IDENTITY

Let me tell you about myself in an attempt for you to know me better. In an attempt to pull back the curtains and look inside my being to know a bit more about who I am.

To begin, I will tell the story of the atom. The atom is the foundation of all pertinent matter in this universe of ours (to say nothing of nothingness and dark matter). Suffice it to say, nothing physically present in space exists without them. Atoms unite to form molecules, molecules unite to form compounds and all things are thus held together. Since Grecian times humans have known (or at least, posited to that end) atoms to exist and in our estimation of them our knowledge has grown from thinking them to be small, hard ball bearings to the infinitesimally complicated little universes we now know them to be. They are physically present yet displaying metaphysical tendencies. They are immutable and unsquishable; they are bound by immense attractions and charges; their predilection to holding fast to one another can hardly be severed and given the right circumstances, they contain within their minute bodies potential energy capable of leveling the earth. And yet, there they are floating in your bloodstream, composing the very grey matter of your brain and linking arms to form the layered, spherical substrate you walk on – the Earth.

They are nothing short of miraculous.

And it doesn’t stop there. Bear with me, because this is important. Atoms are made of three things, in general: protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons and neutrons, like the nucleus of a cell, are tightly bound together in the center of the atom and give it its mass. The proton is charged positively, the neutron is neutrally charged and to balance it out is the negatively charged electron cloud. So you’ve got a weighty center being orbited by a hyperactive cloud of electrons. But here’s the thing: scale.  

The scale of the atom is unbelievably vast.

Atoms are already small. Like, millions fitting together on the head of a pin small. And yet, within themselves they are even smaller. The nucleus is 2,000 times heavier than the electrons surrounding it (think 2,000 elephants versus 1 elephant), yet that same tiny, heavy nucleus is 100,000 times smaller than the electrons surrounding it.

100,000 times!

To put this in perspective, it’s as if the nucleus of an atom is the sun of our solar system and the electrons buzz around a spherical path on the outskirts beyond Pluto – but that sun is 2,000 less massive than Pluto! Can you imagine?

A tiny sphere maybe a 1/3 mile around you could walk in 6 minutes spinning in the middle of a solar system in which there is nothing but emptiness for decades and decades until you come to a thin, minute screen of negatively-charged, hyper-fast buzzing force way out on the edges.

All of that space and nothingness exists right now in every atom composing your existence. Every atom, to last trillion billionth in your very eyeball as you read, is full of empty space more vast than the space in our very solar system.

It’s true.

Selah. (That’s a Hebraic word for “take a breath, praise God, pause.”)

So that’s where I come in. What do I have to do with an atom? Who am I and what is an atom to me?

It’s Jesus Christ in me that I mean to talk about, or rather, my faith in the Way of Jesus, the carpenter-Jew from Nazareth who claimed to be the Son of God and whom the disciples and early church claimed rose from the dead, many even claiming to have seen it with their own eyes.

I have, by the power of the very breath of God, put my faith in the ridiculous claims of this Christ. I have staked my eternal soul on them in fact, so much so that my identity has been fundamentally changed.

“It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, ” to quote Paul of Tarsus.

What this means for me and for the atom is simply this: my identity in Christ is my nucleus. It is my mass and weight, my very substance and stabilizing force. Who I am now is because of the person and work of Jesus Christ. I am forgiven of my sinful condition, I am adopted into God’s family, I am no longer at enmity with God, my Father. My heart no longer beats for my own life but for the lives of those around me, my soul yearns for the liberation of the oppressed, for mercy to be shown to the merciless and the penniless and the loveless and my being longs to extoll the goodness and joyfulness I have found in Christ to all living creatures, human and otherwise, in every ghetto, every city.

My identity is comprised of these weighty, heavenly bodies: protons and neutrons tightly bound together in my center.

This means that all other identities, then, float busily around and above my core, like that electron cloud spinning out past all that empty space. My sexual preferences, my talents, my desires, my fears, my future hopes, my job, my familial roles – anything else that might “define” me is, necessarily, insignificant when compared to my core. In fact, it is all able to be lost to me. It is dead in comparison to my core. I have died and am an altogether new thing in Christ.

But hear, insignificant does not mean meaningless. Remember it is the electron cloud which allows the atom to bond to other atoms. The electrons, in equal number to the weighty protons within, balance out the atom and allow it to connect to others. And yet the electrons can only connect because they are counterbalanced by the core of positivity, which holds it all together in proper tension!

What a metaphor!

My center has given my identity a new job to do. Whereas once my identity was self-focused, concerned with purely the exultation and satisfaction of my identities, my wants and desires, it is no longer. My purpose has changed. My charge has changed. My core is Christ.

Oh my soul, praise Him.

Thoughts on On the Road, pt. 2: March Run

I'm reading On the Road for the first time in acknowledgement of its great American, racing, literary heartbeat. I thought it would be fun to post some of my thoughts as I go. – – – – – –

I wanted to see the sun as it set so as soon as I could don-off the work trappings and deadline woes of the day I did so and set off at a trot in a sleeveless shirt to greet the night breezes that were surely coming. March had come that year like a bashful boy at a dance, cautiously waiting for a pretty girl to make herself available With every courageous warm advancement, he didn’t know if old Wintress might snap in and give him a cold No, but today he was feeling hearty and sure. Aware of his confidence I stepped on out, too, eager to dance myself.

For severe minutes of suburban blocks my body cried out in revolt (I had been sluglike and work-worn with it for a good two weeks), but when I crested the top of a grassy rise and I saw the grinning March sunset I got myself back together and went on in confidence. Down a dusty hill and across the road, I ran up a great flag-poled forested hill and then climbed a tree so to see the last winks of sun. I peered over the miles of house peaks and tree-streets and there was that old March sunset, making tracks down below the earth. A bit satisfied, I stood up on my branch to get a look around me and behind my tree I was met with three great circles of dog-training masters, short-leashed pure Worldbred dogs yipping and lazing and hopping with dog joy. I grinned at their weaving-around community, the playing of it all, and at the kindest grey-haired man who talked so softly to the animals, warming the mean ones with a gentle muzzle touch. I looked down from my tree boughs and a quiet madame with two stately flowing dogs stopped and stared up at me and then over across the hill and miles off to the sun, now setting for sure, a great shaking orange gleam behind the glass horizon of the city. “It’s huge tonight” she offered, and I agreed for sure. When the sun went down and the sky brought out its neons and pinks I started to walk. Down a horse trail I passed a stock-still old mean hound who looked me right square in the eyes and if he was a man he would have cursed my life and taken it right then and there. But the Hispanic teenage boy held him true with a steel collar fit for a criminal and I slinked on by, staring right back. In the cool woods I pondered the snakes coming out of their sliding holes and the skittering things back in the thickets made me turn and turn again. A wise owl hooted and it was just a bird after all, but I wanted truly to see a good old coyote grizzle his lean self across my path. Alone instead, I came back to the buzzing dusk traffic street and as I crossed I wondered if any window passed me with a knowing look, a lonesome look and friendsome look. I peered through the glass as they shot by me but no one looked back, so I made my bobbing way up the next hill. The creek was finally breathing out cold woodsy airs and I passed by refreshed as I came upon the night practicing of some sport well-lit up in a concrete court. The young neighborhood kids batted at something while their parents idled at the curb, burning gas and reading books. I wondered if I’d ever have the parent-patience to sit inside a car on so great a night as that one.

Thinking heavy thoughts with every plodding step I nearly got hit by a red-lighting blue truck careening by, window down and a good old father making his way home to wife and babe for an American meal somewhere in my old neighborhood. Funny thing was, I didn’t even need to cross the street, but there I was thinking of those waiting parents and that old March sunset. I then perked up along the safe sidewalk and there it was: every good old dinner-time smell, every roasted and chicken-fried thing, every meat-loafed and potatoed plate brimming heavy in bright rooms, windows down and good-evening sounds streaming in and smells streaming out. Before I knew it I was back to my own orange puddle of streetlight and wouldn’t you know I passed right by that self-same blue truck, windows up and driver in-house. No lights in my house and no one home. Spring had come at last and I went in to open the windows.

Thoughts on On The Road, pt. 1: The American Way

I'm reading On the Road for the first time in acknowledgement of its great American, racing, literary heartbeat. I thought it would be fun to post some of my thoughts as I go. 

–  –  –  –  –  –

What a mad, lusty adventure Jack Kerouac went on – I see how the generations of the young in our country have read him with a fire in their breasts too – how they, too, wanted to course along the wide beautiful land of America and find their meaning and joy and purpose in its freedoms and its open roads, its great big stars and lonely cold nights.

But I cant help but wonder at the men who built those roads. The immigrants who laid the railroad. What did they dream about? What hope did they have?

In the commercial light of pluralistic freedom and democratic dreams, we look back with joy and warmth at that America, nostalgia-driven steam-powered dreams of altruism and slave-free historiography. We can sleep comfortably with that history and tread those roads with a deserving joy. But the very asphalt upon which we drive in our excesses and wide-eyes was laid with labor and sweat. Thankless, breakless labor done by nameless masses of lean, hungry men toiling across the native soils of other peoples, poring over their labors for meager pay and a mouthful of food. Did they envision the commerce of a future America rumbling ceaseless across the works of their hands? Did they see full families headed to the coast? Laden with skis? Truck after truck full of commodities and lettuces, refrigerated stuffs and limitless sundry wastes?

Their bones are the ribs of the roads and their sweat mingled with the soils of the American dream weaving and marauding Westward.

Love and country, origin and future they sacrificed for entitled us to sojourn out into the stars to see what’s in our own flimsy souls under the sky, before the great crashing ocean. We both dream – ours a luxury, theirs a necessity.   

Despair & Light In New Mexico

From my journal. I hope this encourages you as it indeed encourages me.


Eagle Nest, NM

Dec. 28, 2013

I'm sitting on the upper deck in the frigid morning air watching the Wheeler Peak range glow as the sun, still unseen behind the lesser peaks over my left shoulder, casts its warmth on its rise.

I am thinking of despair and hopelessness and being buried by our broken and faithless world. And these thoughts, as you may guess, hinder me from enjoying the splendor of my freezing fingers and funky coffee on the {sic} New Mexico morning.

And so I'm beginning to learn that I have a choice.

I can choose to succumb to hopeless distraction, colorless woes; or I can choose faith. Yes, faith is God-given but Jesus all the time admonishes & convicts his disciples to "have faith", one time castigating them as "Ye of little faith." So clearly we are the active agent in utilizing (or not) our faith within us. We are not passive socks full of a faith only useful when God decides to use us - in His wild, magnificent plan He's put the keys in our hand and said "trust in me" and now "drive."

So I must choose to drive and choose to trust the verse that tells me God has planned good works for me to walk in. I am to rely on my faith in the truth of this grand fact and walk in confidence and without worry in whatever places He has for me to go.

OR I can choose fear & anxiety, letting the darkness of the world bind me in inactive passivity and ultimately in selfish angst, sinful indulgence; "Well, it's all shit, may as well get mine and pray for change." THAT is certainly not how Jesus meant for His bride to live.

His people are more than conquerors, vibrant world-changers, patient as rocks and steadfast as the mountains. We are to abound in grace and overflow in unselfishness, to befriend outcast and poor, widow and orphan. Meek in spirit, humble in nature, strong in faith and joyful in living. We laugh as we trudge, we suffer with whom suffering has come and rejoice at what is good.

But above all we have chosen to live in light of this: Jesus Christ is the hope of the world and in His resurrection we find life to the full and seek for as many as can to know Him and His life also. To place my faith HERE, I have chosen; to live out my fleeting, human shuffling-of-a-life with this as the leitmotif through it all, learning to let it color my every breath and my every doing, for my joy and for God's glory. 

What is this Sept. 25th?

From my journal:

This morning an aerial host of elegant white threads went soaring aloft as a certain species of spider sent itself into the heavens to be carried by the coming fall winds and live wherever the breezes happened to carry them. Looking up, some alighted in the tops of trees, the roofs of cars, the line of a fence. Vince Guaraldi's "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" comes to mind, though it's more like, "Trust your Future" to the wind - God's wind. He's at work and may send me anywhere. Like a spider's strand I am subject to His mercy and His good plan, and I may land just where I started or I may rest miles away; but above all I know Him whose hand casts me onward and He is good, He is trustworthy, He is loving, He will provide.

As I look up I see the gossamer strands dancing in the bright morning breezes hundreds of feet up, twisting and flowing, drifting and billowing; dancing. So I, too, shall enjoy the dance.

Justice Conference 2013: Post-Thoughts and Pending Thoughts

Hey avid readers -

Just got done with the conference and I will be posting and re-capping soon.

Suffice it to say, this conference has found my friend Ben and I more mature and more practically inspired by the wise and encouraging words of endurance, faithfulness, tenacity and consistent righteousness.

We labor and pine that this burgeoning Justice movement - starting in the church and flowing outward - is more than a fad and that we remember the tireless and thankless labor of our forefathers and mothers.

We are the most over-rated generation in the history of humanity. We are extraordinarily entitled and living in a culture of conflated self-worth. The call of Christ to die to self can be grossly rewritten into a self-centered rhapsody of our own 'selflessness' while we exploit the very ones we claim to serve, all in the name of Jesus; this is a scary thing.

There is so much potential in us. So much energy and labor and creativity. We are so wealthy and we are so able. Let us reclaim our neighborhoods, live amongst the needy, pour out our time and limited funds like water, pray without ceasing and love without reciprocation.

For now I leave this conversation, lest I bore everyone with a burden of helplessness. Christ's yoke is easy, after all, and His burden light. More later. Goodnight.

Justice Conference 2013: Day 1 Thoughts, Part 1

(There may or may not be a part II. I have hopes and notes.)

Today was day 1 of the conference - I attended the pre-conference and the actual 1st day of the conference itself. 7.30 am till 9.30 pm of learning, listening and pondering.

For now, I'll talk about what I've gleaned so far.

I learned in Session 1 that justice is not sexy but it is beautiful, that it is the power of Christ, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, to 'make a way out of no way' and to be 'a balm in Gilead for the sin-sick soul,' that Jesus has been to Mordor and back and that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, like me, wrestled through doubts about who he even was, fundamentally torn between an imprisoned, light-longing soul and a supposed lover of the Truth.

I learned in Session 2 not to pity the Congo but to labor and seek for its beauty to be realized, to intercede for reconciliation at the tribal level and to download a helpful and practical app for saving money to be used for small but important charity victories called Forgo.

I learned in Session 3 from a Chinese-American lover of Philly named Laurence that scarcity leads to clarity and reveals my priorities, that suburbs are good at hiding the poverty they contain in larger numbers than most cities, that the changing urban world requires unity among Believers and that unity requires sacrifice of self motivated by a Grace that 'breaks the seams and redraws boundaries beyond the familiar.'

I learned in Session 4 from the man who started One Day's Wages just how exactly I might go about putting action to my dreams and hands to work to create my vision, that I, like him, suffer from the "messianic complex" that I and I alone must do all and save all, and that our generation is "the most over-rated generation in human history," that our conflated sense of self, entitlement and wasted creative brilliance has us "languishing on the surface" of truly impactiul initiatives while lackimg the tenacity.

Then there was the poetry slam, some gospel, a tiny acoustic set by Michael Gungor and meeting a handful of the exhibitors. For now, day 1. I'm falling asleep already - we met up with several conferencers after the last session and then met even more new strangers-turned-friends on our walk back home. We keep things busy.

Justice Conference 2013: Philly

Welcome to Philadelphia, a city where I deign to think of myself as a local already, knowing the difference between Market Street and Southside, Passyunk and East Passyunk. I know where not to buy cheesesteaks and where to buy seafood and I know several actors in shows I see in posters as I walk down the street.

This city, bedecked with grandiose Masonic architecture, crowded with row-houses shoved together in delightfully close-knit unity, jostling with national history on cobbled streets, is an inspiring place.

And somehow, it is a city that welcomes you in with open arms.

So I am not a local so much as the city simply becomes my friend, invites me to its parties and lets me in on a few secrets. It showed me love, not I it.

Philadelphia - as we all know our greek etymology - means brotherly love, or love between brothers. Love is a strong concept and I don't mean that random city dwellers lock me in an embrace as soon as they see me (though that would be swell, I think), but it speaks to a certain unity that we all want. A certain bond we all desire - a communal fraternity (ladies included) of people.

This makes me think of the Church. Big C. It makes me wonder if the Church is, at times, as welcoming as this city? And this city is just a large-scale experiment in human community, like any other. But do we as a Church, as the Bride of Christ, have as open arms? Do we beckon and invite others to our tables; do we show them more hospitality than these few strangers-become-friends I've met?

This is a big yes and no answer and more than a mere blogpost can tackle, especially as I sit minutes before the Conference begins with the last sugary dregs of street-cart coffee. But suffice it to say I've been thinking about "adelphoi" - Brothers and Sisters - the Church. The greek word Paul and Jesus used to talk about the People of God. Paul used it all the time and Jesus, who spoke Aramaic, used it via translation - but the word is often treated in most Bible translations as simply "Brothers" - perhaps because of past patriarchy or perhaps not - and "adelphoi" given a nice little footnote.

But my point is: the Church was and comprised of Brothers and Sisters and referred to as one word, as "adelphoi", as those joined in love so strong that it is considered "philadelphia", brotherly love - strong, open, bold and unbreakable love. Jesus is the only "friend who sticks closer than a brother" so apart from Him we, Church, need to love each other with the unity and sacrifice that comes with "adelphoi"- only then will we rightly love this world. This world needs love and more than that it needs real Love and if Christians believe what we say we believe we've got a lot more loving to do.

My train into this city saw the outside, the less-loving parts, where the row-houses not so quaintly lean near-to falling down, where most buildings lie in decay and abandonment, where the trash of struggle and cheap living stick to the fences and gather in the corners. This isn't a diatribe about 'urban decay' but a microcosm of the larger story - the larger brokenness pervading this Creation that looks for its fix when only one Fix will do. The Church is tasked with this work, this work of brotherly love.

Thus am I here at this conference, to learn better how to put action in my arms and meaning behind my words. There's more to say and better ways to say it but for now, this is where things are.

Justice Conference 2013: Pre-Trip

Hey there all you avid readers. I'm attending this, the Justice Conference, for the 2nd time in my life, staring tomorrow. I leave for the city of Brotherly Love at the wonderfully dismal hour of 5:00 a.m.

I am extremely excited and prayerful about what I will learn and what will be ignited in my heart. As always, my trusted side-kick, Ben Chen, will be going too.

In short, I will attempt to keep up with things here on my forlorn little blog: what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing, what I'm learning. More to come, when I'm not falling asleep on the keys.

Breath and Gasoline: Human Trafficking, Doubt and the Reasons for it All

Breath and Gasoline:

Human Trafficking, Doubt and the Reasons for it All

By: Ryan Glenn

It was an unspectacular Friday evening when I knew we’d be doing a night drive. Unspectacular in the sense that it was neither hot nor cold, rainy nor calm – it was an inauspicious day that had become a similarly inauspicious evening; and yet, it was a night when somewhere, some girls were being bought and sold by some men in some dark corner of my city – of our world. For me it was nothing but a Friday-night-drinks-with-a-friend sort of evening but for someone else it was another faceless darkness, another numbing and brutal invasion of womanhood and innocence.

I knew this was happening and yet I could not see it. I knew this and yet I could not find it. I sensed the air around me as if I could feel a tear or a ripple in it, as if I could sense any horror in the quivering of the wind, any cry for help or silent plea to the God of Mercy. I could hear nothing and the wind only carried its usual silent self onward.

*          *          *          *          *

This issue is a thorn in my side. It is a shocking pain and it grieves my heart. It shakes my faith and buckles my knees. And still, it’s one among many:

I know that this isn’t the only bad thing happening in our world. I know other bad things happen and that they happen all the time. I know that there is a numberless cacophony of deaths and murders, wrongs and injustices wreaking their havoc in the broken hearts of Men and in the lives of their victims every day and every night. I know this. I stay up nights. I can’t breath sometimes – I know this.

I also know who my God has said He is – that He is Good. That He is Just. That He is Merciful. That His ways are above my ways and that in His redemptive plan He hears every cry and knows every tear and sees, as we cannot, how exactly His Son the Christ will one day actually and really make all things new, including this. I admit, though – this is a hard place for my faith to grow. I find myself echoing the Apostle Thomas frequently; “Lord, help my unbelief.” And He graciously does so.

I also know that God loves everyone, including the girls who are sold and the men who buy and the men who sell. Though we love to love victims and we love to hate victimizers (years of hoping the bad guy will get it in the end have made that our common thought currency), God sees all sides of this issue and judges all parties rightly as equally broken and in need of a saving grace freely offered – a fact I have to remind myself again and again, especially when I feel like grabbing a baseball bat and meting out some ‘justice’ of my own to a man who would even think of touching a young girl.

Thank God our God is not like me. Thank God that He wants everyone to know Him. It takes only a short glimpse at our own gracelessness to realize how unutterably amazing His gracefulness is.   

*          *          *          *          *

It is heavy with these thoughts that I stand on this Friday night, sensing the air. Almost time to drive.

We’ve planned to do our drive on a Friday night because for many reasons it is an active night for this sort of commerce. When we finally meet in a dark apartment parking lot, each of us comes out of the shadows and into the light with relative severity. We pray briefly and get going.

Two friends who have worked with a wonderfully brazen woman from a local trafficking organization are along with two others. We have a plan to drive to a short list of suspected trafficking spots, picked out by this bold friend who is “in the business”. On it are inauspicious places like salons and shoe stores – retail fronts set back in forgotten industrial parks in the shadow of major freeways. Glamorless and forgotten places – perfect for such illicit activity; by day, respectable and plain and by night something entirely different. Evil is far less obvious and far more congenial looking than we give it credit for. Our job is to visit the locales, scope out the after-hours activity and pray for them. Along the way we find ourselves also led to places not on our list – a shady strip joint here or an all-night video store with a particularly active clientele parked out front there. The good thing about prayer is that you can’t be wrong about a place – everyone needs Jesus equally as much. Everyone needs saving grace. Everyone.   

So, as an outpouring of this grace, we gather in my car in the late hours to beseech our Good God to act and to save and to rescue on our behalf. We pray for hearts to be broken and lives to be changed, chains to be shattered and pleasure to turn to ashes. We pray for demand to cease and for a city to be outraged for the sake of its daughters and we pray for a society to learn that there is no true and lasting satisfaction outside of knowing Rightly its Creator. Big prayers in a small car, spoken to foggy windows beneath red blinking lights.

Our last stop is a small sign in the back of a plain business park built in the mid-80s behind a busy Hispanic nightclub. An unclear flyer found online told us to expect something nearby.

So we sneak into the back of the pay-only parking lot for free, somehow undetected as we drive by a clamor of bouncers and valets, and we find the surest spot for what we’re looking for. Slotted next to 5 or 6 silent storefronts, it’s a terrifyingly open door well past midnight, unattended and unadorned. In the dim light a couch and potted plant are visible, sitting in front of a cheap floor lamp, a ticket-booth tinted window and a locked interior door with a small, lit doorbell. It’s so plain it’s almost sickening. No one is around. We wait. We pray. Two men go in. More waiting and no men come out. This place is clearly in business. We feel powerless – who is inside? How many girls? How young? Do we call the cops – or if we do will it be too late by the time the authorities make it around to investigate? We know they rotate girls frequently to keep customers interested. And as soon as the heat comes this place will dry up and move on, like they all do. There are more questions and we cannot answer any of them. Another sleazy flyer found online later tells us slightly more about the discreet Asian massage parlor we’d found – it’s new in town, but we can still only guess what’s next for it; as if we want to.

But in that parking lot our prayers have a visible target and the reality hits home. Behind those sun-faded tinted windows we know that the girls we pray for have faces and names and families. We know that shame and lust and hurt are lurking so thickly through those rooms and that a culture of sexual lies leaves men more empty and more dead with every visit. We can see it and feel it.       

And there we are, huddled in a car in prayer because at the time it’s all we can do. We’re not here to play Christian hero, and besides, it’s God who does praise worthy things with us, anyway – not the other way around. We’re simply responding out of love and duty to this enormous wound in our world. Love does in spite of itself for the object of its affection, and in this case our Love for God and for a broken world sent us to our knees for a few hours on this night in Dallas, Texas.

*          *          *          *          *

But can I be honest? About this whole thing?

It almost felt hopeless and dumb – spitting into the wind or taking one stone away from the Himalayas. What can we do, anyway? How can we stop such a thing as this and move these mountains even a millimeter? Can God really break hearts and grieve a city? Can He really move in a society? Are we being audacious to ask for such things?

The answer is yes but it’s not an easy one.

But what did we even do? Objectively – not figuratively?

Did we rescue anyone? Did we blow the whistle on a trade being made in some dank alleyway at the last second? Did we bring the light of the Gospel into a strip club’s back room or the all-night massage parlor’s foyer, guns blazing and Holy Spirit speaking?

No.

And the cynical would think then that we had actually done nothing at all, that our prayers went about as far as the glass in my car windows, that bringing religion into this whole mess is a pointless enterprise, that men have always bought sex and women always sold it, that it’s merely a detestable fact that children get sucked into it. Why waste the breath and the gasoline - and if we really cared that much we’d just roll up our sleeves and do some saving ourselves.

And anyway, they might ask, why don’t we just save something more easy to find, like dolphins or trees or puppies?  

Cynicism is a palpable force in our world and if it wasn’t for faith it would mow down my spirit like a scythe. But above the clamor of lies and snares and more powerful than the spiritual darkness that holds sway over this stronghold of lust is a God who has defeated sin and freed us from all bondage to it.

So, was it worth it?

Absolutely.

We were indeed audacious in our prayers, but then was it not Jesus who promised His presence?

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them”

Matthew 18:20.

And then there’s this audacious promise in 1 John 5:

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him." (v. 14-15)

And this God we approach with such boldness is the God that delivered a captive nation and shook the prison doors loose and promised to save billions in all nations through a man named Abram. This is our God who can do all things and it is with full assurance and hope we pray for Him to do in His power what we cannot.

And we didn’t do it just once and we’ll do it again, too. We’ll keep praying and trusting that God can move this mountain and that He is, through people like us and people like you, at work. One day doors will be kicked down and rescues made. One day light will shine into ever darker corners. One day…we pray and we labor.

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

Romans 8:19-21 

The Moment This Didn't Become a Pity Party

The moment I realized that I'm not that guy, that I'm not a cultural rebel or a critically-acclaimed anything or even a person that knows what the hell he's going to do next year or even tomorrow. That silence does terrify me and that the flimsy whims I build of straw always fall down.

That I can sing but that I am afraid to share it - I don't like the way my mouth looks. That when I want to break and shatter and take on weight I am treated lightly - I don't like the way my name sounds. That try as I might I am myself through and through - I don't like the way that that isn't enough.

I am enough. Because He is enough. I don't like the way that that sounds trite; but i like the way that that is true.

People, People, People

It's been a long time. No one is reading this.

This is beginning to remind me of having a Xanga back in the high school days.

But today was an exceptionally beautiful morning. If you've never understood the concept of chiaroscuro then the sunrise this morning would have defined it for you. I walked out onto my stoop to a sky-full of row upon row of painfully light-etched clouds floating aft of a warm bursting of young light from a sun faintly warming the unseasonal and delicious coolness of the dawn.

It was so beautiful I was almost angry. Angry that so many wouldn't notice it. Angry that something God has made so wonderful would just roll on and fade away and millions would and will always give it nary a glance, nor Him nary a thought. Some were starving and too hungry to look up and some were in too much pain. Some were too alone and some were too stoned. Some were already at work and some were sleepily getting off of it. Someone somewhere was dying on a bed with a feeble view, peering through aluminum blinds at the new day and cursing their failing body for keeping them inside an air-conditioned coffin.

But I had the privilege of standing there with the lavender and the bouganvillas straining upward toward the sky, blindly hungry for sunlight. Some don't think so simply of blessing: if it doesn't glitter or shine, if it isn't rare and coveted, if it isn't a false hope or a golden calf, it is not worth noticing, not worth having. What audacity we have to say He's done nothing for us when we walk blithely past such grace every day.

Lite-Brite Day, a poem

It’s a lite-brite day, with the sky a steely grey,

The breeze is a wet kiss that quickly dries away,

And you want to walk faster just so you can see more of it,

Taste the old plaster and the metal and the charge of it,

Floating in tiny sparks that land on your tongue in it:

And everything that is good is good. And you see a friend and you wave through the window and you sigh heavy and full and you walk forward and you rest in your heart and you know that God is Good.

And the wails aren’t anywhere but the news, the deaths are everywhere but here-

The Life is continually short, and the Breath comes for all in unequal strides-

The Life is continually short, and the Breath staggers in the chest across the finish-

The Life is terribly long, and the Breath sustains and sings within-

The Song doesn’t stop until one. Final. Beat.

Song of Songs, Day of Days, Lord of Lords, Breath of Breaths.

My Review of Terrasoles Baja Flip-Flops - Men's - 2009 Closeout

Originally submitted at REI

The Terrasoles Baja flip-flops are the perfect choice for warm-weather outings.

Terrasoles Baja Flip-Flops - Men's - 2009 Closeout

Broke after a few semi-glorious weeks

By Ryknoe from Dallas, TX on 3/8/2011

 

2out of 5

Sizing: Feels half size too small

Width: Feels true to width

Pros: Great with Jeans, Lightweight, Stylish

Cons: One twisty step-SNAP, Strap Chafes, Wears Out Easily

Best Uses: Casual Wear, Beach, Work

Describe Yourself: Casual, Alternative

These are great for nice, low-stress walking only. If you trust them to any slope or mis-step down off a curb (like I did) they're likely to break.

But 10 points for grooviness. And the stitching at the big toe is cool, as is the brown/green color combo. Tis pity they broke.

(legalese)

Organic Thoughts

The icebergs bloomed white and furiously craggy on top of their cold sea, jostling into one another and relinquishing great powdery sheets of white with every collision. Every movement underneath them was tectonic in magnitude and shook both the white formations and their ocean, roiling the liquid and sending the whole floating structures asunder. And then came the heat of the microwave for 45 long seconds, which, aggravating the water molecules in the coffee such that they became pleasantly heated, caused the icebergs of powdered creamer to finally surrender to the drink and melt away.

I thought, pouring the creamer, that it was unnerving how a substance we trust to simulate a fresh, dairy liquid in hot beverages reacted so frightfully different in a cold, stale beverage. Instead of dissolving to taste like milk, the creamer clumped into great arctic structures, bubbling and unnaturally staying quite the opposite of liquid. No amount of stirring would make it dissolve, I noted; only the application of heat to the liquid underneath the powder would cause the creamer to become rightfully assimilated.

This behavior caused me to put into question the trustworthiness of all simulations of real things. In our age of organic, free-range, all-natural hyper-frenzy rivaling the high-fructose-corn-syrup, prepackaged-and-unnatural mass-produced-camp, it gets a little tiring if you are the slightest bit complacent about both. I guess that’s me. While I cut high-fructose corn syrup out of my diet, sometimes, given no other choice, I’ll still eat it. Also, while I enjoy the benefits of organic, pesticide-free or otherwise natural food, I don’t enjoy the ghastly cost most stores foist upon the trendy products bearing that green sticker. As usual, there’s no happy medium for producers. Because that’s what it comes down to: producing in order to sell.

Why did crappy food take over anyway? People wanted it. Lots of it. Producers had to keep up with soaring demand, and, thanks to the newest technology of the day, preservatives and high-fructose corn-syrup, they found a way. Plastic wrappings, Styrofoam boxes, and any other cheap means of covering the food was also included. Mass production was the way of the future! The way of progress! The way of America!

But then people (thankfully) woke up and said, what is this filth we’re eating? It’s nothing but sugar, and bad sugar, at that! It’s all sugar. And fat. And starch. Maybe some fortified vitamins thrown in for fun, but mostly those three things. And those three things, if you haven’t noticed, don’t treat the body with much respect. Well, fast forward to today and here you have the newest craze: health, of all things! Of all the things to be trendy, it’s being healthy!

Think about it objectively if you can ignore the cries of beeves from the slaughter-houses: being healthy is popular, just like smoking was popular in the 60s or buying war bonds was popular in the 40s or just plain staying alive was popular in the 1600s (and through most of history). It’s the fad of an age. Maybe, in 25 years, we’ll all go back to eating crappy food-because it’s trendy. Ho-hos, tacos, twinkies, and deep-fried hamburgers. With artificial hearts, who has to worry about cardiovascular health anymore?

I think, at least for now, though, I’ll train myself to live without powdered creamer. No more coffee icebergs for me. I’m one step closer to trendy and two steps farther from the past. Now if only I could quit eating prepackaged cake icing by the spoonful…

REI Garage Sale-Year 2: Ryan and Brandon Do Dallas

9 am. feels like 5 am when you're performing nearly nightly in an outdoor Shakespeare festival in Dallas, Texas for something over 5 hours.

Up with the 9 am sun, I brewed some coffee for the both of us. New brew from Brandon's brother, a gift from his recent trip to the Caribbean. We french press it and go, already late, thanks to me.

9:52 am we roll up to Dallas REI (for a 10:00 am garage sale crazy-grabbing bash). Now I expected a line and I expected camping out and lo and behold we got both! After all, who better to camp out in line than people who camp anyway? The Six-flags line of people stretched around the building and included camping-wise families with babies, cadres of rock climbing enthusiasts, young couples fresh off their bikes, and another varied assortment of less-outdoorsy looking folks, which I suppose included Brandon and I. I wore my Chacos anyway, just in case.

10:00 am and the doors open. The line lurches forward and we are shuffled inside and upstairs to the back. Two doors. Two rooms. Over 100 people.

I expected gnashing of teeth and fisticuffs and bumping and jostling and stealing!

Instead, there was polite quick stepping, blind grabbing, and surprising generosity among the garage salers.

The big tickets items were gone by the time we made it in the rooms. I operated on the dictum of taking first and reading the label later, and so quickly had an armful of little things that looked like a good deal. Brandon went straight for the boots and I poked around the accessory bins. Backpacks were just out of the question. And there was a great kayak. I really wanted that kayak.

Well, we rummaged and raced through there and found some pretty good things. I was upset with some not-so-generous folks who stood in a corner mooning over their heaping piles of packs and tents. REI signs posted forbade stock-piling but I guess one man might actually need 10 frame backpacks, several tents, and that beautiful yellow kayak...Maybe he's starting an outdoor tours outfit, and I say, more power to him. I mean that, or at least 20% of me does. The other 80%, well, you get the idea.

So all told, here's what I got:

REI Campware Percolator 9-cup RETAIL: $39.50 MY PRICE: $4.83

Apparently it leaks from the spout. After two cups of delicious, make-your-chest-hair-stand-up-straight percolator coffee poured with nary a drop spilled, I disagree.

Mountain Green 30-LED Lantern RETAIL: $30.00 MY PRICE: $1.83

The handle is busted and the screw-on top is poorly designed. True-but a jerry-rigged, wire handle never hurt anybody. And it uses D-batteries! How quaint.

Princeton Tec Headlamp RETAIL: $ 19.95 MY PRICE: $ 4.83

The actual lamp is broken off from the head band. Some might say it is hopeless! But where there is duct tape, there is always hope.

Portable Aqua with PA+Plus RETAIL: $10.00 MY PRICE: $0.83

This is the stuff! The packaging was tattered but looked mostly untampered. Safe enough for my drinking water! It's patented two-part purification process cleans the water and takes away the nasty purified taste of dangerous organism killing chemicals! For under a dollar, who can resist?

Byer Moskito Travller Hammock RETAIL: $ 39.95 MY PRICE: $ 9.83

This thing rocks! It gets tangles up, according to the label, but then what hammock doesn't? And now I can so easily sleep in the jungle, unflustered by malarial mosquitoes and other nasties. Sounds good to me.

FINAL SAVINGS MANIFEST

Total Retail Cost: $ 139.40

Total Garage Sale Cost: $ 22.15

TOTAL SAVINGS $ 117.25

Thanks REI for another great sale. Camping to commence any time now. Hopefully.

Post-Grad?

Hello! Wow it's been a while! Here's a short recap:

Finish Senior Year-Difficult!

Graduation-Yes!

Post-graduation-Oh...this is a melange of delight and sadness, abject confusion and elation rolled into one big ball of shoulder-harrowing pressure/pleasure!

Summer stock Shakespeare-Cool!

Final summer class to complete ad degree-Not cool!

Waiting for 1-3 jobs, potentially all at the same time-Difficult!

Being broke-Kinda fun, mostly difficult!

That's mostly it.

Oh! Also, I've started making delicious homemade hummus for profit. I don't have a name or a label but I have some secret guarded recipes:

ORIGINAL sans Tahini

ORIGINAL with Tahini

"GREEK STYLE" with Oregano

CREAMY SWEET PEPPER

SAVORY SWEET PEPPER

SPICY SUNDRIED TOMATO

I'll make some for you! 6$ for 16 oz. or 10$ for two! Worth it, I assure you.