An Interim Report

Well, I have a date set up from the Hail Mary website, with a lovely woman named Claudia. She's coming over to my side of the state for a Nutcracker performance, and probably because of the weather, and because she has bad night vision, it'll be a very long first date, since I expressed a willingness to drive over there and pick her up. Trust me, she's worth it to have a chance to get to know.

She's sort of seeing a guy right now, so it's a full court press that's on right now. I'll be making her chocolates, very soon, and recently found out what kinds she likes. There should be some at her door in about a week.

Chocolates have helped me woo one other woman--I think it's very useful in wooing a woman's heart!

I'll keep you posted...

Online dating, take....10, maybe?

It's probably the result of the holiday single man's blues, but I decided to pull the trigger and do another online dating service, this time solely for Catholics with a rather Popish sounding name: Ave Maria Singles. I must admit, ashamedly, that I'd probably be embarrassed to share that with anyone but Catholics and my closest friends. I'd probably stick with a "Catholic online dating service." Regardless, it's a matchmaking service designed for and by Catholics, and it seems that the vast majority of members are drawn to it for the same reason: to find other Catholics who believe the fullness of Catholicism, which is the camp in which I have rather unexpectedly found myself.

We'll see how things go, but I feel that it is rather blogworthy to state that the first woman I wrote is an English teacher, and so I pulled out all of the stops with my writing, and the first words that I read in response were these: "Your writing style is absolutely delightful! I don't know many people who know what assonance is though I would have used 'arguably assonant' because, it's more and alliterative and, to me, more accurate. :)" Yes, I was able to drop the word assonant in the first email I sent to this woman, and it flowed rather naturally. That's the way to an English teacher's heart...or at least getting a response.

For some reason, she seems to think that I'm sophisticated as well. That will change when I tell her that I dropped food on the floor of the American Consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia. Thrice.

A Letter

Dear __________

You wrote this below:

"I know from experience that a person can't give themselves inner peace no matter how hard they try. The devil can't give it either because he doesn't have it to give....Some people think that we humans are able to ignore God even when he has been trying to speak to us. I think some people can and those are the ones who have somehow walked away from God and who don't bring their desires subject to him. I don't believe that Christians who are in constant prayerful communication with God can ignore him. I think that the God of all the universe and of every living thing has the unquestioned ability to give us a message whenever he wants. In other words, if God wanted to tell me to behave a certain way, he could do it in a million different ways and i would see it. My ability to "tune off" to God doesn't override his ability to get through to me one way or another...."

As I think about what I excerpted from above, I would say that Scripture is filled with examples where God communicated His will to Godly men and women, persistently even, and yet they chose to ignore Him. God's promises to Abraham come to mind.

As to this,

My ability to "tune off" to God doesn't override his ability to get through to me one way or another.

I would have to say that because God loves us, we do have the ability to "tune off" God, despite constant attempts to communicate with us. We know that,

A) God is all powerful,

B) God is all good,

C) God continually is working to draw all men and women to Him, i.e., communicating with them,

D) A vast number of men and women neither believe in God, believe in another god/goddess, such as Hindus do, or blatantly have jettisoned Him from their lives, or choose to believe in a modified version of Christianity, such as Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses do.

If these men and women do not have the power within them, from their free will given them by God, to "tune off" to a God who is constantly pursuing them, either God is not as powerful as we believe Him to be, or else God does indeed give us the freedom to tune Him off, even though we believe we are listening to Him.

This speaks to our human nature, more than anything else. If we didn't have the power to "tune off" to God, then we'd be mere automatons, incapable of making any other choice than that which God dictates for us. But God loves us enough that he desires for us to choose, freely, to follow Him.

I think daily we are confronted with the challenge that Joshua gave to the Israelites, "Choose this day whom you will serve." Joshua chose to follow the God of Abraham, while others chose to "tune off" God, and followed another path.

All this to say that I don't believe that it's justifiable, both logically, nor from Scriptures to say that "God wouldn't allow us to be deceived." It would be evil of Him not to allow us to choose for ourselves. It is a good and benign and loving God who allows us to choose what we believe about Him, even if they are lies...it was love that stayed His hand in the Garden of Eden, for He wanted his children to be completely free. What gods of the Old Testament would have ever allowed this? That we have a choice in the matter points to His goodness!

You address this in a particularly poignant portion of your most recent reply:

God doesn't mislead and if we're truly searching with all we have, it would be evil to allow us to be deceived if we are trying so hard to hear from him. That isn't God's characte

You are so right: God cannot deceive. However, how do you explain all the instances in Scripture where men and women were deceived into believing something that was a lie? Clearly God didn't deceive them, and clearly, in every case, those who were deceived, (such as Adam and Eve) were seeking hard to find the truth. In the case of the Garden, they believed the lie of the Serpent that was so compelling, and believable. They were not seeking to be deceived, were they? They were seeking what they perceived as good and right, knowing the difference between good and evil. I don't think anyone in the history of the world truly ever seeks after things that they think will bring them harm, or that they think are falsehoods, particularly in religion, yet we know emphatically that men and women do choose falsely, even though they are "trying very hard" to see truth, or to do what is in their best interest.

Ultimately, what you are relying on is the ability of your heart and mind to determine what is true. Is that the most reliable source, and are your feelings of peace the best arbiter of what is true and right?

Christ was in the middle of the will of God in the Garden of Gethsemane, but from a subjective human standpoint, Christ wasn't having a "peaceful" experience, since He sweat blood! He was engaged in a great internal battle. His peace was a peace that "surpasses all understanding," because it was the peace of knowing that He was completely and fully within the will of His heavenly Father, but I don't think the human side of Him felt peace at all. To run from the Cross would have been the path of peace, from his human perspective. The "peace that surpasses all understanding" can often be a peace that the world would never call peace, because they cannot understand it! The peace of Christ is often found in a place where we are dueling with the two natures within us, just as Paul speaks about. He describes an internal battle between his flesh and spirit, in terms that speak of warfare, more than of peace, yet all Christians would say that Paul was living in the peace of Christ. Therefore, as Christians, sometimes feeling "at peace" isn't necessarily the same as experiencing the "peace of Christ." Perhaps our "feeling" of peace is a sign that we're not actually experiencing the peace that surpasses all understanding.

I think Jeremiah 17:9 has much insight to give us on the reliability of our heart, and of the peace we "feel" sometimes about the decisions we make:

The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.

Who can understand it?

In light of the stories of Scripture, and of your knowledge of human nature, I urge to consider the reliability of the human heart to tell us what is true, if that is the basis upon which you are choosing to live your life. I know I can't trust myself very well to tell me the truth about the way to live my life!

May God bless you as you continue to pursue Him!

I seem to be wasting time. I don't think it's awful, since I am writing, and writing a lot, but it's not working on my book. I've been spending a lot of time hanging around on some internet forums, raising points that I will be raising in my book, defending positions I will be defending in my book, but it's not writing the darn book!

The appeal of writing three or four paragraph comments is that they are concise and easily crafted. This book is DAUNTING, and it's not an easy subject to tackle and dig into, from an emotional stand point. I feel that I have much accomplished already, but all it feels like to me are loose strands, strewn all over the place, and to bring them into a cohesive whole is overwhelming to me. As I've spent time on these forums, however, I've become more and more convinced that my particular voice will be a very valuable addition to the conversation, and that God has indeed called me to write it.

I don't feel like I can do it, however, but I suppose that's exactly where God wants me to be: completely reliant on Him.

Please pray that I'll start work on it. As Anne Lamott said, it's "bird by bird." I just need to start again.

First Lines

I don't like this kind of writing, though it's the kind of writing I often find myself doing:

After she died, it was as if I had broken my arm. A part of me ached all the time, and something that had been functional was now useless, and everything about my daily routine needed to be navigated differently. It was difficult, for instance, to stand in line at the post office or buy groceries or make dinner. Nothing seemed to matter anymore.

A lot of writing opens up with lines such as these, designed to lure the reader into the heart of the article or story, causing them to wonder what the rest of the story is about, and in this case, who the "she" who died is, and what her relationship is to the author.

I've had very similar opening lines when I've contemplated certain chapters of my book, such as, "I didn't know it was possible to feel such pain." It's not a bad opening line for a chapter on something that was difficult, but at the same time it seems to be of a certain class of writing that is formulaic, and I don't like that. It seems melodramatic to me, and perhaps hinting towards narcissism.

As I was writing this above, I decided to do a Google search on the "Best Opening Lines" of novels. There is always something mysterious about the first lines of a book or of a chapter that should draw us in, but what I don't like about the excerpt I quoted above, is that it's so obvious that the author is indeed trying to draw us in. We know that the particular details will slowly be illuminated for us, as if someone is pulling back a curtain slowly, though of course we don't know what insights the author will bring to us, but it's so clear what's going on. I think writing should be like slight of hand, wooing seductively in such a secretive way that before the reader knows what's happened, you have him or her in the palm of your hand.

I think good writing always surprises, and never goes where we expect it to go, and an opening line should grab us, by surprising us.

A few great opening lines that surprise me:

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

I am an invisible man.

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.

A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

I think surprising lines, and surprising directions are what make for good fiction. In my case, writing non-fiction, I suppose there is less room for this, but I still want to make it a good read, and I do believe that there is still room for the surprise, or slight of hand, or sending someone in a direction that they hadn't considered before. I like using common phrases, but contorting their meaning in such a way that reveals another way of looking at something. I think Chesterton is my inspiration in this regard.

All this musing about writing, and writing a new entry on my blog is merely procrastinating from the job at hand: working on this book, which has been sitting dormant for nearly five months. The truth about first lines is this: you don't need to write the first line first. It's time to get crackin'.

God Is My Judge

As I was driving away from church today, for some reason my thoughts turned towards my first and middle names and their meanings. As a child I had a plaque hanging in my room that told me that my first name, Daniel, meant "God is my judge." I never fully comprehended what that meant, but usually when I thought of God being my judge I realized that I didn't really live up to the expectations that I thought were needed from a child of God. It was always a bit ominous--a dire warning, and "the fear of the the Lord" type of thing. But today, somehow I saw it from a new angle, from a completely different perspective. For the first time, the idea of God being my judge was a promise of comfort.

With God, there is only justice and mercy. With Christ's death, I no longer live under condemnation, by the grace and love of God! Over the years, I have found great solace in the the late twenties and early thirties of the Psalms. When I have been mired in sin, the enemy of our souls has been quick to point the finger of condemnation and accusation against me. I find this to be best described in Psalm 35. Verses 11-21 are below.

Ruthless witnesses come forward;

they question me on things I know nothing about.

They repay me evil for good

and leave my soul forlorn.

Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth

and humbled myself with fasting.

When my prayers returned to me unanswered,

I went about mourning

as though for my friend or brother.

I bowed my head in grief

as though weeping for my mother.

But when I stumbled, they gathered in glee;

attackers gathered against me when I was unaware.

They slandered me without ceasing.

Like the ungodly they maliciously mocked^b;

they gnashed their teeth at me.

O Lord, how long will you look on?

Rescue my life from their ravages,

my precious life from these lions.

I will give you thanks in the great assembly;

among throngs of people I will praise you.

Let not those gloat over me

who are my enemies without cause;

let not those who hate me without reason

maliciously wink the eye.

They do not speak peaceably,

but devise false accusations

against those who live quietly in the land.

They gape at me and say, “Aha! Aha!

With our own eyes we have seen it.”

This is the way of life of those whose judge is not God. This the way of life of those who live under the condemnation of the Prince of this world instead of under the benevolent grace of our Creator. Today I saw the comfort we can take in having God as our judge, and the freedom from condemnation that comes from grace and Christ's death on the Cross. How often we allow ourselves to listen to those voices that say, "Aha! Aha! With our own eyes we have seen it."

As I think of my first name now, having God as my judge is a message of freedom and grace. With my middle name, meaning "Christ bearer," it suggests to me that bearing the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that frees us from condemnation and to do the will of our Heavenly Father is my calling. Which means that I must begin work again on this book, in great earnest!

This blog of mine has collected some dust. I have been woefully inattentive, but life has been filled with a myriad of other things. I just returned from a tour of Russia, and tonight I play a world premier performance of a triple concerto for brass. Prior to that, life was filled with preparation for a recital and completion of our negotiations. It's been a very busy summer.

Today I also received an email from an eHarmony woman who has decided to move on. Not a big deal--there was very minimal interaction, but I was anticipating getting to know her on the heels of this concerto performance. I was looking forward to it quite a bit since my life has been so consumed with work related obligations.

It seems to me that all that we desire, and all of the promises of God that we long to have fulfilled are the very things God asks us to place on the altar. I believe that God has called me to a married life. Each day I hope that my wife will enter my life. There are glimmers of possibility that emerge from time to time, but for two decades, every door that has ever opened with hopeful possibility has been slammed shut. I do not understand why this is so, yet the only answer that I can find is that this is God's will.

When I think of Abraham's willingness to offer his son Isaac on the altar, the son who represented the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham, I realize that I must follow his example. I am beginning to believe that God calls me to live in daily hope that today might be the day, but that I must place that hope on the altar each and every day. Unlike in Abraham's case, however, God doesn't always give us back what we place on the altar, at least in the way we expect, or in the same way that Isaac was given back to Abraham.

There are times when I become cynical and wish that I could excise this desire I have for companionship, since life would be easier. I believe that God has placed this desire within me, and I realize that it would be sinful to shut it down, or to eliminate the daily hope and prayer I have that I might meet my wife today. We all carry daily crosses, and I'm becoming to realize that perhaps my vocation right now is to be a man who desperately longs to be married, and nurture the hope that it will happen, while living with the possibility that it may not happen for a long time, and the subsequent disappointment that comes from actively pursuing women with the hopes that perhaps "this is the one." If that's the case, then for some divine reason, I'm better off to the Kingdom as a man who is single and longs for marriage.

Though I'd like to be married yesterday, I've read someplace before that God's ways aren't our ways.

I was on Facebook tonight, as is my wont, and had a friend request. It turned out to be one of my high school students who is a very talented kid--he could have a great career as a trombonist, and I enjoy challenging him and encouraging him along the path. He makes me laugh besides, and we have a great time in lessons.

Anyway, I checked out his "Info" on his profile, and saw that under his favorite music, surprisingly, there was my name, right next to Yo-Yo Ma. (I think merely because we'd be close to each other in the phone book).

Under his "About Me" section, he wrote this:

If there was no music
I would be screwed.
Music communicates what i think and feel.
Music makes me feel alive.
Makes me feel like "hey i can be kick ass at something".
There are no words to describe what music has done for me and how it has changed my life.

I'm going to help him become as "kick ass" as I can.