Reflections on a personal object lesson

When I was younger in my faith, I would read passages like 1 Corinthains 12, when Paul says "earnestly desire the grater gifts", and then pray something like, "God, please make me a prophet!". Before I really knew what was in the prophetic literature of the OT, I just kind of assumed that prophecy was some guy in a robe walking around doing miracles. Then I actually read the Old Testament, and saw that it was a lot more than that, that a common way for God to give a message to the covenant people was through an object lesson, which often came at the expense of the prophet. For instance, God told Ezekiel, to lay down on his side for several months, then bare his arm and prophesy against Jerusalem for their iniquities.

On Saturday, as I was driving back from St. Cloud, trying to make sense of some recent events, it occured to me that I may be an object lesson to some people in my life. I'm not claiming to be a prophet, but I think that God may still use events in a person's life to serve as warnings to others. And, if that's the case, please learn from this.

If you've read any of the previous entries I've posted on this blog, you'd probably have pieced together that this summer, I decided to pursue a girl who I had been friends with for a while. Long-ish story short, she turned me down, but insisted that we should still be good friends. It's been less than fun to live through, but it's a great illustration of what Christ goes through with us regularly. He comes to us, offering intimacy. We then counter-offer, saying, "Jesus, I like you, I have a great time with you, and I love what you do for me, but I'd like to keep getting what you give me from a safe distance. I'm really just too busy for something serious with you." He must just have to shake his head, thinking, "Don't you understand? You can't get all that I want to give you if you want me an arm's length away!" Seeing this analogy takes away from some of my anger, but adds to the grief that I'm feeling. Here I am, a flawed and evil man, completely bitter about being strung along and then shot down by another human like me, when I've done the same to the God who gave me life. Not only am I a reject, I'm a hypocrite on top of that.

What a wretched man I am! Who will set me free from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom 7:24-25)

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the real reasons that the way this summer played out for me are way over my head, far too complicated to understand. That's a distinct possibility. Or on the other hand, maybe this will still make sense in the long run and I'll find out that my learning this lesson was the only reason for this paritcular unfolding of history. But either way, I still hold these truths: Behold, Christ stands at the door and knocks. Draw near to him, and he will draw near to you. You're as close to God as you want to be. It's high time to take his grace.

Love your enemies, kids

Today, this is my greatest challenge. God, it seems impossible. I understand why I should, that makes perfect sense. In the words of Derek Webb, "My enemies are men like me". It's the execution of this principle that I have the trouble with. When I hurt, I find myself wanting others to hurt too, even though I know that I'm not redistributing the load of pain on myself, I'm creating a fresh load for someone else. That makes me a big dink. I try to emulate Christ, but if I got crucified today, would I be praying for the folks who did the deed?

Probably not. Which is exactly why Christ was up there dying for me in the first place. Because I am completely incompetent and worthless on my own. All I have is the hope in the truth of God's words when he says that his grace is enough. And if the best thing that I can ever be is the prodigal son, then dammit, that's all I ever want to be.

Your own life and opening lines to Dickens novels

I've been a fan of Chuck Dickens since I read Oliver Twist in junior high. However, it recently occured to me that the way he started A Tale of Two Cities has kind of lost its poignancy now that we all seem to think our lives are melodramas and soap operas. "It was the best of times , it was the worst of times..."- isn't that all the time? When I say that, I'm assuming that a lot of other people in 21st century America share my problem of expecting thrills from real life, and getting, well, real life, and ending up disappointed. Don't think I'm entirely pointing the finger at movies here; I don't want to sit through two hours of the stuff that a real human should actually expect to encounter as they go through life, the waiting, the irrelevant details, the complicated people. What I want is to personally change in such a way that I totally believe this: it's better that I'm flesh and blood and spirit, and not someone's intellectual concoction that exists for the sake of entertainment.

I think I've gone back and forth from feeling really frustrated to having an eerie and surreal peace about a hundred times in the past two weeks. Perhaps not the best or the worst of times, but they get honorable mentions or something. Dare me to summarize?

First of all, there's the single most important relationship I have, me and God, and we've been getting along well lately, except for maybe today so far. But, when that's going well, there's really nothing that can run you off the road. Second, I'm still making easy money at UPS. What a sweet job, they pay me to keep a truck on the interstate for an hour and a half, get a workout for 40 minutes, and then stay awake for the drive back. It's just like stealing. Lastly, I've probably just lost a war that could have turned into my own personal Vietnam.
Sometimes I wonder what we'd be like as a nation if we had given up in Vietnam in 1965. Definitely, things would be different; maybe, things would be better. Certainly, we would not know what we know now, and certainly, hundreds of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese would still be alive. I think most would do well to see what happens if they ever get a chance to change the way we did things as a nation back then.

Right now, I'm still kinda hung up on the losing part. Rejection sucks. There's just no way to make it easier to handle. It's for real this time. I saw a winnable war ahead, she sees Vietnam. I'm going to be sore for awhile because what I realize that she doesn't seem to is that the only way to know what kind of war it is is to fight it. But whatev, I guess. If courage came easily, they wouldn't call it a virtue. So now I guess it my turn again to show my own.

Right after this angry poem, that is.

Dearest Cheslie, to what shall I compare thee?
Thou art like the sun
Because you burn careless idiots like myself.

Dearest Cheslie, to what shall I compare thee?
Thou art like I-494
Because youre always too frickin busy to take anywhere during peak hours
*and* I can count on you to make me 30 minutes later than I should be.

Dearest Cheslie, to what shall I compare thee?
Thou art like Qwest
Because when I try to settle something with you, you put me on hold for a long-ass time
and then hang up on me anyway without giving me an honest chance to negotiate.

Okay, break is over, I'm ready to be an adult about this again. Over and out.

The world is a big enough place where you can always find someone who will put it better than you can. And today, whoever masterminded this demotivator really hit the nail on the head for me.

So the issue I'm dealing with right now is at best a case of garden variety disappointment with the situation surrounding my fave girl, and at worst a case of flat out rejection. Not that I'll be able to know for sure where it falls anytime soon.

There's an internal argument raging within me from various corners of the Wesleyan quadrilateral. The voice of scripture tells me that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that everything else I know is secondary. Then there's the voice of reason, telling me to cool down. After all, I live in a fallen world; who am I to demand exemption from its effects?

Opposite this is experience, which hasn't yet learned to use an inside voice. "CAN I JUST CATCH AN F'IN BREAK?! JUST ONCE?! AM I ASKING THAT MUCH TO HAVE SOME GIRL LOVE ME LIKE I LOVE HER?! WTF."

God, help me listen to what is right and not what is loudest.

Um, in other news, we have answers to some riddles from last week:

Beginner level: The sun.

Intermediate level: (V/Vw)•ρ, where V is the volume of the bag, Vw is the average volume of a woodchuck, and ρ is the unitless compressibility factor for woodchucks.

Awesome level: You cannot, under any circumstance, get a cat to perform that operation.
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Addendum, 8/7/06

Upon re-reading this thing a few days later, I have decided that 1) The penguin is my favorite flightless bird, 2) my formatting for some of this entry kinda stank, and 3) I definitely have the spiritual gift of overreacting. I think this post might really be funny in a few years when I look back on it. First of all, a little clarification, I don't think I got rejected on Wednesday night anymore. I did get a really confusing answer, to be sure, but if I was a little more careful with my equals signs, I could have saved myself a lot of grief. I was assuming "not yes" equals "no", which honestly to me still makes sense, even though other things imply it isn't as true as I might want to think. The whole"not yes" operator is a tricky one to interpret because coming from some girls, it means "I'm reaching for my mace" and from others it means "Ask me again later." Seems that Chels is the second type. So maybe my thespian antics of crying "Woe is me, Woe betide me, I am vanquished!" were a bit out of place. I might just have to add that to the pile of evidence that shows I'm human.

Closing note: I love my mom. She's one of my favorite people. I have never for more than a few seconds doubted that she loves me. Overall, she's come out way ahead of the curve, as far as moms go. But mom, I really don't appreciate the predisposition to paranoia that I inherited (that I *know* didn't come from dad). It makes a lot of work for anyone who's trying to get to know me, and it also makes me write blog entries when I should be sleeping. Don't take this the wrong way, mom. I love you a lot. I just want to stop being a turtle.