I've tried to hide from the assassin, tried to deny his existence. Like a child who believes there's a monster in his closet, the horror of what lurks behind the turn of a doorknob is too much to bear in the dark. I've tried to pretend there's nothing to fear, that it's safe to sleep at night, but there is no denying that he is terrifying; I cannot hide from him or lock him away in my mind.

The reality of the pain he inflicts stuns me, robs me of my stable sense of balance in the world, the way I think life is and should be lived. Disease runs his circle around my family and friends and I tremble in this fleshly body.

* * *

I didn't know what cancer was until I was told my Grandma had it. I was young and did not understand. She traveled the well-worn path through treatments and sickness, but my questioning child-eyes only caught snapshots of the carnage: the hands that held me, that taught me to thread a needle, unable to hold a cup of water, the strong woman now frail and weak, the helper and the helpmate now helpless. Her hair wintered and fell out. Her body, spent and laid to rest.

My other grandmother's funeral is clear in my mind. She was diagnosed and died of cancer within two days. She underwent no treatments; Dementia and Alzheimer kept her from feeling the pain as it grew and spread through her body. The poison went undetected. She died before the goodbyes could be given, before we knew it would be so soon.

* * *

Her hair was just beginning to fall out that day, and she said it would only be a few more days before it was all gone. She asked me to shave it off for her. All of it. She didn't want to impose on me, and if I didn't want to, she understood. “I've done it enough it's not emotional anymore!” she laughed. How many times had she gone through chemo? How many times had she gone under the blade to cut off her hair, that dying life, that sign that the body is killing itself?

We shaved it off on the back patio and I watched the wind blow away the smaller pieces. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Man. The wind passes over him and he is gone. Beauty and life are blown away. Sense and reason lay helpless. Wisdom and glory are cut off. Cancer prunes us, lays us bare to see our true selves.

* * *

I see him lurking in the victims' homes, invincible to any attack, unafraid of any threat. Nothing can touch him. They know he is there, destroying their lives and their happiness, but they have learned to be joyful despite his constant presence, despite his deadly whispers. I come to help them, to fight the assassin by building up what he destroys, to encourage, to give hope and helping hands. But every time I leave with more than I have given. I come feeling empty of hand and heart, and I leave with a mind full of thoughts and passion and emotion. Confused, but inspired. Thankful, but guilty. Joyful, but dazed.

It's easy to give superficial care, to say kind words or think pitying thoughts, to do the men-pleasing deeds. But that only sows the bitterness of guilt in my soul.

Sometimes it's easy to care in prayer. Sometimes it's easy to forget them in prayer. God will take care of them. What can I say that will help them, anyway?

What unbelief. What faithlessness. I weep to rethink my thoughts.

Does He who formed the ear not hear? Does He who made the epidermis, the dermis, the capillaries, the lymph nodes, yes, even cancer itself, does He not see, does He not know? Does He not buffet our bodies? He buffets the ones He strikes, and He buffets me by not striking me. We are all under His hand.

But what do I try to gain from all of this? What sense am I making? Or maybe this is just something that cannot be understood. “Why?” Job said, “Why?!” He asked, he did not understand.

Why is there cancer? And not only why. It is, and so I must accept it: how is the question. How do I swallow this reality that shatters what I think the world should be like? How do I live in a world that demands cancer, cancer treatments, and cancer patients? How do I not let fear and hatred consume me, shrivel my already small existence? Fear must not win.

* * *

Some people really do have nightmares about cancer. Some live in continual fear of it. But perfect love casts out all fear. What does that mean? Will my love for God cast out any fear I have? Then I really don't love God, because I fear much. What kind of fear is James talking about?

My fears make me feel very small, but somehow, by His grace, it is when I am small, when I am weak, then He is great in me. That is when I ask God to do crazy things for me and for His people. That is when I first begin to believe Him. It is the resurrection at the crux of the cross.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fear the Lord. Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. Love the Lord. Perfect love casts out all fear.

* * *

But some children don't live in a continual nightmare. Another fear, a wonderful, more pervasive fear defeats their nightmares and allows them to live without fear. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem fear their father, Atticus. Like their other fears, he is greater than them, but unlike their fears, he is greater not just in size and strength, but in goodness and love. They fear him because he is great, because he is good, because he is love. Their fears drive them to the one who is greater, for the fear of a small child does not make him want to be bigger - it makes him want to cling to the One who is bigger.

* * *

Who is it that fights for me? The Lord of Hosts, the Death-Conqueror, the Sea-Shaker, the Life-Giver.

Let the fears and assassins that I hide from show themselves, and in all their glory. Let them come out and be terrified before the God who made them. He is so much greater than they are. He casts out all fear of them in me, because I fear Him. I love and trust Him. He is greater than all of them; they are nothing to Him.

Cancer, you are little. There is my God. He fights for me. The chariots of fear have been thrown into the sea. I have passed through the turbulent waves, safe. Death may be an ever-swelling stream, but I have been swept away in His flood, washed in His saving water.

Let the monsters in my closet parade out before my God. How little they will be when He is in the room. He is the measure of fear. He is a fear to run to, to love. Nothing could be more wonderful than to fear Him; He is God and I am not.

I am brought to my knees. He raises me up; healing is in His wings.

Upon the Altar of God

I am laid upon the altar, slaughtered for the sacrifice. The flames consume my flesh. I am eaten up, devoured by holy fire, inflamed by the Spirit. He comes to offer me as a living sacrifice, to raise me up before the Highest, to bring light to my darkness.

These dry bones kindle the fire of the Almighty God, and I would not have Him quench the flame. Burn me, or break me, He who would drain me of my dross is good. It is in mercy that He lays His hand upon me; this sacrifice must be broken, for only then may this unholy vessel ascend by fire. Let the Spirit work His perfect work in me. Let His glory flame out and dazzle this tired, lukewarm world.

But what, Oh God, do I ask? I do not know. I tremble, I fail. But I will ask. I ask to become Christ-sacrificed. I ask for His wounds. Fill me up with His sufferings. Set the world on fire with the burning of the saints. We see the Midianites tremble; they fear the shining lights: our souls are set ablaze.

For Grandma

O let my name engraven stand
Both on Thy heart and on Thy hand;
Seal me upon Thine arm, and wear
That pledge of love forever there.

Stronger than death thy love is known,
Which floods of wrath could never drown;
And hell and earth in vain combine
To quench a fire so much divine.

Come, my Beloved, hast away,
Cut short the hours of Thy delay;
Fly like a youthful hart or roe
Over the hills where spices grow.

O Let My Name Engraven Stand

Wise Love

O Father, help us to know that the hiding of Thy face is wise love. Thy love is not fond, doting, and reasonless. Thy bairns must often have the frosty cold side of the hill, and set down both their bare feet amongst the thorns: Thy love hath eyes, and in the meantime is looking on. Our pride must have winter weather.
 
-George MacDonald

Christ's saints carry the cross, feel the frosty cold, and walk among the thorns, but this is wise love and we are called to follow. We follow to the cross, but we follow knowing that the cross means Easter. "We don’t struggle and suffer and fight in spite of Easter. We struggle and suffer and fight because of Easter...Christ is risen and therefore every cross is lovely to us." -Pastor Sumpter

The Clouds Ye So Much Dread

Cinnamon Rolls and Bacon

From the pink glow behind my eyelids on Tuesday morning, I could see that the sun was shining before I had even opened my eyes. The window to our bedroom faces east, and the warm light leaking through the yellow curtains spoke of crocuses and daffodils and soft, damp grass. Sitting up in bed, I peered through the glass and let my dilated pupils contract. Below me lay a street washed clean by night-rains and sparkling beneath a blinding sunrise.

After months of snow and weeks of drizzle, these bright mornings blast through the gloom with a jolt of energy that no quad-shot latte can rival. Sunshine spills over the yard, puddles on the carpet and trickles into my soul. By the time I pull the living room curtains as wide as they will go, I am already inspired, ready to tackle projects that have lain untouched for months—ready to sew duvet covers, try new recipes, push strollers, plant seeds, pull weeds, get dirt under my fingernails. Goodbye, clouds. Hello, life.

My name is Hannah, and I am addicted to sunlight.

I don’t remember when I first noticed that a lack of sun was resulting in painful withdrawals, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve found that the weather can hold more than a little sway over my mood. When the sky is gray, my thoughts tend to be gray as well. I struggle to get myself going in the mornings. I drink one too many cups of coffee. I stare blankly at the monochromatic blandness, and I sometimes wonder what on earth possessed us to leave Texas: I could be driving past sun-warmed fields of bluebonnets right now, and instead I’m going numb scraping ice off my windshield.

Short, dark days find me fighting against a short, dark temper, and by the time we give up on saving daylight near the end of the year—when our clocks “fall back” with a dull thud—the loss of sunlit hours starts to rankle.

When the elderly choose to flee the frozen north and spend their winters in Scottsdale or Miami, I do not laugh. I sympathize. Maybe I am merely a snowbird who has not yet learned to fly. Why shouldn’t blue horizons and pink hibiscus brighten the winter of life? With our hair and teeth turning gray, why should we stay to watch the sky and earth do the same?

There’s a reason you’ve never heard the word “bleak” used to describe a mid-summer’s day. Warmth and light need no defense. Light was the very first created thing. And it was good. Does a “cold” shoulder or a “dark” glance ever describe friendliness and joy? Does not the very nature of things tell us what cold and darkness ought to communicate to our poetic sensibilities?

I have friends who claim to love winter. This I do not understand. Not in the least. Nay, not even a little tiny bit. Winter is cold. Winter is dark. Winter is colorless and confining. Winter kills. When people say they look forward to winter, it strikes me with the same discordant note as when churchy people say they look forward to death. Yes, by all means, look forward to what’s on the other side, but do not look forward to death. Death itself is the curse. And I cannot help but think of winter in the same way—as a thing that must be overcome. Winter is a good only insofar as it is a means to arriving at spring.

In order to be enjoyed, winter must be conquered and subdued. We war against it with down parkas, with fiberglass insulation, with UV lamps, with tanning beds, with vitamin D capsules, with tropical beach screensavers, with wood fires, with hot cider. From November to March, my home can feel like a castle under siege; we may not escape its walls without wool hats and snow shovels—the shields and weapons of our hibernal battle.

When I was 13, my family spent the winter in Warsaw, Poland, where the color of virtually everything we saw was a cold gray—clouds, ground, snow, trees, buildings, and even clothing. The sun rose at 10:00 and set at 4:00. There were days when the sun itself seemed to have had the life sucked from it, days when color film seemed a superfluous commodity. Countless pitiable souls had given themselves over to fifths of cheap vodka in their pursuit of a remedy to the chill without and the darkness within. We felt the oppression of that winter ourselves. It was the only time I can remember ever seeing my mother give way to inexplicable tears.

Snow, I grant, is beautiful in its way, but I always feel that it’s at its best when viewed from indoors while it gleams fresh under a clear blue sky and tries for all the world to mimic the white sands of a subtropical beach. I, for one, am dreaming of a green Christmas. I’d trade a thousand soggy snowmen for one sun-drenched sandcastle.

During the season of Epiphany when the days are dim and the nights long, we sing the hymn “As With Gladness Men of Old,” and the final verse always makes my heart swell with longing:

In the heavenly country bright,
Need they no created light;
Thou its light, its joy, its crown,
Thou its sun which goes not down…

Sun which goes not down. Meditate on that. I think I know why my stalwart ancestors settled in Norway; it was surely summer when they arrived, and that midnight sun must have seemed very near to the heavenly country bright. The very thought leaves me pining for the fjords. Little did those pre-Viking hoards know what awaited them come November. Maybe those dark, tiresome winters were behind all the pent up aggression that my distant forebears eventually unleashed on the rest of Europe. And while I may not feel the urge to ransack a village at the end of a long, drab season, I'm certainly tempted to be unreasonably irritable with my family.

When sun finally does break through the gray, as it did this Tuesday morning, the effect is glorious, and I need little other help to embrace the morning. On those days, it's easy to love whatever I meet, and you may even find me humming a tune before I reach the coffee pot. But I cannot spend nine months of the year in fetal position waiting for those sun-days to arrive.

This succession of gray days is trying. But I also know that it has been good for me. When the sun retreats for days on end, it tests my patience and my hope. When that created light grows dim, it drives me to seek a light that endures in spite of thick clouds and short days and winter winds; it drives me back to that sun which goes not down. Light—unchanging, unwavering, unerring Light—shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it: good news that should make for a very good morning indeed.

I do miss the sun, but this is mainly for HN. This post is probably a better description of my feelings toward the unpredictable weather. Frankly, I'm still in love with the rain and snow, and in my mind, they make this crazy time of year delightfully hilarious. (But I truly do try to sympathize with you, HN. Really.=)  

Enough! The Resurrection...

That Nature is a Hericlitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows ' flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-

built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs ' they throng; they glitter in marches.

Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, ' wherever an elm arches,

Shivelights and shadowtackle in long ' lashes lace, lance, and pair.

Delightfully the bright wind boisterous ' ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare

Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rutpeel parches

Squandering ooze to squeezed ' dough, crust, dust, stanches, starches

Squadroned masks and manmarks ' treadmire toil there

Footfretted in it. Million-fueled, ' nature's bonfire burns on.

But quench her bonniest, dearest ' to her, her clearest-selved spark.

Man, how fast his firedint, ' his mark on mind, is gone!

Both are in an unfathonable all is in an enormous dark

Drowned. O pity and indig ' nation! Manshape that shone

sheer off, disseveral, a star, ' death blots black out; nor mark

Is any of him at all so stark

But vastness blurs and time ' beats level. Enough! The Resurrection,

A heart's-clarion! Away grief's gasping, ' joyless days, dejection.

Across my foundering deck shone

A beacon, an eternal beam. ' Flesh fade, and mortal trash

Fall to residuary worm; ' world's wildfire, leave but ash:

In a flash, at a trumpet crash,

I am all at once what Christ is, ' since he was what I am, and

This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, ' patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,

Is immortal diamond.

Dust

From nothing to nothing. From dust to dust. From death to death. Man.

Dirt, dust, nothing - that's what the earth is. That's what man is. Here and then gone. The wind blows and the dust fades away. Like the flower of the field, he perishes. But man is transformed dirt, resurrected dirt, dirt living by the Breath of Life. The God of heaven breathed, and a miracle happened: the dust of the earth was not blown away. It was raised up, made new, made man.

Man was from the dirt, and for the dirt. He was called to cultivate the earth, to do what God did to him. God said, “Adam, breath life into the dirt, the dust that is this earth. Bring life from death, life from the dust.” So Adam cultivated, he breathed the breath that was put into him, and gave it to the world.

But one day, Adam saw the beautiful fruit that the world was going to become, and he wanted it now, he wanted it without sacrifice without hanging on a tree for the world. Here was the life and beauty that the sacrifice and toil of giving and sacrifice had created, here is was to be taken and eaten, to be his. He wanted it all, all the life that would be in the earth, and he wanted it now. He rebelled. He acted like rebellious dirt, not like living life-giving fruit for the rest of the world, and so God sent him out of the garden.

Adam still had to cultivate the world, but now he was not longer in a garden. He was in a wilderness and was cursed to cultivate the earth through thorns and thistles. The ground was cursed and man was cursed to toil in it by the sweat of his brow. He was condemned to a life of vanity, to endless toil over the earth, toil that brings forth thorns and thistles, not fruit. “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it...For dust you are and from dust you shall return” (Gen. 3: 17, 19).

An endless cycle of death, of rebellion. How can life come from dust? Dust is dead. Dust to dust, and death to death. Adam, the man of dust, rebelled and now he is cursed to work with the rebellious dirt that is so like himself. Where is the fruit in this? Where will life come from?

After years of Israel clinging to the dust, loving the dirt and stain of sin, God sent the end to this death. His Son was dust, like us. He was Adam. He came in the form of dust. He came for the dust. Like man, He was from the dirt, and for the dirt. But He was also the Breath of Heaven. He was life itself. He was already glorified, not needing to be lifted up Himself, yet He came to be glorified for our sakes. He came to bear the fruit where we refused to bear it in our lives. He came to be the fruit of the earth, to hang Himself upon a tree and sacrifice Himself for the life of the world. And with Him, the whole world hung upon the tree. The earth died.

This is what heaven came to earth to do. He pierced the earth. He killed the weeds, and by the bloody sweat of His brow He watered the dead wilderness of earth. The harvest is the fruit of His body, hung upon a tree. He was lifted up. The world was in Him. He was the world. The earth was in His bones and He glorified it.

The earth was slain on a tree, pierced by the tree, buried in the slain earth, and risen again to new life. Wait, life? This was all death. The earth, the dust. How can dust save dust, how can dirt pierce and conquer dirt. How can there be victory. Well, how can there be creation? Here it is all over again; from nothing to the Breath of Life in all things. It was all dead and He resurrected it all. Not only that, He used it all too. He was not ashamed of this dust. He did not come to take it way, to erase what He did in making it at creation. In fact, He came to make it more dust-like, more earth-like. He made it more created, more what it was meant to be. He is the new new dust, the new Man.

Christ breathes and the earth is transformed. He breathed life to the whole world. The tomb is the proof. He was not in the tomb. He was lifted up. He ascended. Dust sits at the right hand of God, and this is not blasphemy, this is not silliness. This is praise, this is glory.

The dust that is man will never be blown away by the Breath of Life. We are dust that defies the dust. We will not be moved, we will not be blown away by any wind, not even the Wind of God; the Son was lifted up, the Wind of the Spirit was upon Him and the chaff of the world was blown away. The Wind blows away the curse. Thorns and thistles cannot grow. This dirt, this body of dust will produce fruit. Sins and sorrows are no more. Let them no longer grow.

From Breath to Breath. From life to Life. From resurrection to resurrection. Man. The breath of God.

Beauty in Weakness

Since this is somewhat related to the last post, here is Molly's story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYB-jfx9A-4

Overcoming Weakness

...But the fact of bodily weakness shades a woman’s life in the world in a very unique direction. Men aren’t accustomed to think about conflict through the lens of bodily weakness. No matter how average a man we are, bodily strength is always part of our horizon of options. Not so with women. They live in a world surrounded by people who can almost always take them down in a struggle. This colors everything; thoughts about travel, work, security, and the future are judged in light of relative bodily weakness. Woman have to seek to overcome obstacles in the world not by bodily strength but by other means, namely goodness and wisdom and beauty. Women have to cultivate these virtues in ways that men cannot fathom.

But it’s this unique manner of overcoming bodily weakness that Scripture pictures as feminine strength. Most prominently, Scripture asks us to think of the Church in terms of a woman (Ez. 16; Eph. 5:23; Rev. 21:2), and Christ exhorts her to overcome the world and sin (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, etc.). But how does she gain victory? Like a man or a woman? She overcomes not “according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:3; cf. Jn 18:36; 1 Jn.5:4). Thus she “overcomes evil with good” (Rom. 12:21). So it is to the Church, then, to which we can turn our daughters’ eyes as the richest model of femininity. If you want to see feminine glory and strength, look first to the trials and temptations and victories of the Church in Scripture and later history. Passages like the letters to the seven churches become grand examples of feminine character. The Church is praised for being loyal and holy, but also bold, wise, and hating false doctrine.

If something like this is correct, then we can characterize femininity as the collection of all those

characteristics which flow from delighting in and overcoming bodily weakness by means of goodness. And it is this sort of indirect, subtle, often mysterious overcoming that makes women so interesting to men. Their core, their take on life is the material of grand drama and literature, the Church holy and overcoming. It’s also important to see the masculine complement. Similar sorts of arguments could be made about the glory of bodily strength that is characteristic of men’s bodies (Prov. 20:29; Ps. 18:32; 96:6). Without going into those arguments and qualifications, the masculine generalization fits nicely with its feminine complement, namely, that masculinity is the collection of all those characteristics which flow from delighting in and sacrificing bodily strength for goodness.

Credenda Agenda

Volume 13, Issue 1

The Meaning of Femininity

Doug Jones

Narcissistic Selves

The first time I watched this film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58iXypYPNrw) I felt shocked. Should I laugh or should I cry? Was it terrible or was it funny? Now that I've watched it again, I realize the film should be both terrible and funny. It is shocking because it shows us our narcissistic selves. If we don't stop, we'll soon be trapped inside ourselves (which the film appropriately portrays as the saddest place to be), unable to touch or enjoy the outside world.

But laughter comes as the cure. We have to laugh at the end of the film because it's humbling to laugh at ourselves, to say that we are ridiculous, to say that we are lost. That's the first step to loosing the little narcissistic shadows of ourselves. Laughter acknowledges that we are humble and helpless creatures. We are as silly and laughable as dolls caught in a doll shop. This film does not give any reason to hope for an escape, but I put it to you that if you know the end of the real story, you can laugh at this one.

Now for something totally different and just because it's beautiful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iDD7wqtwmM&feature=BF&list=PL6F2A53BF3BD34074&index=6
Enjoy.

Cosmetics and the Cosmos

 John Medaille wrote a wonderful article on cosmetics, and like always, it's never only about cosmetics. It's about philosophy, the cosmos, a prison in Columbia, love at first sight, and more. It's worth reading if you like art, if you have a mother, if you live in the cosmos...ok, I'll stop trying to sell this one.

http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2011/01/women-the-cosmos-and-cosmetics/

Here are some thoughts and highlights for after you read the article.

“How mistaken I was. It was the lipstick…that could have changed their lives. Now I understood.”

What is curious about this statement is that she offers no further explanation about the life-changing possibilities of lipstick. From this, I draw two conclusions. The first is that for the women reading this statement, no explanation is necessary, and for the men, no explanation is possible.”

Allow me to suggest that a man and his ax are just as unexplainable as a woman and her lipstick. (What I really mean is, it is explainable :).

An ax is a sign of strength, of ability; it says, in a deep macho voice, “I am a man, and yes, I chop my own wood.” But while men are identified with strength (1 John), women are identified with beauty. Lipstick is a symbol of a woman's beauty, a reminder of who she is. It makes perfect sense then, in a place as unfeminine as a prison in Columbia, that lipstick would be important. They just wanted the bare minimum, just the shallow security that comes with a painted-on identity (even that would be better that what they had). At least it could give a kind of security, a reminder of their identity when they felt the most unfeminine and insecure.

We normally associate the word “cosmetic” with the superficial and the trivial, with mere appearances, but this would be to mistake the whole thing. For to understand the cosmetic, we need to look at its root word, cosmos. This word we often take to mean “everything” or “the universe,” but that is not correct. What the term meant to the Greeks was not “everything” but the harmonious composition of parts that produced a coherent and beautiful whole. This starts with the universe itself, in which everything is seen in its proper place, in its proper relationship to everything else, and therefore forms a beautiful whole. This cosmic beauty then extends down through each microcosm, each little part of the whole which displays its own order and beauty, and then right down to the little cosmos of a woman’s face. The need a woman has to order the world through beauty begins with the need to order her face.

From this habit of ordering herself (a habit which extends to women across all times and cultures) women move out to order the family. They take what resources they have, what gifts their men bring, what talents their children display, in what circumstances they find themselves, and try to compose all of these elements into an orderly whole. The habit of making up one’s face is practice for the task of making up the world.

Others might object that this is about appearances only, but appearances are all we have in the world. The cathedral is nothing but appearances, and we may judge whether the architect has truly captured the reality of the Church; the painting of the saint is just a bit of cosmetics on canvas, and we must discern the reality it depicts in its appearance. The bread of the Eucharist is just an appearance

Paradoxical Love

Love is a kind of wisdom, a way of knowing, a way of understanding the world rightly. Love knows that God has made the world like a poem, like a riddle.

http://havingtwolegs.blogspot.com/2010/05/wisdom-and-magic-of-love.html

It is this same puzzle of Love that Augustine delights in:

What, therefore, is my God? What, I ask, but the Lord God? “For who is Lord but the Lord himself, or who is god besides our God?” Most high most excellent, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful and most just; most secret and most truly present; most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not supported; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud, and they know it not; always working, ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. Thou dost love, but without passion; art jealous, yet free from care; dost repent without remorse; art angry, yet remainest serene. Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost. Thou art never in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains; art never greedy, yet demandest dividends. Men pay more than is required so that thou dost become a debtor; yet who can possess anything at all which is not already thine? Thou owest men nothing, yet payest out to them as if in debt to thy creature, and when thou dost cancel debts thou losest nothing thereby. Yet, O my God, my life, my holy Joy, what is this that I have said? What can any man say when he speaks of thee? But woe to them that keep silence-since even those who say most are dumb. Confessions ch. 4

This is the paradox of love. It's a poem, a puzzle. God is unchanging, yet changing all things. Old and yet always new. Hidden, yet always present. Working, yet always at rest. And yet, this is what Augustine finds rest in. This puzzle of Love is what gives him stability. There is no end to Augustine's search, and in some glorious unexplainable way, that is his peace. And in this endless search, this restlessness that is rest, Augustine becomes like his Creator; he is dumb, and yet goes on for pages, praising what he cannot fathom.

Perhaps we are choosing to only see one side of the story though. Augustine speaks, because God spoke. It is His drawing us to Himself through the Spirit that causes us to know. The two are inseparable (another paradox!). His Speech is poured out on us and we overflow with words. His Love descends down to us and we see His face. He brings light to our blindness and speech to our speechless lips. And so, Augustine's speechless speech should never end. It will never end.

As we grow in understanding, says Augustine, we think we will reach an end to our search. But the psalmist says, “Seek His face always.” David is not speaking about knowing God as we know other things, but about intimacy with God, delight in God, loving God, knowing even as one is known. As Saint Paul wrote, “If anybody thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But anyone who loves God, this person is known by Him” (gal. 4:9). “Let us then,” says Augustine, “seek as those who are going to find, and find as those who are going to go on seeking.” With an uncanny eye for just the right text Augustine quotes the book of sirach: 'When a man has finished, then it is that he is beginning' (Sir. 18:7).

...on the Confessions Augustine, addressing God,says that his desire was 'not to be more certain about you, but to be more stable in you.' The goal of human life is not to know something about God, but to know God and be known by God, to delight in the face of God. The psalmist had written, “My heart has said to thee, I have sought thy face, O Lord, will I seek,” and Augustine comments, “This is magnificent. Nothing could be spoken more sublimely. For those who truly love will understand. What does the psalmist seek? 'To gaze upon the Lord's loveliness all the days of his life.' His fear is that he should be deprived of what he loves. And what is that? What does he love? Thy face.'”

The Spirit of Early Christian Thought by Robert Louis Wilken

And when we do see Him face to face...that will truly be the beginning.

My Father's Love

I am loved beyond comprehension, beyond thought, beyond belief. What are my parents? Love. Love to me. They love that I might “more lovely be.” What have they done? Loved. They show the Father's love to me. And how would I know the Father if I had not known them? He is Father. He gives fathers that we might know the love of the true Father. This is why I have parents, this is why they have me. Love.

My parents are budget-blown lovers; they love me more than the price tag attached to my life. I cost them dearly, but they rejoice to pay the price. I was born, and that was costly. My mother gave of her life to give me life; not a mere sacrifice. My father has forever paid the bills, worked the nights, loved me through his deeds. Who could count the costs? I don't want to know. Grade school, middle school, high school, college, doctors visits, dentist visits, clothes, food... I do know a little. I've seen the doctor's bill. My life is expensive. My brain, alone, is more than I could pay for, and just one of those doctor's visits breaks my bank. I'm too expensive for a luxury. I'm too expensive for anything but love and sacrifice. But who would sacrifice so beyond reason? What is this wild love?

This is the love of God. He is a wild lover. His care and protection go beyond all human love. We try to see, we try to know, but how can we? His love is past finding out. He plans every detail to perfection, and every detail is always right. His love is right. It is not right because I want it, it is right because He sees the whole love story. He knows me from beginning to end, and cares to the point of triviality.

Man would think it disgraceful to love so much, so extravagantly, but God's love is not ashamed of spending itself where it is undeserved, or where it seems unneeded. He delights to see me delight in His world. His world is for my delight. He wants me to love the sparrow. He wants me to delight in its chirping. He plans for the sparrow to be in that tree, over there across the street, and all just so that I can hear him on the way to school. He plans for the mud, soggy shoes, the rain, and my wet hair. These are the insanities of love. He plans for tumors, for cancer, for life and death. But even these are the insanities of love. His love story is perfect. He can't stop thinking about His beloved, planning every detail and laying it all out perfectly. And unlike human love, how unobsessive this makes the beloved. Oh, who am I to receive this love? What have I to glory in? Nothing. I don't understand His love. He spends it freely, lavishly, without any reason. It breaks all haughty spirits. What have I done to deserve this? Love's beauty breaks me. It makes my soul rejoice.

What is love? This is love. Material, tangible, obsessive. He fills my closet with clothes. This is love. What? Love. Unneeded, unnecessary, unexplainable. Love. He fills my mouth with milk and honey, bread and wine. This is love. This is reckless, this is love that would break the budget of any father, any lover; it leaps over chasms, it closes gaps, it knows no bounds. Unbounded and overflowing, His love, that we might more lovely be.

Modesty and Beauty

Over break I picked up A Return To Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue, by Wendy Shalit. Little did I know what I was getting into. Despite what you might think from the title, this book is dark, and that's putting it mildly. Shalit is not a Christian, but she wants to use modesty to give girls the happiness "they would otherwise be denied in a culture that has discarded the idea of feminine virtue." Her interest began as a college student who caused an uproar by objecting to coed bathrooms, and she continues to defend modesty by showing how various perversions have caused girls to lose their ability to make sense of their natural feelings. The one section of her book that I did really enjoy was on modesty and beauty. Outside the context of the rest of her book, this section seems a bit sappy, but within the the book, it is a delight and a relief.

Aside from just plain enjoying this story, and getting a good chuckle from it, I find Shalit's presentation of beauty intriguing. Notice how the grandmother's beauty is about her husband, her grandchildren, her family. Her beauty is relational. It has depth and strength. It is more than pure head knowledge, and it is more than skin deep; it is beauty incarnate, tangible and real.

Shalit wants to reserve this beauty for her grandmother alone, but the story reminds me very much of my grandmother, so I won't allow her that. This is the kind of beauty that grandmothers wield, the strongest kind, the kind that takes a lifetime to cultivate.  

Modesty and Beauty

When my grandparents were dating, whenever my grandpa would attempt to hold my grandma's hand at the movies, she always ran away to the bathroom. During one film she could disappear to the bathroom five or six times.

I'm like a 3-year old with this story. Whenever I get discouraged I ask them to tell it to me again: “Tell me the story about how grandpa tried to hold your hand and you kept getting up and going to the bathroom.” I already know the story. In fact, by asking for it I've pretty much told it myself, but I need to hear it told with my grandpa's chuckle. “Your grandmother! She was always escaping to the bathroom!”

A sweet story, you say. Well, thank you. But before you pat me on the head, may I tell you the end of it? My grandparents have a wonderful marriage. Not the kind of marriage one sometimes sees with elderly couples...

I keep returning to this story, to this image of my grandma at 19, running down the aisle of a darkened movies theater, alarmed and excited. The more I reflect on this minor, silly story, the more I come to think that maybe it isn't so silly either. Maybe it's even essential. Maybe the story of this great love between my grandparents comes down to the story of my grandmother's modesty.

Another amazing thing about my grandma is that she is always beautiful. I don't mean subjective beauty, as in, she-is-beautiful-because-she's-my-grandmother, but objectively beautiful. If you weren't related to her I can guarantee that you would be jealous of her. No matter what she is doing, no matter what time of day, with makeup or without, she always has a glow surrounding her, kind of radiating outward and enveloping everyone within a ten-foot radius.

Once when I attempted to explain to someone how beautiful my grandmother was - we were having a class discussion about cosmetic surgery and superficiality - my interlocutor listened patiently, then said quickly, “Yes, yes, I know what you mean, inner beauty's important, too.” But I wasn't talking about inner beauty. I was talking about objective outer beauty, the kind of outer glow which I think must come from knowing what is important. When people have too much plastic surgery they tend to lose their beauty, as if God were punishing them for losing sight of what real beauty is.

My grandma has a golden necklace to go with her golden glow, a necklace made up of ten golden circles. Each circle has the first name of one of her grandchildren, and on the back, his or her birthday. We all love this necklace the best of all her necklaces, and when we were little would clamber all over her to see “where am I on the necklace?” “is this me over here?” “which cousin am I next to?” and “let me see if you got my birthday right.” We all fit together because my grandma was there to connect all of us.

In her world there are words that still mean things, people to depend on and steady you, real things beyond yourself to long for. She doesn't need antidepressants...because she has my grandfather, whom she could always depend on.

Why are none of my grandmother's friends anorexic? Why are even the plumpest of them contented? Joan Jacobs Brumberg recently undertook a very interesting study of girl's diaries in The Body Project, and made the discovery that girls are much more self-conscience about their appearance today then they were a hundred years ago. In the 1890s, she found, a girl scribbled the following New Year's resolution, typical for a young woman at that time: “Resolved,” she wrote. “to think before speaking. To work seriously. To be self-restrained in conversations and actions. Not to let my thoughts wander. To be dignified. Interest myself more in others.” In the 1990s, a typical diary reads: “I will try to make myself better in any way I possibly can...I will lose weight, get new lenses, already got new haircut, good makeup, new clothes and accessories.”

...Today the debate over beauty is divided between feminists who say that women are objectified by the male gaze, and their conservative critics who insist that there is no such thing as a beauty myth. Modesty allows us, once again, to step back. There is a beauty myth – to the extent that we have lost sight of what is truly beautiful in women...But if charity, mercy, and grace are all sucked deleted, what remains of womanhood?...Womanhood today is so crude largely because of the attack on female modesty.

I hope I have a grandchildren-necklace someday. But it's very hard to separate the kind of person my grandmother is from the kind of person my grandfather is.