Breath of Life
I can't quite explain it, but lately I've been overwhelmed by the weight of life. Not the weight on my shoulders. Moreso the weightiness of it. The gravity. The significance. What is it? I don't mean "Why are we here?". I mean "What IS life?", be it in man or insect. Where does it go? Not us, but life. Even writing this, my heart is racing and my mind is winning. I wonder how people take lives, and I wonder what they do with them. I wonder how much of "me" is a certain balance of neural chemicals, corporeal elements, and social/historical/cultural conditioning. How many of these tiny but significant details would need to change before my wife would stop recognizing me? Would I still be me if I no longer looked, sounded, acted, or thought like me? Where would I be?
Maybe my soul is the real me.
I'm ashamed to say that these thoughts frighten me. As someone who claims to follow Jesus, I'm supposed to believe that what happens after this life is to be looked forward to, not feared. The 12th chapter of John says that "The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." I'm afraid that I love my life. How am I supposed to hate something that is so full of blessing? I'm afraid that I'm confused. I'm afraid that I'm afraid.
God breathed into us, and we've been struggling to catch our breath ever since.
A Life Undocumented
A life undocumented is a life wasted. We should all be scribbling furiously into notebooks with each passing moment. If we don't, how will future generations know we were here? Rather, how will they know what we did and how we felt every single moment of every single day?
The benefits would be manifold. We all know that it's difficult to believe our parents were ever teenagers, but it might be slightly easier to swallow if we could read detailed accounts of what they thought, wore, and ate during a typical day in their 15th year. Also, it's not at all uncommon to have world-changing thoughts while performing menial tasks and to be perfectly unable to recall them later on. These thoughts would no longer be lost thanks to our running commentary.
Perhaps not everyone's life warrants such scrutiny, but surely mine does... doesn't it?
It was said of Jesus that He accomplished so much during his earthly life that were it all written down the whole world couldn't contain the written words. Thanks to the digital age, this would more than likely no longer be a problem. Of course, The Gospels would still need to be edited for reasons beyond space. Even Jesus committed the mundane.
Who would ever read my life story? I could use it as a refresher. Maybe my kids would pick it up. My grandchildren would at least marvel that it exists. But then? In the bid for immortality, the text won't help. Augustine is dead, and one day I will be too.
Currently, many of us use technology to document and declare much of what we do. I "Tweet". When I stop to think why I do it, I sometimes arrive at the thought that I'm screaming "I exist!" into the void that surrounds. Other times, I think it's just something to do. But mostly, I'm screaming. We're all screaming.
A life undocumented is a mysterious life. Perhaps someday mystery will be all that's left.
We Do It To Ourselves
Where two or more are gathered
We're more or less alone
The blinds are drawn, we're on our knees
Pretending no one's home
Good?
"Why do you call me good?" - Jesus, from the 10th chapter of the Gospel of Mark
I caught myself today saying of an acquaintance, "He seems like a good man", and I was reminded of the above verse. Who or what can actually be good?
As my understanding of theology goes, goodness finds it's very definition and context in who God is. As such, there are many things that we call "good" which are easily dismissed (like Apatow films and Krispy Kreme donuts). But there are a slew of things which through discernment can seem good though lack anchorage in God. Philosophy can tell us that endings are good because they add meaning to life, or that evolution is good because it brings out potential that would otherwise lay dormant. These are arbitrary examples, but they happen to be the first 2 that come to mind, so I'll assume significance.
I must admit that, in the past, I would have subscribed to the notion that these latter things were in fact good, but now that I think about it, neither of them seem fully applicable. God does not end, nor does He change, and if these actions are not found in Him, then how can they be labeled as Him?
There is good and bad. Truth is not partial to the postmodern world of solid grey. That being said, perhaps there are things that point to goodness without being good in and of themselves, such as death and change. Through the knowledge of death we are forced to decide how to live our lives (hopefully toward reliance and goodness), and these steps can only be taken through the conduit of change.
"Only God is good", so anything that actually is good (whether we call it as it is or not) must be a part of His divine image. So I'm left to conclude that there are things which are bad, things which are good, and things which can lead to goodness, and these last things can be any combination of the former things.
One of the greatest things that God can do for us is enable us to see clearly enough to distinguish what is good. Then (and only then) will we see Him for who He really is: good.
Isaiah — Chapter 27
"At that same time, a fine vineyard will appear.
There's something to sing about!
I, God, tend it.
I keep it well-watered.
I keep careful watch over it
so that no one can damage it.
I'm not angry. I care.
Even if it gives me thistles and thornbushes,
I'll just pull them out
and burn them up.
Let that vine cling to me for safety,
let it find a good and whole life with me,
let it hold on for a good and whole life." Isaiah 27: 2-5
Ever seen Little Shop of Horrors? You know, the movie/musical about a crazy talking plant that eats people? Obviously, it's not based on a true story, but it's weird to think that there are carnivorous plants out there. Actually. When they snap shut, it almost makes you think they have a mind...like they made a decision to do that. Even non-crazy plants, some of them turn and face the sun, as though they're consciously choosing to do so. Now, I'm no scientist, but I have eaten my veggies and weeded my garden; I've yet to find a brain inside any plant (though cauliflower nearly had me fooled). So what makes them tick?
The above passage mentions a future (or a past/present) where God Himself plants and tends a vineyard. Think "Eden". Think "Heaven". Think "God would probably be an awesome Gardner". Quoted in the first-person, God says that He'll quell His anger with any sort of bad produce, He'll prune and tend lovingly, and He'll watch over and protect it. Then He says "Let that vine cling to me for safety, let it find a good and whole life with me, let it hold on for a good and whole life." How?
In the 15th chapter of John, Jesus says "I am the vine; you are the branches" (verse 5). He also says "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener" (verse 1). Here, we are again warned to cling or to "remain" as part of the vine. So how do we remain? How do we cling? Clearly, all analogies or parables break down at some point, but what about this one? Plants, though mindless, will move in order to survive. Why do they do this? Simply because that's what plants do. It's how they were made. Perhaps we were designed to gravitate to the Lord. Yet...there's a struggle. It feels like we're being pulled, like someone's trying to yank the grapes off before they're ready. That must be why Jesus says (again in John, this time the 10th chapter) "My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life. They are protected from the Destroyer for good. No one can steal them from out of my hand" (verses 27-28). Flock of sheep or a vineyard, either way, it's plain to see that there are forces working against us.
So God's words in Isaiah ("Let that vine cling to me for safety"), in light of Jesus' words in John ("I am the vine"), seem to say that if we have faith in The Vine, faith that He was who He said He was, faith that He can cling regardless of what was/is/will be thrown at Him, than we can rest assured that no one will be able to take us from His grip.
Plants cling by instinct. We cling by faith.