Clocklike Contentment

(Me) "Listen, I'll do anything God wants, go anywhere he pleases and be both content and happy with it. I know that where ever he places me is where I'll be the happiest and the most content, even if that's in some foreign country ducking bullets while going to church. He's (God) just gotta tell me where to go."

(Mentor) "I disagree with two things you said: First, that you will be happy where ever God calls you. That's your first mistake; Joy is God give, Contentment is learned, and as for Happiness, well that's just a fleeting feeling that we are sometimes blessed to encounter while living out the other two. Secondly, how can you say you will be content ducking bullets in a foreign country while going to church if you can't even learn contentment here at Valley Forge Christian College?"

Talk about a reality check... but I can honestly say that it's so true. I am always seeking after contentment but I never seem to find it. But that's just it, I wont find it until I learn it. I wish I had some amazing method to explain to you on how to grow to be content, but I'm still learning how myself. What I will say is this: 

Contentment is found and perfected in obeying Gods laws. 

This doesn't mean that we have to lose sleep over being perfect, it means obeying what God has told us to do. To love our neighbor as ourself. And that neighbor is God too! We need to learn to love God the way we love ourselves, and in doing so we will begin to love ourselves more. 

2 John 6 says, "And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments." That's love, to obey, to observe, and to follow the commandments of God. He has whats best for me in my life. Still though I struggle greatly with being content. It's frustrating because I am always looking for the next thing, and then when it gets here, instead of enjoying that moment, I'm already looking for the next one. It's a lot like what Hyoi (from Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis) says when he answers Ransoms question about pleasure; "Maledil made us so. How could there ever be enough to eat if everyone had twenty young? And how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back - if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that day?" 

I feel like the person that Hyoi is speaking of here. Always looking for that same day to repeat, or looking for the greatest moment to come. That's the problem though, my expectation is that one day something great will just pop up out of nowhere. But that's not how life works. Each hour makes up each day, and each day makes up our life. Learning to be content means learning to obey God. If you're like me you constantly pray, "Oh God, speak to me," but maybe what you need to be praying is, "God teach me to obey and observe your commandments, because that's what you've been speaking to me and I haven't listened."

"True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare." -G.K. Chesterton

Father of each hour, Lord of the week,

Bath my heart in your Joy,

Illuminate my mind with your wisdom,

And bind your law to my soul.

Let my heart delight in doing your will,

May my lips be silent, and my hands diligent,

As I humbly pursue your statutes.

-The Albatross

Walking Dead

Loss is a interesting thing. It comes in many forms. Losing a loved one to death, losing your significant other to a break up, losing that baseball game, or even losing those car keys that you always seem to misplace. No matter what kind of loss we experience it's tough to say which one is greater. 

Maybe it's because of Good Friday, or maybe it's just because of life, but lately I've been thinking a lot about loss. Specifically I've been thinking about the difference loss by death, and loss due to altercations or differences of opinions etc... When I was 15 years old my sister Chris was killed in a car accident. For many of you you probably already know this. What was interesting about her death was how I recovered from it. I found that after reaching the stage of Acceptance (one of the five stages of loss) I found that the pain of losing her had subsided and in place of this pain was fond memories and a new perspective. 

You see with Chris, I could control how I mourned to some extent. I could choose the memories I wanted to think about, I could begin to plan my life around her not being there anymore. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't interact with her anymore. That's the thing about death, we can't control it, we can only release the pain and hold the memories of those we love close. 

But what happens when the person isn't dead?

As crazy as it may sound, I've often found that losing someone you love to altercations and differences of opinion can in some ways be more difficult. Think about it. Man A loses his wife to death. That's it. She's gone, there is no more interaction, he chooses the memories, releases the pain and eventually moves on. (Obviously it's not that easy but you get the idea) But what about Man B who loses his wife to a divorce. For Man B there is no burial. The memories continue, but they are never the same. In a sense, Man B is interacting with a zombie. 

It's a bitter thing to lose anyone or anything. Unfortunately loss is part of life. We all go through it. The question is how will we handle it. For those grieving the loss of a loved one due to altercations or differences of opinion, I want to encourage you to view your loss much like mine. 

REMEMBER THAT IT'S OK TO GRIEVE!

Allow yourself to work through those cycles of grief and come away with a heart ready to accept your loss but also ready to receive what God has for you. Don't ever forget that God gives good gifts to his children. Don't take my word for it, see what Matthew 7:11 has to say about it, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"

Take heart! Know that your Father in heaven cares deeply for you and sees your loss. Know that he will comfort you and strengthen you. Jesus is a God of compassion and grace. And he's still in the business of restoration. 

Oh God of the cradle and the coffin, 

creator and taker of life,

Grant thy servant eyes to see your righteous sovereignty,

Let not my heart be burdened by the unbiased breath of death and separation,

clothe me in your garments of praise,

so that my bones may sing of your goodness.

-The Albatross

Constellations of Glory

I love stars! I love outdoors, camping, sleeping out under the stars. To behold the splendor of God's handiwork in the burning of bright chandeliers hung precisely across the deep abyss. It's something about them. They are the watchers of the night, eternally burning flares bursting with the luster of God's all consuming glory. 

Interestingly enough one star doesn't add much light to our galaxy. But 6 sextillion stars can add a little bit more...I mean seriously 6 sextillion will definitely make more of a dent on the night sky. Stars are individual units which, when clustered tightly (from our eyes) together form constellations, majestic masterpiece that tell a story. They are the art gallery of the night sky, the paintings of past, present and future events. They are eternal monuments.

Monuments much like that in Joshua chapter 4. God had just repeated the incredible miracle of splitting waters. The Israelites crossed the Jordan river on dry ground. Joshua being a righteous man, decided to set up an altar for his people. He chose twelve men to take twelve stones from the river and set up an altar on the side of the river. "4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, 'Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.'" (Joshua 4:4-7) These stones served as a reminder of what God had done. Every time someone saw those stones they thought about what had taken place there that day.

As i've learned in my preaching class... "So what's that have to do with me?" 

How are we monuments? How are we constellations burning brightly for all to see what the Lord has done in our lives. When people see us do they see the story of God's faithfulness in our lives? Do they see the miracles that have taken place in our life? My hope and desire is that when people look at my life, they can see what God has done in me and for me. 

Oh Father, master and maker of ethereal light,

May I glow with the presence of your goodness,

May my life but strung brightly with the lanterns of your love,

Of Father, master and maker, let my life shine for your glory.

-The Albatross

Who is your Muse?

Have you ever read any of the great poems, the epics of old? Something like Dante's Inferno, Milton's Paradise Lost, or Homer's Iliad and Oddessy. If you're like me then you have or at least want to eventually. I personally love these poems. They are dripping with imagery, sewn together with metaphors and similes and ripe with vocabulary words that are so uncommonly used you may think they are another language. 

Part of a great epic is the role of the Muse. The muses are the goddesses of literature, science and art. Typically the poet will pray or send his or her condolences to the muse before embarking on their literary journey. It's actually said that Dante (author of Dante's Divine Comedy) put down his pen for years, vowing to never pick it up again until he could write a work worthy of his lover and muse Beatrice. 

That is truly incredible! A love so deep, so great, so fervent, it drives you to put down your greatest pleasure, your very identity for something else. Dante was a poet...his very identity was wrapped up in his pen. His blood was ink, his pulse pentameter, his breath, literature. And yet all for the love of Beatrice he would lay it down, committing years of his life to learning in order to prove his love worthy. 

I know you guys know where this one is going, but come on, I had to say it. 

Who is your muse?

Where do you draw your inspiration from? Who is the one that motivates you more than anything else in this world. Lately I've been thinking about my own life and how I call myself a Christian, and yet, God is the farthest thing from my daily inspiration. What if we started living like Dante? Living every day for the sole purpose of pursing a life worthy of our love. Does our love for God motivate us to lay down everything we love and hold so dearly that we are willing to drop our very identities for Him? It reminds me of the Apostle Paul who wrote, "...for to me, to live is Christ, to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21) Is living really Christ to us? I guess I'm starting to repeat myself but the question begs to be answered, who is your muse?

Oh holy Father and eternal essence of light,

Radiance of true light, and pure divine nature,

Grant favor to your servants fleshly meter,

May my life forever beat, with the rhythms of heaven.

-The Albatross

Paint-strokes on the Cosmos

I am convinced that there can only be but the sins of self which keep a man forever enraptured by his own distorted reflection which he calls beauty. If he is to know beauty, he must render void his heart of all narcissistic reflections and gaze eternally upon beauty himself.

To know beauty is to know God. As Thomas Aquinas said, (paraphrasing big time) everything is a reflection of the highest beauty, that is God. I've often found that when I focus on myself, I focus on what I will lose. Obviously what we gain when we surrender ourselves to God is so much greater than any temporal gain we may receive by holding on to our selfish ambitions. It's the sins of self, the "I" sins, the "me" sins which keep us consumed by our own desire and make us blind to what God is really trying to do in our lives.

And this is where it gets confusing. 

The more we gaze upon the eternal, the more we begin to look like the eternal. That is to say, that the more we take our eyes off of ourselves and fix them upon God, the more accustomed we become to true beauty. True beauty doesn't look like this world though, and that's where it gets tough. Sometimes true beauty is loving that person you can't stand. Sometimes true beauty is getting over your moping and self-loathing and focusing on others. As we begin to see true beauty more and more clearly, we begin to see opportunities to make the world around us beautiful. 

It's like artwork. A painter sees the world through the eyes of his paintbrush. He looks at every stone, cloud and tree as a curious model, posing for him. As he places his brush to the canvas he draws from his thoughts, his interactions with these models to create the masterpiece which he calls art. And that's exactly what beauty does to us. It causes us to see each human being, each situation, every circumstance as a canvas, waiting to be explored. Every moment we spend gazing upon eternal beauty is another moment spent pouring paint onto our palette. 

It's pretty cool when we begin to see every situation as another opportunity to paint a canvas of love upon the infinite cosmos. So I encourage you, begin to set your gaze upon beauty, and watch a masterpiece unfold. 
-The Albatross

Know that you are known

The other day I was sitting in my car and venting for hours on end about life, love, my dreams, my desires, my failures and all the other things that we emotional people do. As I continued to rattle on, verbally vomiting on my poor companion, he gently stopped me and said this to me. 

"Jim...I feel as though you need to know that you are known."

It seems so simple but the truth is WE ARE KNOWN. We are known personally by the creator of the universe. He recognizes us! People that is so profound! The very God who knit together the universe, who painted the stars in the sky, who breathed forth oceans and spoke mountains into being, that God! He knows us and loves us. So many times we can get so bent out of shape over not getting that "job" or that "relationship" or "that A+" that we worked so hard for. Sometimes life can be so big that we feel as though we can't take another step. And sometimes life gets to a place where we feel as though no one understands us (or at least anyone in their right mind). But that's just it. You're known. Jesus had nine inch nails driven through his hands and feet so that on the day that you stand before God he can say to you, "My Son, YOU ARE KNOWN."
-The Albatross