Adventures in Wonderland (Part Two)

Read Part One here first:
http://papermeetspen.blogspot.com/2011/12/adventures-in-wonderland-part-one.html

His rule was not a great one, but he kept the kingdom intact. Until one day a rabbit bounded through his court. He was captivated by the creature, having seen nothing like it in all his time there. It's perfect form reminded him of another life, one far away and long forgotten.

He pursued the rabbit through the castle and beyond its walls. It led him into a deformed forest of gnarled trees with twisted trunks and bent branches. He could not follow along its graceful path through the bramble, but the rabbit stayed within sight of the road. They reached a clearing and here the rabbit stopped. It turned and asked him:

"Why do you chase me? You are the king, aren't you? Why do you chase me? What could I have that you want?"

And once again he found himself unable to answer.

"Surely you, king, can see past this black and white. You must certainly know what lies beyond. Why do you fear it so?"

"I lived there once!" His shouting reply came as a surprise to his own ears. "I lived there once and it was a land of foolishness! A childish waste of time! Always staring at the colors, making something out of nothing, it was all just pretend!"

"Have you forgotten how you came upon this kingdom, my lord? Have you forgotten..."

"Why do you call me 'my lord'? I've never seen you in my service and clearly you come from a land beyond my own! Where is it that you come from, rabbit?"

"I come from the land of color, the very land that you denounce. I come from the childish land of emotions and heartache. And so do you, oh king."

Adventures in Wonderland (Part One)

Her words stung more than the cold that had settled in over the past week. Winter had come and come fierce with claws and fangs. The cold bit at his skin and there was no snow to warm his heart. While the cold could be countered with layers, he had no armor against the things she said.

"You're just a boy!" She spat. "Just an immature boy! A boy, not a man!"

The words dug deep into a wound that had been there for years. He had never really admitted it, not even to himself, but this injury had to remain hidden. There was no fixing it, it was a terminal wound that would destroy him. And her words had stung it back into reality.

She was only joking. Pestering and sparring like they always did, but today she chose to hit hard. He would never know if she meant for it to hurt like that, but the pain made it impossible for him to fight back.

So he sank.

He sank into a fantasy where apathy was called invincibility. It was a weak facade, to be sure, not nearly enough to prevent the damage from her words, but it numbed the pain enough to where he could pretend everything was okay. So he kept pretending.

But he got lost in the fantasy. The black and white world was simple enough. It required little but took everything. The deformed creatures there seemed to be up to something when they called him "King," but they called him king and that was enough. He continued to rule there for years.

A Hipster Parable

Today is like a guy who was trying to get some work done. He sat precariously amidst the seasonal decor, gossiping housewives, over-enamored young couple, church small group members, and business men trying to keep it hip. The scent of the place had been lost on him. It's deep warm aroma used to be a welcome greeting, but, like the meaningful hug, the solid-but-not-aggressive handshake and the ironic t-shirt, it had been dulled from overuse. Abused as a drug. He wondered if it was there or not anymore.

Between pounding, grinding, and shouting, seasonal tunes play that, to him, are hidden behind The Great Wall of Headphones. Impenetrable as it seems, even its full-force sonic barrier is not going to bring the peace he came here looking for.

Sabbath

Perhaps it's the gentle balance of heart-warming vantages and the bone-chilling breeze
or the lively aroma of the shedding trees
or the crackling of steps through untrodden leaves.

Maybe it's the couples along the river-walk with hands held tight
or the spider's network of labor nearly hidden from sight
or the geese in the park preparing for their flight.

Whatever it is that makes it so neat,
I'm sure today that nothing could beat
This slow walk through the fall on Spring Street.

Ulysses

Josh Garrels is singing my soul again. These lyrics are from his song Ulysses from his newest album Love, War, and The Sea In Between. The album is free, so I obviously recommend that you pick it up (here). Ulysses is in my playlist for the blog, so I also recommend that you listen to it while you read along.

Ulysses

I'm holding on to hope that one day this could be made right.

I've been shipwrecked and left for dead

and I have seen the darkest sights.

Everyone I've loved seems like a stranger in the night

But oh my heart still burns

tells me to return

and search the fading light.

I'm sailing home to you I won't be long.

By the light of moon I will press on

until

I find

my love.

Trouble has beset my ways, and wicked winds have blown.

Sirens call my name, they say they'll ease my pain then break me on the stones

But true love is the burden that will carry me back home

Carry me with the

memories of the

beauty I have known

I'm sailing home to you, I won't be long

By the light of moon, I will press on

SO TIE ME TO THE MAST OF THIS OLD SHIP AND POINT ME HOME

BEFORE I LOSE THE ONE I LOVE, BEFORE MY CHANCE IS GONE

I WANT TO HOLD

HER IN

MY ARMS

(emphasis mine)

Giraffes With Headbands

These are giraffes with headbands. Just a little something I was working on. I tried to find a picture of them online, but the entire first page of Google images didn't have one, therefore I assumed that it did not exist. So I made my own.

That aside, I'm not really sure what else to share. I've been writing some poetry and some other stuff. I've been inspired by the idea of storytelling in poetry as opposed to my typical modus operandi of puzzle-making. Instead of trying to encrypt my feelings into a linguistic and thematic puzzle, I've been trying to tell a story with what I feel. There's still a lot of the old puzzle-making remnants lying around, but I can see a difference in my writing. Can you?

Industry

I hear the whistle as the train comes 'round the bend.

Industry, machinery, toiling to no end.

Wheels turn, fires burn life to death to fuel the machine.

With blinders on, we work to claim what we've never seen.

With no true goal, we strive to see beyond our sight.

But some remove the blinders and in mystery delight.

And there find the life they've been burning all along:

Sight turns to art, confusion to joy, and sound into a song.

But with hammer I keep striking at my cold, dead life.

And here, before You now, life strikes back.

I'm down, out, KO'd, knocked out by life's first punch.

There, between the live I've always wanted and the death I've always feared,

There I will live.

Or how about this one?

Butterfly

There's a butterfly on the palm of my hand

It tickles but I hope it stays

I can't use that hand now

But I think I like it best that way

I remember when it landed there

It was too good to be true

And ever since I've been fighting

I want to grasp, squeeze, and hold it

So that it won't fly away

But my most tender grasp will kill its life

So I can only embrace it with open hand

Birthday Post?

So it's my 21st birthday right now and I feel awfully reflective. This birthday honestly snuck up on me. I didn't build up any anticipation until about 3 hours ago, and even now I don't feel very excited about this whole crazy idea of celebrating the anniversary of my birth into this world, this flesh.... But I do feel reflective.

I've been reading a fairly wide array of things lately. Between philosophy of religion, Chinese humanities, comparative ethnic studies, linguistics, and the typical blogs, bible, and articles on Relevant (along with a couple other Christian-Lit books), I have had a diverse stream of ideas running through my consciousness-dam. This has lead to a lot of insights and subsequent dramatic expansion of my perspective of God and things. I guess these are the things I'm mostly musing on right now, which seems odd. I feel like I should be contemplating the joy of life and being alive since it's my birthday, but it's barely 1:00am right now, so there will be plenty of time for that to come.

One of the crazy ideas I've been able to process lately comes from my Chinese humanities course. The focus is on the Tang Dynasty as a model Golden Age of Chinese civilization, but most of us in the class knew nothing about China beforehand, so there has been a lot of background info laid out for us to set the context for the rest of our learning. One of the biggest things I've grabbed from this class has been the idea of Yin and Yang and how challenging it is to the common Western mindset. We always seek to compartmentalize, divide, and understand things. That doesn't work with Yin and Yang.

A lot of times Christians will talk about the need for a "balance" between two things in life. This shows up with things like faith and reason, outreach and personal growth, prayer and action, work and rest, love and justice, abounding happiness and melancholy thoughtfulness. All of these things we understand as opposites that are working against each other. Praying isn't acting, reaching out isn't growing personally, believing isn't knowing, working isn't resting, being happy is not being thoughtful, and loving can't involve justice...

can it?

That's what I've learned from Yin and Yang. All these things that I try to divide and separate so that I can understand aren't really divided or separate when it comes to true reality. There is action within prayer and an aspect of prayer within action. Love is just and justice is loving. You can think while you're happy and be happy while you think. I can grow from reaching out to others and be equipped to reach out through personal growth. All these things are intertwined. They aren't two weights on opposite ends of the scale, they are two cords wrapping into the same rope. When I talk about needing a balance, I am really talking about wanting to be in control. I want to reach out just enough and grow personally just enough to make me happy (or perfect, or what have you). I want to make a formula out of life. But these parts of life don't have formulas. And that's on purpose. They shouldn't. God didn't tell us exactly how much of each part to have (with the exception of work/rest), because there is no single answer to that question and because that is the wrong question to be asking. We are supposed to be living honestly with God. If we can't be honest with Him then we can't be honest. In this honest life we have no reason to worry about getting everything just right. He will guide us and tell us where to add and take away. The real problem with the idea of "balance" is the underlying pride. We think that at some point we will get it all right, all balanced. We assume (maybe subconsciously) that we will eventually find and maintain these balance levels. God never tells us that that will happen. At least not in this life. The point of this all is that we need to live openly with ourselves and with God and stop trying to be something for Him. Because the balancing act is just that, an act.

I've also been thinking about belief and understanding lately. Basically, it's pretty dumb that we are so obsessed with them. Here's what Michael Gungor (who has a new album out, btw) said about it in his blog:

I think modern Christianity has placed far too much value on cognitive belief. In the stream of Christianity that I have had most experience with, it is actually the central issue to get people to philosophically adhere to a certain set of beliefs. This makes Christianity a sort of network marketing pyramid where the job of Christians is to simply get other people to believe like them so that… well, so that they can get other people to believe like them, and so on and so on. Like a pyramid scheme, it might grow ever fatter and larger, but doesn’t really have any point if the point is simply to believe something.

It reminds me of a little story Jesus tells in Matthew 7 where people are coming to Him at the end times and expecting a warm welcome. He tells them "I never knew you. Get away from me...." He doesn't tell them "You never believed in me," and He doesn't tell them "You weren't good enough for me." He says "I never knew you." This word here, "know," is really powerful. In the biblical context we see it being used to talk about the most intimate relationships man can experience. Jesus doesn't deny people because they needed to believe harder or live better, He denies them because they were never intimate with Him. They never knew Him. A little later in that blog, Gungor starts using the word "Reality" when talking about God. He says this:

What this does to my religion then is that my faith becomes more about encountering and experiencing this Reality than domesticating, dissecting or dogmatizing Him. It becomes less about “believing” in some invisible deity, and more about experiencing this Reality. The book of John refers to this Reality as “the Word.” Then he writes this beautiful statement that the Word became flesh in Jesus.

And then this:

Faith in God is not supposed to be primarily cognitive, it’s supposed to be an entirely different way of living.

Most people don’t primarily “understand” music. You listen to it. You play it. You dance to it. You sing. I’ve studied a lot of music theory, but I don’t fully experience music when I think about scales and modes and 12 tone rows… I experience music most fully when I engage with it.

Just a couple things I've been thinking about lately. Hopefully you can enjoy them as well :)

Falling/Thinking

Special note before we start: this marks the end of the my longest break from blogging. It wasn't a break in the sense that I told myself to take two months off, rather I just haven't had words to express anything in a while. That said, I'm back, and, thankfully, so are the words :)

Falling/Thinking

There's a cool breeze and cold toes

to match my warming heart wherever it goes.

The falling leaves crunch or run

while inside a spring has sprung for a certain one.

A particular friend,

an uncertain end.

An oasis after this desert dune,

or a mirage, more salt for my opened wound.

A what-if motif themes my thoughts,

I fear I'll try to buy what can't be bought.

Or it can, in a two-pack with your choice of red lights or divorce.

But I want the real one where we choose its course.

Less falling than thinking,

more loving than sinking.

This fire could create or consume, fashion or feast

And I don't know which one, but for now, at least,

I'm falling/thinking.

Joshua

I had coffee today, so I feel like I need to accomplish something. It appears that writing an overdue blog post will be that something.

I finished the book of Joshua weeks ago. I don't even remember when I finished it actually. It may have been during SICM, it may have been during the mission trip I went on with the youth group to Riverside, or it may have been sometime during the past few weeks here in the Tri-Cities, I really don't know. But now you know what I've been up to lately and I think it's high time for me to share about the book of Joshua.

When I finished reading Joshua, I realized quickly that my thematic summary of the book would be short. In fact, what I got out of it boils down to just three words.

God is Faithful.

That's pretty much it. During the first five books of the Bible, God makes a lot of promises with the Israelites whom He chose to be His people. I suggest that Joshua is, essentially, the story of God fulfilling those promises and proving His Faithfulness.

I really want to end this post here, but I can't. Lately, God has been showing this same extraordinary Faithfulness to me quite bluntly. I've had a tough time adjusting to life down here. It should be going fine. The part-time hours for the internship are enough to keep me active, but not too much for me enjoy the more chill pace of summer. Even the time I spend at work is a huge blessing. Getting to hang out with youth, play games, talk about Jesus stuff, it's all great. Life around the house has been good too. There haven't been any major lifestyle adjustments I've had to make (or many minor ones, for that matter). But for some reason

I've felt isolated and alone.

In my desperation, I refused to turn to God. I don't know what I turned to but it could only have been myself since I felt so alone. And I stopped reading the Bible. I stopped praying. I stopped listening for Him. I cut all the wires I could find that connected me to Him and held the severed ends away from each other in case they tried to pull themselves back together. I refused to even dip a toe into the pool of Christian fellowship and instead dove head first into the escapist sea of videogames. It's not that videogames are a sea of escapism. But playing them for over 6 hours a day for an entire week makes them a leaky submarine into that sea. I was drowning alone in my own decisions. And I think I did drown. Or at least I got to the point where I had given up on breathing, because I was numb for most of last week and didn't care to try to feel or care or love or obey anymore. My facade of apathy was nearing completion and I was about ready to give up on the rest of summer.

And God was Faithful.

This is where the pen runs out of paper for now. I have only just started the journey out of this hole I made. I listened for God for the first time in weeks last Friday. I made new friends for the first time in weeks this Sunday. I read my bible for the first time in a week today. So I don't know what comes next. Not much has really changed yet. But there's a light of hope over everything now. The scenery hasn't changed, but I'm seeing it with new eyes. Thank You God for new eyes.

Why the Good Guy Always Wins

I spent this last week in beautiful Bellingham, Washington attending the Northwest Student Institute of Campus Ministry. SICM (as it is affectionately known) is a week of intensive leadership training and practice that focuses on developing student leaders for campus ministry, specifically through Chi Alpha. This was my second time through SICM and it was at least as valuable this time around as it was last time. Though there is plenty to tell about SICM, that is not the intent of this post. In fact, the only reason I mention it is to say that there was a book table at SICM from which I purchased C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. This is the first Lewis that I have read, though I have been made familiar with several of his other works through enthusiastic friends and acquaintances and the occasional fanatical stranger in a bookstore (which is my favorite kind of bookstore stranger, by the way :). I am not very far (would the appositive to that be "short" or "near"?) into the book and I have come across an idea that I would like to muse on. Conveniently, I have this little blog here for things just like that.

Before I begin my musing, a quick note regarding my "Bible in 90 Days" plan. Once more, my ambitions have exceeded my abilities. I will still be reading straight through the Bible and blogging about each book as I finish it, but these posts will be fewer and further between than they were before due to my less expendable schedule during my internship. This is a humbling admission for me, but it is also reminiscent to the origins of this blog, so that is a source of hope that good will still come out of this. Now, to the point.

I would like to open the eyes of my readers to a particular pattern that I have noticed in most every story that I have ever been told through any medium. In the breadth of my experience, my thematic analysis of stories has revealed a pattern that has carried on throughout time and across cultures and throughout civilizations: the good guy always wins. No matter the impression of insurmountable odds or the numerous defeats along the way, the character in a story representing the moral Good will almost assuredly prevail. I say "almost" here because there is the occasional author who desires to tell a tale that goes against the grain and will therefore have the moral Good be defeated for the sake of expressing individuality and uniqueness. My point remains no less.

Pseudo-intellectualism aside, I've always wondered why the good guy had to win. It seems obvious that the protagonist should prevail, that's why he is the protagonist. But why should the protagonist have to stand for things like love and truth and honesty and Good? Surely the hero must stand for something, otherwise he would be seeking a means to an end and there would be little to admire in him. And I think that's why he must stand for moral Good. Evil is nothing to stand for. Not because it is frowned upon, but because it has no ground of its own. Good can be done simply for the sake of good. I might tell the truth even though if it would certainly get me in more trouble than lying because telling the truth is right. But I would never lie if it would get me in more trouble than telling the truth (except, maybe, because of a lack of foresight, but not knowingly). I would only lie if I thought that there were some benefit to lying that would make it profitable over telling the truth. So Good is something to stand for, it has some grounds to it where is might even be sacrificed for. Meanwhile, Bad is simply a means to an end. This is reflected in every story we as humans have developed. Even in the stories where the bad guy wins, he is still seeking some end (power, money, safety, love, etc.) through means that are morally Bad. This explains why the good guy wins and why the winner must stand for Good (maybe those are the same point). As the good guy, he stands for something larger, perhaps eternal. The bad guy, however, is a simple utilitarian. He stands for nothing; he simply seeks something. One character that seems to challenge this assertion is the Joker from the Batman series. The Joker appears to exist for the sake of Bad. The bad things he does are not means to a certain end, but rather are an expression of his desire for Evil. So here we have a villain who stands for something, an antagonist we might cheer for. But when we truly examine the character of the Joker, we discover that Evil is simply his pleasure of choice. From destruction and pain he gets the same sort of feelings that most of us get from creativity and love. So even for the Joker and real people like him who we might call psychopathic maniacal sadists (those are real terms with real meanings, not just empty derogatory language), Evil is a means to an end. One might argue that there could hypothetically be some individual who genuinely stood for evil. Given an adequate description of this supposed individual (which is something that I have never encountered), I may agree that one could, hypothetically stand for Evil on its own (again, I have never encountered such a description nor heard of its existence). The problem with this is that the point would be entirely hypothetical. This individual does not exist. No matter the hypothetical evidence, we would not be dealing with reality. Accepting this hypothetical description as truth would require the acceptance of a false reality. But there are real people who really do stand for Good on its own, even when it is to their personal detriment.

The point of all this? I'm not sure. It's mostly just an exploration of human story telling. It does appear to reveal that Good is an inherently greater force than Evil, but that doesn't feel like a very profound or mysterious discovery. I would love to hear any feedback or thoughts you might be having on the issue, as it is easy to assume that what I've written is complete and correct simply because I wrote it. Also, I kind of just like conversation, it's a great garden for ideas and perspective :)