Esse quam videri

Facebook. And now the writer’s block hits me like a brick -- thick as a brick and twenty minutes long like the song by Jethro Tull. I joined facebook early in my second semester at school. I was so scared I immediately deactivated it, waiting for the repercussions. They never came; so I reactivated it, assured by my new friends that I would soon loose touch with them after graduation if I didn’t get an account and friend them (to make our relationship official). I used it some before graduating to keep up with friends and catch up with old ones. I managed to avoid drama. At home on my island it became my portal to the outside world, one through which I spent way too much time staring. I deactivated it. Three people continued to email me. Email is archaic.

Now I am contemplating another foray into the world online. I will be back at school, presumably with something to do besides stare at my screen into a world of images.

Two things besides its voracious appetite for time bother me about facebook. It allows me to project the personality I desire people to perceive, and it takes every physical sense out of communication. From my picture to my interests, I tell you who I want you to think I am. My picture tells you that I am somewhat detached, amused and rather bored by people. My profile tells you that I am adventurous, compassionate (an attribute belied by the picture), well read, and fond of flogging myself with quotes that inspire me not to waste my life. I am safe behind that picture. You are safe behind yours. As I chat or write a post on your wall, I am carefully crafting what I want you to hear. Sometimes it doesn’t work. You can’t read my face. You can’t feel my touch. You can’t even hear my voice. As I hit post and send my words through space to your screen, the one that divides you from me, I turn from you to another screen, or to homework, or maybe to a real person sitting beside me. I change the subject. But I don’t want to talk to them. It's too hard.

But there are people I love on facebook. Perhaps those who really care for me will email or call; but then I am leaving the maintenance of our relationship to them, forcing them to meet me where I am. I should go to them. I want to be with them, and they are on facebook. Maybe I should join them.

Live

There are many things that I would like to write about: the changes that God has wrought in my life over the past few months have given me many ideas. I would like to write about our freedom to LIVE. Not just exist, but to live. To choose how we will live: to put the past behind, to let go of bitterness, to sweep away clutter, to put aside anxiety and live with radical trust in our sovereign God. To be filled with Him and satisfied in His love, free to focus on others, to take joy in life, to risk everything for Christ. At peace with God, we can be at peace with others, demanding nothing of them and letting go of injuries. Forgiven, we can forgive and never remember again. We can love without reserve. We can choose to put aside malice and be free from its mastery, its debilitating, wasting oppression. We can choose joy and peace, because we have both in Christ. We can choose meaning, because God is not an impersonal ultimate: He has spoken into space and time, proclaiming truth. To believe in a sovereign God is not to be a deistic nihilist. Life matters. Pain matters. Joy matters. To live intentionally is to be exposed to sorrow, but it is also to embrace joy. To be optimistic is to be exposed to disappointment, but it is also to practice trust. Pessimism is like layers of brittle protective lacquer precluding pain and embarrassment, but choking hope and joy. We can protect and conserve, or we can expose and serve. We can hold on and fear, or we can let go and trust. We can live purely in the temporal -- bound by physical clutter and mental debris, disabled, our energy spent in worry, unable to break free and savor life; or we can live in the light of eternity -- unencumbered by possessions, bitterness, and anxiety; free to give, forgive, and be at peace. We can choose to maintain comfortable existence, safe, unused, reserved, and wasted, or we can choose a vibrant life of purpose. In the end we can die in the peace of comfort or the peace of God. We can leave this life preserved, unused, safe, dead within our lacquer; or we can leave poured out, used up, rejoicing in a life truly spent.

John Newton on Romans 7

I would, but cannot sing,
Guilt has untuned my voice;
The serpent sin's envenomed sting
Has poisoned all my joys.

I know the Lord is nigh,
And would, but cannot, pray;
For Satan meets me when I try,
And frights my soul away.

I would but can't repent
Though I endeavor oft;
This stony heart can ne'er relent
Till JESUS make it soft.

I would but cannot love,
Though wooed by love divine;
No arguments have pow'r to move
A soul so base as mine.

I would, but cannot rest
In GOD'S most holy will;
I know what he appoints is best,
Yet murmur at it sill!

Oh could I but believe!
Then all would easy be;
I would, but cannot, LORD relieve,
My help must come from thee!

But if indeed I would,
Though I can nothing do,
Yet the desire is something good,
For which my praise is due.

By nature prone to ill,
Till thine appointed hour
I was as destitute of will,
As now I am of pow'r.

Wilt thou not crown, at length,
The work thou has begun?
And with a will, afford me strength
In all thy ways to run.

John Newton
Olney Hymns #126

John Newton: Prayer Answered by Crosses

I ask'd the Lord, that I might grow
In faith, and Love, and ev'ry grace,
Might more of his salvation know,
and seek more earnestly his face.

Twas he who taught me thus to pray,
And he, I trust has answer'd pray'r;
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

I hop'd that in some favour'd hour,
At once he'd answer my request:
And by his love's constraining pow'r,
Aubdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, he made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
and let the angry pow'rs of hell
Assault my soul in ev'ry part.

Yea more, with his own hand he seem'd
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Cross'd all the fair designs I schem'd,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

Lord, why is this, I trembling cry'd,
Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
"'Tis in this way," the Lord reply'd,
"I answer pray'r for grace and faith.

"These inward trials I employ,
"From self and pride to set thee free;
"And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
"That thou mayst seek thy all in me."

John Newton

Isaac Watts on Psalm 13

How long, O Lord, shall I complain,
Like one that seeks his God in vain?
Canst thou thy face for ever hide,
And I still pray, and be denied?

Shall I for ever be forgot,
As one whom thou regardest not
Still shall my soul thine absence mourn,
And still despair of thy return?

How long shall my poor troubled breast
Be with these anxious thoughts oppressed?
And Satan, my malicious foe,
Rejoice to see me sunk so low?

Hear, Lord, and grant me quick relief,
Before my death conclude my grief:
If thou withhold thy heav'nly light,
I sleep in everlasting night.

How will the powers of darkness boast,
If but one praying soul be lost!
But I have trusted in thy grace,
and shall again behold thy face.

Whate'er my fears or foes suggest,
Thou art my hope, my joy, my rest;
My heart shall feel thy love, and raise
My cheerful voice to songs of praise.

Isaac Watts
Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts, Stephen Hutcheson, Editor

An island called crow

From the shore I took this picture, because I was carrying a camera. I had just bought it, because I wanted one. The beach is the end of a path that I ran on years ago with my sister. Not my little sister, because she was too little and could not keep up, but my twin-size sister and my cousins. We played ambush, because we could. The woods were laced with deer paths, perfect for woodland warfare. It was always two against two. They always won, even when we hid behind the big boulders. We wore our coon skin caps, because that is what Davy Crockett would do. We crawled on our stomachs, getting spruce needles in our underwear and sap on our shirts, because that is how you sneak up on the other two. You have to sneak, or they will hear you and yell bang I got you before you can duck out of view. Sometimes we forgot we were playing, and we would just talk accross the silent warzone about things we didn't understand, like eschatology. That was toward the end, after we had given up cold showers and doing our group hug when we said bye. They wanted to stop, not us. They grew up and we did too, becuase there was no one to play ambush with any more.

summary

This summer I doubted my salvation. The fruit of my life was sin, the same old sin; the Holy Spirit had given up on me, or never even started, and I was not saved. I shared the Gospel with people, gave away my Bible, assuring them that the one who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved (Acts 16:31) and that God is faithful and just to forgive us of all unrighteousness if we confess our sins (1 John 1:9). I believed this for them, but not for me.

In George Orwell's 1984, Winston lives in a world manipulated by Big Brother. He hates Big Brother. He rebels against Big Brother. In the end, Big Brother breaks Winston, forcing him to betray his lover in the face of his greatest fear. Ultimately, Winston comes to love Big Brother; he can say with happiness: war is peace, love is hate, two plus two equal five. As I read I questioned the goodness in the sovereignty of God. If God is good, his plan is ultimately good, and all things are ultimately good. I recoiled at this idea; surely it would be better to ignore the claims of God and acknowledge the pain in and around me. I could point to Habakkuk 3:17-18

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet will I rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

and tell others to bless the name of the Lord in their grief. Now I was in pain. Something that I loved was taken away from me. It was cruel, a means to the end of blind submission and worship of an impersonal manipulator of the universe. I did not want to bless the name of the Lord.

All these things were bound in piano. It was my idol. Somehow each problem I had with God came back to music. Why was it being taken from me. How could God give and take away and expect me to be happy about it. It felt supiciously like saying two plus two equals five. I could gleefully push that paradox on others, but not on myself.

I cried for my pain, for the pain of the world, for the paradox and could not sing Blessed be the name of the Lord. Mrs. Adams wrote me a card and prayed for me. Mr. Gummel gave me Richard Sibbes. Pastor Hamilton bought me coffee and walked for two and a half hours around Blue Hill listening to my sacrilege. I bought a new Bible.

Edification

The past week has introduced me to two phenomena: James Bond and vampires. The former in Quantum of Solace, the latter in I Am Legend.

James Bond, supposedly fighting on the side of truth and justice, appears to be on his own side, with his own agenda, using his own methods. His methods are brutal, particularly in relation to women, where his modus operandi appears to be use 'em and lose 'em. This callous treatment of women is disturbing. It may be the way of the world, but it need not be glorified. I felt shamed and devalued as a woman while watching Quantum of Solace.

I Am Legend is my first taste of vampire literature. Well written, it did not overemphasize with superfluous adjectives the horror of the walking dead. I am still thinking about the end, where the protagonist is exterminated as a threat to the new society, a horrible legend of the past. His role was reversed with the vampires': morality was contingent on power.

boredom

Why would Elena divorce Zorro?

I'm house-sitting. Alone. Bored out of my tree. My job lasted through October; now I am waiting to find out if Grove City will find room for me.

I have tendonosis in both arms, carpal tunnel in my wrists, and adhesions ...

[This divorce thing is bizarre]

... on my muscles.

[An add for the XBox 360 depicts an adolescent boy with the brains carved out of his head. He sits staring blankly at the screen, his mind an empty shell with floating objects in it.

The divorce was a blind.]

So basically my body gave up trying to repair the muscles I damaged while practicing and just covered them with scar tissue.

I give up piano.

return

I graduated, in a year that went so fast it took forever. I am pleased, for I used to fear that I would fail in "regular school." I have been to the Middle East.

Now I am at home again: working, eating, and sleeping. Not much else. Reentering the daily life of my family has not really happened, consequently. But maybe that is in some ways a good thing. I'm not actually sure that I could have gone back to the status quo. As my father told me this evening, three adults in one house are bound to experience friction. (Loose paraphrase.)

Having put off for a year the undying questions about my future, I now face them again, and have the same answer to give that I did then: I'm not really sure. Maybe BICS (year two this time), maybe regular college, maybe distance learning. Maybe none of the above. That last option sounds appealing. As to a vocation and appropriate major, again, I have no idea. I do know that I like to read, think, and talk. Actually I like to read and repeat what I've read. Not much thinking really goes into it.

I'm interested in philosophy, really worldview stuff. What are the basic presuppositions, how do they play out in culture, and how do you communicate the gospel to the individuals in that culture. This must not, however, be dry academic inquiry, a pursuit that would be easy for me to retreat into. I might be interested in doing post-graduate work in the field, but for now I have a few other ideas.

What does it mean to love God? To love man? I think more and more that I need to be a servant. As Mr. Raker would say, "Good theology is practical theology." My beliefs are worthless if I do not put them into practice. My actions will either verify or belie my beliefs. In the past I have reacted strongly against a purely humanitarian gospel, practiced by many American churches today, but I find that its direct opposite is no better. One consists of works unfounded in faith, the other is all foundation with no works. Both are dead. I hope to wed orthodoxy and orthopraxis in my life. That would be true orthodoxy.

I have neglected both prayer and the study of God's Word since returning from school. My discipline seemed to fail me, as my own strength always does. Sin and guilt crept into my being. I am vile. In such times I get very low, and begin to doubt my election and God's grace. Then I remember why I am falling into sin and out of communion with God: I am not with God, in prayer and in Scripture. I have to fight to make my calling and election sure. Salvation is of grace alone, but unlike justification, I must actively pursue my sanctification. I am grateful that God caught me this time before I slipped too far. Those he predestined, he called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. It is all of him.

And yet the cynical fatalist in me raises its head. Vestiges of my old nature I suppose. Perhaps I will write again before another nine months elapse.

I really should rename this thing. I'm not a Latin freak.