Fellows Retreat

Nine days into the Fellows Program and I’m already marveling at how quickly the time has flown.  So much to say, so much goodness and blessing.  Where to start?

I suppose with the beginning.

Last Tuesday through this past Saturday we fellows ventured off to Southwest Pennsylvania for a retreat.  Unfortunately it was not ours to enjoy beautiful end-of-summer/early-fall weather; Tuesday and Friday blanketed us in a chilly, dreary rain, although things dried up a bit in between allowing us to venture out for ultimate Frisbee, corn hole, or a swim across the lake.  Otherwise we kept indoors and enjoyed cards and board games.

In addition to recreational activities, we took part in community building exercises, times of group worship and prayer, periods of individual meditation and devotion, and what turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the trip, the sharing of each others’ testimonies with the group.

As Christians know, one’s testimony is the story of how Christ has wrought change and redemption in one’s life.  Such stories leave no room for idle, small talk.  Rather, testimonies cut to the very marrow of life, with all its struggles and joys, hopes and fears, doubt and faith.  My heart went out to those of my new friends who had endured much pain and sorrow during their lives, and yet was gladdened to hear how through these difficulties, they had come to know the freeing power of God’s grace in deeper and more meaningful ways.  I kept finding myself thinking, “me too.”

What surprised me most was the ease with which just over a dozen fellows, otherwise complete strangers at week’s outset, grew to be genuine friends in only a few short days.  Of course, the sharing of our testimonies greatly facilitated this process, but even in time spent around a meal, on a run, or overlooking the lake was fruitful for the soul.  To talk philosophy with Sam, poetry with Matt, sports with the other Matt, or theology with the quietly tenacious Seo Yoon, to run with Garrett, swim with Freddie, or to be ferried in a canoe by Hunter, to compare Virginia college experiences with Michelle and Leigh Anne, or to enjoy the Southern charm of Annie, Carra or Jeff, to cook with Kim and share Tribe Pride with Jill, or to come darn close to beating Bill in an intense game of risk—these moments powerfully bonded us together.

All I can hope is that the rest of they year doesn’t fly by as quickly as those first five days did.

Goodbye Williamsburg

This weekend I worked my final day at the Colonial Williamsburg Visitors’ Center.  Friday night was my last work shift; Saturday afternoon I showed up for a staff party.  After having worked there for almost a year, my emotions were mixed when it came time to say goodbye.

There are certainly facets of the job that I won’t miss.  I won’t miss the incessant fife-and-drum music that plays all day, everyday in perpetuum—I now sometimes hear these tunes in my sleep.  Nor will I miss the endless process of stocking shelves and making sure that every widget is perfectly aligned so as to maximize a potential buyer’s urge to grab one and buy it, although this chore is somewhat gratifying to my OCD tendencies.

And while I believe very much that vocationally I am a people-person, neither will I miss having to paint a smile on my face and act thrilled every time a customer approaches the cash register to check out.  In retail, this discipline is a must, which I made sure to do, but sometimes it just felt fake, like I was having to wear a mask, and I hate it when people are fake and wear masks.  I certainly believe that my experiences this past year were good for me and will translate into my career down the road, but I also know that I’m not a retail guy at heart.

But it wasn’t for the things that I won’t miss that I almost got choked up as I left the Visitors’ Center on Saturday.  No, it was the thought of saying goodbye to people that I had come to love that tugged at my heartstrings.  I have grown attached to each one of these people in a special way, and I know that they had grown to love me, and now the necessity of circumstance required that we could no longer daily see each other.

Saying goodbye.  We live in a world of change—a world of mortality.  Someday we each must say goodbye to those we love, and our souls cry out at such a cruel fate.  It is in these moments that ever so briefly I yearn for Heaven and wish for reunion some distant day in the future.  Such a hope comforts my soul.

I don’t mean to be so dramatic: I fully expect to see my Visitors’ Center coworkers again—in this life—but it is often the transitions in life that force us to think more deeply than our hum-drum, predictable schedules do.

So I say “Goodbye” to my CW friends, my track friends, my Intervarsity chapter friends, and I say “Hello” to my Fellows friends.  Tomorrow I leave Williamsburg and William & Mary—this five-year chapter of my life—behind, and I embark on the dizzying world of Washington D.C.  Fellows Retreat, here I come!

Michigan Adventure

After a full year without stepping foot in the Great Lakes State, I finally returned home last weekend for a sweet yet brief few days.  My mini vacation wasn’t anything exciting or extravagant like a beach week or a trip to an exotic, foreign country—it was simply a trip home to my dear Michigan.  Yet the best vacations are those that scratch those deep heart itches.

I stayed with my oldest brother Jeff and his wife Val in Ypsilanti.  With ten years between us and paths that have taken us in different directions, I have not always been that close to Jeff, and so it was very good to spend four days with Big Bro hanging out, relaxing, playing board games, catching up, laughing—all the simple things in life.  Again, a good satisfying scratch to one of those heart itches.

The functional reason for my Michigan trip was to buy a car.  The Fellows Program requires that each fellow has a car up in D.C., presumably so that we can be self-sufficient in getting around without being a burden to our host families or each other.  And at age 24, it was high time that I get a car.  The problem is that I know cars like I know Spanish—not very well.  And as someone who is car illiterate, I knew I would be a little baby lamb among wolves the moment I stepped foot into any car dealership.  I needed a wolf of my own.  Jeff was my wolf…and he was a great wolf.

Friday ended up being a perfect day.  After a clean check-up at the dentist, we were off to car hunt.  We quickly found my new baby with everything but my name literally written all over it.  It was a beautiful used Buick, which should last me through law school and beyond.  Every part of the transactional process was seamless.  Even my unsuccessful trip to Angola, Indiana to try to finance my car through my own bank, Wells Fargo, gave me a chance to take my new car to a trusted mechanic in Coldwater for a good look-over.  That was priceless peace of mind that I otherwise would not have enjoyed without a trip to my own bank.  In the end, there were a few financing and insurance hurdles to overcome, but we were even able to clear these before day’s end.  Sometimes car shopping can take multiple days or even a week.  And so I was thrilled to accomplish all this in a single day.

That left the rest of the weekend for quality time and rest.  It was good to catch a meal with my former college coach who now coaches for University of Michigan.  It was good to catch a meal with my family in Pennsylvania during my drive back to Virginia.  It was good to sink my teeth into Val’s sumptuous cooking.  It was even good to watch some of Jeff and Val’s favorite TV shows with them considering that I have watched very little television this past year.

A couple times we played a particular board game called “Life: Twists and Turns,” in which the object of the game is to score the most life points.  Sometimes during the game, you buy a house or have a child, and these developments increase your life point score.  Or perhaps you draw a chance card that reads, “Your cat dies.  Lose 50 life points,” and so you lose life points.

Life points.  Kind of a funny notion, that the experiences that make up our lives could be quantified into numerical values, and that our goal should be to try to maximize that score.  Such a concept works well for a board game, less so for real life.  But if our experiences could be quantified into points, I know that my Michigan Adventure would be worth a ton.

Borrowed Time

I’ve been reading through C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters this summer as part of a Summer devotional through the Fellows Program.  Today I was reading chapter 21.  In this dialogue, Lewis makes the point that while humans often think they own things—property, possessions, even relationships—we are merely deceiving ourselves.  In reality God owns it all.

And, as Lewis points out, it’s easy to fall into this entitlement mindset.  We refer to “my house,” or “my mother” or “my computer.”  Maybe it’s “my money” or “my job” or “my life,” as though we are entitled to these things or perhaps we earned these things by our own hard work and rugged industry.  And we forget that we’re just stewards and these things are just being leased to us temporarily.  As Job says, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return,” (Job 1:21).

I spent some time hanging out with a fellow named Dante tonight.  Dante is a linebacker on William & Mary’s football team (go out and buy the latest NCAA football video game, and you’ll see Dante’s profile for W&M—you know you’re a big deal when you are featured in a video game).

Dante was sharing with me how blessed he is and how God has provided for him in amazing ways.  And Dante has realized that these blessings are not merely for him to enjoy.  God blesses us so that we might bless others.  And as Dante dropped me off tonight, he reminded me that we’re on borrowed time.  What are we doing with the time that God has given us?

What am I doing with the time God has given me?

Usually I think of it the other way around.  I think of my time and my day and about how I should carve out a little slice of time in my day for God.  But I should think of it as God’s time and the day that the Lord has made, and the question should be whether I can squeeze these other things on my agenda into God’s time.  And I realize that many of the things I do are certainly within the scope of God’s will like taking care of my body or going to work.  But as often is the case, much of it is mindset.

I know I’ve done this before, but I think I need to do it again.  I think I need to put a note by my bed—or at least the bed that has been leased to me—so that when I awake in the morning, the first thing I see is, “You are now on God’s clock.”

Because I’m on borrowed time.

Jehovah-Jireh

I keep discovering that God is a God who provides.

I’m starting to notice a pattern.  A few years ago with summer quickly approaching, I anxiously held my breath wondering whether one of my internship opportunities was going to open up.  A meaningful internship would be an important step toward law school on my resume; another summer at McDonalds would not be.  As the hour grew late, it was looking bleak, and then I received a call from Governor Granholm’s office.  What an opportunity!  This indeed was a step toward law school.

Then on the eve of last summer.  On the one hand, it was imperative that I make some significant income for my school expenses.  On the other hand, I once again needed something that would improve my resume on my progression toward law school.  I had several leads and was disheartened as each one folded.  What’s going on God?  Why not this one?  Why not that one?  Are You going to provide?  And once again, just as things were looking bleak, an opportunity far better than the leads I had been chasing suddenly opened up:  a summer as the Tibbits assistant box office manager.

This keeps happening.  And in the last few weeks and months, through the love and generosity of family, friends, and my family in Christ both in Coldwater and at the Chapel here in Williamsburg, I see God once again providing what I need.  As this Fellows Program draws near with the sizeable financial cost that it involves, I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t quietly fretted, quietly wondered where the provision was going to come from.  What’s going on God?  I thought it was Your will that I commit to this program.  I thought this was where You wanted me to be next year.  How is this all going to work out?

Yes, I’m learning more and more that God provides all we need to do what He has purposed for us to do.  If God feeds the sparrows and clothes the lilies, surely He will provide for me.  Jesus instructs us, “ask and you will receive.”  Grammatically, this verse is more accurately rendered, “keep asking and you will receive.”  We must keep approaching the throne of grace and petitioning God.  And sometimes I wonder if I’m petitioning enough, but I know that even when we’re faithless, God is faithful.  Although I still have a ways to go to meet my financial obligations for the program, I have a sense of peace and assurance knowing that God’s blessing is with me in this.

I recall the words of a worship song that I grew up singing at the Coldwater Nazarene Church.  I didn’t understand the words then.  I’m beginning to understand them now:

Jehovah-Jireh my Provider

His grace is sufficient

For me, for me, for me

Jehovah-Jireh my Provider

His grace is sufficient for me.

My God shall supply all my needs

According to His riches in Glory

He will give His angels charge over me

Jehovah-Jireh cares for me,

For me, for me,

Jehovah-Jireh cares for me.

More Than Facebook Friends

A few years ago, Ravi Zacharias came to William & Mary to speak on campus.  Ravi was raised Hindu in India before becoming an atheist and eventually a Christian.  He has become a world renowned apologist making it his mission to argue for the validity of Christian theology against opposing belief systems such as atheism and other religions.

In reading his books and listening to him speak, he holds no punches.  He exudes self-confidence in the convictions he holds dear.  And he welcomes any objection, any question, and while he answers it with sincere love, there is an undeniable assertiveness about his demeanor.  And so when one student rose and asked a question during his campus visit, Ravi’s answer was surprisingly unexpected.  The student asked, “If you could ask God one question, what would it be?”

Ravi thought for a moment.  “I would ask Him why He made it so hard to believe in Him.”

Wait a minute.  In a moment of vulnerable honesty, the guy who was comfortably bashing atheism one moment would ask God why it is so hard to believe in Him?

Why is it so hard to believe in God sometimes?  And often believing in God isn’t so much the issue—why is it so hard to know God sometimes?  To know Him more?  And not knowing about God.  There is plenty to know about God.  From Sunday School to systematic theologies, Bible readings to sermons, it is easy to learn a lot about God, but to really know God.  There is the labor.

In our electronic, Internet age, its easy to see the difference between genuinely knowing other people and merely knowing about them.  I think I have over 500 Facebook friends, and there is absolutely no way I know 500 people on this planet.  In fact, the number of people I truly know on a deep, personal level I could probably count on my two hands.  It’s easy to accept a friend invitation on Facebook.  But if you really want to know someone, you have to be intentional.

And so sometimes I feel like God is my Facebook friend.  It’s interesting to see what His favorite hymns or famous quotes are or to see what He has listed as His political views, but then I have this yearning to go beyond all that.  I want to know who this God is and what His hopes and dreams are and what makes His heart heavy with sorrow and what gives Him joy.

And I realize in these moments that I need to be more intentional.  Text message prayers won’t do.  And I know it takes time, perhaps a lifetime, or more.  But therein lies the reward.  As I come to know the living God more and more, I realize that this isn’t some cheap Facebook status.  This is real.  This is reality at its rawest.  And the more I come to know God, the more I realize how mysterious He is, which only increases my yearning.

Cease Striving And Know That I Am God

Graduation, moving apartments, last class, homework, LSAT, wedding, full-time job, part-time job, odds and ends—it’s May and suddenly I turn around and it’s July.  What a whirlwind!

And then there is Psalm 46.  “Cease striving and know that I am God” (v. 10).  Striving and striving and striving.  There are those times in life when it seems that all it is is striving.  Sometimes we strive so much that we don’t even have time to know that He is God.  And it’s times like that that I often feel dry and parched.  I feel weak because I forget that God is my strength.  I feel vulnerable because I forget that God is my refuge, my stronghold.

Verses 4 and 5 of this beautiful psalm describe the City of God in which the Most High dwells.  The psalmist notes that God is in the city and the city will not be moved.  Charles Spurgeon asks, “How can she be moved unless her enemies move her Lord also? His presence renders all hope of capturing and demolishing the city utterly ridiculous” (Treasury of David).  If we are truly dwelling in the midst of that city, then it is illogical to fear.  So why do we so often fear, and more importantly, are we really dwelling in that city?

The psalmist has such confidence in God as to proclaim, “We will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea” (v. 2).  Sometimes a mere tremor is enough to send me quaking, like the other day when I realized at work that I had left the dryer running while no one was home.  For a while, all I could think about was coming home to find a giant ash heap.  Not that it’s good to leave unattended dryers running, but that’s hardly the ocean gulping up Mt. Everest.

I find myself needing to remember that, “The Lord of hosts is with us,” or rather, the Lord of hosts is with me. 

He is with me...

He is with me...

He is with me...

Lesson 5: Coming soon!

So, my life has suddenly become exceedingly busy.  Looks like I won't be able to squeeze in my last college lesson before the month is up.  But, I did want to create this place-holder post in order to keep all my Lesson posts in the month of May.  It works better for organizational purposes.  And with that, back to the whirlwind...

Lesson 4: We Believe What We Want to Believe

In college, I always enjoyed a good philosophy class.  Such classes had this aura about them, as though I was about to gain access to some hidden, pure truth.  And then, after an hour or so of class of steeping in higher realities of being, I would go grab lunch or head to practice.  Such ideas seemed to have little applicability to the rest of my day, except for conversation fodder.

Of course, one would assume that people who sit around thinking deeply all day would have some lock on the truth, but if that were true, that sure didn’t come across during class.  All this thinking power and inference making and deductive reasoning and yet people still end up on diametrically opposite sides of various issues and questions.  Is there a God?  What is the good?  (what does that mean?)  Some philosophy professors made it completely clear which side they supported and made every effort to convince their students to agree or else feel humiliated.  Other professors brilliantly erected and demolished competing arguments just to keep their students’ heads swirling.

In my Philosophy of Law class, one of the questions my professor explored was the question of whether lawyers are morally obligated to zealously advocate for their clients even if that meant doing seemingly immoral things to win their case.  On the first day of discussing this topic, he made a rock-solid case for zealous advocacy.  Impeccable.  Brilliant.  Pure Reason!  I’m pretty sure he had us all convinced or at least feeling pretty stupid for thinking otherwise.  During the next class though, he completely laid waste to the argument he made the class before and proceeded to erect an argument for why lawyers do not have a moral obligation to zealously advocate for their clients.  Again, Impeccable, Brilliant, Pure Reason!

Wait…huh?  What’s going on here?  Which is it?

Early in my college career with my faith growing afresh, apologetics played a crucial role in my intellectual life.  I was discovering that apologetics, which is the philosophical and intellectual defense of Christianity, helped address some of the troubling questions that cropped up in the world of faith.  I would read some apologist’s argument for God’s existence, or how an all-powerful, all-knowing, good God could be compatible with a world filled with evil, and I would think to myself, “Yeah, who could possibly refute this?  Impeccable!  Brilliant!”  And then I would read some atheist’s rebuttal argument, and if I were being honest with myself, I’d think, “That troublingly sounds pretty convincing too.”  I wouldn’t use the word “brilliant,” but then again, someone without a Christian bias—an atheist bias perhaps—probably would use the word “brilliant” to describe such an argument.

So what are we supposed to believe?  Or rather, what do we believe?

It seems to me that we tend to believe what we want to believe.  We humans are pretty good at constructing arguments to support whichever position we want to take on whichever issue we’re discussing.  Whether we are willing to admit it or not, every argument starts with an assumed premise.  Even empiricism, which claims to rely totally on experience without any assumptions, relies on the assumption of its own validity.  We simply cannot escape the necessity of taking things on faith, usually a great deal for that matter—theist, atheist, Christian, Buddhist, Democrat, Republican.  In fact, it’s quite possible that the degree of certainty we feel about our beliefs and the clarity of our reason is nothing more than an illusion to aid in our survival, which, if true, would delegitimize this whole sentence, and this whole blog post.

Fortunately the futility of philosophy has not left me as a total skeptic, or a total flake; I still believe things.  But such exercises have liberated me from the bondage of having to prove some of the most important things that I believe.  I don’t feel the need to prove that my parents truly love me; I simply accept it as given.  And I don’t have to prove my Jesus and the purpose and fullness He gives my life.  I just have to choose to live in that fullness.

I’ve discovered that if we spend too much time in the ivory tower, then we won’t get around to the business of living each day to its fullness and of hoping for tomorrow.

Lesson 3: History is not what happened, history is what we say happened.

Before college, history, as I understood it, was very simple.  History was a set of objective facts compiled into official text books.  All you had to do was read the text book to find out “what happened.”

In college though, I discovered this fancy concept known as historiography, which is “the writing of history.”  Historiography is a form of history all its own.  For example, not only is the complicated and divisive American Civil War part of history, but so is the way historians have written about it.  Historians from the North wrote about the Civil War differently than historians from the south, and historians living in 1870 wrote about it differently than historians living in 1970.  No matter when or where a historian is from, they just can’t escape their own perspectives and biases and prejudices and cultural values.  And so, Civil War historiography varies considerably.  Now things like dates and the number of men in such-n-such brigade don’t elicit much debate, but questions like, “What caused the Civil War?” or “Who was to blame for such-n-such policy?” are far more complicated.

A few years ago a friend encouraged me to read a particular book on Christian church history from the first century to the present.  He said something to the effect of, “This book tells the real facts.”  Of course, with Biblical and church historians ranging from conservative fundamentalist historians to secular atheistic historians, I was a bit skeptical that this one book had successfully encapsulated all the REAL facts to the exclusion of all the biased non-facts.  But the book sounded interesting, so I opened up to the introduction.

The author of this book acknowledged the many controversies and differences of opinion that have colored Biblical and church scholarship, but he insisted that rather than mere personal opinion, his account would be objective (aka this is what REALLY happened).  I had read enough, and I placed the book back on the shelf to continue collecting dust.

What are the REAL facts anyway?  Are the real facts what the writers of primary source documents said, who of course had their own biases and prejudices, or are the real facts what scholarly writers of secondary source documents say, who also have their own biases and prejudices, or are the real facts contained in high school text books?  (I hear that Texas recently adopted the use of text books which all but completely eliminate Thomas Jefferson from its chapters on early United States history because people on some Texas educational board didn’t like Jefferson’s ideological values.  Bias and prejudice? Check.).

Everyone has biases and prejudices, from Herodotus to that really arrogant church historian; and I have biases and prejudices too.  A historian, or anyone for that matter, is far more credible when he admits what his biases are than when he pretends to be objective.

Now I’m no relativist; I believe certain things did indeed happen a certain way.  And I’m no epistemological skeptic; I believe we can access the past.  But I recognize that it is difficult and some debates just don’t go away very easily, and for good reason.  For most of human history, we simply don’t have any video type records of what happened when, where, and why.  So ultimately history is not “what happened,” rather history is “what we say happened.”  And that story is constantly evolving and being refined. 

Lesson 2: Don’t be a heretic in the truth!

In my John Milton class, we read Milton’s Areopagitica, which apparently served as a crucial inspiration for our first amendment right of freedom of the press.

Milton was a prolific English writer who lived through the 17^th century English Civil War.  Milton was a puritan, and puritans tended to butt heads with the Church of England concerning just about everything.  But, the Church of England was closely wedded to the Crown and the English government, making the puritans not simply religious dissidents, but political dissidents as well.  So, many of the puritans writings were closely scrutinized by the government before they could be published and were often censored.

And so Milton penned the Areopagitica in which he calls for a free press and an end to censorship.  He crafts a brilliant argument:

He argues that nothing should be censored and that every written piece should be allowed to stand on its own.  If a given piece contains fallacious reasoning or weak arguments, then any rational person would be able to recognize such fallacies and reject the argument accordingly.  He argues that if everything were freely published, than the truth would win out as rational people read and evaluate opposing arguments and writings.  Milton challenges the established authority.  He argues that if their positions and arguments are valid and true and his are invalid and false, then why should he not be able to publish his writings and show all of England how foolish and wrong he and his fellow puritans are.

During the revolution, the crown was overthrown, Cromwell ascended to the Protectorate, and Milton held a prominent office in the new government.  Sadly, Cromwell’s government, now the oppressor and not the oppressed, gladly censored the opposition.  Darn it Milton!  You hypocrite!

But Milton’s moral failings aside, the logic undergirding the Areopagitica still obtains.  If we are really serious about knowing and believing the truth, then we have to take Milton’s pre-hypocrisy epistemological rigor seriously.  We have to be willing to read any argument or viewpoint and let reason speak for itself.

Clearly, it’s bad to believe the wrong things for the wrong reasons, but equally unjustified according to Milton, is believing the right things for the wrong reasons.  Milton uses the example of a parishioner who adopts the attitude of “If the preacher says it, then I believe it, and that settles it.”  He argues that even if what this parishioner believes is indeed the truth, he believes it for the wrong reasons.  He hasn’t carefully considered the issue and weighed opposing arguments and evidence.  He simply is spoon fed one line of thought and as for anything that conflicts with this line of thought, he plugs his ears and says, “LA, LA, LA, NOT LISTENING! NOT LISTENING.”  In short, he is a heretic in the truth.

This sounds ridiculous, but people do this all the time.  Perhaps they merely parrot what one church’s denominational doctrine says and disregard opposing viewpoints because this one denomination or tradition, they believe, somehow succeeded in correctly understanding all of the Bible’s passages.  Perhaps they only get their news from one cable network because they figure that all the rest are biased and unreliable.  Perhaps they perfectly align themselves with their political party of choice policy-for-policy because this party is always right (or at least, always more right than the other party).

Are things true because we believe them, or do we believe things because we think they are true?  If what’s true is true irrespective of our beliefs, then we should have no qualms about reading and considering fair arguments that cast the opposing view in the best light possible.  No cable network should be off limits whether it is MSNBC or Fox News.  No book should be off limits whether it is God Delusion or the Bible.

Figuring out what is true isn’t supposed to be easy.  If it does seem easy, then there is a good chance that what we believe to be true, isn’t.  And if we did get lucky and believe the right thing by happenstance without the necessary intellectual rigor, then we’re still just heretics in the truth.

Lesson 1: Shooting the Albatross is a Good Thing

One of the more twistedly beautiful poems I read in college was “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  In the poem, a strange, old man stops an arriving wedding guest outside a church to tell him an enigmatic tale from his seafaring days.  The wedding guest doesn’t have time for a lengthy and random story, but is rendered powerless to resist the old man’s aura and oratorical cadence.

And it’s a tale indeed.  After winding up in some less-than-desirable circumstances out at sea, the mariner and his fellow sailors are visited by an albatross.  This seemingly innocent creature has little else of an agenda other than to offer company to the crew and to play about.  And yet, in an act of inexplicable cruelty, the mariner shoots the albatross with his crossbow.

What ensues is a bizarre series of ill-fortuned, illusory events that terrify the mariner beyond imagination: he finds himself floating upon a rotting, burning sea parched and starving with slimy creatures all around, haunting spirits like “Nightmare Life-In-Death,” phantoms, and a crew that dies and rises again as zombie creatures.  For part of his penance, the mariner must wear the dead body of the albatross around his neck as a reminder of the needless evil and woe that he has wrought.

After an ageless stretch of time, the mariner finally gains insight into both his deeds and his own self.  He survives these tormenting terrors and lives out his days a sadder but wiser man.

At some point that overly simplistic, childlike manner of literary interpretation kicks in and we find ourselves asking that cliché question, “What’s the moral of the story?”

Many would say, “Don’t shoot innocent albatrosses,” or perhaps, “Learn from others’ mistakes.”  After hearing out the mariner’s gruesome tale, how could one possibly think that it would be a GOOD idea to shoot the albatross?

And yet it is clear that the mariner’s harrowing life transformation would not have been possible had he not shot the bird.  Some lessons in life—deeply significant and personal lessons—just can’t be learned by heeding instruction, but rather must be learned through experience.  Some truths about life just can’t be truly understood unless you shoot the albatross.

Which reminds me of a shameful moment several years ago when I unwittingly shot the albatross of my pride to smithereens.  After an ageless stretch of time waiting at a walk-in clinic to receive an allergy shot, the nurses notified me that my serum was not in the refrigerator.  Through my mind began to race all the inconvenience and frustration that would result from this act of carelessness.  I demanded that they look again.  After another failed attempt, they suggested that I go home and look in my home refrigerator.  I was rude and short with them; I told them I would, but that it wouldn’t be there.  I knew it wasn’t in my home refrigerator.  And so I drove home just waiting to be vindicated, marched up the steps, through the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and just as I expected…MY ALLERGY SIRUM?!?  NO!  It couldn’t be!

And there hung that dead albatross around my neck.  As I drove back to the clinic with an apology note, my serum and a half-baked idea of what I was going to say, feeling like I should be wearing a paper bag over my head, I remember smiling and thanking God that he had blown up my pride, at least for the moment.  I thought I already understood such concepts as humility, patience, personal fallibility, etc.  But some things in life simply can’t be learned or understood apart from experience.  Often in life you learn humility by first being prideful, patience through impatience, personal fallibility by making stupid choices.  I can only be thankful that the nurses were more gracious to me than I had been to them, especially considering that they were about to stick a needle in my body.

This is one of my albatross stories.  If in some way my story is instructive to others like the mariner’s possibly was, then great.  But I think that far more likely our stories are a beautiful reminder that, for our own personal development, it just may be good to shoot the albatross from time to time.

Five Lessons From My College Education

Later this month, I will mark one of life’s big mile stones: college graduation.  (Actually I’m only pretending to graduate.  I still have one class to go this Summer, and I wasn’t actually enrolled during this year’s fall and spring semesters due to collegiate athletics and career ending injuries and unexpected turns and twists, so it’s a little anticlimactic—but it is a symbolic victory with the real victory assured to come in August.)

As I reflect on the last five years of my life and how much I have changed and grown into the man that I am, in some ways it is hard to remember who I was in high school.  I suppose only the people whom I haven’t seen since high school could comment on whether I’m the same Jay Bilsborrow or a different Jay Bilsborrow, or perhaps a nuanced Jay Bilsborrow.

While at William and Mary, I was (still am?) a good ol’ fashioned liberal arts humanities major, which means other than being a better reader and writer, I am not coming away with any practical skills or knowledge (good thing I’m going to law school! Ha!).

So other than some interesting information about John Milton and the Crusades and Symbolic Logic, what did I learn from college?  While by no means an exhaustive list, I have identified the 5 Lessons I Learned in College (4 from my studies and 1 from athletics).  During May, I am going to blog on each lesson throughout the month.  Stay tuned.

Ringing the Bell

For most students, yesterday was the last day of classes here at William and Mary.  The last day is known as “Blow Out,” which probably has something to do with the fact that thousands of students blow their brains out with drunken revelry from sun-up to well into the wee hours of the night—people dancing around in the Sunken Gardens, mobs roaming to and fro.  This is about as close as W&M gets to what party schools consider normal.  I’ve never totally understood the liberation that such students feel; big kahuna final exams are always right around the corner, and so the school year is FAR from over.

For seniors, the last day of classes is extra special though; it isn’t just the close of the school year, but the close of an important part of one’s life.  All the class, all the homework, the papers, the late nights, the tests, the grades, and on this day, you can finally smell the end: a mix of pollen, pancakes, and whatever lies just up ahead and around the bend.

For decades, centuries perhaps, seniors have entered the historic Wren Building to ring the Wren bell, one by one.  It’s a way to announce to the world, “I’m about to graduate! HARK UPON THE GALE!”

There are many traditions in which I don’t take part, and the end of my undergrad experience has been a little disjointed with not having been in school this past fall or spring, working at Colonial Williamsburg, and still needing to finish one class this June.  But having my chance to ring the Wren Bell was of symbolic importance and something that my soul needed.

So during my lunch break at work, I headed over to campus.  Dressed in a shirt and tie in contrast to all the frolicking casually-dressed students, already between two chapters of my life.  A sense of eager anticipation, almost a touch of nervousness.  The weather can’t be more perfect, a slight breeze, the sun beaming into the Wren court yard as I stride up to the steps.  Amid the happy din of laughter and glee, the steady tolling keeps resounding.  I’m not sure if it is coming from the Wren or my chest.  A brief stop on the porch and then up the stairs, up, up, up.

And there is the rope…my turn.  Here it is.  What am I supposed to think right now?  What’s supposed to be streaming through my mind?  Sometimes in life you have those momentous occasions that you anticipate and think about, and then you are there, right in the midst of it, and it’s all happening so quickly.

Someone suggests that I give it a pull.  Okay.  Grab the rope.  Pull hard.  And there is my knell echoing across campus.  That’s it?

My heart is sated.  I can go back to work.  I can leave this chapter of my life and enter the next.

Lord of the Kings

Among my favorite cinematic productions is The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  While no film is a perfect translation of its respective novel, the LOTR movies come pretty close: so much epic grandeur and depth and sublimity.  In the end, after the evil Sauron has been vanquished, the gritty Aragorn mantles himself in an air of stateliness as he accepts his crown.  Eons have passed, but the kingship has finally been restored to Gondor, the shriveled white tree finally blooms again, and ivory-colored petals fill the air as at the grandest of celebrations.  The king has returned!

One can’t help but notice that LOTR is dripping with Biblical parallels.  After centuries without a king, Jesus appears as David’s heir, through sacrifice he conquers death, then later he is arrayed in splendor in His heavenly form as depicted in Revelation.  I could go on and on with examples.

Which makes me wonder, why hasn’t anyone made a Jesus film with the same epic grandeur, depth, and sublimity that LOTR has?  Many of the Jesus films out there just seem to me to be a bit on the folksy and lame side.  The Passion of the Christ captures a lot of gravity and grittiness, but many Jesus films, while depicting Jesus’ humanity quite well, just don’t quite capture the essence of His divinity.  I want to see Jesus the warrior-king riding forth upon His steed with his fiery eyes, crowned with many diadems, white robed, bronze-footed, His face like the sun shining in its strength.

I’ve been reading the Letter to the Hebrews recently.  At the outset, the author says, “He [Jesus] is the radiance of His [God’s] glory and the exact representation of His [God’s] nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.”  So God-rays emanate from Jesus Himself.  Wow!  Then near the end of the Hebrews letter, the writer announces that “at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”  The “consummation,” or as some translate it, the “culmination” of the ages.  The climax of climaxes.  This is pretty epic!

So here is call-out for a Jesus film with the cinematics of The Lord of the Rings!

(A blockbuster King David film would be pretty rockin’ awesome too!)

Luna

Here I sit next to my dining room window late at night.  The moon in all its fullness is beaming down.  I often think about how this is the same moon, or those stars the same stars, that the Caesars saw when they looked up at night.  Kings and popes, Newton, Nietzsche, Columbus, The Queen of Sheba, the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae and the Persians too, Harriet Tubman on all those nights of leading slaves north, monks gazing out the windows of their monastery walls, the Pharaohs, the laborers who built the pyramids for the pharaohs, the laborers who always seem to be building something on William and Mary’s campus, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, all those heart-broken people in Japan and Libya and all the other devastated places in the world that we’ve temporarily forgotten about because they aren’t prominently featured in the news right now, the President, the Laundromat guy, and the man from the warehouse, and me—we’ve all seen that silver medallion with its familiar somber expression, a sadness and yet a peace.  Under this same moon, some will cry out in agony tonight while others gently sleep.

As different as we all are on this Earth—tomorrow will have its share of strivings and strain, budget battles, tests, performances, competitions, wars, lifting of weights at the gym, trades, and discussions—we all share in the same moon, and we have for eons. 

Shine

I’ve always enjoyed the vibrancy of the David Crowder Band’s music and the creativity of its music videos, but this one knocks it out of the park (click to follow link).  Beautiful!

Wisdom in Laundromats

I typically don’t think of laundromats as places where I might gain a richer and deeper perspective on life.

The other night I was doing laundry.  Except for the janitors performing their nightly ritual, the place was empty.  One of the particularly outgoing janitors decided to strike up a conversation—“conversation” isn’t quite the right word, “monologue” is probably more accurate.  Having my face buried in a book must not have been much of a deterrent for Mr. P. who helped himself to my attention taking the opportunity to tell me all sorts of random life stories.

This kind of thing can be annoying; no matter how many times you say, “uh-huh,” the stream of consciousness just keeps flowing like the Amazon.

But as I stopped simply hearing and started actually listening, “uh-huh’s” gave way to questions and disinterest morphed into fascination (though listening was a challenge—after cutting through his un-annunciated speech, I probably only understood between 60% and 70% of what he said).

He elaborated on Williamsburg’s past, on some of the darker aspects of the city’s social dynamics, and he reflected on some of the decisions that he had made during the course of his life, some good, some bad, some serious, and some hilarious.  I realized that even inarticulate laundromat janitors have a corner on wisdom, if you have the patience and the willingness to hear them out.

Apparently the balcony of one of the apartment buildings near where I live recently collapsed.  Mr. P. told me that he had warned management about a growing fissure in the concrete for over a year.  He warned them that the balcony would eventually collapse, and that it needed to be repaired, or at least roped off so that no one would be hurt or killed.  Even though he had been in the concrete business for much of his life, his warnings fell on deaf ears.  Who would believe a lowly janitor who could barely pronounce his words?  No one was harmed by the collapse, but people could have been seriously injured, or worse, all because of the reckless negligence of someone who “knew better.”

As an attorney, someday I’ll be in a loftier position as one of the higher-ups.  I’ll have my liberal arts education with my Juris Doctorate, and I’ll probably have less educated, simpler folk working beneath me.  And ultimately I hope that I’ll be the kind of person who listens to the laundromat guy.

Stuffed Animals and Law

This year I have been working in the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center book store where I assist customers in purchasing edification.  Because of scheduling needs, there are some days that I work in the gift shop instead. 

The gift shop has all sorts of trinkets and whirligigs and knick-knacks, ceramic dishes, ornaments, smelly soaps and the like.  I much prefer to sell customers sources of edification and knowledge in the bookstore than I do to sell customers dishes and smelly soaps in the gift shop.

I can’t help but wonder if these purchases are really necessary, that maybe this money could be used to educate some child in an inner-city community or feed a hungry mouth in a third-world country.  Though, I do recognize that if it were not for the dishes and smelly soaps, there wouldn’t be a Colonial Williamsburg and many more people would be unemployed (maybe myself?) and people wouldn’t be able to enjoy this rich national historic treasure.  So smelly soaps it is, I guess.

Part of working in the gift shop entails making sure the sale floor is stocked and orderly (the more obsessive compulsive, the better!).  And among the first things I do is to make sure that my fuzzy little stuffed animal friends are looking good—friends like Sally the Sheep and Prince the Dog, which is creepily modeled off of a dead dog carcass from the early 1900’s.

This all harkens back to my childhood.  My bedroom was filled with furry friends.  In fact, there was a time that there was barely enough room in my bed for me!

Every child dreams about what he wants to do for a career when he grows up.  Somewhere between physicist and pharmacist, I wanted to be a stuffed animal maker and have my own stuffed animal shop.

I ultimately decided on Law, but it was a close choice.

Our Great Curse and Our Greater Blessing

Lifted and edited from a discussion thread on Facebook.  Alexander, a non-believer, had some genuinely honest yet tough questions of the God in which Christians believe.  As best as I could, I tried to give him some genuinely honest answers.

Alexander,

I appreciate your honesty.  I appreciate that you ask tough questions, big questions, important questions.  There are many of my fellow Christians who I wish would do the same.  I hope you will join me as I muse over some of the points you made.  They are very interesting.

The notion of original sin is deeply thought provoking.  Is a newborn baby guilty of some immoral act?  Is such a baby somehow deserving of a metaphysical death sentence?  Such notions seem to clash against our sense of innate justice and fairness.  I think you are right in that observation.  But I think that original sin is far deeper than an intrinsic status of moral guilt.  Original sin is the accursed state, the state of brokenness, into which we are all born.  We live in a broken world--few would deny that, one of pain, and suffering, and death.  No baby is evil, but every baby enters a world weighted down by an evil burden, this curse.

But why this curse?  You point out that it is hard to believe that everyone is born in the image of God, even the mass murderers, pedophiles, psychopaths, dictators, and rapists.  If we were not made in the image of God, then the curse of our world wouldn't seem that alarming or disturbing.  But since we are made in the image of God, that's what makes this curse seem so striking, so unfair.  What did we do to deserve this?  This curse seems to be connected with our being made in God's image, and yet being separated from our creator.

At this point many Christians would point out that God gave Man a free choice, and choosing to sin is what Man did with it and that it's ultimately Man's fault, but God is going to save us anyway.  You probably find this explanation to be a bit of a cop-out and rather disingenuous.  In fact, you say that this "exonerates God for any responsibility..."  You probably find this explanation unsatisfying and hard to believe.

And I agree with you.  And I am a Jesus following, God believing, Christian.  

In the Garden of Eden story, yes Adam and Eve choose to eat the fruit and accept the serpent's suggestion, but God is the one who puts the forbidden tree smack dab in the middle of the garden, kind of like a mother who puts the cookie jar right in front of the child and tells the child not to eat.  Even if we assume that God HAD to put the tree in the garden in order for Adam and Eve to genuinely have free will, did God have to allow the serpent (Satan) into the garden to tempt them?  Surely an omniscient and omnipotent God could have foreseen and prevented this.  Even if the tree's presence is needed for Man to genuinely have free will, to give him an opportunity to obey or disobey, Satan's presence is not.  Allowing the serpent in the garden is a needless provocation.  And God knows that Man is but dust, he knows his frame, and his predispositions.  It certainly seems that God is setting Man up to fall.

I believe in an omnipotent and omniscient God, which means that this God knew of the horrible curse that his frail, dust-like creatures would fall into, and God had the power to prevent it.  He did not.  And the ultimate question...is why?  Can this God possibly be good?

I see the history of our world—of us—as a giant narrative arc.  And the theme that stands out to me is the theme of redemption, but more than that, the theme of love.  Without the curse, there is no need for redemption.  Without the need for redemption, there is no Jesus coming into the world to die for us.  And that makes the curse of original sin a necessary and integral part of the grand story.  God Incarnate enters into this curse as a newborn baby, suffers because of this curse , and dies on a Roman cross as a result of this curse.  Without this, we don't see how much God actually loves us. 

Some Christians think of Jesus as God's plan B-- God creates this good world, Man sins, God says "darn it!  wait...I know...I'll send Jesus to die and that will undo what Man did."  I don't see Jesus as Plan B; I see Jesus as Plan A, from the foundation of the world, from the beginning of time, because God planned for that to be how He would show is love for us. 

Jesus.  Love-in-the-Flesh.  Most gods in the world's religions expect their devotees to cower before them groveling.  They expect sacrifices.  They judge you based on how good or bad you are.  But this God washes the dirty feet of those whom he created.  This God sends his own son as the sacrifice.  This God, in the ultimate act of humility dies for us.  He says of the curse, "It is finished, paid in full."

That is the God for me.  That is the God I love.

What Joy!

One of the most joyous days of my life was the day I beat my Dad’s high school 3,200m track record.  For decades that record stood untouched, and many solid, relentless runners attempted the feat, but my Dad’s mark was always left standing.  What is so intriguing is that for most of those 37 years, my Dad was Coldwater’s track coach, and he was the one training his own athletes to break his own record (cynics would snicker at the possibility that my Dad held back on training these athletes so that they wouldn’t break his record, but he was too invested in his athletes to pull a stunt like that).  Yet with all his effort, he could not raise up an athlete to match his own endeavor.

Until the Three Rivers Invitational in 2005 when the last of his sons was to make his attempt.  We both knew what the agenda was: he had coached me for this moment, I had trained for this moment, I was to attack the race from the outset running alone in a rather uncompetitive field of runners.

In my excitement I started out aggressively—perhaps a bit too fast to be sustainable.  I started to wonder whether I had made a mistake, whether I should let up a bit in order to compensate, but my Dad was right there to assure me that everything was fine and to encourage me to keep the fast pace.  It never crossed my Dad’s mind to give me bad advice, even at this late hour.  Toward the end of the race, everyone knew that I was feeling as strong as ever, a historic feat was now inevitable.

After crossing the tape and catching my breath, I found my Dad on the track.  I do not remember what was said; all I remember was our big hug.

For me, I had finally taken down the old man’s record, the most daunting of all the Coldwater track records I would break.  And for my Dad, he had finally trained an athlete to break his mark, and of all those athletes, he had the honor of passing that record to his son.

Some people in his shoes might be spiteful, jealous, possessive, but my father was filled with joy.  While I was surely happy with my achievement, the joy I felt had much more to do with seeing my father’s joy and being filled myself as a consequence.

Joy is often a selfless, infectious emotion.  It can spring up on its own, but when we can share it with others, it spreads like wildfire.

Toward the end of Isaiah, the prophet speaking of God’s future redeemed children, says, “the Lord delights in you,” and later, “God will rejoice over you” (Isa 62:4, 5).  In light of Christ’s work on the cross, my God sees me as His perfect creation.  The Lord delights in me; the Lord rejoices over me!  What a blessing to know this.

What joy!

Mr. T, Please Take the Wheel

I am fairly even-keel when it comes to my emotions.  I have a thick skin (having three older brothers will do that), and it is difficult to make me angry. 

Distance running tends to be relaxing.  With the release of endorphins in the brain that aerobic exercise generates, it is a great way to de-stress and to temper negative emotions.

So I find it ironic that I often become most riled and angry during long, extended runs—selfish, irresponsible, and sometimes downright malicious drivers: Thank you very much!

It annoys me when, as a pedestrian patiently waiting to cross the street, I wait for an oncoming car to pass, only to see the car suddenly make a turn before it reaches me.  Had the driver used a blinker, he would have alerted me to his intentions allowing me to cross the street.  But no—no blinker—so now I have to wait for the giant, continuous stream of traffic from the other direction to pass by before I can attempt to cross the street again.  The use of a blinker is not to let yourself know what you are about to do as a driver, it is to let everyone else know.  Such is the selfish driver.

It frustrates me when drivers turning right into traffic only look left, ignoring the possibility of a pedestrian to the right who may be entering the crosswalk.  Then they lurch forward almost hitting you with a deer-in-the-headlights expression as though to say, “Hey, you just jumped out in front of me from nowhere!”  And I give a stern glare as though to say, “No, I ‘jumped’ out in front of you from your right, a direction in which, in your negligence, you failed to look!”   Such is the irresponsible driver.

And then there is the malicious driver.  This is the type who, on a wide, sparsely traveled country road driving toward you (you as a pedestrian are running on the left-hand side of the road like you are supposed to), rather than accommodating for your presence by nudging the centerline a bit or even remaining in the neutral position within his lane, instead this driver upon seeing you swings all the way over to the edge, grinding the shoulder of the road as he sends his giant murder-machine barreling toward you in an unconscionably inhumane game of chicken.

It is in moments like these that my emotions boil over in rage.  I usually feel that mine is a righteous anger, that I am entitled to be angry, and if given enough warning, to throw rocks at the car or something.  Then I wonder if I really have the mind of Christ in these situations.  What would distance-runner Jesus do?

I guess I’m not totally sure, but recently after yet another frustrating run of playing hop-scotch with terrible drivers, I ran past a man waiting at a bus stop who looked just like Mr. T.  As I went galloping by, a big, beaming grin spread across this man’s face as he started pumping his arm back and forth as if to say, “Rock on, little dude!”

“Mr. T” was the perfect antidote to my mounting frustration.  Perhaps this man can’t afford to own or drive a car of his own, but O that the streets of America were filled with drivers like him.

The Wind of Heaven

For several years now I have tried to learn to trust in God’s provision.  Of course, for most of my life I have had very few unmet needs, or even wants for that matter.  But I have had a few needs the last few years that I found were in many ways genuinely out of my control.  I faced significant athletic injuries in college that I never faced in high school—injuries that often recurred and took eons to heal.  Most recently I have spent months preparing for the LSAT, which I take this Saturday.  I can dutifully spend all the time in the world preparing, but I’ve found that on an annoyingly large number of occasions my brain has just not absorbed certain mechanics of the test.

And I wonder, what if I don’t heal?  What if I don’t fully comprehend grouping logic games by test day?  What if I don’t get the score I need for my dreams to come true?  Can I trust in God’s provision?

In moments like these I have mired myself in the rut of self pity hoping that God will pull through (and forgetting all the times He already has), but otherwise feeling like I’m helplessly in free fall just waiting for God to catch me.

I was feeling this way several weeks ago when it suddenly struck me afresh that I am a child of the Most High God, that I can approach the throne of grace boldly, and that I am already more than blessed. 

I’ve been reading through Isaiah lately (so good!), and one of my favorite parts is Chapter 40.  Near the end, the prophet declares, “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”  What you don’t see in these images is the wind.  The wind lifts the eagle’s wings; the wind fills the runner’s lungs.  So often we don’t notice the power that would lift us if we would just flap our wings or if we would just breathe deeply.

I don’t need to be drug through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  I can walk.  In fact I can mount up and soar like the eagle because the Lord is the wind beneath my wings.

I’m flying into the dawn of a glorious future.  It’s mine for the taking!  So, LSAT shmelsat!