I'm a very happy man right now. Remarkably so, and at times, overwhelmingly so. I suppose it's a good place to be when you wish you could turn the "happy" down a bit. I'm walking around with a perpetual grin on my face, which is sort of uncontrollable. I think I'm wired to feel the highs and lows of life quite intensely and right now I sort of am overwhelmed by the mountain top, and for that, I'm grateful.
I have no idea where things with Sarah will lead. They hold much promise, but any future we may have together is completely in God's control, and in His hands. But whatever may come, I have been blessed by finally being able to believe that there is indeed the possibility of finding someone in the world who is a better match for me than Meg. I thought for the longest time that this was an impossibility. In one short month, however, with Sarah, I have discovered the truth that this isn't so. I don't believe that this is a sign of the flightiness of my thinking, but rather is more an indication of the quality of Sarah. I believe indeed that is a very difficult thing to find someone that I could love more than Meg, because my love for her was so profound.
Over the past few weeks, I have been thinking quite a bit about what God said to me, when I cried out to Him one night, asking and wondering why after so many years God brought me Meg and not my wife. His answer to me was this: Meg came into your life to prepare you for your wife." On the one other occasion when I know that I heard God's voice, He said to me, "I can't wait to show you the ending--you're going to love it!"
I've clung to that promise for a long time, wondering when it might come to pass. I do not mean to suggest that I have "found the one." It's far too early for that, and indeed, that's up to God too. With Sarah, though, I have been given hope that there is "the one" out there. I've often thought that I will never marry a woman until I reach a point where I rejoice that I didn't get married to any other woman who came before. I've doubted, and wondered, whether I could ever reach that point, but now I have hope.
In the anthology, Echoing Silence, Thomas Merton writes, "when God promises to answer our prayers, He does not promise to give us exactly what we ask for. But we can always be certain that if He does not give us that, it is because He has something much better to give us instead. That is what is meant by Christ's promise that we will receive all that we ask in His name."
I prayed that I would marry Meg. That didn't happen. I have had to trust that this was so because God has something much better in store for me. I have had to cling to this with mere faith. Now it seems to me to actually be possible, and it is something that I can cling to with a belief bolstered by evidence, all because of the gift of Sarah.
I do not know if she is the woman God desires for me, and honestly don't even want to be concerned with that. It's far too early, as I said before, and right now, I want to enjoy getting to know her, without those concerns weighing over us. What I do know is this: I have finally seen past Meg, and that is a gift. Still a bittersweet one, but I know that the bitter in this realization will fade away, and I will rejoice that we went our separate ways. And for now, there is a new woman, Sarah, to delight in. For that, I am grateful.
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Song of Moses
I was doing some research tonight for some things I was working on for my book, and came across this passage that I'm not sure I've ever read before, the song that Moses recited after he had completed writing the words of the Law, and before dying at 120 years old:
Deuteronomy 32
1 Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;
hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
45) When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, 46) he said to them, "Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. 47) They are not just idle words for you—they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess."
I was struck by the words that Moses said in verse 47: the words of the law "are not just idle words for you--they are your life." The words of God are compared to dew, and showers falling on new grass, and tender plants, a clear reference to their life giving power. As I read them, I thought of words that Clement of Alexandria wrote about the Law of God:
Through the commandments we have a demonstration of the blessed life. We all ought to pursue it without misunderstanding any of the statements or neglecting any of the properties, even the slightest of them. We are to follow where the Word leads…(5) We must follow God’s Scripture, the road taken by the faithful, and we will, so far as possible, become like the Lord. We are not to live amorally. We are, so far as possible, to purify ourselves from pleasures and lusts, and take care of our soul which should continue to be engaged solely with the divine. (6) For if it is pure and freed from all vice, the mind is somehow capable of receiving the power of God, when the divine image is established within it. Scripture says, “Everyone who has this hope in the Lord is purifying himself as the Lord is pure.”
Reading Moses urging the Israelites with the words about the Law, that it is their very life, and Clement speaking of the law giving us a demonstration of the blessed life makes it clear to me what the intention of God was by giving us the Law. It was the path to life, lived in its fullest expression. There are clearly things that are strange in the Law, but we have reached a point where we desire to chuck most of it out. The glorious thing is that we have been freed from the Law, through Christ's death on the Cross, but now, it is out of love for Christ that we need to pursue keeping the Law, with the humble acknowledgment that we are only ever capable of doing that through, and by the Grace of God, and that even any desire within us to obey God is a reflection of His grace. We have been freed from the curse of the Law in order to seek out the blessed life that is ours when we obey God's commandments, which is done solely by and through the Grace of God.
It's all very mind boggling to me.
Deuteronomy 32
1 Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;
hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2 Let my teaching fall like rain
and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants.
3 I will proclaim the name of the LORD.
Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is he.
45) When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, 46) he said to them, "Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. 47) They are not just idle words for you—they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess."
I was struck by the words that Moses said in verse 47: the words of the law "are not just idle words for you--they are your life." The words of God are compared to dew, and showers falling on new grass, and tender plants, a clear reference to their life giving power. As I read them, I thought of words that Clement of Alexandria wrote about the Law of God:
Through the commandments we have a demonstration of the blessed life. We all ought to pursue it without misunderstanding any of the statements or neglecting any of the properties, even the slightest of them. We are to follow where the Word leads…(5) We must follow God’s Scripture, the road taken by the faithful, and we will, so far as possible, become like the Lord. We are not to live amorally. We are, so far as possible, to purify ourselves from pleasures and lusts, and take care of our soul which should continue to be engaged solely with the divine. (6) For if it is pure and freed from all vice, the mind is somehow capable of receiving the power of God, when the divine image is established within it. Scripture says, “Everyone who has this hope in the Lord is purifying himself as the Lord is pure.”
Reading Moses urging the Israelites with the words about the Law, that it is their very life, and Clement speaking of the law giving us a demonstration of the blessed life makes it clear to me what the intention of God was by giving us the Law. It was the path to life, lived in its fullest expression. There are clearly things that are strange in the Law, but we have reached a point where we desire to chuck most of it out. The glorious thing is that we have been freed from the Law, through Christ's death on the Cross, but now, it is out of love for Christ that we need to pursue keeping the Law, with the humble acknowledgment that we are only ever capable of doing that through, and by the Grace of God, and that even any desire within us to obey God is a reflection of His grace. We have been freed from the curse of the Law in order to seek out the blessed life that is ours when we obey God's commandments, which is done solely by and through the Grace of God.
It's all very mind boggling to me.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Insomnia? Who cares?
I just had an epiphany about insomnia. I don't care anymore if I fall asleep. Why? Because I always survive whatever the next day brings, regardless of having eight hours or two hours of sleep. I can tell it will probably be a two or three hour night.
So I'm grabbing a book, and viewing it as found time for reading. I suspect I'll fall asleep around 5:00 or so, and be up by 8:00.
I've learned that three hours of sleep is enough to function on. And I don't say that sarcastically--it's just the facts, since I've done it myriad of times in the past few years.
So I'm grabbing a book, and viewing it as found time for reading. I suspect I'll fall asleep around 5:00 or so, and be up by 8:00.
I've learned that three hours of sleep is enough to function on. And I don't say that sarcastically--it's just the facts, since I've done it myriad of times in the past few years.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Thoughts on Facebook
I've been diving into the world of Facebook quite a bit in the past few days, and I'm discovering what everyone else has discovered before me: it's fun, and very addicting. I have been wondering why this is, and why I have found myself checking in several times a day to see if any new friend requests have shown up, and to see what others have been doing or saying.
I think anything that is fun, as well as anything that is potentially addicting, finds at its root the same thing, what C.S. Lewis called "the inconsolable longing." We all have a deep need for community and a deep need to feel that we matter, to believe that we're a part of something bigger than ourselves. It's a longing rooted in the fact that we're strangers and aliens in a strange world, made for heaven, in which we will commune with God and others in ways more profoundly than the most intimate exchanges we ever experience on earth.
Intimacy in heaven will be a glorious thing, and we will experience it in such a way that all earthly intimacy will pale in comparison. Lewis refers to St. Augustine's belief that "the rapture of the saved soul will 'flow over' in the glorified body. In the light of our special and depraved appetites we cannot imagine this torrens voluptatis, and I warn everyone seriously not to try." I think Facebook could easily become one tiny piece of the strategy that people use to fulfill this need for torrens voluptatis, which we were made to experience.
I've been ODing on Facebook the past couple of days. It is a drug of sorts, and I think the reason it's pleasurable is that in the solitary space of one's own home, a person feels connected with others. It's a fake intimacy, if you ask me. It does serve a great purpose in being able to connect with old classmates and friends, but what does it mean when someone has over 400 friends? Really? I may have 400 acquaintances, but I certainly don't have 400 friends. Several people on Facebook have said to me that "you know, it's now official, because it doesn't mean we're really friends unless we're friends on Facebook." How absurd.
The jury's still out for me on Facebook, partly because I could easily see it becoming a crutch like too many other things before. I derive pleasure from Facebook in a way that I don't think is healthy. It's sort of like eating a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard when I'm in a funk. The first sign that Facebook could be slightly unhealthy came the first time I was disappointed that there was no comment on my wall, or no new friend request. How strange it is that something so new in my life caused me a twinge of disappointment! It reveals how much we all long for something to fill that empty space within us, the "God-shaped" void which can only be filled by Him. There's no question that Facebook, and other social networking sites, have become a drug to make life a little more tolerable.
I think the fun of Facebook is a sign of how deeply held our longing for heaven is. It seems banal to say such a thing, but I believe it's true. We can feel connected with as many people as we ever would like to. What explains someone adding me as a friend who was merely an acquaintance in college? It's very strange to me. Granted, there is a connection with a shared past, but beyond that what really motivates it? I think it stems from our desire to be part of one another. I do believe that in heaven we'll be connected with others in ways that we cannot comprehend, and as Lewis says, we shouldn't even attempt to try to comprehend it, since trying to project on to our friendships the closest expression of human intimacy on earth seems a bit disturbing. But I am convinced that the intimacy that a man and wife experience is also a mere shadow of the intimacy we will feel with our friends and family in heaven. Our union with Christ, and others, will be a consummation of love, love that stems through and from Him who is called Love.
In the meantime, I'm still going to be having fun with Facebook. It just needs to be in it's proper place, and not disordered, as the Church Fathers would tell us.
I think anything that is fun, as well as anything that is potentially addicting, finds at its root the same thing, what C.S. Lewis called "the inconsolable longing." We all have a deep need for community and a deep need to feel that we matter, to believe that we're a part of something bigger than ourselves. It's a longing rooted in the fact that we're strangers and aliens in a strange world, made for heaven, in which we will commune with God and others in ways more profoundly than the most intimate exchanges we ever experience on earth.
Intimacy in heaven will be a glorious thing, and we will experience it in such a way that all earthly intimacy will pale in comparison. Lewis refers to St. Augustine's belief that "the rapture of the saved soul will 'flow over' in the glorified body. In the light of our special and depraved appetites we cannot imagine this torrens voluptatis, and I warn everyone seriously not to try." I think Facebook could easily become one tiny piece of the strategy that people use to fulfill this need for torrens voluptatis, which we were made to experience.
I've been ODing on Facebook the past couple of days. It is a drug of sorts, and I think the reason it's pleasurable is that in the solitary space of one's own home, a person feels connected with others. It's a fake intimacy, if you ask me. It does serve a great purpose in being able to connect with old classmates and friends, but what does it mean when someone has over 400 friends? Really? I may have 400 acquaintances, but I certainly don't have 400 friends. Several people on Facebook have said to me that "you know, it's now official, because it doesn't mean we're really friends unless we're friends on Facebook." How absurd.
The jury's still out for me on Facebook, partly because I could easily see it becoming a crutch like too many other things before. I derive pleasure from Facebook in a way that I don't think is healthy. It's sort of like eating a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard when I'm in a funk. The first sign that Facebook could be slightly unhealthy came the first time I was disappointed that there was no comment on my wall, or no new friend request. How strange it is that something so new in my life caused me a twinge of disappointment! It reveals how much we all long for something to fill that empty space within us, the "God-shaped" void which can only be filled by Him. There's no question that Facebook, and other social networking sites, have become a drug to make life a little more tolerable.
I think the fun of Facebook is a sign of how deeply held our longing for heaven is. It seems banal to say such a thing, but I believe it's true. We can feel connected with as many people as we ever would like to. What explains someone adding me as a friend who was merely an acquaintance in college? It's very strange to me. Granted, there is a connection with a shared past, but beyond that what really motivates it? I think it stems from our desire to be part of one another. I do believe that in heaven we'll be connected with others in ways that we cannot comprehend, and as Lewis says, we shouldn't even attempt to try to comprehend it, since trying to project on to our friendships the closest expression of human intimacy on earth seems a bit disturbing. But I am convinced that the intimacy that a man and wife experience is also a mere shadow of the intimacy we will feel with our friends and family in heaven. Our union with Christ, and others, will be a consummation of love, love that stems through and from Him who is called Love.
In the meantime, I'm still going to be having fun with Facebook. It just needs to be in it's proper place, and not disordered, as the Church Fathers would tell us.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
The Church and Homosexuality
I've decided that I'm a huge fan of Clement of Alexandria--he could be my favorite saint. (Is it OK to have a favorite saint?) The man is absolutely brilliant in dissecting the many heresies that were rampant in the second century, and it seems that today words like Clement's are needed just as much as they were in his time.
In Stromatesis, Clement strikes blow upon blow to the teaching of those who modify Scripture, twisting the writing of Paul in Romans to justify immoral living.
Those who drag in a doctrine of moral indifference do violence to some few passages of Scripture, thinking that they support their own love of pleasure; in particular, the passage “Sin shall have no authority over you; for you are not subject to sin but to grace.” But there are other such passages, which there is no good reason to record for these purposes, as I am not equipping a pirate ship! Let me quickly cut through the attempt. The admirable Apostle in person will refute their charge in the words with which he continues the previous quotation: “Well then! Shall we sin because we are no longer under Law but under grace? God forbid!” With these inspired prophetic words, at a single stroke he undoes the sophistical skill at the service of pleasure.
He is greatly concerned with heresies that do injury to the institution of marriage from two distinct extremes--one that allows for license and loose living, based on an over liberal interpretation of grace and on the other extreme, one that condemns marriage as an inherent evil to be avoided for it indulges in the pleasures of the flesh.
It seems in today's world, we need to heed the words of the writer of Hebrews: "Marriage should be honored by all." Our enemy desires to abolish and destroy marriage for he understands it's significance far more than we do. Marriage is a symbol that points to the union of Christ with his Bride, the Church. And in its fullest expression, it results in obedience to God's command to be fruitful and multiply. Every birth that comes into the world is viewed by our enemy as an incursion without parallel. The Prince of this World desires to destroy all that bear the image of God. We are hated by him, and the very institution that God created for the procreation of his children has always been under attack. It was true in Clement's time, and it is true today.
In the current climate, we are faced with an attack upon the institution of marriage of a far more insidious nature, a nature that shows clearly how Satan clothes himself as an angel of light. Proposition 8 in California is going to be voted on this November to decide the fate of marriage. Under the aegis of love, compassion, social justice and equality, Californians, and by extension, the rest of the country are being asked to turn marriage into a desecration of God's institution of marriage by allowing homosexual men and women to be legally married.
Clement would have strong words to say to those who would advocate inclusion of marriage of homosexuals within the church.
The Bride and Church must be pure alike from inward thoughts contrary to truth and from outward tempers, that is, the adherents of heretical sects who try to persuade her to sexual unfaithfulness to her one and only husband almighty God. We must not be led, “as the snake seduced Eve,” whose name means “Life,” to transgress the commandments under the influence of the wicked factions.
There are many in the church who painfully struggle with homosexual desires, but sadly, some have chosen to manipulate Scripture to justify their desires, rather than seek the Cross of Christ and view their struggle as their particular cross to bear. Clement writes strong words to those who would lead others astray through sophistic and clever arguments that twist Scripture:
It is not right to entrust the Word to hearers to make a test of it on the basis of comparison or to hand it right over for investigation to those who have been brought up to all kinds of sophisticated arguments and who vaunt the power of their intellectual proofs, those whose souls are already determined beforehand instead of being emptied of prejudgment.
The church needs to fight this newest heresy attacking marriage, and speak the truth in love. Many well intentioned and well meaning men and women who have lived with tremendous pain resulting from their struggle with homosexual desires have in recent decades decided to conform Scripture to justify desires that seem insatiable. They have deceived themselves, and as they have looked at Scripture anew, their souls were determined beforehand as to the outcome and through sophistical arguments, they have done violence to Scriptural prohibitions against sexual immorality.
We need to have compassion for these hurting people, for they have exchanged the truth for a lie. In the words of Clement, they "cannot distinguish true pleasure from false, or a beauty that is perishable and insolent from beauty of holiness." This is a sad state of affairs! But it is motivated by the immensity of their pain, which has been transformed into a desire, as Clement so aptly puts:
Every pleasure has its origin in a desire. Desire is a form of pain, a care which yearns for something it lacks. Those who choose this way of life simply seem to me, in the familiar words,
and choosing an evil “they have brought on themselves” for the present and the future.
What the Church needs to teach is that the desire that gay men and women so keenly feel can only be satisfied at the Cross of Christ. The "something it lacks" is the God-shaped void in us all. To choose a faux marriage is choosing an evil for the present and the future and buying into a lie of our enemy.
Many in the Christian gay community speak out about the freedom from the Law that we now enjoy through the redemption of Christ. They conveniently ignore the words Christ spoke to his followers: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets." For Clement, there is nothing more beautiful than the Law, and as he says, the inherent caution against immoral living that accompanies the Law. For him, as with Paul, it is the Law that points out our sin, not so that we will suffer condemnation, but so that we can strive to live, as Clement calls it, "the blessed life."
Through the commandments we have a demonstration of the blessed life. We all ought to pursue it without misunderstanding any of the statements or neglecting any of the properties, even the slightest of them. We are to follow where the Word leads…We must follow God’s Scripture, the road taken by the faithful, and we will, so far as possible, become like the Lord. We are not to live amorally. We are, so far as possible, to purify ourselves from pleasures and lusts, and take care of our soul which should continue to be engaged solely with the divine. For if it is pure and freed from all vice, the mind is somehow capable of receiving the power of God, when the divine image is established within it. Scripture says, “Everyone who has this hope in the Lord is purifying himself as the Lord is pure.”
Clement concludes his treatise by quoting Paul's admonishment against sexual immorality of all kinds, and reminds his readers that "we used to be such, but "have passed through the purifying waters" of baptism. He contrasts those who twist Scripture to justify immorality by saying,
But they purify themselves for this licentiousness. Their baptism is out of responsible self-control into sexual immorality. Their philosophy is the gratification of their pleasures and passions. They teach a change from self-discipline to indiscipline. The hope they offer is the titillation of their genitals. Under the name of what they falsely call knowledge they have embarked on the road to outer darkness. “For the rest, brothers, set your minds on all that is true, all that is holy, all that is righteous, all that is pure, all that is attractive, all that wins praise, whatever wins admiration for its moral excellence. Put into practice the lessons I taught, the traditions I passed on, the words you heard from me, the actions you saw me perform. And the God of Peace will be with you.”
Peter in his letter says much the same: “In consequence, you have purified your souls in obedience to the truth, and your faith and hope are in God,” “as obedient children, not molded by the lustful desires of your former ignorance. The one who called you is holy. Be like him, holy in all your behavior, since it is written, ‘You are to be holy, since I am holy.’”
C.S. Lewis's words in The Weight of Glory need to be what the Church champions and proclaims to those within her care who struggle with homosexuality: it is not that our desires are too strong, they are too weak. And they need to realize that Scripture's prohibition against homosexuality is an expression of the very heart of the love of God. My dad often told me and my brothers as we grew up that God says no because He loves us. Responding to God's commands is usually difficult, but as Thomas Merton writes, "Have we forgotten that love can be demanding, exacting, unyielding?"
All of us who journey through life must wage a battle between following God or following the Prince of the World. We have a holy host around us to whom we can look to as an example, and as Clement so clearly puts, "The best means towards understanding of the truth and the performance of the commandments is to follow those others who have already been through the test with flying colors."
My prayer is that those who desire to reconcile a homosexual lifestyle with the Church would follow the saints who have gone before, and allow themselves to be wooed by the true Lover of their soul, consumed by divine love that is the place where true happiness and joy resides. As Augustine said so long ago: "our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." We are called to greater things than finding our ultimate happiness on this earth. As Lewis says in The Weight of Glory, "we are far too easily pleased." Lewis admonishes us, saying that "we are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea."
Gay men and women who clamor for the rights of marriage are clinging to a chimera, a mere caricature of the joy possible to them. How I wish they could understand that God calls them, and all of us who must carry our cross daily, to a higher place that reflects our nobility as sons and daughters of the Most High God.
The possibility is this, as expressed by Thomas Merton:
Suffering, therefore, must make sense to us not as a vague universal necessity, but as something demanded by our own personal destiny. When I see my trials not as the collision of my life with a blind machine called fate, but as the sacramental gift of Christ's love, given to me by God the Father along with my identity and my very name, then I can consecrate them and myself with them to God. For then I realize that my suffering is not my own. It is the Passion of Christ, stretching out its tendrils into my life in order to bear rich clusters of grapes, making my soul dizzy with the wine of Christ's love, and pouring that wine as strong as fire upon the whole world.
I can't think of a more noble calling. As Paul has said, there indeed can be joy in suffering.
In Stromatesis, Clement strikes blow upon blow to the teaching of those who modify Scripture, twisting the writing of Paul in Romans to justify immoral living.
Those who drag in a doctrine of moral indifference do violence to some few passages of Scripture, thinking that they support their own love of pleasure; in particular, the passage “Sin shall have no authority over you; for you are not subject to sin but to grace.” But there are other such passages, which there is no good reason to record for these purposes, as I am not equipping a pirate ship! Let me quickly cut through the attempt. The admirable Apostle in person will refute their charge in the words with which he continues the previous quotation: “Well then! Shall we sin because we are no longer under Law but under grace? God forbid!” With these inspired prophetic words, at a single stroke he undoes the sophistical skill at the service of pleasure.
He is greatly concerned with heresies that do injury to the institution of marriage from two distinct extremes--one that allows for license and loose living, based on an over liberal interpretation of grace and on the other extreme, one that condemns marriage as an inherent evil to be avoided for it indulges in the pleasures of the flesh.
It seems in today's world, we need to heed the words of the writer of Hebrews: "Marriage should be honored by all." Our enemy desires to abolish and destroy marriage for he understands it's significance far more than we do. Marriage is a symbol that points to the union of Christ with his Bride, the Church. And in its fullest expression, it results in obedience to God's command to be fruitful and multiply. Every birth that comes into the world is viewed by our enemy as an incursion without parallel. The Prince of this World desires to destroy all that bear the image of God. We are hated by him, and the very institution that God created for the procreation of his children has always been under attack. It was true in Clement's time, and it is true today.
In the current climate, we are faced with an attack upon the institution of marriage of a far more insidious nature, a nature that shows clearly how Satan clothes himself as an angel of light. Proposition 8 in California is going to be voted on this November to decide the fate of marriage. Under the aegis of love, compassion, social justice and equality, Californians, and by extension, the rest of the country are being asked to turn marriage into a desecration of God's institution of marriage by allowing homosexual men and women to be legally married.
Clement would have strong words to say to those who would advocate inclusion of marriage of homosexuals within the church.
The Bride and Church must be pure alike from inward thoughts contrary to truth and from outward tempers, that is, the adherents of heretical sects who try to persuade her to sexual unfaithfulness to her one and only husband almighty God. We must not be led, “as the snake seduced Eve,” whose name means “Life,” to transgress the commandments under the influence of the wicked factions.
There are many in the church who painfully struggle with homosexual desires, but sadly, some have chosen to manipulate Scripture to justify their desires, rather than seek the Cross of Christ and view their struggle as their particular cross to bear. Clement writes strong words to those who would lead others astray through sophistic and clever arguments that twist Scripture:
It is not right to entrust the Word to hearers to make a test of it on the basis of comparison or to hand it right over for investigation to those who have been brought up to all kinds of sophisticated arguments and who vaunt the power of their intellectual proofs, those whose souls are already determined beforehand instead of being emptied of prejudgment.
The church needs to fight this newest heresy attacking marriage, and speak the truth in love. Many well intentioned and well meaning men and women who have lived with tremendous pain resulting from their struggle with homosexual desires have in recent decades decided to conform Scripture to justify desires that seem insatiable. They have deceived themselves, and as they have looked at Scripture anew, their souls were determined beforehand as to the outcome and through sophistical arguments, they have done violence to Scriptural prohibitions against sexual immorality.
We need to have compassion for these hurting people, for they have exchanged the truth for a lie. In the words of Clement, they "cannot distinguish true pleasure from false, or a beauty that is perishable and insolent from beauty of holiness." This is a sad state of affairs! But it is motivated by the immensity of their pain, which has been transformed into a desire, as Clement so aptly puts:
Every pleasure has its origin in a desire. Desire is a form of pain, a care which yearns for something it lacks. Those who choose this way of life simply seem to me, in the familiar words,
To be suffering grief on top of shame.
and choosing an evil “they have brought on themselves” for the present and the future.
What the Church needs to teach is that the desire that gay men and women so keenly feel can only be satisfied at the Cross of Christ. The "something it lacks" is the God-shaped void in us all. To choose a faux marriage is choosing an evil for the present and the future and buying into a lie of our enemy.
Many in the Christian gay community speak out about the freedom from the Law that we now enjoy through the redemption of Christ. They conveniently ignore the words Christ spoke to his followers: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets." For Clement, there is nothing more beautiful than the Law, and as he says, the inherent caution against immoral living that accompanies the Law. For him, as with Paul, it is the Law that points out our sin, not so that we will suffer condemnation, but so that we can strive to live, as Clement calls it, "the blessed life."
Through the commandments we have a demonstration of the blessed life. We all ought to pursue it without misunderstanding any of the statements or neglecting any of the properties, even the slightest of them. We are to follow where the Word leads…We must follow God’s Scripture, the road taken by the faithful, and we will, so far as possible, become like the Lord. We are not to live amorally. We are, so far as possible, to purify ourselves from pleasures and lusts, and take care of our soul which should continue to be engaged solely with the divine. For if it is pure and freed from all vice, the mind is somehow capable of receiving the power of God, when the divine image is established within it. Scripture says, “Everyone who has this hope in the Lord is purifying himself as the Lord is pure.”
Clement concludes his treatise by quoting Paul's admonishment against sexual immorality of all kinds, and reminds his readers that "we used to be such, but "have passed through the purifying waters" of baptism. He contrasts those who twist Scripture to justify immorality by saying,
But they purify themselves for this licentiousness. Their baptism is out of responsible self-control into sexual immorality. Their philosophy is the gratification of their pleasures and passions. They teach a change from self-discipline to indiscipline. The hope they offer is the titillation of their genitals. Under the name of what they falsely call knowledge they have embarked on the road to outer darkness. “For the rest, brothers, set your minds on all that is true, all that is holy, all that is righteous, all that is pure, all that is attractive, all that wins praise, whatever wins admiration for its moral excellence. Put into practice the lessons I taught, the traditions I passed on, the words you heard from me, the actions you saw me perform. And the God of Peace will be with you.”
Peter in his letter says much the same: “In consequence, you have purified your souls in obedience to the truth, and your faith and hope are in God,” “as obedient children, not molded by the lustful desires of your former ignorance. The one who called you is holy. Be like him, holy in all your behavior, since it is written, ‘You are to be holy, since I am holy.’”
C.S. Lewis's words in The Weight of Glory need to be what the Church champions and proclaims to those within her care who struggle with homosexuality: it is not that our desires are too strong, they are too weak. And they need to realize that Scripture's prohibition against homosexuality is an expression of the very heart of the love of God. My dad often told me and my brothers as we grew up that God says no because He loves us. Responding to God's commands is usually difficult, but as Thomas Merton writes, "Have we forgotten that love can be demanding, exacting, unyielding?"
All of us who journey through life must wage a battle between following God or following the Prince of the World. We have a holy host around us to whom we can look to as an example, and as Clement so clearly puts, "The best means towards understanding of the truth and the performance of the commandments is to follow those others who have already been through the test with flying colors."
My prayer is that those who desire to reconcile a homosexual lifestyle with the Church would follow the saints who have gone before, and allow themselves to be wooed by the true Lover of their soul, consumed by divine love that is the place where true happiness and joy resides. As Augustine said so long ago: "our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." We are called to greater things than finding our ultimate happiness on this earth. As Lewis says in The Weight of Glory, "we are far too easily pleased." Lewis admonishes us, saying that "we are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea."
Gay men and women who clamor for the rights of marriage are clinging to a chimera, a mere caricature of the joy possible to them. How I wish they could understand that God calls them, and all of us who must carry our cross daily, to a higher place that reflects our nobility as sons and daughters of the Most High God.
The possibility is this, as expressed by Thomas Merton:
Suffering, therefore, must make sense to us not as a vague universal necessity, but as something demanded by our own personal destiny. When I see my trials not as the collision of my life with a blind machine called fate, but as the sacramental gift of Christ's love, given to me by God the Father along with my identity and my very name, then I can consecrate them and myself with them to God. For then I realize that my suffering is not my own. It is the Passion of Christ, stretching out its tendrils into my life in order to bear rich clusters of grapes, making my soul dizzy with the wine of Christ's love, and pouring that wine as strong as fire upon the whole world.
I can't think of a more noble calling. As Paul has said, there indeed can be joy in suffering.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Santa Cruz
I'm having a great time here in California. The weather's beautiful, the scenery is a change of pace and the music is fantastic. It's exciting to be a part of this music festival that seems to grow in stature each year. It's becoming a gathering of some of the most important names in the music scene today. The composers want to be here to hear their pieces performed and this weekend we're doing a world premier by one of the most important living composers.
Christopher Rouse is a Pulitzer prize winning composer and the Cabrillo Festival commissioned him to write a new work, his Concerto for Orchestra. It's exhilarating to know that we're the first orchestra to ever hear the sounds of a piece that will eventually be played by every major orchestra in the world. Knowing that one of the greatest living composers is out there, seated at a table in front of the orchestra, hearing the notes he's put on paper for the first time is a privilege that I won't forget. And it happens every year here.
Sitting next to him is another Pulitzer prize winning composer, John Corigliano, who is also having a piece performed here. They are in an exclusive fraternity: individuals whose music will be performed for centuries to come and about whom knew chapters in the history of music will be written. In a hundred years their lives and music will be studied by music students just as I studied the lives and music of Debussy and Brahms when I was a student. It's electric knowing that they are in the same auditorium with our orchestra. It makes me very grateful to be here.
Beyond that, Santa Cruz is a strange town. On the plane change in Minneapolis I saw a t-shirt by a local that said, "Keep St. Paul Weird." That sentiment applies to Santa Cruz as well.
Just a week before we arrived here in Santa Cruz there was a woman walking down the main street, completely naked, and no one seemed to mind. It made the paper not in the crime report sheet but in a commentary written by a local newspaperman about how strange a place Santa Cruz is.
I would say Santa Cruz has misplaced liberality. It's guiding mantra is that freedom means doing whatever you want to do and its streets are lined with hurting souls who are living in chains that they believe are their freedom.
But at the same time I wonder about how my conception of God can be reshaped by the people and this culture around me. When I was a child I remember finding anything to do with Asia bizarre and uncomfortably foreign. I didn't' find anything beautiful or redeeming in a culture so different from mine.
That all changed when I saw The Last Emperor. That movie opened my eyes to the beauty of Asia and I've never looked back. When I traveled to Thailand my love of south east Asia was strengthened and I long to return. There is a beauty and majesty in Asia completely foreign to me but equally beautiful to me as the grandest cathedrals in Europe.
It tells me something about God. I realized that I've made God in my image and the image of my culture and I believe that most cultures do. There must be contained in the person of God all the good and beautiful things that have ever existed in the history of mankind and of every culture. All good comes from God and as we are made in his image, the beauty and majesty of distant cultures must reflect something about God that can help me understand him better. God's image can be found in Asia as much as Rome and Israel. We love and serve a dynamic God who is impossible for us to ever comprehend and I think he delights in challenging our prejudices about Him.
It makes me think of the culture of Santa Cruz--the want to be Rastafarians, the surfer culture, the flip-flop wearing, long haired nouveau hippy culture that exists here.
Can I learn something about the person of God in these strange and bizarre people?
They are strange and bizarre to me, but are they strange and bizarre to God?
They reflect God's image in some way, in all that is good about them. I think that is what we're called to look for in everyone we meet, and especially in those most foreign to us.
Christopher Rouse is a Pulitzer prize winning composer and the Cabrillo Festival commissioned him to write a new work, his Concerto for Orchestra. It's exhilarating to know that we're the first orchestra to ever hear the sounds of a piece that will eventually be played by every major orchestra in the world. Knowing that one of the greatest living composers is out there, seated at a table in front of the orchestra, hearing the notes he's put on paper for the first time is a privilege that I won't forget. And it happens every year here.
Sitting next to him is another Pulitzer prize winning composer, John Corigliano, who is also having a piece performed here. They are in an exclusive fraternity: individuals whose music will be performed for centuries to come and about whom knew chapters in the history of music will be written. In a hundred years their lives and music will be studied by music students just as I studied the lives and music of Debussy and Brahms when I was a student. It's electric knowing that they are in the same auditorium with our orchestra. It makes me very grateful to be here.
Beyond that, Santa Cruz is a strange town. On the plane change in Minneapolis I saw a t-shirt by a local that said, "Keep St. Paul Weird." That sentiment applies to Santa Cruz as well.
Just a week before we arrived here in Santa Cruz there was a woman walking down the main street, completely naked, and no one seemed to mind. It made the paper not in the crime report sheet but in a commentary written by a local newspaperman about how strange a place Santa Cruz is.
I would say Santa Cruz has misplaced liberality. It's guiding mantra is that freedom means doing whatever you want to do and its streets are lined with hurting souls who are living in chains that they believe are their freedom.
But at the same time I wonder about how my conception of God can be reshaped by the people and this culture around me. When I was a child I remember finding anything to do with Asia bizarre and uncomfortably foreign. I didn't' find anything beautiful or redeeming in a culture so different from mine.
That all changed when I saw The Last Emperor. That movie opened my eyes to the beauty of Asia and I've never looked back. When I traveled to Thailand my love of south east Asia was strengthened and I long to return. There is a beauty and majesty in Asia completely foreign to me but equally beautiful to me as the grandest cathedrals in Europe.
It tells me something about God. I realized that I've made God in my image and the image of my culture and I believe that most cultures do. There must be contained in the person of God all the good and beautiful things that have ever existed in the history of mankind and of every culture. All good comes from God and as we are made in his image, the beauty and majesty of distant cultures must reflect something about God that can help me understand him better. God's image can be found in Asia as much as Rome and Israel. We love and serve a dynamic God who is impossible for us to ever comprehend and I think he delights in challenging our prejudices about Him.
It makes me think of the culture of Santa Cruz--the want to be Rastafarians, the surfer culture, the flip-flop wearing, long haired nouveau hippy culture that exists here.
Can I learn something about the person of God in these strange and bizarre people?
They are strange and bizarre to me, but are they strange and bizarre to God?
They reflect God's image in some way, in all that is good about them. I think that is what we're called to look for in everyone we meet, and especially in those most foreign to us.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
I'm sitting here tonight at home wishing I had a concert. I have the week off, which is very nice, but I don't really enjoy being at home alone on a Saturday sometimes. I think my cross is this lonely house and my bachelor existence. There's no taking that one up--it just is what my life is.
And I grow weary of it. But I suppose that's where the rubber hits the road for me, in light of what I wrote the other night.
And I grow weary of it. But I suppose that's where the rubber hits the road for me, in light of what I wrote the other night.
Thoughts on Suffering
A good friend of mine had surgery today to remove a cancerous prostate. He and his wife have been in my thoughts quite a bit throughout the day. Sadly, I don't think the surgery was the most painful thing today. The death of a dream and hope of having children is the most painful wound of all for both of them. It makes it so clear to me once again that suffering is not far removed from any of us.
I have another colleague who was recently diagnosed with uterine cancer, and another dear friend and colleague who just lost a three legged dog he and his wife had rescued from an animal shelter. Losing this dog was like losing a family member for him. He is in a profound state of grief.
Someone somewhere once said that there's no need to look for suffering--it will find us. As I have wrestled over the past several months with my own difficulties and loneliness, I have spent quite a bit of time reflecting on suffering. The one fundamental truth that I have arrived at is that the best, and only answer, to suffering can be found in the teachings of Christ.
The very marrow of Christianity is rooted at the literal crossroads of supreme suffering. Christ's death on the cross was the ultimate act of redemptive suffering. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. The sacrifice of Christ, on behalf of all of humanity, the act of willingly suffering so that others might be redeemed, is the sobering example I am becoming convinced Christ calls us to follow.
I have always wrestled with what Christ meant when he said to pick up my cross and follow him. That is a call shrouded in mystery. What is our cross, and what does it mean for us to pick it up? As I have wrestled more and more with this conundrum, I have found myself asking more and more what the cross of Christ represents. If we are called to be like Christ, and if Christ willingly suffered the travails of the cross, does that mean that he desires for us to follow him there, to daily pick up our cross, a cross that represents the pinnacle of redemptive and salvific suffering?
I prefer a crucifix with a crucified Christ to an empty cross. I believe in the resurrection, but what I need is the crucified Christ, a Christ who can join in with the suffering that I occasionally endure. I suppose those are the Catholic roots within me speaking, but for me, I need to be able to identify with a savior who suffers. Suffering is sure to come, and it is all around us. My neighbor to my left is fighting a battle with lung cancer and my neighbor to my right just lost her father to Parkinson's disease. How can we make sense of all of these tragedies?
I take great comfort in the belief that our suffering can be offered up on behalf of those whom we love. For me, this is the crux of Christianity for me, the very nucleus of my belief in Jesus Christ. I believe in the resurrection, but it is the suffering Christ who I cherish most of all as I journey through this difficult life. And when suffering enters into my life, as it surely does and will, I am grateful that in Christ I can find an answer to why. Not only an answer, but a response, a way to embrace it and to view it as a means by which others can be redeemed. For me that is powerful, powerful stuff, and I don't say it or believe it lightly. Suffering is bound to come--Christ embraced it willingly and offered himself up on behalf of others, for the redemption of others. Is that his call to us? To embrace suffering? Is this what he asks of us when he asks us to take up our cross and follow him?
Paul writes about suffering so often, and he knew suffering. What I find intriguing is how often he talks about suffering on behalf of others. Surely this is Paul taking up his cross.
Check this out from 2 Corinthians 1:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
"If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation." How beautiful is that?
And here's a sobering example in Phillipians 3:
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
"The fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death." I'm beginning to view that becoming like Christ in his death must mean being willing to offer up our lives on behalf of those we love. Sobering stuff if you ask me.
But most profoundly moving for me, and the verse that gives me the greatest assurance and comfort whenever I contemplate the reasons behind suffering can be found in Colossians 1:24.
Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
I do not believe that Christ's afflictions were somehow insufficient, or incomplete. Rather, if there is anything "lacking" in Christ's afflictions, it could only be out of a desire on the part of Christ for us to be able to participate with him in the redemptive suffering he partook of on the cross. In my mind, it must be something akin to what Pascal said about prayer and why our prayer has power, that it bestows on man the dignity of causality. I tend to think that through suffering, we have been given the dignity and opportunity to enter in with Christ in the redemption of the world, not in a figurative sense, but in a very literal sense. For me, this is what it must mean to take up our cross and follow him and the only answer to the eternal question of why there is suffering in this world.
I have another colleague who was recently diagnosed with uterine cancer, and another dear friend and colleague who just lost a three legged dog he and his wife had rescued from an animal shelter. Losing this dog was like losing a family member for him. He is in a profound state of grief.
Someone somewhere once said that there's no need to look for suffering--it will find us. As I have wrestled over the past several months with my own difficulties and loneliness, I have spent quite a bit of time reflecting on suffering. The one fundamental truth that I have arrived at is that the best, and only answer, to suffering can be found in the teachings of Christ.
The very marrow of Christianity is rooted at the literal crossroads of supreme suffering. Christ's death on the cross was the ultimate act of redemptive suffering. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. The sacrifice of Christ, on behalf of all of humanity, the act of willingly suffering so that others might be redeemed, is the sobering example I am becoming convinced Christ calls us to follow.
I have always wrestled with what Christ meant when he said to pick up my cross and follow him. That is a call shrouded in mystery. What is our cross, and what does it mean for us to pick it up? As I have wrestled more and more with this conundrum, I have found myself asking more and more what the cross of Christ represents. If we are called to be like Christ, and if Christ willingly suffered the travails of the cross, does that mean that he desires for us to follow him there, to daily pick up our cross, a cross that represents the pinnacle of redemptive and salvific suffering?
I prefer a crucifix with a crucified Christ to an empty cross. I believe in the resurrection, but what I need is the crucified Christ, a Christ who can join in with the suffering that I occasionally endure. I suppose those are the Catholic roots within me speaking, but for me, I need to be able to identify with a savior who suffers. Suffering is sure to come, and it is all around us. My neighbor to my left is fighting a battle with lung cancer and my neighbor to my right just lost her father to Parkinson's disease. How can we make sense of all of these tragedies?
I take great comfort in the belief that our suffering can be offered up on behalf of those whom we love. For me, this is the crux of Christianity for me, the very nucleus of my belief in Jesus Christ. I believe in the resurrection, but it is the suffering Christ who I cherish most of all as I journey through this difficult life. And when suffering enters into my life, as it surely does and will, I am grateful that in Christ I can find an answer to why. Not only an answer, but a response, a way to embrace it and to view it as a means by which others can be redeemed. For me that is powerful, powerful stuff, and I don't say it or believe it lightly. Suffering is bound to come--Christ embraced it willingly and offered himself up on behalf of others, for the redemption of others. Is that his call to us? To embrace suffering? Is this what he asks of us when he asks us to take up our cross and follow him?
Paul writes about suffering so often, and he knew suffering. What I find intriguing is how often he talks about suffering on behalf of others. Surely this is Paul taking up his cross.
Check this out from 2 Corinthians 1:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
"If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation." How beautiful is that?
And here's a sobering example in Phillipians 3:
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
"The fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death." I'm beginning to view that becoming like Christ in his death must mean being willing to offer up our lives on behalf of those we love. Sobering stuff if you ask me.
But most profoundly moving for me, and the verse that gives me the greatest assurance and comfort whenever I contemplate the reasons behind suffering can be found in Colossians 1:24.
Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.
I do not believe that Christ's afflictions were somehow insufficient, or incomplete. Rather, if there is anything "lacking" in Christ's afflictions, it could only be out of a desire on the part of Christ for us to be able to participate with him in the redemptive suffering he partook of on the cross. In my mind, it must be something akin to what Pascal said about prayer and why our prayer has power, that it bestows on man the dignity of causality. I tend to think that through suffering, we have been given the dignity and opportunity to enter in with Christ in the redemption of the world, not in a figurative sense, but in a very literal sense. For me, this is what it must mean to take up our cross and follow him and the only answer to the eternal question of why there is suffering in this world.
Friday, December 21, 2007
I can't leave well enough alone.
My mind was a-cogitatin' during the Nutcracker performance tonight and I decided to whip up a couple more ganaches tonight when I got home. What got me all fired up was thinking about creating a truffle with milk chocolate, imbued with Irish cream. I was contemplating rolling it in ground up chocolate covered coffee beans. That's an itch that just needed to be scratched, so can you blame me for chopping up some chocolate and getting to work again when I got home? Here's the kicker...I couldn't find a recipe that uses alcohol with milk chocolate so I sort of had to wing it. I'm going to write what I did, in case it works and I want to create it again. And if it doesn't work out, well, then I'll know to avoid it. The recipe I started with called for 8 oz. of chocolate and 1/2 cup, plus two tablespoons, of heavy cream. I wanted to make sure that the ganache was thick enough to roll or cut into squares, and since I wanted to double the amounts, I went with one cup of cream, two tablespoons of butter, a couple of teaspoons of vanilla and three tbsp of Irish Cream. Let me tell you, it's TASTY!!! We'll see what it looks like in the morning. If it's too runny I'm thinking it could really be a great filling for molded chocolates, which I haven't tried my hand at just yet.
I haven't broken out the dark chocolate yet either, so I whipped up a raspberry ganache using some really good Belgian dark chocolate. The recipe I used suggested steeping some raspberry or black currant tea with the cream while it heated, so I looked in the pantry and fortunately found some raspberry tea. It should add a nice complexity to the raspberry flavor which is heightened by adding some Chambord raspberry liqueur. That's the essence of raspberry and it's one of my favorite liqueurs. I'll always have that in my pantry. I was tempted to add some black pepper, believe it or not, but decided to hold off on that. I think that would have been a nice background note. As to the source of my recipe, I used Sherry Yards's recipe. She's one of my favorite pastry chefs and is the guru at Wolfgang Puck's restaurants. She really knows what she's doing and anything I've ever made from her book is absolutely top shelf. I highly recommend her book The Secrets of Baking.
I made another gelee earlier today as well. This one used sour cherries from Traverse City. I'm a little underwhelmed by these gelees. I need to do more research on them because none of them are really working out the way I want them to. They all are a bit droopy, for lack of a better word. They don't hold together like I want them to do, but I suspect that's because they're not laden with all kinds of chemicals. I think these are the types of things that you serve ala minute, putting them out with the hopes that your guests will eat them within minutes of serving. Regardless, I made the cherry gelees today and even if I never give them away I've just got to tell you how amazingly tasty they turned out. I've decied this: All God ever had to do was to make a cherry and I'd dedicate my life to him. The creative brilliance behind such a remarkable fruit makes me stand in awe. Sour cherries are so damn tasty that I'll get down on bended knee and thank the good Lord for giving them to us. The complexity of flavors in cherries really boggles my mind. And aren't you glad that cherries are red and not not brown? If anyone wants to know, incidentally, I eat to give praise to God. I'm going to go with this: eating is an act of worship. (Sounds like a keeper of a philosophy, don't you think?) So let me publicly say it: thank God for cherries! My life is decidedly richer and more complete because of a perfect little red fruit.
While mulling around in the kitchen, I was thinking about the anticipation I was feeling the other night on the eve of starting my chocolate marathon. It caused me to think back on moments in my childhood on the eve of vacation, or on Christmas Eve. My niece Betsy came to mind as well. Last Christmas, several of us went in together to buy her an awesome play kitchen that she wished for with all her little heart. That Christmas there wasn’t a happier girl in America than my niece. When no one else was around, she went up to her mom and said, “Mom, I’m so excited, I can’t get all my excited’s out!” I think God is pleased when we’re excited by good things, when we can’t sleep because we’re so excited at the prospect of an adventure or a fun endeavor. There is something good and wholesome about being so passionate about something that we can’t sleep. Making chocolates and candies feeds a desire to be creative within me, and I believe that desire stems from God. Anytime we use our creative skills we model ourselves after God, don’t you think? And when I think of Betsy not being able to get all of her excited’s out, I think about the fact that we are made in God’s image. Don’t you think that sometimes God is so excited that he can’t get all of his excited’s out? I think back on when God told me to just trust me—in my mind he appeared as excited at the prospect of me trusting him as my niece felt about that kitchen.
A few year's ago, there would have been a part of me that would have been a bit embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about chocolates, but thank God I’ve reached a point where I’m willing to celebrate that instead of be embarrassed by it. I think not being able to sleep before an exciting day is something that we have because we're made in God's image. I've just got to believe that God was thrilled and filled with excitement when he created the cherry! Imagine him saying to the angels, “check this out boys…go ahead and have a sample of my handiwork, and tell me what you think.” I’m thinking they gave him two thumbs up and that they echoed their God and said, “it’s good!” My satisfaction in making a tasty little treat is a mirror of that, but can you imagine conjuring up a cherry where none existed before? That just blows my mind.
For me, all I really need to believe in God is a cherry.
I gotta just tell you, my heart is filled with a lot of joy right now, and a lot of love for my Maker. I'm glad he called me to him, and my heart is filled with joy that can only come from him. And all of that because of chocolate and cherries.
I haven't broken out the dark chocolate yet either, so I whipped up a raspberry ganache using some really good Belgian dark chocolate. The recipe I used suggested steeping some raspberry or black currant tea with the cream while it heated, so I looked in the pantry and fortunately found some raspberry tea. It should add a nice complexity to the raspberry flavor which is heightened by adding some Chambord raspberry liqueur. That's the essence of raspberry and it's one of my favorite liqueurs. I'll always have that in my pantry. I was tempted to add some black pepper, believe it or not, but decided to hold off on that. I think that would have been a nice background note. As to the source of my recipe, I used Sherry Yards's recipe. She's one of my favorite pastry chefs and is the guru at Wolfgang Puck's restaurants. She really knows what she's doing and anything I've ever made from her book is absolutely top shelf. I highly recommend her book The Secrets of Baking.
I made another gelee earlier today as well. This one used sour cherries from Traverse City. I'm a little underwhelmed by these gelees. I need to do more research on them because none of them are really working out the way I want them to. They all are a bit droopy, for lack of a better word. They don't hold together like I want them to do, but I suspect that's because they're not laden with all kinds of chemicals. I think these are the types of things that you serve ala minute, putting them out with the hopes that your guests will eat them within minutes of serving. Regardless, I made the cherry gelees today and even if I never give them away I've just got to tell you how amazingly tasty they turned out. I've decied this: All God ever had to do was to make a cherry and I'd dedicate my life to him. The creative brilliance behind such a remarkable fruit makes me stand in awe. Sour cherries are so damn tasty that I'll get down on bended knee and thank the good Lord for giving them to us. The complexity of flavors in cherries really boggles my mind. And aren't you glad that cherries are red and not not brown? If anyone wants to know, incidentally, I eat to give praise to God. I'm going to go with this: eating is an act of worship. (Sounds like a keeper of a philosophy, don't you think?) So let me publicly say it: thank God for cherries! My life is decidedly richer and more complete because of a perfect little red fruit.
While mulling around in the kitchen, I was thinking about the anticipation I was feeling the other night on the eve of starting my chocolate marathon. It caused me to think back on moments in my childhood on the eve of vacation, or on Christmas Eve. My niece Betsy came to mind as well. Last Christmas, several of us went in together to buy her an awesome play kitchen that she wished for with all her little heart. That Christmas there wasn’t a happier girl in America than my niece. When no one else was around, she went up to her mom and said, “Mom, I’m so excited, I can’t get all my excited’s out!” I think God is pleased when we’re excited by good things, when we can’t sleep because we’re so excited at the prospect of an adventure or a fun endeavor. There is something good and wholesome about being so passionate about something that we can’t sleep. Making chocolates and candies feeds a desire to be creative within me, and I believe that desire stems from God. Anytime we use our creative skills we model ourselves after God, don’t you think? And when I think of Betsy not being able to get all of her excited’s out, I think about the fact that we are made in God’s image. Don’t you think that sometimes God is so excited that he can’t get all of his excited’s out? I think back on when God told me to just trust me—in my mind he appeared as excited at the prospect of me trusting him as my niece felt about that kitchen.
A few year's ago, there would have been a part of me that would have been a bit embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about chocolates, but thank God I’ve reached a point where I’m willing to celebrate that instead of be embarrassed by it. I think not being able to sleep before an exciting day is something that we have because we're made in God's image. I've just got to believe that God was thrilled and filled with excitement when he created the cherry! Imagine him saying to the angels, “check this out boys…go ahead and have a sample of my handiwork, and tell me what you think.” I’m thinking they gave him two thumbs up and that they echoed their God and said, “it’s good!” My satisfaction in making a tasty little treat is a mirror of that, but can you imagine conjuring up a cherry where none existed before? That just blows my mind.
For me, all I really need to believe in God is a cherry.
I gotta just tell you, my heart is filled with a lot of joy right now, and a lot of love for my Maker. I'm glad he called me to him, and my heart is filled with joy that can only come from him. And all of that because of chocolate and cherries.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
A student of mine today gave me some good news: he and his girlfriend became engaged this past weekend. I congratulated him and told him that this Thanksgiving will certainly be one where he'll have plenty to be thankful for and he agreed. I patted him on the back and wished he and his fiancee all the best. I'm happy for him.
At the same time, there's something that saddens me. I think about the Richard Russo quote that I put on my blog awhile back: Lives are like rivers. Eventually they go where they must, not where we want them to. How I envy my student! He's 23 and he'll probably be married when he's 24. By my age, he'll have been married 13 years, assuming he and his wife stay together, which I think is a safe assumption. For me to be married for 13 years, I'd be 50. How I wish I had found my wife at an earlier age, but this is a useless exercise. The river of my life has taken me where it must while the river of his life has led him at an early age to the woman he will share his life. Why this happens to some and not to others we will never know--only God knows. All I know is that I desperately long for the companionship of a wife and hope and pray that she might be found just around the next bend.
I think this is more keenly felt by me when the holidays approach. I made an apple tart today for a meeting and everyone enjoyed it. I made sure to leave a piece for our host's wife who appeared in the kitchen at the end of our meeting. She was beginning to prepare for Thanksgiving and was planning to make a cranberry coffee cake tonight. While watching my friend's wife prepare dessert I was suddenly struck with the beauty of that domestic scene. What hit me at that moment was how much I would have enjoyed celebrating the holidays with Meg, a woman who enjoys food and cooking as much as I do, and who enjoys planning for a celebration as much as I do too. It caused me to heave some heavy sighs.
I still miss Meg immensely, though I realize that we will never be together. I'm trying to come to terms with this, but on days like today, and in moments like this one, I feel nothing but a gaping void which I feel can only be filled by her. It's tremendously sad for me.
Sometimes I wonder if Meg rejecting me is a blessing in disguise. I think I'll love the woman who chooses me all the more because of it.
At the same time, there's something that saddens me. I think about the Richard Russo quote that I put on my blog awhile back: Lives are like rivers. Eventually they go where they must, not where we want them to. How I envy my student! He's 23 and he'll probably be married when he's 24. By my age, he'll have been married 13 years, assuming he and his wife stay together, which I think is a safe assumption. For me to be married for 13 years, I'd be 50. How I wish I had found my wife at an earlier age, but this is a useless exercise. The river of my life has taken me where it must while the river of his life has led him at an early age to the woman he will share his life. Why this happens to some and not to others we will never know--only God knows. All I know is that I desperately long for the companionship of a wife and hope and pray that she might be found just around the next bend.
I think this is more keenly felt by me when the holidays approach. I made an apple tart today for a meeting and everyone enjoyed it. I made sure to leave a piece for our host's wife who appeared in the kitchen at the end of our meeting. She was beginning to prepare for Thanksgiving and was planning to make a cranberry coffee cake tonight. While watching my friend's wife prepare dessert I was suddenly struck with the beauty of that domestic scene. What hit me at that moment was how much I would have enjoyed celebrating the holidays with Meg, a woman who enjoys food and cooking as much as I do, and who enjoys planning for a celebration as much as I do too. It caused me to heave some heavy sighs.
I still miss Meg immensely, though I realize that we will never be together. I'm trying to come to terms with this, but on days like today, and in moments like this one, I feel nothing but a gaping void which I feel can only be filled by her. It's tremendously sad for me.
Sometimes I wonder if Meg rejecting me is a blessing in disguise. I think I'll love the woman who chooses me all the more because of it.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
How to be a good friend
I saw a good friend of mine yesterday for the first time since this summer. He didn't know much about the story with Meg but had heard an inkling from a mutual friend. He asked me what had happened so I relayed the story to him. He's one of those guys who whenever I seem to tell him about something like this, I usually feel worse after talking to him.
"Well, at least now you know where she stands and you can move on. You're gonna be fine," isn't really all that helpful. It's not like I suddenly learned that the pain in my foot was caused by a splinter that just had to be removed for me to be able to walk without a limp. How about just a "Hey, I'm sorry you're going through this. I'm sure it's gotta be tough." Sitting and just listening is never a bad idea.
"Well, at least now you know where she stands and you can move on. You're gonna be fine," isn't really all that helpful. It's not like I suddenly learned that the pain in my foot was caused by a splinter that just had to be removed for me to be able to walk without a limp. How about just a "Hey, I'm sorry you're going through this. I'm sure it's gotta be tough." Sitting and just listening is never a bad idea.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
All I Can Say Is Wow...
Everyone's gone through pain in their life, either through the loss of a friend or family member, or even the loss of a family pet, which often can bring the most profound sense of loss anyone has ever felt. Losing someone you love through breaking off a relationship is something everyone's gone through before too, which is obviously where I'm living these days. I know I've become somewhat of a One-Note Danny with my blog, but writing about what I'm going through is cathartic for me, so bear with me kind reader.
The reason all I can say is, "wow," is that it's absolutely amazing to me how loss can just hit you like a lead balloon, completely unexpectedly, and no matter how much you'd like to numb it, the pain is there in its all consuming reality. I am absolutely bowled over by the sense of loss I feel sometimes when I think about Meg, and just a half hour ago or so it hit me hard--really, really hard. It's absolutely shocking to me how strongly I feel this loss, particularly when I look at myself in a dispassionate and purely anthropological way. In that light, it's freaking unbelievable.
There are two "wow" factors: how incredibly strong my love is for Meg--I never imagined it possible to love someone so much. The flipside of that "wow" factor is the searing pain I feel now that she's gone from my life. Up until now, I would say that such strong feelings were inconceivable to me. I'm stunned, quite honestly, anytime I feel either.
What blows me away even more is that over time, love between husband and wife (in a healthy relationship) will grow even deeper and stronger. It begs the question: What must it be like to lose a spouse? And I can't have a way to understand the love that a mother or father has for their children. It makes me wonder at the tremendous loss my brothers and sisters-in-law must have felt when they each lost an unborn child. One thing I am certain of: Love is not finite. It grows and continues to grow, and there's always \room for more. What a gift that is to us. But then when the object of our love is lost--can their be greater pain?
Sometimes when I feel the pain, I wish I could numb it, turn it off, or excise it from my heart, but I can't, and honestly, I really don't want to do that. I think that's incredibly unhealthy--to willfully choose to ignore the pain one is feeling isn't good at all. I am living in it, each day, and I'm not going to kill it because I don't like it. I think there is much yet for me to learn.
As is the case for me so often, I think of C.S. Lewis. One of the best quotes from one of my favorite movies, Shadowlands, speaks to how I feel:
"Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal."
I'm not choosing safety.
The reason all I can say is, "wow," is that it's absolutely amazing to me how loss can just hit you like a lead balloon, completely unexpectedly, and no matter how much you'd like to numb it, the pain is there in its all consuming reality. I am absolutely bowled over by the sense of loss I feel sometimes when I think about Meg, and just a half hour ago or so it hit me hard--really, really hard. It's absolutely shocking to me how strongly I feel this loss, particularly when I look at myself in a dispassionate and purely anthropological way. In that light, it's freaking unbelievable.
There are two "wow" factors: how incredibly strong my love is for Meg--I never imagined it possible to love someone so much. The flipside of that "wow" factor is the searing pain I feel now that she's gone from my life. Up until now, I would say that such strong feelings were inconceivable to me. I'm stunned, quite honestly, anytime I feel either.
What blows me away even more is that over time, love between husband and wife (in a healthy relationship) will grow even deeper and stronger. It begs the question: What must it be like to lose a spouse? And I can't have a way to understand the love that a mother or father has for their children. It makes me wonder at the tremendous loss my brothers and sisters-in-law must have felt when they each lost an unborn child. One thing I am certain of: Love is not finite. It grows and continues to grow, and there's always \room for more. What a gift that is to us. But then when the object of our love is lost--can their be greater pain?
Sometimes when I feel the pain, I wish I could numb it, turn it off, or excise it from my heart, but I can't, and honestly, I really don't want to do that. I think that's incredibly unhealthy--to willfully choose to ignore the pain one is feeling isn't good at all. I am living in it, each day, and I'm not going to kill it because I don't like it. I think there is much yet for me to learn.
As is the case for me so often, I think of C.S. Lewis. One of the best quotes from one of my favorite movies, Shadowlands, speaks to how I feel:
"Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal."
I'm not choosing safety.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Going out of business
I saw a man today at the side of the road, holding up one of those signs you see from time to time, telling the passersby that a business was liquidating, and that everything had to go. It seems I see these men, these human billboards, quite frequently, and I always feel sadness and pity towards them. To be a human sign seems so incredibly dehumanizing to me. Standing at the side of the road, stationed at a traffic signal for hours at a time, knowing that people are staring at you as much as they are staring at the message, has to be one of the most humiliating moments in anyone's life.
Today, the man I saw used his sign as a shield, blocking the view of his face from the stopped cars at the intersection. There was no way to see him. It was clear that he wanted nothing more than to be invisible.
How long must he stand there, and how much is he being paid? Where would you hire someone to do this kind of work? What was that moment like when he arrived at the appointed hour, greeted the manager, received his signs, and was told where to go stand?
Some would argue that the man is probably happy to just have a job. I don't think that's likely. No one on this earth would desire this for themselves. But I respect the man, for doing something so humbling as this, for being willing to do whatever work comes his way, possibly just so he can feed his family. I have never been in that station of life--ever. I have no way of conceiving what it would be like to have to take a job like that, or to feel the necessity to accept that kind of work.
I have been given so much, and have so much to be grateful for. Why do those who are blessed with so much receive so much? Why have I been given so much?
I wish I knew that man's story. He's a man, noble and dignified, created in the image of God.
He is no billboard.
Today, the man I saw used his sign as a shield, blocking the view of his face from the stopped cars at the intersection. There was no way to see him. It was clear that he wanted nothing more than to be invisible.
How long must he stand there, and how much is he being paid? Where would you hire someone to do this kind of work? What was that moment like when he arrived at the appointed hour, greeted the manager, received his signs, and was told where to go stand?
Some would argue that the man is probably happy to just have a job. I don't think that's likely. No one on this earth would desire this for themselves. But I respect the man, for doing something so humbling as this, for being willing to do whatever work comes his way, possibly just so he can feed his family. I have never been in that station of life--ever. I have no way of conceiving what it would be like to have to take a job like that, or to feel the necessity to accept that kind of work.
I have been given so much, and have so much to be grateful for. Why do those who are blessed with so much receive so much? Why have I been given so much?
I wish I knew that man's story. He's a man, noble and dignified, created in the image of God.
He is no billboard.
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