Not much...and a lot...going on at the same time. Two big projects at work, back to back nonetheless, got me pretty whipped over the past two weeks. The nice thing is that the hard work allowed me to get Thursday and Friday off this weekend, so, in the end, a nice four day weekend. What a great treat.

My parents are in town for the weekend as well. We have already worked on the yard, from the outside in. At the moment, my dad's working on Liam's room making it a nice shade of sky blue. Also, we're going to add some lights in the master bedroom. Whoever designed the house only put a single overhead cannister for the main source of light. One way to do it. Perhaps they were of the philosophy that lamps are a good thing.

Looks like it'll be a productive weekend.

On the thinking side of things, I have a few little things that have popped into my head. After reading Barbie's article on the Faith Realm it came clear that the distinction between faith and belief makes sense only if you look at it in the light of action. Believing, from what I noticed today, should be drawn from our lives. Our beliefs are truly manifest in how we live our lives. If we don't do what we say we believe, we don't really believe it. Otherwise, beliefs are really nothing more than ideas we like to talk about. For me, the clarification that belief, with an emphasis on action, is novel. Before it was an abstract truth from which we associate action. Yet, to truly and rightly judge one's beliefs, one can only study actions...not vice versa.

I guess one of the dangers here would be to suggest a moral judgement system based on the belief grounded solely in action. Reason being that this eliminates the possibility of growth. This assumes that a snapshot of action or behaviour would intimate future actions for the basis for gauging beliefs, but I'm simply trying to indicate, without getting too far off base, that the future is still the realm of the unknowable--without revelation. Since this is not a Newtonian billiard ball universe, beliefs based on behavior do not include the realm of faith and the fact that we can believe things and act accordingly though the reasons for those things are not yet manifest. I guess, after thinking about it a little, you could still suggest that beliefs can be help (and actions performed on those grounds) though no cause, other than faith, supports those beliefs. The beliefs are still validated by action...it's more the causal justification, verifiable evidence, such as the things which are believed in, would be lacking.

Here is where the dynamic of prophecy and belief becomes challenging. Only the invisible poses this problem. If we belief things which we can justify with experience or proof, then we are capable of demonstrating the validity of our beliefs. Yet, God wants us to act without proof. For that, we need belief. In this vein of thought, prophecy, at least in the sense of foretold events, requires action without proof. That is the only major dynamic that creates a tension with regards to faith in action as far as I can see.

Truth and language.

I've touched on this before, but don't think I've ever clearly pointed out this note. Truth and language are so closely connected that without one, the other can't exist. In the case of truth, language is the medium through which truth can be manifest. A way to point this out is to focus on a case where there is not language. In a forest a man who has never had contact with another person knows nothing of falsehood because he has never been lied to. Trees don't lie. They do not misrepresent themselves. Animals don't lie. Nature has nothing false about it. Without ever meeting another person, falsehood could never be introduced into our mythical man's mind.

Putting this man into social life with other people, yet devoid of language, the man still has nothing to convey falsehood. Yet, with communication, with common communication, come the potential for lies. It's clear that language and truth have such a common bond that one rests on the other as a foundation. On a side note, the fact that Scripture talks about the Word as the formative basis for creation...think John 1...suggests that Jesus, i.e., the Word, the Truth, has an inherent bond much as is revealed by the mythical man example. Without Christ, without the Word, no Truth can be known.

I want to delve into the idea of language and truth after I review Kent's talks more in depth, but I've got to transcribe those and don't feel like it tonight.

Frustration. That's generally the theme of this post.

I could write the grocery list of things that easily fall under this category, but, more pervasive is the general fact that much of my life lends to this emotion right now. The most recent event that comes to mind was from service this morning. Since we have begun to go to RBFC Kerri has been able to become involved in a great many things: Bible study, community group, mother's day out, even the latest addition a basic service ministry handing out fliers. Nothing barn-burning there, but involvement. Ironically, for the first time in our marriage, the tables are turned. Near the time of Page's birth, Kerri felt like the caged animal. A baby, no time or energy to go anywhere and I was off gallivanting around Baton Rouge and Texas doing things with different church groups and organizations.

Well, three years later, my life consists of work and time at home. I might make it to church 3 times a one on a good month when kids aren't sick, I'm not completely dead from work or some other off-the-wall scenario hasn't popped up. So, having gone from learning of the great things God is up to with revelatory ministries for the first time to being a corporate slave with no spiritual connections or community has been a slap in the face.

Of course, I hear God speaking to me in all this. Kerri tells me encouraging things at my worst moments when I actually bark about what's going on. At times, God talks to me, but overall, I am either ignoring him (still mad at the way things are) or just plain to far away to hear what he's saying. The worst thing of all is that fact that I know what's going on and am too lazy and apathetic to stop my self-indulgent pity and turn my heart and soul towards him. Lord, please forgive me for my rejection of the circumstances into which you have placed me and my family. I admit I have sinned and fallen short of the calling you have personally placed in my heart and spirit.

Of particular frustration this morning was a small snippet about a Bible-study beginning tomorrow night on Revelation. I thought, and quickly grew excited, about the prospect of seeing something revelatory spring up in the church with which I could get involved. Finally, an opening. I noted it to Kerri after she finished her Connecting Points ministry and went on. On the way home, I asked her about and she asked if I thought she should go. I said, "No, I was planning on going." At this point, she pointed out that it was a women's study. I just shook my head in, you guessed it, frustration. One more thing I thought might break my dark night, rejected.

I don't know what it is that God's trying to get across to me that prolongs this dark night. I have ceased my striving in areas once bordering on idolatry. There are things I have not completed, some of my small tasks. Blogging the thoughts he gives me during Sunday service since many of them make me feel inadequate (the Ephesians book and the dream service in the neighborhood). Yet, I often wonder, like I'm sure many people do, how many of these "ideas" are really of him and how many are of my own invention? Am I really still striving, just in a new way?

Yesterday I was thinking about how, at times, I want to pray and be someone who dances around the house, hands raised, filled with exaltation and free of care what people think. But, it's not about other's opinions, it's about a form of expression that doesn't glorify God the way I feel he deserves honor. Sure, I could easily get lost in thinking that my emphasis here is on my own inferiority and my unwillingness to do what I think is really about myself, but right now, in my life, God isn't the king and more discipline, more gritting my teeth doesn't seem like the answer. To me, that's all just striving.

I'm not trying to be smart about my love for God, because it's not brains that God wants. I'm trying to be real with him in a way that I haven't yet, and, honestly, I don't know what that is. Of course, therein lies the soil of newness...of opportunity. When we struggle and pursue God into the dark, hard places of ourselves, we can feel unproductive, hardened, dead to life because we are facing the strongholds in our life. I sincerely hope part of what is going on nowadays in my life revolves around this growth opportunity, in spite of the fact that my soul senses pointlessness and unfruitful labor.

I wonder, when reading Paul's talk of the fruit of the Spirit, how many of those fruits were present how much of the time. For instance, I think that the apostles, after the Holy Spirit filled them, were so enraptured with God's amazing presence that it was very difficult not to be joyful, patient, kind, etc. But, like so many Christians have faced before, what happens after the high wears off?

Friday, another thought stream that passed through my mind was the idea related to something I saw last week on Heroes. (Yes, I admit that I do not actually only watch the show, but eagerly anticipate each new episode. I have come out of the closet!) This past week there was an interesting conversation between one of the main characters, Petrelli, and Lindermann, an until-now-unrevealed mastermind, which explored an interested dichotomy. Below is the major excerpt I want to focus on.

Lindermann: "Are you happy nathan?"
Petrelli: "Not especially I guess I have a few issues that plague me."
Lindermann: "Oh, dear sorry to hear that. A time comes when a man has to ask himself whether he wants a life of happiness or a life of meaning."
Petrelli: "I'd like to have to both."
Lindermann: "It can't be done. Two very different paths. To be truly happy a man must live absolutely in the present no thought of what's gone before and no thought of what lies ahead. But, a life of meaning, a man is condemned to wallow in the past and obsesss about the future. And my guess is you've been quite a bit of obsessing about yours this past few months."

The notion that happiness and meaning are mutually exclusive is not novel. However, what is presented here, partly as a way of fleshing out the divisive character through the clear use of manipulative thinking, is not directly what I find important. It just reminded me that television often has its finger on the spiritual pulse of some major, current issues. For me, this show just highlighted a question that has been long lingering in my mind related to the relationship of meaning and spiritual fulfillment.

Getting back to the question I posed, does meaning necessarily span time immemorial past and to come? And, how does this related to happiness? Or, more importantly, for the Christian, blessedness?

I often associate a life filled with the Spirit as one that is meaningful. When we are doing something that matters to God and his kingdom, we are drawn closer to him, and as an indirect consequence, filled more and more his Spirit and secondarily cultivate more of the fruit of the Spirit. But, is this true? Does meaning directly relate to the fruit of the Spirit? I guess, indirectly at least, the fruit of the Spirit is something that fills a person after they have met, accepted and grown with the Spirit.

But, this isn't always the case. Newborn Christians often have great fullness of the Spirit, then, as it may occur, go many ways. Some, as John intimated in Revelation to the Church of Ephesus, "have forsaken your first love." (Rev. 2:4) Others, get lost in life, as Christ indicated in the Parable of the Soils, "Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain". (Mk. 4:7) Neither of these cases quite feel like what I am experiencing. I feel, in some ways, closer to Christ than ever before. And, I do not yet possess the wisdom to face the issue of worldly issues choking out the Word without some fear in my spirit.

Beyond these, though, is a lack of knowledge, an emptiness when it comes to my purpose. If one were to ask me, "Why are you alive?" I would have to say, "I'm really not sure." Now, I can hear in the back of my mind people reading this thinking, he's suicidal, his life is without meaning. That's not it at all. I'm trying to say that I believe many people have a clear sense of what their lives are for. God has communicated what their purpose on earth is. For instance, Kerri has received the word, on at least a few occasions, that she is to be the mother of many. Now, she's still not clear on whether that's the spiritual mother, the physical mother, etc, but she has an idea. I, on the other hand, see all these great things, understand what is going on, and never feel called, or, when I feel called, am not presented the opportunity to join these things to which I feel connected. That is the great conflict in my life right now.

I see so many people seeking a sense of permanent change in their lives. People want to become someone else. They desire to be different from before. Whether driven by displeasure with self or the pursuit of more (really closely related if you ask me), people are often motivated by unhappiness to action. If not unhappiness, necessity for certain. So, either unhappiness or necessity cause people to act.

I remember a long time ago, I once stumbled on this basic thought and saw all physical action as a desire for change. For instance, why would a person need to do anything if nothing needed to be changed? They wouldn't. At that point, only desire would motivate action. Yet, desire is rooted in a sense of a need for completeness to resolve the incompleteness. So, in the end, even arbitrary desires are rooted in a need to change the incomplete into the complete. This little loop of logic was interesting but really yielded no clear conclusions as to behavior or activity based on this insight.

So, I looked at it again, this time a little differently, to see that this basic idea coincides with unhappiness as a motivation for action, but did not take into account necessity. People often understand that the pursuit of happiness is a powerful motivator, but, equally as powerful, and often less intentionally focused on, is the truth that necessity is a tremendous force in life. In truth, most of my life is an exercise in dealing with necessity. I paused when selecting the word dealing because coping seems more apropos, but that touches the heart of the issue. What is it about necessity that makes it such a tyrannical force?

Well, part of it is the fact that necessity is often something which requires submission. Most people don't enjoy being humbled and necessity has an utterly incomparable way of doing just that. Indeed, I liked what I found while researching the Greek for the kairos/chronos etymology in mythology. Chronos is often considered akin to necessity and the best verses I noted related to that said,

"Prometheus: But Khronos (Time), as he grows older, teaches everything.
Hermes: Khronos (Time) has not taught you self-control or prudence - yet." - Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 982

I sensed, when I read this, that the lessons that Chronos (time) teaches are things which cannot be avoided, no matter how long we run, because, in the end, they must be learned. Necessity often passes as a double for fate, only fate is tied more closely with the concept of destiny and necessity more closely with possibility. But, between the two is the connection that fate is what will occur while necessity are the conditions required for fate to be completed. In this context, it is possible that necessity is a manner through which God guarantees our destined purpose. Against this aspect of necessity, and most particularly, the undesirable elements of character formation, we most fiercely rage.

But why? Why is it that I reject necessity? Why do I reject what changes God requires me to make on such a gradual, constant basis? It seems like grunt work, the menial transformation designed to rid the soul of ungodly characteristics. In the end, we become better because of our humiliation, but, the process is painful. The longer we hold off, the longer it takes. In my case, I just wonder what I it is I am not humble enough about? Am I supposed to accept the necessary elements of my life without seeking better? At times, I feel that the "way things are" cannot be challenged because that is what God has ordained. Yet, if that's true, then we cannot rage against powers and principalities as we are called to? Where is the line between what is status quo and the illusion of the way things are as construed by deception which must be challenged? What must we truly challenge and what must we accept? It takes wisdom I do not yet have to identify those forces to which we must submit and to which we must offer defiance and resistance.

My lack of wisdom and discernment regarding the true necessities in my life, and, as a result, the amount of time and energy I waste pursing unnecessary things, is probably a deeper source of frustration than what I began writing about at the beginning of this blog. I am tempted to believe that what God wills is the necessary and all else must be resisted, but part of my mind suggests that we may, at times, submit to Satan's will for God's greater purposes. Now, by this I am not saying I think I need to sin to do what God wants. I am thinking more of the situation, like Christ, enduring the mockery of the Sanhedrin and the Roman guards to fulfill God's prophecies, than I am about "disobeying God to glorify him".

Nothing I've touched on today seems like an easy topic, but they're definitely things I have weighing on my heart. Of course, when I see people at church, and they ask, "How are you?", it's hard to really get into it because it's a conversation only few can have. God and I have it all the time, but that leads back to that place of solitude. As he highlighted to me this morning, for whatever reason, community is essential to Christian life and survival. Now, what is it that I have to do in order to find what I need? Why do my necessities elude me Lord? Even in pursuit of you I feel even more strained, longing, seeing more of your glory, but unable to touch you. Such a great burden to desire God will all my heart but have so little of him in my life.

I probably won't finish this thread because it is one that has long been growing in my mind, but want to start tackling it because it came fresh today as I reflected on a few different concepts. The thread begins with the simple idea of creativity.

For a long time, I wanted to be creative like the greats who have affected history. Not that I longed for fame. It was quite the opposite. I didn't want the attention. I wanted to be possess the ability, the power to so perfectly and amazingly reflect the majesty of creation. Genius captivates in such a way that their impressions of truth seem so perfectly formed that, though we may grasp that other truths exist, the one we behold at that moment is in itself perfect.

Indeed, the maturity of genius works are the essence of their captivating nature. They are so complete in their maturity that no flaws appear. Most creative works are representations of other things. Works of genius, however, are, in and of themselves, no longer representing something else, but, because of their combination of perfection, grace and beauty, something transcending the line of representative to actual.

I contemplated many of the great works of genius trying to find a magical bow that I could use to pull once and have the eternal truths they embody in their artistic efforts unfold themselves before me, hoping for a denouement from which I could glean my own possession of their prowess and abilities. This was really a vanity, the belief that I necessarily could autopsy surpassing brilliance simply by gazing at it long enough, but in this exercise held some interesting points I picked up along the way.

While reading Julia Kristeva's Revolution on Poetic Language many years ago, I noted her use of the term authority as being quite different from anything else I had ever read. In the back of my mind I held the concepts of authority, as discussed by Jesus, but only as a backdrop for my musings. From my considerations of Kristeva's work, I noticed my idea of the creative authority changed from that of "one possessing superior knowledge" (like a subject matter expert who knew all the fine points of a topic) to something more akin to a right over, an author's right.

The language, being French, played on the concepts a little differently than it had in English as the same sunlight on foreign waters shines a slightly different color. Authority hinted at authorship, not power...as in someone possessing the right to decide the fate of matters. At that moment, I saw God's authority more like that of an author than a legislative ruler. God's Word. His creative acts. His actions. These all were creative in nature. They added to existence, whereas authority, as I had always known it, focused more on the administration and government of affairs.
Suddenly, authority was a matter of creative expression.

I saw this insight, noted it, cataloged it into my memory and moved on. Several years later I encountered the creative spirit, mainly as a theme, a quiet hint of a conversation I sensed interesting, at conferences and in book titles. Several revelatory speakers have been discussing the power of God and how it intersects with the creative realms of the arts and sciences. In fact, creativity has been connected with revelatory circles for quite some time, but has only recently gotten a reintroduction on a national level.

Now, I look back and see that there is an almost silent undercurrent not being mentioned, at least no where that I note. In new age circles and some secular humanist camps, the theme that everyone's genius lies in their uniqueness. Now, there is the age-old truism that "You're unique". This is often followed by the tit-for-tat cynic saying, "...just like everyone else." There are many efforts to undermine the power of this statement, but the most dangerous is one that recognizes the truth in it.

Many preying on the power of this realization introduce it, establish it as "hidden truth" not shown by Christianity but known to those who are sharing it. Once people are trapped, they often have already been wounded in the belief that uniqueness cannot truly be tapped within the Christian framework. Well, I won't get into that discussion tonight, but rather point out that Christianity is not only a good fit for these truths, but the source of their power. What other faith has a creative act as the first occurrence in their past?

God's call is for each person to recognize they have a truly unique purpose in the Kingdom of God, to create the most amazing work yet to be seen with the help of all others on the face of this earth. Our authority, our authorship, lies in participating with God's will and love is the only medium through which we shall create truly eternal things. The creative spirit seeks to leave the world a different, changed place; this is the essence of what I sense alternative religions are hoping to captivate and that with which they are trying to abscond unnoticed.

I hate the thought that spiritual pick pockets surround me day in and day out, but it is so easy to forget that we are called to war with love. There is nothing better for an author to do than to leave their stamp, their unique signature on their works. That ensures the authenticity of their works. Most people fear the same way. But, only love can be unique. That is the stamp of a Christian authority, unique love, a love so special that it breaks the mold. It cracks even the hardest hearts and their stony souls with its powerful manner. Dare to love in ways that none have seen and claim your authority. Claim your authorship.

In our war of love and hate, it's not playing by the rules that helps God win, it's playing with the rules. Take the world's rules and show them what it truly means to have power. Ruling over someone, something is not truly power; you're simply a manager who keeps things in check. Creating is true power and there are no rules for being creative. Indeed, that is the antithesis of creativity. If it is a new creation, it cannot abide by any rule. It must, by definition, be something for which no rule exists. Otherwise, it is simply a new arrangement of something old. An essential character of poetry is that it makes the old seem new. That newness, that life, is the power of creativity being impressed on something old.

When I think of how Christ impacted lives, he would take the old, breath life into it and would reveal a new creation. There is so much impact not touched on in the power of new life poured out by the Spirit indwelling a newly saved person. I struggle at the loss when people fail to recognize the unspeakable glory of what the one lost sheep means. Newness, restoration, creation, salvation! How can we not get impassioned about such a display of power, such a display of genius and creative mastery? Let us create love and take hold of the words and works only we can.

About 4 days ago I saw Obama Barak on TV with his wife prior to doing an interview with someone. Maybe Oprah or some other media pundit. Now, I'm not a political person by any means, but upon seeing him, I immediately heard in my mind, "There's the next president." At that point, I took a few moments to research exactly who he is. I found out a few things, but mainly just got an idea of this man is. For followers of politics, his arrival is probably not that unheralded, but, I think for most folks, he will seem to have come from nowhere. At first, he seems quite fitting for the task, but, my ever-conspiring mind then questioned if he might be one of the world order types. Truth be told, I have no clue as to his ultimate plans or much more than the fact that he is being foisted it into the consciousness from nowhere. Nonetheless, I sensed such a strong hint when I got this word I wanted to note it for posterity.