What doth it profit a fool...

To take a sharp, cynical view on things, one must apply the razor of logic, tempered with bitterness. For, with cynicism, comes truth. But never paired with love.

God mocks the cynic. Perhaps this is just the view of the cynic, looking at a Creator who is ever the incorrigible maker of obstacles. Obstacles whose only purpose is to teach. What then is the Creator?

A bitter man looks at the molding and shaping of the Creator, and laughs. Not in joy, but as a prisoner going to the cells. How is this lesson growth? Why can I not shape my own destiny, in mine own image.

Because you are bought with a price.

What does it profit a man, that he gain eternal life, yet loose his health?

Some might say everything, but a cynic snickers. My health is my life, and my life is everything. But what end does my life have?

Perhaps none, when you breathe your last, in desperation, gripping, clutching onto a lump of flesh.

I must seem dark to you.

Merely dusk to my eyes. You shroud yourself in pride of darkness. In pride of your dusk, you smirk, that you are wise beyond all others.

It is my last, and favorite clothing, to be the sharpest, wisest observer of all I know.

But what doth it profit a man, that he be the sharpest knife in the drawer, if he cut away all foolishness, but loose all love of life?

It is then the foolishness of man, that grasps at wisdom beyond the Divine, and seeks its Tower of Babel. My shroud of darkness is my ivory stronghold, my favorite defense, of foolish wisdom.

Then we must leave it behind, and become as children, seeking a Higher, Truer thing.

Indeed we must.

What man hath molded in his image...

To look at the world, we must see in context. See cultures, colours, ages, generations all mingled in a panoply of life. But what is the use of even trying to have context for anything? Admittedly things are easier to understand in context, or so we are taught, but humor rears its ugly head most often when context is absent. Perhaps even in the absence of context we see how absurdly amusing daily life can be: that language is a half trained dog that pees on our laundry piles when we least expect, and symbolic gestures are merely warm air being moved about for the benefit of conscience soothing.

Context is a mockery of truth, in some sense. We hope that by shrouding context about our lives, that we won't have to explain our follies quite so much. We can sit and sip our tea from fine bone china, and excuse ourselves for being mass murderers.

Over the top, I hear you roar from the pews, shaking your well manicured fist at my teasing jocularity!

Perhaps. I merely point you to the irony of your indignation.

One cannot simply say that context defines our lives, and thus "...let he who is without sin throw the first stone..." Judge me not kind sir, your opinion is of no proper context for my life. But I beg to differ most sharply.

Either I am a fool for saying this, or we are all in need of shaping up. Either murder is murder, or the human race is in need of a redefinition of what everything is.

How does context fix atrocity in another culture? If that man's conscience is not pricked, mine is certainly outraged.

A murder is a murder, a spade is a spade, and apples are apples, no matter where one is from. Context does not save us, it only obfuscates the truth of the situation. Let us call our apples apples, our murderers murderers, and our sins sins.

Let me not hide behind context. Let the Judge of the Earth, who is just, see me for who I am, and by His infinite Grace, shower me with His Love.

Oh what dreams have lain down to shatter...

In the end, I find myself at the beginning. But the beginning of what? A lonely view from the bottom of a well? Perhaps.

Or maybe the beginning of grasping wisdom. Eternal and sunshine bright, wisdom that permeates all of life and the universe. Wisdom that knows all this, but stands free from it.

At the end, I find my beginning. Or so I think. A beginning of long hours, filled with futile effort, that bounce back from my hope in pathetic flabbiness, a half-filled longing for security. A beginning of toil so it seems.

At the end of my rope, I find a new dawn. A dawn of not quite the same dreams, and desires. A glow of support surrounds me, but can do no more than lift up my spirits, and hope for a better day tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow holds something new. Something more new than disappointment.

Let this be a lesson then. Things could always have been done to prevent this, but your body must accept the here and now, else we are dreamers without the will to wake up and live our dreams.

Will Be Now...

One trend amongst Christians which I have had my doubts about, is the intense obsession with finding out what your "calling" is. While I agree it is good that we search for what we should be doing, and where we will fit best in the greater whole of God's Kingdom, it seems we are missing the trees for the forest.

God certainly calls us to higher and purer things, and He calls us to bring His Kingdom to this earth, but it was no one less than Christ also told us that "...the kingdom of Heaven is within you..."

So why this chasing after ethereal tomorrows? Why this obsession with what we might be? Why this focus on finding out what we should be doing with our lives?

As you might be able to tell, this group of questions could take up an entire book of social psychology. Perhaps I could offer my thoughts.

We need to see that God is here, and is present in our lives. Not only will He be with us, He is with us. The psalmist puts it pretty bluntly,

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me...

Not exactly a half-hearted assertion.

As a person much acquainted with worry, I know I'm not quite immune to this by any means. I would like to know just as much as the next man what I should do with my life. But I'm not going to get that from God just by asking. And besides, is that the point?

Maybe the point is really that God is here with us, and leads us by the hand. And that is much more comforting than any self actualization book in my opinion. God is our very present help in a time of trouble. He takes us by the hand, and leads us towards the promised land.

Now I Shall Show You The Most Excellent Way...

Beyond what St. Paul says about what love is, I believe there is a very good reason why he says it is the greatest of the three virtues.

I can clearly remember one day I got back an exam. Not only did I have the dubious honour of having the lowest grade out of all the class, but I also had the singular distinction of getting the only zero. I was literally at the bottom of the heap. I was all alone, and could not quite figure out how I had got there.

I will not say that I was overly distraught, but I would say that I had fallen into a hole, and suddenly discovered that I did not have any climbing equipment on me. Not even rope.

But I wasn't left there.

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things"

I got two calls that day, from friends. And the outpouring of love and encouragement gave me pause, and perspective.

This is why love is the greatest.

Unlike hope and faith, love does its work in the now, in our present darkness so to speak. It is the virtue that is with us always. Love is present, and love is powerful.

Hope is wanting things to get better. Faith is believing that someone can make things better. Love is making things better. That is why it is the most excellent way.

Breathing out and breathing in...

One of the most imaginative ways of describing the Christian life, which I heard from my college fellowship pastor, was the image of "breathing out, and breathing in". It is certainly an interesting way of describing how we are supposed to live, and lends itself to vividly describing our actions. We breathe God in, learning how we are supposed to live, and we breathe out His love and care on others. You can even extend the analogy by noting that you can't breathe out all the time, there must be both for either to work.

But clever analogies aside, it really got me thinking again, not for the first time, about where God has placed me, and what I should be doing with myself.

Is the harsh academic atmosphere of Berkeley really the best place to do either?

At first blush, Berkeley doesn't seem a very good place to breathe in. People cite the extremely liberal, "progressive" atmosphere, that cultivates a culture of questioning most any traditional belief. If you did not question at least some aspect of your life before you came to Berkeley, then you will once you come to Berkeley.

But maybe this is exactly the sort of place to breathe in. A place where extraneous, spurious elements of a personality may be stripped away. A refining of character if you will.

And this is exactly what God wishes to do to us. Refine us till we are pure as pure gold. To shine with a purity of character that shows the work of the Maker.

But we must breathe in this refining fire, and let it work within us to God's purposes. Berkeley's challenging atmosphere, when breathed in, and with God at work, will refine our characters to have more of God's heart.

Berkeley's challenging atmosphere will show us what true, Godly love is, when we are confronted with people who do not agree with our upbringing. It will show us what true, Godly love is when we are placed in a broken friends life, who is also our roommate.

So breathe in, really deeply, the refining atmosphere of Berkeley, and let God work.

The Medicine of the Familiar...

Being a student is certainly a stressful vocation, though some would argue with both the stressful and vocation part. But I would counter that, a) I can't think of a better word than "vocation" when describing what I do with my life, when it doesn't happen to be called a job and, b) when one is a student at UC Berkeley, I would certainly say that stressful is a very applicable word to any student found there.

And Heaven help us when the stress comes. It comes almost from the beginning. The saying goes that you start out behind at Cal, which could also be true for other schools. I have yet to hear, but I assume that it is not that unique to Cal, given the other unique qualities of Berkeley of course.

And of course when the stress do come, we all handle it in different ways. It is one of the more curious phenomena that I have ever experienced. One of the most common events is the delayed onset of sickness. The body drives itself, perfectly healthy and sound, all through finals, and when all is done, simply crashes. Sickness arrives with a vengeance.

But what to do about the stress?! And the calamitous after effects?!

It seems that our most sure solace can be had in the familiar tasks, objects, and actions that we have always done. That book that you read in childhood, that soft raggedy stuffed animal, making muffins, fixing a cup of tea, wearing that old worn plaid shirt.

What is it about familiar old things? What do they have?

Perhaps it is like the Skin Horse said in The Velveteen Rabbit, that these things have become "real". That favorite piece of clothing, because you used it, wore it, loved it even, became real. As the Skin Horse says,

"You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

So maybe we should listen to the words of the Skin Horse on this one. But making something "Real" doesn't merely happen to toys. We love clothes, simple activities, and other people, to name but a few things. And with this love we make all of them "Real", and when we need comfort and recovery the most, we can go back to these "Real" things, and truly recuperate. So find your velveteen rabbit, and hug it close.