others into His Grace that Christ corrected others. This is the only useful means of contradiction. To contradict as we do today, simply for the sake of ‘asserting truth’, is to waste breath and at its best, is merely a means of sustaining self-righteousness. To contradict for the sake of opening another’s eyes that they might see Christ and then long after Him better, not just for ‘opening another’s eyes’, is the only benefit of contradiction. Contradiction as a means purely of judging another and finding them incorrect is a motivation of pride and sin. In one is self-service, in the other love and selflessness.
Further, the nature of Christ does not actually care about the correction of things pointed out. That is, errors are irrelevant in contrast to the need of Christ they point out. In this way Grace does not seek to instruct others in a manner of correcting appearances, but in the manner of seeking Christ. If anything is amiss, Grace instructs ignorance of that error and focus on Christ and from the focus on Christ correction of that error (and correction of many other errors unmentioned and unperceivable) will come. In this way one does not say, “You are not caring for you neighbor” with the intent of the offender actually then going and caring for their neighbor. Rather, they say it with intent that they go and accept the Grace of Christ. And then following this acceptance, the offender will be filled with such love that can not but help caring for their neighbor, (and their brother, and their parents, and those living in distant cities, and all of creation.) All of this is the manner of Christ’s correction, and it cares least of all about focus on correcting any error pointed out. It abides that error quietly in love for the sake of love that the one in wrong may find God’s love. This is Grace, and if it were not this way, none of us could ever stand under the burden of all our faithlessness.

** The necessity and birth of Childishness by Grace **

Grace is God giving us his love and blessings without any other requirement upon us than that we acknowledge and follow Christ. The blessings of God are the assurance of his ultimate rescue through all things, the assurance of his ultimate eternal presence, and the assurance of his ultimate unending sustenance in the realm of Heaven. In a word, Security. The blessings of God are Security. They are a security unlike any security the world offers. This Security is what people long after when they seek the Divine through the plans of all their self-righteousness. And, quite simply, it is for this reason that Grace frees us from self-righteousness and any effort of our own to attain Security. We have Security as a perpetual guarantee written upon our hearts and are thereby free to give up all the struggles of the world.
Now, if we have Security without the need of self-righteousness, what things does this means we can give up and cast off? Mostly, it means that we can give up all the rules imposed by the self-righteous and we can give up the need for strength. For truly, the only purpose of gathering strength in this world is for self-righteousness. In the world of Christ’s Light, He desires to be our strength and wash our feet and give us ease. This does not mean that we will not gain strength, for actually we gain far more strength by Grace than we ever would have by our most violent efforts – again, such is Grace. What this simply means is that we need not be focused on gathering and accounting for strength.
The greatest antonym known today for strength and pedantry of rules, is childishness. And what is childishness? Childishness is the naïve belief that one is protected, secure, can play whatever, can run free without a single care and all this for merely trusting completely and again naively in the absolute power and love of a parent. Effectually, Childishness is then Christianity, for God is our Perfect Parent.
Now, some will say that there are still rules even here, and that will be gotten to, but for the mean time consider that all of this is exactly what Christ intended when he called us to meet him like children. We were called to fear not the world’s judgment, to play each day of our life, and to depend completely and ultimately on him with the same clinginess of any child. For that is exactly what it means to be a child. And if we do truly believe in Christ and accept Grace and have Security, then why should we not be this way? As everything we are to have comes through Grace by God’s power and not the world’s, then we really do not need fear anything the world can do to us. If we are freed by Grace from the struggles and efforts of attaining Security, then what is left to do but play each and every moment of our lives? And if all of this does come by Grace from Christ, then how can we not ravenously and fearfully check every moment to see that Christ is always there beside us within grasp? This is all the pattern of a true Christian life. These are the trappings of Grace.
Childishness can not exist within the world of strength and self-righteousness. Pure childishness requires the complete and perfect service of another. If self-righteousness is all about what we can do for ourselves, and a child is meant to trust to have to do nothing for themselves, then self-righteousness seeks to kill the child. And how does it do this, rather, how do we in all our self-righteousness do this? Day by day we demand and require children to learn how to support themselves. We tell them day by day to play less, to do more for themselves, and to behave in a manner of fearing what the world will do to them. We do not teach them that they can be children and have Security, but rather that Security is only attained by killing the child in them. We teach them this because we were taught this because the world taught us this. And that is exactly the point; the world taught us this, not Christ. If we truly had Grace, we would not teach this to our children and to each other. We would simply have no need to teach and propagate this living death of self-righteousness. We would see how much better it is to become children. More than that, we would be instantly transformed by Grace into children as that is all that would be left to us after being lifted out of darkness.
In the world of the self-righteous, the weak serve the strong. For the strong force the weak to serve, doling out strength and the promise of Security as a reward for service. Strength is a necessity to force one’s way to the top and hopefully somehow attain Security. And no weak or strong person can do anything to change this system because there is always someone stronger enforcing the system.
In the world of Grace, the strong serve the weak. For the strong have no need of serving themselves since they (and the weak) have Security. And as the strong are strong, it makes little sense that it should be any other way than that they should serve the weak. Quite simply, the strong are much better at serving the weak than the weak are at serving the strong. By the presence of Love through Grace, it is the desire of everyone to serve everyone else. There is no frustration in this service and no conflict over serving - as that is not the loving desire to serve another but the hateful and selfish desire to serve one’s own plans and pride. Graceful service bears total patience, total empathy, and total joy. No one bemoans their weakness. No one bemoans the modesty of their service - for cares about the gloriousness of one’s abilities and the grandness of service are cares only of the self-righteous who still struggle for Security. Those in Grace do not only think they are freed, but are actually freed from this care. And, in the world of Grace, since each person has Security, each person rarely has any need, and play predominates and play becomes service. In truth, play is nothing more than the desire to serve expressing itself through each player pretending to have a need to be served. Each pretends to be less than they are that the other might be more. This is true playfulness and true Childishness. All of this is true Grace.
Now, as far as rules are concerned within the freedom of Childishness in Christ, rules are the commands of God. However, they are no different than the rules of earthly parents: “Look both ways before you cross the street”, “Brush your teeth before you go to bed”, “Don’t hit your sister”. Each of these rules is intended for our protection and uplifting and each of these rules requires no more strength or effort than we already have. And this is the difference between the world’s rules and the rules of the true God. They are not burdensome, are not filled with malice, and do not demand our ‘growth’ and the death of our childish nature. As such, these rules are nothing more than God in all his strength serving us who are weaker, and require in no way self-righteousness or strength in trade for love. If they did, they would be rules of the world and not gifts of God.
Grace creates the Childishness commanded by Christ. Without this Childishness, there cannot be Grace. And if there is not Grace, there is not Christ. And yet, with Grace, the constantly offered Grace, look what life there is! Look, to be a child, to be free, to have Security, and to have Christ, all for ever! And what does Christ ask!? Merely that you follow him and accept Grace!

CommonLisp; Also, The Silver Chair... and Abstract thought

So, OOP has been too ingrained in my skull for me to properly use Scheme for an AI project I have to do, so I've decided to use CommonLisp- It's still Lisp, right? I now know full well why people say "CommonLisp is more powerful than Scheme." There are some really useful things you can do easily with CommonLisp. However, I also know full well why people say "CommonLisp is ugly and convoluted compared to Scheme." Line-noise like this: (format t "~{~a:~10t~a~%~}~%" cd) is why I don't want to learn perl... And I now have to deal with it when programming in lisp. Granted, it does a lot, but is it really worth memorizing all the syntax? Probably, but also definitely not.

***********
On a (probably) more interesting note, I really, really love the scene in the Silver Chair during which the Queen tries to convince the children, the prince, and Puddleglum that Narnia is a dream. Her arguments, which fall absolutely flat when you're outside the scope of the novel are used so often. Of course we can't explain God's presence, it isn't something we have a concrete understanding of.
Questions:
How does someone with Synesthesia describe the shift and change of colors as they hear music? How does one describe the sun to a blind man? Music to the deaf? Snow to someone from the tropics? A computer to a tribesman?
Answer: In metaphor and simile.
But of course metaphors and similes will present the object in question as a twisted version of the concrete object it is being compared to, rather than a distinct object with a similar sensation.

tangentially,
I can (sort of) understand how a synesthesiac thinks, because I have a similarly abstract and incommunicable thought-process. The best way, I think, to describe it is as imagism. I perceive, with all 5 senses and abstract thought an "emotional and intellectual complex" whenever reading, writing, drawing, seeing, doing math, coding, ...
My thought process is a string of Pound-ian images, which shift, move, fall, rise, appear and disappear in conjunction with everything that enters my brain through any medium. There are uncountably many stories, scenes, colors, sounds, tastes, ideas and so much more that pass through my mind every second, and over any period of time, and also distinct from time.

So, how does this relate to synesthesia? If I equate these images to colors (or whichever other sensation the synesthesiac perceives), I see the same thing.

Moving back to my string of questions, is there any way to truly describe my thought process? I've given a quick description; everything I said is true, but there is so much more to the mental "image" than the scenes and Pound-ian images I've described.

The Weight of Glory

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about The Weight of Glory by CS Lewis. It is a truly excellent analysis of the Christian experience. But from the second or third day after we read it in Small group, something has bugged me about it. I think I finally have a coherent enough "argument" at this point to actually put it online.

Let me preface this by saying that I really do admire and respect CS Lewis. Not only was he a great apologist, but he was clearly a man abounding in faith-- a man who seemed to sit and enjoy God's presence constantly.
That being said, we Christians have an obsession with the afterlife. Not that the afterlife is bad, or anything we shouldn't look forward to, but God's presence and spirit here, now, is so beautiful and so amazing, and so ignored. Throughout the essay, Lewis talks about the "proper reward" of various things. The "proper reward" of love is marriage; the "proper reward" of fighting is victory; he likewise discusses food in metaphor, and (he may actually say this) were he to name the "proper reward" of food, I can hardly imagine it would be anything but health.

Does something seem missing in all of these cases? I submit that there is. You do not fall in love in order to marry; there is no justice in deciding to fight solely because you will achieve victory; food is not merely a way to avoid illness, weakness and death.
Marriage is the proper reward of correct and sustained love, but love comes with more immediate, more beautiful and tangible rewards. Victory is the end reward of proper combat, but fighting for victor as an end is perverse. Health is the end reward of eating, but if you eat solely for sustenance, you will never enjoy food, and you are quite truly eating wrong.

There are, to every action, an immediate reward-- which I will call the excitement-- and an eventual reward-- which I will call the fulfillment. Any action done with no consideration of the fulfillment is sinful-- aesthetic as Kierkegaard puts it, hedonistic would be the more common word. Likewise, any action done with no consideration for the excitement is self-denial-- the actions of the knight of infinite sorrow, according to Kierkegaard, ascetic is a more understood term.
This latter action, self-denial, is the "unselfishness" that Lewis speaks out against in the fist paragraph of his essay. You are denying your immediate excitement because you know that the fulfillment of your action is "good".

But! There is so much more to what God has for us than heaven. There is so much on earth, so many beautiful things that God has given, and so many incredible ways He spends time with us, and enlightens us. We are missing God completely if we hope only for the fulfillment-- even the "selfish" fulfillment of heaven. God is here, right now! And He wants you to be excited in Him. Do not simply drudge along waiting for heaven, because you will get bored and distracted and all will be lost. How long can you eat food only for sustenance before you despise the sight of food? But if you eat food not only for sustenance, but also for enjoyment, how much more will you want food! Then, you will acquire a taste for so much finer, more complex and exciting foods that you would have missed completely if you had neglected your taste-buds.

So it is with God. Seek God's beauty out, and leave heaven at the back of your mind, except when God brings it to the forefront. And you will develop a taste for beautiful things God has done and will continue to do that you would have misunderstood, or disliked, or missed completely.

God is beautiful! God is exciting! And that excitement is tangible and real and all around us!

Tell them it's movement, movement, movement!

So, God sparked a flame over the weekend, among the people who went to winterfest. It's going to be exciting to see where this goes.

Through Sully and Katie today, God softened my heart. I'm still stubborn and prideful. I'm still rather hard-hearted, wicked, and foolish, but God is working, and it is exciting. The spiritual pit I've been in for a while seems to be gone, and it's exciting!

Anyway,
God bless.

A Short Bit on Faith

I started writing this a few months ago, and forgot to actually finish it until today. I understand that it is all over the place, but I'm not terribly worried about that...

For all of history, people who pushed for something greater have been mocked and ridiculed; even today, when much of America claims to be Christian, nearly anyone who dare profess the absurdly idealistic love that Christ represents would be ignored, or, at best, called a hopeless romantic who needs to awaken to the real world. When I hear this, I think of Puddleglum's speech:

"One word, Ma'am. One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-- trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, [...] we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

The key word in this whole speech is "important". He does not say that the made-up things are more "fun" or "interesting" he says they are more important. This choice of words changes the whole speech from a confession of willful delusion to a statement of purpose. Puddleglum is not deluding himself into believing that the Overworld exists, he is saying that, since that world is more fulfilling, more alive, it is more real, whether it is tangible or not. We shouldn't stop fighting for true love, for brotherhood, for God, just because people call them romantic concepts designed only to give us hope; Oh, no! They are of greater consequence, of more value than any end on this earth, so even if they do not exist, they are still worth more than this hollow, dark, empty pit of a cave through which we wander hopelessly.

What is it, exactly, that makes them more important? Just before Puddleglum makes this speech, the queen, Jadis, is telling them that all these things are silly exaggerations of real things: Aslan, the large lion, is just a house cat; the sun is merely a large lamp, the sky just a large roof, and so on. The things she mentions are the things we need in order to live: Shelter, light, someone/something to comfort us and keep us company. The things Puddleglum mentions fulfill all the same functions, except they are more fulfilling. The sun is warmer and brighter than any houselamp, the light more comforting; Aslan is like a house cat, only larger, warmer and gentler; Narnia is just like the large underworld, only more just. Likewise, God's love, the kingdom of God and pure romance are more fulfilling than the "real-life" equivalent. Note, however, that this is not a Utopian, happily-ever-after sort of fulfillment; it is satisfaction, which is the reward of action. Effort is required for satisfaction: Anyone who tells you Christianity does not require tremendous force of will has never felt God; anyone who says that a relationship is not difficult has never committed to another person; anyone who says there is no stress in loving your fellow man has never helped out a friend in need. But this love, this faith, has more power, more value than any end on this earth. Is there any loss in living for these things? You will miss whatever the "normal" purpose of life is, but to quote Puddleglum again, "It's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

What's even more important than anything Puddleglum says is that the Overworld does exist. Puddleglum is in fact not a dreamer who has committed himself to a non-existent cause, but rather a lone seer, who has stepped out of Plato's cave into the warm sunlight. How, then, can we be assured that we are right, that the world is blind and stubborn, while we walk in Truth? How can we convince others that we walk in the Truth? Unfortunately, there is no certain way; there is no proof that God exists, no proof that there is a higher purpose, and the cave is as empty and meaningless as the Underworld. However, stronger and more convincing than any clever display of logic is the experience of these things. Those of us who proclaim the power of God have seen His light; those who hold love as a greater end than anything on this earth have loved and been loved in such a way that they cannot deny its power.

Once again: how can we convince others of this? Only by showing the same that we've seen. We have to spread love, God, and brotherhood, not by word of mouth, but by deed. We cannot just talk, convincing people of the Truth because Truth is not a reasoned conclusion. It is not a statement of the form "p therefore q." God is not something you know, it's something you feel, something you understand. In Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein invented the "Martian" word grok to describe this concept. Literally, grok means "drink", and it should be no surprise that Jesus used the same term to describe living in faith; when you drink something, it becomes a part of you, a part of everything you do, and every decision you make. We must drink in God's love until it flows out of us like a fountain. Only by spreading this, by sharing the same beautiful experience of God's presence can we hope to expand God's kingdom.

There is no knowledge, no action, no speech which can by itself convince anyone of God's existence and love. Even if someone understands philosophically that God exists, that does nothing for them. "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that- and shudder." (James 2:19) Faith is not an intellectual adherence to doctrine; it is a statement of purpose a commitment to live "as like a Narnian as possible, even if there isn't any Narnia." Once you experience God's love-- once you have that first sip of grace-- you cannot be content with anything less than the whole cup. "If only you knew what it would have meant to drink the thimbleful of fire. But, alas! you swear you already know its taste! and yet your belly remains intact."

If there is no way to convince people of the Truth, we must then live our lives to the fullest-- live in God's joy and freedom all hours of the day-- and pray and wait for them to reach up and grab the thimble from Jesus' hand. When that happens, and only then, will they understand the fire that consumes the believer. We cannot wait for our lives to end, for Heaven, "the afterlife" to experience God's Grace. There is so much more on earth than we see around us, so much more than we accept and feel content with. Why then are we sitting here waiting to die? We must reach out, and search for Narnia! We must go out and find Aslan! If God is there, reaching for our hands, why would we sit here and wait for him to? Shouldn't we strive with all our heart, soul, mind and strength to reach up and grab at his gentle strength?

And you, will you look and think and pray? Or sit, and simply wait?

Spirituality, laws, and love

I've been in an interesting spiritual state for the last month and a half. On the one hand, I feel much closer to God than I ever have (barring a few short bursts of inspiration); on the other, I feel like I'm exactly the same-- with the exact same flaws-- as I've always been. Perhaps it'll always be that way. Paul himself struggled with the personal disgust that's associated with sin.

Anyway, I've read in the last 2 months, from Genesis through Kings. There are times when I'm reading and I'm trembling with awe at God, but it typically ebbs after I close the book (or just as often, leave it lying open on the floor by my bed). I've perpetually been just below that state. It's extremely frustrating because I think "What can I do to come closer to God," but I know (and it's so hard to actually live it) that it is not through our own ability, but through God's grace that we come closer to God. I want Elijah's spirit. I want to be able to talk to God the way Moses did. So I pray for the presence of God; I pray to be struck dumb with his beauty and glory; I pray for this more frequently than I've probably ever prayed in my life.

Today, Sully and I were talking and he talked about how annoyed he is when someone thinks they have the way; that if only people would listen to them, do things like they do, they'd be righteous-- as if our knowledge and ability save us. I listened, and agreed, but was struck with how much God was pointing a finger at me through him.

I'm so quick to judge legalists, so quick to pass off everything they say with a "Your mind is in the right place, but your heart is empty" that I've slipped off the other side of the mountain as I backed away from them. I am a whore for what Kierkegaard calls "the aesthetic". I really need to take one large step back toward those people I've so long tried to distance myself from.

On a related note, perhaps I am closer to God than I think. Katie broke up with me today, and I'm surprisingly fine with it. It's not that I actually don't mind. It's just that I know it's something God has called her to do. I've been hoping otherwise, but it's becoming increasingly obvious (especially over the last week) that we are being called in different directions. Suppose it had not happened now, but in another 6 months... It would be so difficult for either of us to give it up for what we've been called to do. Anyway, I think she's having more trouble with this than I am, and the "gentleman" I am, I just want to be there to help her through it... which may or may not have the opposite effect.
I can deal with talking to someone I want a romantic relationship with, but the one thing I'm dreading is telling people it's over: I'm afraid that other people won't understand, or will think it's just a cop out.