Duh.  If you drove in a car with me, sat in my office, or stalked my facebook page over the past year-and-a-half, you are probably well aware of my love for Mr. Blake.  From his first single nigh on two years ago, to the recently released three-song EP “Love What Happened Here”, James Blake has reminded me that I’m not so jaded or over-musicked that I can’t be blown away by a new talent.  There are actually whole sound wildernesses out there yet to be discovered, and here is one worth the repeated listen.  Blake’s production lay bare the intricacies of a few deceivingly simple instruments, not least that feral-soul voice of his.  I hope his profilic first two years in the UK spotlight do nothing to squelch the quality of his music.  Here’s to an equally awakened 2013, Jim.

Battles- Gloss Drop

Ian Williams is still one of my favourite guitar players.  Gloss Drop comes across as more mature an outing from the band’s previous opus, 2008′s Mirrored.  Overall, the guest vocalists do nothing to distract from the trio’s tight post-post-rock.  And they’re ease in being out front and center as serious musicians has provided hours of worthwhile videos of them showcasing the core of Battles’ true calling: tight knit, where-did-that-come-from, sonic ear candy.

Oneohtrix Point Never- Replica

Returnal piqued my ears, Replica drew me in to OPN’s brand of drone.  We both arrived at a similar place this year in our musical output, using looped ambience to tap in to corporate nostalgia.  Lopatin takes Replica into what would be deemed kitschy and overused sounds from pop culture in the 1980′s-early 90′s, but it don’t come across in nearly the same way other bands have ripped off what I still think is a pretty terrible time for music (see: that last song on the Bon Iver record).  It feels much more personal, like I actually remember my small world from the days of elementary school, not what would be fed to me as skewed version of events I had nothing to do with.  Deep listening record of the year.

SBTRKT- SBTRKT

This was my pop record for the year.  I loved the aesthetic of this project right from the get-go, and while female vocals (still) aren’t generally my thing in electronic music, SBTRKT does a good job of picking his collaborators.  Sometimes you just want something listenable, and this was that record for me.

Liturgy- Aesthetica

I suppose then, this was my metal record of the year.  Past all the hype, past all the backlash, past all the hyped-up backlash and the backlash to the hype, Liturgy produced a metal record that made my brain hurt.  In a good way.  I want to crawl inside the life-affirming riffs of Returner and get sucked in to the noodle-drone of Generation. And like a lot of my favorite metal albums, this collection of songs was recorded in such a way that everything is clear as day and pummeling.

M83- Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

Ugh.  Just listen to it.

Balam Acab- Wander/Wonder

Of all the “drag” or “witch house” producers that clamored out of the lo-fi ooze last year, Balam Acab came across to me as the one with the most potential to rise above the blogosphere and make genuinely affecting music.  His debut full-length dabbles in childhood nostalgia, not unlike Oneohtrix Point Never, and marries organic and synthetic, like Brother Blake’s more adventurous EP material.  His sounds are pretty.  This is late night music, yearning for a time when innocence wasn’t a dirty word.  How much we needed that this year.

Blanck Mass- Blanck Mass

As much influenced by Vangelis as Eno, Fuck Button’s Benjamin John Power crafted a drone record that has obvious references to his main gig, yet adds in space for tenderness.  Blanck Mass explores the potential of the synthesizer, with a couple tracks affecting noises that are practically animalian, calling to mind some cyborg zoo in the next starsystem over.

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Mogwai- Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

I loved this record because it reminded me of what post-rock is capable of.

Josh T. Pearson- Last of the Country Gentlemen

I have been waiting to hear something, anything from Josh T. Pearson for six years now, and this record was pretty well worth the time scouring for news of his resurgence into music after breakdown and subsequent reclusion.

Earth- Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I

Tinariwen- Tassili

Josh Mason- Temple Bell

Brian Eno- The Drums Between the Bells

O’Brother- The Garden Window

The Mountain Goats- All Eternal’s Deck

How can we ever hope to really write about love in concrete terms? Or with any consistency in our [small] perspective of everything that world entails? Sometimes I feel my opinions on the matter change with the seasons, whether in theory or in practice. I suppose my qualification to this thought is that I am not necessarily living this out, but I am striving for it to become a reality in my life. Chomsky said something once about how we have to start with the ideal to figure out how we operate in the now, but I can’t remember the exact quote, and I may just be putting words in his mouth. Isn’t it amazing that writing about love can become the most poignant or mundane thing we could possibly speak of?

SO, what is the problem I have with the idea of “pursuit”?

In one respect, it’s purely semantics. I often find our arguments become so preoccupied with the words used that we never find a common space to deal with the issue at hand. It’s a good place for smart people to hide, in the fringes of ideology without action. Our words can either sit as an icon for the larger concept, or they can cage us in to a very narrow modus operandi. One must be particularly careful when talking about love, because our adherence to the words we use can bring us to a place of perpetual disappointment, or worse yet-disillusionment, with love itself. SO while I only allow the concept of “pursuit” its due weight in my life, I understand completely that it can become a form of idolism to me. Idols reduce where icons hint at.

Now, I don’t COMPLETELY disagree with the thought behind the word. In fact, I think it’s rather accurate to the first part of a relationship. In the beginning of romance, I am looking for Someone[Anyone]. There is a relatively wide swath of women that have the present potential to be what I’m looking for in that moment. And, if I’m being honest, generally what I’m looking for when I’m not with someone usually has to do with myself. I want affection, I want to be wanted, I don’t want to be alone. When we’re not in relationship (God or people) are the times in our lives when we focus the most on , and call in to question, our self-worth and identity. So pursuit as idolatry is where I tend to begin, because the Other [at first] serves to give me something. When I’m in the midst of identity crisis, I will consume what I need to in order to make up for the absence. In some instances, you can see this in very overt, violent terms; in others, you’d never even know that this is what is taking place, perhaps least of all in yourself.

But then I get to know Someone(Anyone), and she starts to become Someone(in Particular).

Now, perhaps, my motives change. my desire for romance becomes not so much about what I can get out of her, but the marvel at who she is. Gradually, the other present potentials fade into the background and Someone(in Particular) becomes my sole focus. Ideally, the same process has been happening for her as we allow each other the fact that we are real people and not an idea or concept. We become wrapped up in the intricacies of the Other’s story: their strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes. We challenge the Other, not in any sort of forced sterile-prefabricated-reality-television way, but by the sheer desire we have to be worthy of/responsible with the love we have already received. Somewhere in this place “pursuit” doesn’t do justice to the climate of the relationship.

I don’t like what “pursuit” implies about what men and women want. I think the idea of the knight wanting to rescue a maiden, and the maiden waiting to be rescued dumbs down the complexity of our gender roles. It reduces us to one simple aspect of who we’re “supposed” to be. The truth is, there’s part of me that wants someone to chase after me, to desire me. And I’ve seen a lot of women who have the conquering passion to set out after what they desire with a fierceness that would make King Arthur think twice. The language of pursuit ignores this fact and tries to oversimplify. Those of us who take this analogy too far end up reducing themselves: men become combative and pig-headed, women become frail and more concerned with how they look and present themselves. Additionally if we get too caught up in that form of romance, we never allow ourselves to engage in genuine relationship. The knight/princess ideal only goes so far before it takes us to a place where we are constantly disappointed by reality. No matter how much pursuing/waiting is done, it won”t be enough. Real love is far grittier than that; it’s not focused on just what I want, but how I can serve the Other.

The word implies a hunt like I’m chasing a deer through the woods, which is quickly the mindset that a lot of guys take on because we’re told to pursue women. This is why we “objectify” women. And a lot of women fall into the trap of believing themselves to be some sort of trophy to be “won”, so they try to doll themselves up to be more worthy of the chase, which means that looks become more important than personality.

So there can be a lack of humility in men to acknowledge our weakness, and the can be a place of false humility in women, where they can’t feel empowered to be assertive and go out into the world and do.

We have to believe that pursuit ends when the Other is right in front of us, not running away or playing hard to get or protecting themselves, but being vulnerable and raw in the hopes that we do the same. Then the chase ends. Romance becomes an exploration, and ultimately “love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).. There is no more separateness, or rather, the relationship doesn’t start from the place of “you+me”, but rather “us”. The biblical writers, and indeed Jesus himself, phrase it as “two becoming as one flesh”. All the best romances drop the “and” at some point when it becomes real and the chase ends.

“Pursuit” implies that there’s no rest, that the Other is unattainable. That I’m going to spend my life chasing something I’ll never lay hold of. It also carries so many connotations of separateness (me vs. you, or at the very least, there’s me over here and you over there). It calls into question my reasons for desiring relationship in the first place. If I’m always in the mode of pursuit, it kind of implies that there’s something Out There for me to capture for MY benefit. For me to consume. So I’m placing myself at the center of my own story.

I’ve been trying to realign my priorities so that they are more in line with why I was created. And if all our relationships in this world ultimately reflect our relationship with God, our relationship with God is also the primary standard for seeing the health of our worldly relationships. As I study the scriptures I see people who chase after God when they realize their own destitution, then find rest and completion when the chase is abandoned for unity (you+me < US). So the ultimate goal for any intimate relationship is to mirror intimacy with Abba, where no chase is necessary. Indeed, isn't this the sign of spiritual maturity? I don't feel like I have to pursue God when I've always had Him and He's always had me. The "distance" is an illusion when I convince myself that I'm far from Him. So in order to repair the breach I don't have to pursue what I've already got, but I have to choose to see the truth of what's right in front of me.

When I say pursuance stops, it's not because I've reached the end of my Beloved. Not at all. It's because I'm standing at her front door after having run towards it all this time. It's exploration. It's intimacy. But not at the expense of taking my eyes of the REAL purpose of my life. I explore the depths of her as we grow closer in God and through God. The transfer takes place when understanding as One on the outside is exchanged for existing as One on the inside. Don't think that I'm using the words "pursue" and "explore" interchangeably. I'm not. There's not a lot of space for peace and intimacy in the chase. The chase tests our motives, challenges what we want and who we think we are. But when the time comes to let go of the chase, when we have found what we were looking for, we can trust in the intimacy to bring us further into accord with our Beloved.

Here’s what I mean.  The core principle we are taught from a very young age in our culture tells us that we have to find our worth, our value in the people we associate ourselves with.  This begins with our relationship to our parents; we are completely dependent upon them for the basics of life: food, shelter, protection,  love.  As we grow and develop into little people, our parents continue to instill in us their values, worldview, passions, and way of life, whether through their conscientious investment or through their neglect of taking interest in our upbringing.  As we get older, our little sphere of influence expands to include our friends, teachers, co-workers; most anyone that we spend some amount of time with.  Then we come across that one person who we cherish above all others in our spouse.  One needn’t look farther than the romances we uphold in pop culture as the idealized versions of what this looks like.  Immediately one that comes to mind is that scene in Jerry Maguire where the hearing-impaired couple express the single line that becomes the swan song for the entire movie:

“You complete me.”

We spend our lives looking for completion.  We know there is something within us that is not whole, and our lives become a journey of finding fulfillment in whatever we can to prop up our concept of “self”.  This idea is obsessed over, even celebrated, in a society where finding that magical plug to define us becomes the very purpose for which we were created.  Everything we do operates from that one question of, “where is my value?”  We surround ourselves with acquaintances that reinforce or make more manifest the people we want to be or the people we think we are.  We buy things or involve ourselves in activities that have the same purpose.  I very strongly believe that we do not give ourselves enough credit for our subconscious ability to sculpt the kind of persona we desire to live up to, only to attribute our personal taste to some sort of intrinsic natural process embedded in our DNA.  As if we were born to like a certain kind of music, or feel a particular way about politics, or find a specific type of woman to be the most attractive.  These aesthetic standards are developed in the same way our personalities [mostly] are; they establish a kind of “golden ideal” of what we could be if we wanted to, if we were as whole as we pretended to be.  This places an impasse on all our interactions with the world around us, PARTICULARLY on relationship, in which our expectations on receiving value from others dictates the worth we place in other people.  To put it plainly, we are saying by our actions that I will love you until you cease to give me what I want.

The Christian Value System

The irony of this train of thought is that for the Christian, this need for identity is completely quenched in the cross. To me, the question of value that drowns us from the moment we take our first breath is satisfied by recognizing that God has buried within us a character that solely relies on His love as definition for who we really are.  From the moment of salvation, that is, from the moment we acknowledge the divine in the person of Jesus, we begin this journey of realizing that character in our daily life.

What this does is it changes the dynamic of our relationships with other people, in that we must no longer look to others for validation.  To seek validation IS to seek salvation, salvation from a life devoid of worth (who I am), meaning (why I am), or purpose (how I am me). Yet many of us [myself included] continue rushing around from moment to moment, person to person, trying to find that thing that God has been wanting to hand to us all this time. To do so is to say that what God has in store for each of us is not enough.

Our approach from the beginning of any post-salvation relationship should be the mentality that although I do not need you, I desire you.  This view makes the Christian relationship more like two pillars holding up the same structure rather than two liquids combined in a single glass.  While the pillars are complementary and intimately connected in their common purpose, they are forever separated by a space of clear definition, where one begins and the next ends.  This is the place where love loses its vampiric motivations and becomes what Cornel West describes as, “a steadfast commitment to the well-being of other people.”  In Christian love for brother AND neighbor, there should be no consideration of self-value found, only the desire to demonstrate the love of the Father as a byproduct of intimacy with Him.  If we are defined solely by the love of God, we don’t need the affirmation of man.  I can find no acknowledgement within scripture of anyone preaching or demonstrating a kind of godly love that has even a whiff of self-interest in it.  There’s a hard lesson in separating ourselves from even doing “good works” in order to receive satisfaction from them.  If we are living out of a place of divine, unconditional love, there should be no desire for human reward, not even positive reinforcement of behavior.  Jesus himself implies this in the Gospel of Luke: “…love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:35, 36).  There seems to be a preclusion to even expecting a reward from God, solely serving those whom one could not ordinarily love in worldly terms.  The phrasing of this same lesson in Matthew reads similarly:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48)

Perhaps perfection comes in the place of self-denial.  Taking up the causes of others.  Our own happiness not even factoring in to the equation of love and service.  Perhaps when Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,” he meant this as a daily sacrifice of our own self-interest, not just the one-time martyrdom we usually ascribe it to.

Here’s the truth.  If we are fully realized in the person of Christ and the love of the Father, then there is zero need for affirmation from others.  We are free to love without condition or expectation, if we can only accept what He is desperately wanting to make manifest in us.

Expectations

I mentioned before the connection between the expectations we place on others and conditional love.  There is some truth to the adage that tells us if we have no expectations, we will not be disappointed.  Too often our relationships with others are tainted by the expectations we place on the other, as if they have a certain benchmark to reach before they are considered worthy of our attention or ongoing friendship.  I think this is why the divorce rate in this country is so immense.  In a culture where we are trained as consumers from a very early age, we are naturally prone to interact with people in the same way we do as our malls or our favorite television shows.  Our enjoyment of that person is dependent upon whether or not they continue to jump though our hoops of expectation.  When they cease to fulfill our needs/wants/desires, we discard them as we would a broken toy.  SO we cast aside relationships, REAL people, in search of a more satiating one that meets our requirements for love and acceptance.

We do this as much with God as we do other people.  In the consumerist mindset, “God” becomes the thing I use in order to attain something else.  God is reduced to object; a tool or a weapon that helps us achieve our REAL goals.  I can’t think of anything more blasphemous yet more common than reducing YHWH to a concept that is ours to manipulate and conform to our personal gain.  And we use “God” to gain so much for ourselves.  Most things we use God for are selfish elevations of our projected egos, whether through fame, value, distinction, or whatever else that we claim God has justified in our life that really elevates the self.  Even our supposed religious desires can eclipse God as the apex of desire.  Again in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33).  God IS the goal of our seeking; nothing else comes close.  He needs to be the object of our desire, the subject of our life struggle.  Yet we put the cart before the horse time and time again, using God’s face as a stepping stool to some other destination.  We find ourselves waiting around for “these other things” before we [think] we are ready to enter the Kingdom.  God then only exists to push us into our personal kingdoms, rather than being the very substance of a kingdom we cannot comprehend.  Postmodern theologian Peter Rollins put it so well: “If you seek God because you want eternal life, you’re not seeking God, you’re seeking eternal life.  If you’re seeking God because your life lacks meaning, you’re searching for meaning, not necessarily this encounter with the Divine.”

We place unreasonable expectations on God that He will give us the desires of our hearts, and when He fails to satisfy us, we become angry and resentful. As if we know what is best for us.  We always point to David’s suggestion that we “take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” as a free excuse to make demands of Father, but we neglect the first part of that verse.  I myself fell prey to this selfish interpretation of Psalm 37 a few years ago as I clung desperately to the notion that God would reunite me with a girl whom I had dated for some time, and had broken my heart.  I spent five months in depressive denial of the fact that we were not right for each other, and I wasted a lot of that time being secretly angry at God for not fulfilling His promises to give me what I wanted.  I walked a student of mine through a similar revelation once as he came to terms with the fact that he had been furious with God when things didn’t go as he had planned.  He realized that his desire for control had eclipsed his faith so much so that God became the tool that helped him accomplish his personal goals, one of which was to become a “godly man”, whatever he had it in his mind that looked like.  To compound the issue, the guilt he felt over being angry with God (for this is something you aren’t allowed to do, so says the modern church), this student had turned that anger upon himself as scapegoat, so that he became self-loathing in his inability to control his own destiny.  He had to see that his expectations on God were defining a Being who only existed as utensil.

Saint Augustine rephrases David beautifully: “Love God and do whatever you please: for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved.”

What the fulfilled Christian offers in relationship is not expectation, but hope.  Hope reconciles our desire to see perfection in the world around us with the reality that things probably won’t turn out the way we think they should.  The Christian perspective ceases demanding that others feed his/her desire for validation, and begins to ask how he/she can illuminate God’s totally justifying love for others and in others.

To me, joy is almost as intangible as love itself, in terms of defining and recognizing a state of being that goes above and beyond our own relative experiences with either.  I can look back at my own life and establish what I considered to me my definitions of what “joy” and “love” were in that moment, as a culmination of this that and the other little learned truth, usually based on an experience that demands the response, “oh!  THIS must be what I’m feeling.”  Yet as I have grown up and [lazily] dug deeper into the process of life, the limits I have placed on both these words have ballooned into something that bears small resemblance to what they once were in my mind.

The Lord has continuously placed the word “awareness” on my heart over the past few years, and it has come to the point where my involvement in my own life by the guidance of God can be measured in a twofold system; my awareness of what’s going on around and within me, and my response to that awareness. More specifically, how that awareness transforms my interactions with my known world.  As I have taken part in this process, it has been fascinating to see how much I have learned, and how much this is still to go.

There is no overstating how much “experience” shapes our understanding of the world.  The basic rule of creation is just as every fifth grader memorizes from the theories of Sir Isaac Newton: for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.  This is simply the way things work. It’s pretty hard to argue that, in most any context you can imagine.  Stars implode, then create black holes; sodium and chlorine molecules collide, and then form salt; you don’t put gas in your car, and then you find yourself on the side of the freeway thumbing a ride up to the nearest Exxon for a gallon.  Our world is built upon “if/then” statements.

Even within the confines of our faith, the most basic tenants of salvation follow this logic.  “If” you call upon the name of the Lord “then” you shall be saved. So on and so forth.  There are myriad examples of this thought, and by no means am I suggesting it is dangerous or wrong.  It’s at the foundation of existence.  However, I am becoming increasingly convinced that while the world MUST exist within the structure of this simple rule, the Kingdom of God incorporates, but is not bound by it.

Joy and love are, to me, perfect examples of this.  When my friend posed this question to me about the constructs of true-joy, I was immediately reminded of the examples of Jesus’ disciples in prison.  There are numerous stories of the earliest followers of Christ (Paul included) sitting in confinement, persecuted for their boldness, yet praising and worshipping God for it.  And one doesn’t have to stop at the New Testament to find more examples of this; throughout Church history, there have been innumerous cases of Christians maintaining an attitude of joy in the face of horrific persecution.  Now, the traditional reading of these passages as I have come to understand is they were filled with joy because they were found worthy to suffer for the Gospel.  I would like to add upon that idea, because very often we are tempted to read their attitude of joy as one that is conditional on their situation.  Yet as we often do when we read the bible (and this may be a whole separate essay to come), we tend to compartmentalize these stories and divorce them from the rest of the grand Story that begins with the begotten Word establishing creation by the Creator, and ends with the return of the Word and the reconciliation of Creation to Creator.

One needn’t look farther than our spiritual ancestors within the Bible itself.  There is an almost direct correlation between a person’s awareness of the Truth of creation and their indwelling joy.  The psalmist puts it so well in Psalm 92: “For you make me glad by your deeds, LORD; I sing for joy at what your hands have done.”  The psalms themselves are a continual uncovering of this idea, that while the world keeps us in this place where conditional happiness is the rule, the constant of God’s unconditional love instills in us a static joy that transcends our experiences.  Christ himself explains this to his disciples by telling them how their grief will transform to joy as they come into full revelation of who he truly is: “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy…I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:22, 33).  I love the parts of the Bible where it is evident how long it takes people to “get it” before they have that final revelation of what exactly it is that Jesus has been saying all along.  In this story, Jesus is demonstrating that the joy that stems from wrapping our heads around his identity is unchanging, even in the face of the world’s trouble.

Happiness is dependent upon experience.  This thing over here “feels” good, while that thing that happened last week was a bad instance; our happiness from moment to moment hinges upon a constant succession of “if/then” statements.  The reality is that we confuse happiness and joy for both the internal and external symptoms of the moment.  Unfortunately, I think most of us attribute to joy was is only in fact a temporary happiness, because we have never opened ourselves up to the unwavering joy that Christ told his disciples they would receive in revelation.  So in one moment we speak of our joy found in the hope of Christ, and the next we are acting as if that moment never existed.  Where is the Kingdom in that?  Yet, how do we achieve something we have never entered in, something that exists above and beyond our collection of experience up to this point in our lives?

It is my opinion that we are called to live a life of static joy and love.  What I mean by this is that we are to remain in a constant place of awareness (joy) and respond to that awareness in a way that transforms our reality (love).  I can see the periods of my life in which I am choosing to perceive the Truth of God’s love for me, and the presence of joy in that moment.  This is step number one for any Christian.  If I am truly choosing God in that moment, my response is love, which is a transformation of everything I am in Mind, Body, and Spirit.  By that gauge, I’m an atheist about 90% of the day, but I’m okay with that.  For now.  We are finicky creatures, and for beings who chalk so much up to understanding through experience, we tend not to trust our senses with any sort of consistency.  Yet the love and joy we are called to walk in through each and every moment of our existence is something that transcends experience to a sort of hyper-experience: that while the world operates in this “if/then” continuum, our state of being is unchanging, undependent, as it is in the being of our Christ and our God.

Next I’ll write about the paradox of joy and despair…

i had a revelation this week while conversing with a friend at one of the many trendy overpriced coffeeshops in east nashville.  is there something about lattes and spiritual breakthroughs?  regardless, we we discussing a hesitancy of his to tell the truth about a very intimate moment to those around him that he professes to be in community with, and the LORD started to bring some disconnected thoughts together in my own heart as i talked him through the process.

two weeks prior i had given a lecture based on romans 7, kierkegaard’s theories of despair and “self”, and our great exchange.  it was a little convoluted, but the visuals were good i think.  this was all based on a talk i had given at our men’s retreat in the spring, so these ideas had been bouncing around in my head for quite a while before i began compiling this lecture into a convenient powerpoint.  the basic premise paul is getting at in romans 7 is that the law, although perfect, exists to show us how sinful we are, because we cannot uphold it through our own means.

the law becomes our death.

paul expresses frustration with knowing right from wrong, but continuing to do the opposite of what he desires; this is a wonderful definition for sin.  yet what strikes me about this passage is how he is making the assertion that is is not he who is sinning, but the sinful nature within him.  ”sinful nature” is synonymous with “human nature” and “the flesh” in much of paul’s writing.  what i find so fascinating in his lament is this verse: “…in my inner being I delight in GOD’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.”  this is key.

i began to get this little image of our identities as a ball of clay. from the day we are born, the ball gradually gets bigger.  this identity is our “human nature”; it’s composed of what the world tells us we are, what our parents or friends say about us, and what we construct of our own being to present to the world, fooling even ourselves into believing it’s really us.  this identity comes from what we can observe within the confines of creation.  we can see/hear/smell/touch/taste “stuff”, we can use reason and logic to makes deductions, we can even use our experience to build an idea of what the world is and how we fit in.  as we grow older, our little ball of clay grows with us.  Son, daughter, student, friend, babysitter, coworker, father, mother, music lover, part-time carnival ride operator, whatever.  these labels define us in our entirety until there comes an experience in our lives that operates outside the realm of what we have understood to be “reality” since we were children.  this is the “GOD” moment.  all of a sudden our ball of clay doesn’t hold up to its promises that this is all there is.  something happens deep within our souls as we try to reconcile an experience that seemed more than an experience.  this is the point when God has reached down and touched us.

Two balls of clay.  in one hand, we have our “human nature”, and it has been growing for some time now.  it’s got weight.  it’s got history.  it’s everything we think about the physical reality of our world.

In the other: a GOD-breathed identity. maybe you’ve heard this called “divine nature”, “spiritual side”, “perfection”, something along those lines.  this is the delivery on a promise YAHWEH made to his people from the beginning of the bible, reaffirmed by the new covenant HE established through HIS son, jesus.  this is GOD saying, “you are NOT what the world tells you, you are NOT what you convince yourself you are.  you are what I made you to be.”

so these two conflicting identities, these two balls of clay, exist side by side in us, vying for superiority over the other.  as paul says, “I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me…I myself in my mind am a slave to GOD’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”  he is making the assertion that his sinful nature is no longer him, but this evil that is always right there next to him.

the truth of the matter is that we will never be able to fully embrace the identity GOD has given us, and in doing so, destroying our sinful nature.  we’re human.  we’re stuck in these flesh-covered cages until the day we die.  yet i draw a lot of comfort from a quote by the english poet robert browning: “ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. or what’s a heaven for?”  for us, it’s the process that is so important.  the fact that we are striving day in and day out to understand who GOD made us to be, and to leave our imperfect human-constructed nature in the dust behind us.  i think GOD knows this, which is why HE’s so patient with us.

kierkegaard puts it in another way.  he says that all men are in despair because we can’t figure out who we are.  we know that we are flesh and spirit, but we can’t understand our spirit nature by bouncing our identities off the things that surround us.  for k., becoming a “self”, that is, becoming self-aware, can only happen when we are able to see our true identity as flesh+spirit through the eyes of an outside being, one who is not confined to the physical world.  some of us know we are in despair as we feel like something is missing in our lives and we can’t put our finger on it.  others of us are in despair and don’t even know because we don’t acknowledge that part of us.  ever heard someone say, “well, i’m just not a spiritual person”?  we are incomplete until we have an encounter with our creator.  an encounter that tells us, “there’s another option.  become who I made you to be.”

from that point on, the rest of our lives become chipping away at the facade we have built around ourselves to present to everyone else, so that we may live out the identity that GOD has had waiting for us all along.  it’s in seeing that identity as the truth, and our constructed nature as an illusion.

which brings us back to the coffee shop. my conversation with this friend turned to “disposable” and “indisposable” relationships, which is something we have been talking about in the anchor fellowship for some time about.  he is having trouble being open and vulnerable with people for fear of judgment compounded with a nagging guilt over his past life.  as we chatted about how community and accountability go hand-in-hand, i began so see this paradox of paul’s in action.

we are caught between two identities.

we build ourselves a nice little marionette puppet to put on display before the world as a distraction from who we really are.  the distraction is to get people to like us, but it also exists for us to be comfortable with who we pretend to be.  most of the time, other people are content to be friends with our little marionettes.  it’s not as messy.  but every so often we come across someone who sees beyond the wood and fabric and string and catches a glimpse of the puppeteer.  and we allow ourselves to drop the act for that moment and stand face to face with someone in all our nakedness, uncertainty, and truth.

let me be clear.  none of this is easy.  it’s hard to let go of the puppet.  the puppet is safety; it keeps us detached from having to confront our fears.  but it isn’t real.  we have to let down our guard and come to terms with who GOD made us to be, and not be afraid of accepting that truth.  we  need to allow others in, past our delusions of false identity, to see us for who we really are.  this is the only way true community is possible; by baring our mess to those around us and crying, “help!”

sit quietly and ask the Lord to show you your marionette.  the illusion that you’ve built around yourself to trick everyone into thinking you’re cool enough, smart enough, that you have it all together.  now cast it aside.  learn to walk in the reality that GOD has provided you.  ask for courage to overcome fear and guilt, and get out there and make your relationships indisposable.

-Ryan Adams

To you, therefore, my words are now addressed,
whoever you may be,
who are renouncing your own will
to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King,
and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of obedience.

And first of all,
whatever good work you begin to do,
beg of Him with most earnest prayer to perfect it,
that He who has now deigned to count us among His children
may not at any time be grieved by our evil deeds.
For we must always so serve Him
with the good things He has given us,
that He will never as an angry Father disinherit His children,
nor ever as a dread Lord, provoked by our evil actions,
deliver us to everlasting punishment
as wicked servants who would not follow Him to glory.

Max Richter released his new album, Infra, this week.  I’m spinning it right now, and it’s absolutely lovely.  Honestly, I was thrilled with Songs From Before or 24 Postcards, so this recording is a pleasant reassurance that Richter is still at the forefront of this whole eletrcoacoustic post-classical post-minimalist ambient thing.  Go and pick it up.

Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

2 Corinthians 3:1-6

This passage brings me such a feeling of comfort when i think about the task Father God has set before me.  I feel underqualified; but only He qualifies me to do ANYTHING by His grace.  i feel like this could so easily fail, and it will should i rest on my own abilities, but there is so much potential if i only keep myself humble and in constant penance to the Lord.  i worry that we won’t have enough money, that i won’t be able to sustain myself, that there won’t be enough students, but if i place my confidence in what i have been called to do, God IS enough.  For “He works for the good of those who love him.”

this is where i leave the conventional wisdom of the world behind and begin to press in to the backwards logic of the Kingdom of God.  this is where God proves He Is Who He Says He Is.  and i start to believe Him.

el shaddai: : God All-Sufficient.

so let’s backtrack a bit. i have been teaching in metro schools for three years now, and it was the very reason i ended up in nashville. i had felt called to teaching since i was 15, and when the opportunity to move to this city and live out my calling arose, i leapt at the chance. yet the longer i have been here and the more i have become involved in my church, my job has begun to feel more like a way of provision for the REAL work.

a few weeks ago, josh and i sat down to talk about my job. i confessed to him how shackled i felt by my job, how tired i found myself constantly (if you’re a teacher, you understand this). i told him that i was seeing little payoff in my job as the whole system seems to be engineered against TRULY educating youth. meanwhile, i was finding such fulfillment in teaching the word, playing worship, taking part in the more a more direct form of ministry. that’s when josh told me that GOD had been laying it on his heart to start up the anchor school of ministry, and he wanted me to take the position.

so i have been praying quite a bit about it and seeking counsel from some wise folks, and i came to the conclusion that this is the best thing i could do for GOD right now. it seems completely foolish to give up a cushy job with benefits to work at an unacredited DIY school of ministry, but that is part and parcel of what i find so exciting about it. i believe GOD is bringing me into a season of living by reckless faith, which is something i have desired for a long time.

if you’re the praying type, please pray that He would give me confidence in my decision, that i would have clarify of vision, and that we’d actually get some students this year! for the most part, i’m not scared to do this when i consider the choice i have in Christ. i will be working hard for the next two months to make this happen, so your continued support and prayers are invaluable.

also, if you know anyone who would be interested in giving up everything for ten months and moving to nashville to take part in this, have them get in touch with me. my email is asm@theanchorfellowship.com.

LOVE.