Sunday, April 26, 2015
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year!
Today is January 1st. I have decided, in honor of tradition, to not blog about New Year's Resolution. (Unfortunately, I missed my opportunity to blog on Christmas Day. I had intentions to not blog about the Reason for the Season. Also, I'm currently accepting advice and suggestions for my February 14 Post. Not tackling the topic of True Love seems daunting.)
One that note: I wrote a poem a while back. I'm curious as to what people think of it.
This poem, as it's written, suggests that deliberate sin is essentially the equivalent to spitting in Christ's face, personally driving the nails into His wrists, and demanding, "I still expect you to get me into heaven."
However, the original draft didn't include the last stanza. I felt that the poem was too easily misinterpreted without out some sort of clarification so I threw in those last 3 lines to attempt to assure people that this poem wasn't some expressed vendetta against God. Originally, however, I was processing through the idea that the mere acceptance of salvation is to literally trample all over the name of Jesus. A perverse trampling that the very man being trampled gladly ordains, and even orchestrated, so that we might be reconciled with him.
It's not a pleasant thing to think about. To think that I have claim to an inheritance so absurdly beyond anything I could ever deserve because I allowed the most beautiful person in existence to suffer my consequences. I know I'm supposed to be thankful for such a sacrificial outpouring of love, but sometimes I almost want to reject it. Pridefully, I don't want to allow somebody else to suffer the pain that I had sowed, least of all the king of the universe.
I wonder how people react to that. Does that thought seem unnecessarily dramatic? Does it seem blasphemous to paint Salvation in such a light that it might seem undesirable? Could it be Biblical to say that to accept grace is to abuse it?
I began to cultivate this thought after reading Shusaku Endo's Silence.
[spoiler alert]
At the climax of the story the protagonist, a Porteguese Missionary, is asked to trample atop an image of Christ. He had lain all night in a small dark cellar listening to moans of tortured Japanese Christians. When he is finally brought out he is told that the blood of these poeple was on his hands. He need only trample atop the image of Christ and the killings would stop. Standing there, at the verge of physical and mental collapse, the protagonist becomes aware of an intense pain in his foot as he considers doing what he had refused to do for the entirety of his captivity. It is at this moment that the long silent Jesus finally speaks to him:
[end spoiler]
I had several more jumbled thoughts that I tried to get out, but I couldn't seem to form coherent sentences. I wrote and rewrote several paragraphs that went down tangents about nothing, and it's late now, and I think I'm done writing.
...so remember the importance of New Beginnings, Today is a New Day perfect for New Resolutions.
One that note: I wrote a poem a while back. I'm curious as to what people think of it.
Lovely Blood
How lovely are your tear-stained lips
Your battered ribs
And bleeding wrists
That you should die - my sweetest bliss
Why should I cry at thought of this?
So I betray you with my kiss
At my hands you bleed for me
My hungry hands strike out at thee
Unchained hands: loosed, rampant, free
Hands laden with my apathy
My egocentricity
My jubilee
These clenched fist now beat you down
Vehemently throw you to the ground
My lust and greed and zeal abound
That I may still wear this holy gown
And sing among triumphant sound
So I will break you to preserve my crown
For I ask:
How else should I describe my deliberate sins?
Intentional, audacious, blatant sins.
This poem, as it's written, suggests that deliberate sin is essentially the equivalent to spitting in Christ's face, personally driving the nails into His wrists, and demanding, "I still expect you to get me into heaven."
However, the original draft didn't include the last stanza. I felt that the poem was too easily misinterpreted without out some sort of clarification so I threw in those last 3 lines to attempt to assure people that this poem wasn't some expressed vendetta against God. Originally, however, I was processing through the idea that the mere acceptance of salvation is to literally trample all over the name of Jesus. A perverse trampling that the very man being trampled gladly ordains, and even orchestrated, so that we might be reconciled with him.
It's not a pleasant thing to think about. To think that I have claim to an inheritance so absurdly beyond anything I could ever deserve because I allowed the most beautiful person in existence to suffer my consequences. I know I'm supposed to be thankful for such a sacrificial outpouring of love, but sometimes I almost want to reject it. Pridefully, I don't want to allow somebody else to suffer the pain that I had sowed, least of all the king of the universe.
I wonder how people react to that. Does that thought seem unnecessarily dramatic? Does it seem blasphemous to paint Salvation in such a light that it might seem undesirable? Could it be Biblical to say that to accept grace is to abuse it?
I began to cultivate this thought after reading Shusaku Endo's Silence.
[spoiler alert]
At the climax of the story the protagonist, a Porteguese Missionary, is asked to trample atop an image of Christ. He had lain all night in a small dark cellar listening to moans of tortured Japanese Christians. When he is finally brought out he is told that the blood of these poeple was on his hands. He need only trample atop the image of Christ and the killings would stop. Standing there, at the verge of physical and mental collapse, the protagonist becomes aware of an intense pain in his foot as he considers doing what he had refused to do for the entirety of his captivity. It is at this moment that the long silent Jesus finally speaks to him:
'Trample! Trample! I more than anyone know the pain in your foot. Trample! It was to be trampled on by men that I was born into this world. It was to share men's pain that I carried my cross.’
[end spoiler]
I had several more jumbled thoughts that I tried to get out, but I couldn't seem to form coherent sentences. I wrote and rewrote several paragraphs that went down tangents about nothing, and it's late now, and I think I'm done writing.
...so remember the importance of New Beginnings, Today is a New Day perfect for New Resolutions.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Inauguration
I suppose this is my official leap onto the Blogging Bandwagon. Today is Thanksgiving and I should probably wait a few days before I make my inauguration post. I somehow feel that I'm doing the holiday a disservice if I blog in such a way that the last line doesn't read "So what are you thankful for?" I'd really rather write about what the purpose for this blog is so please allow me a moment to petition for mercy:
"Thanksgiving, please forgive me for defiling the sacred theme of your day. I am thankful for your forgiveness."
Hopefully that covered my bases.
I write to think through things.
Often I don't feel like I'm able to think through ideas very coherently if the thoughts never leave my head. Sometimes, when I try to write my thoughts down I realize that when one thought had lead to another thought they had done so by no logical transition. Sometimes I realize that a trail of thoughts were about as profound as a line of unconnected chain links is useful. Sometimes I scrap the thoughts as worthless and sometimes I work harder to find the connection that my brain had so easily and intuitively conjure up.
Other times when I'm writing I don't realize the weight of a thought until it has been expressed in a more tangible way (written words as opposed to mere thoughts). I've found myself skimming over ideas that, while they were mere side notes when floating around in my head, instantly seem profound when read (I don't mean to say that I have greater or higher thoughts than other people. When I say profound I mean that the thought excites me, that I believe I can learn something by seeing where the thought goes.
I also feel that it's important to open up your thoughts to criticism. A lot of what I try to think through concern what the Bible has to say about God and living life. Many people of todays society feel entitled to believe exactly what they want to believe. And I'm hardly any different. We end up with definitions of what it means to live a moral, complete, purposeful, and worthy life that conveniently describes the kind of person we already are. Since the bible is objective truth you must be willing to have your thoughts challenged. Think for yourself, of course, but, i know for myself at least, i'm inviting delusion if I never allow other people to check and balance my thoughts about different things.
And to build off of that, I'm hoping that this blog ,and the people who might read it, could become something that would help hold me accountable to "thinking about such things"; pursuing the heart and mind of Christ and desiring to know him and his purposes for my life. Obviously there are other ways to seek the Lord than through blogging, but I'd this blog to be some sort of demonstration of the things that I'm processing through.
That's good, I guess, for now. I didn't think this first post was going to get very long.
umm... So what are you thankful for?
"Thanksgiving, please forgive me for defiling the sacred theme of your day. I am thankful for your forgiveness."
Hopefully that covered my bases.
I write to think through things.
Often I don't feel like I'm able to think through ideas very coherently if the thoughts never leave my head. Sometimes, when I try to write my thoughts down I realize that when one thought had lead to another thought they had done so by no logical transition. Sometimes I realize that a trail of thoughts were about as profound as a line of unconnected chain links is useful. Sometimes I scrap the thoughts as worthless and sometimes I work harder to find the connection that my brain had so easily and intuitively conjure up.
Other times when I'm writing I don't realize the weight of a thought until it has been expressed in a more tangible way (written words as opposed to mere thoughts). I've found myself skimming over ideas that, while they were mere side notes when floating around in my head, instantly seem profound when read (I don't mean to say that I have greater or higher thoughts than other people. When I say profound I mean that the thought excites me, that I believe I can learn something by seeing where the thought goes.
I also feel that it's important to open up your thoughts to criticism. A lot of what I try to think through concern what the Bible has to say about God and living life. Many people of todays society feel entitled to believe exactly what they want to believe. And I'm hardly any different. We end up with definitions of what it means to live a moral, complete, purposeful, and worthy life that conveniently describes the kind of person we already are. Since the bible is objective truth you must be willing to have your thoughts challenged. Think for yourself, of course, but, i know for myself at least, i'm inviting delusion if I never allow other people to check and balance my thoughts about different things.
And to build off of that, I'm hoping that this blog ,and the people who might read it, could become something that would help hold me accountable to "thinking about such things"; pursuing the heart and mind of Christ and desiring to know him and his purposes for my life. Obviously there are other ways to seek the Lord than through blogging, but I'd this blog to be some sort of demonstration of the things that I'm processing through.
That's good, I guess, for now. I didn't think this first post was going to get very long.
umm... So what are you thankful for?
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