Abandonment

Having driven across Kansas a few times lately, I am reminded of how many derelict buildings dot the landscape. Their ragged neglect evidenced by roofs caving in, windows with gaping smiles and blooming weeds, the protégé of tumbleweed. The truth is, upon detecting these dilapidated places, I feel sad. I feel the same way about them as I do about ruins in Ireland. They can sometimes have an odd splendor to them, but often they are just forlorn- forlorn and solemn. They are abandoned. Someone gave up on them. Thinking they would perhaps invest their time and money in a more trendy place, or at least in a place that wouldn’t need the roof patched. Or maybe the owner had to move off to an exotic place like the Bahamas for health reasons, or maybe they are now deceased, and left the property to their only son in Toledo who is a busy Doctor and doesn’t have time to care for it. Or maybe the previous owner was dirt poor, and it now belongs to a bank that is having a hard time selling the property for equity.
Really, abandonment is weird. It is usually a word that has unpleasant connotation attached to it and leaves us wondering “What went wrong?” But the word suddenly turns out to be a good thing if something is abandoned that needs to be. Who likes rain dripping on their heads while they are trying to drink a cup of tea? That old house ain’t worth your time! Why hold onto a shack if you can live in a palace, or a house with a garage and swimming pool? Why hold onto things like guilt, fear or bitterness? It’s much better to throw those little guys out the window.
Another weird thing about abandonment is that it seems to graduate to a higher level when it is done with good intent. When I was in Greece this last summer I talked to a guy who was part of a Bible study called The Barbarians. I asked him why they were called Barbarians to see if it fit the image in my head of maniacal bonfire dancing, and men with braided beards ripping off chunks of meat from mammoth-sized turkey drumsticks. The guy said they were called Barbarians because they wanted to be “passionate, fully abandoned to God.” That answer didn’t really fit into my Barbarian paradigm, but I’ll give him the benefit of doubt… because it does sound rather glorious! If there was a girl version of the Barbarians I’d join. It kind of fits into my Live Hard goal, after all. Resurrect that hidden savage. So… viva la abandonment! The good kind, I mean.

About Esther

I have been reading through the book of Esther again. Even though Esther has found her beautiful self pasted on millions of Sunday school flannel boards and repeatedly cliché-style referenced in women’s Christian lit, I remain intrigued every time I read through the original book. Reading through it this time two things stood out to me. One is about her, and the other is not.
About Esther: she was beautiful, clever, feared God, and obedient to the leadership God placed in her life. My guess is that she must have had a winning type of personality, charming Xerxes and the rest of his ilk like she did. It seems to me that she deserved the best. But she didn’t have the easiest life: parents killed tragically, exiled, torn from a loving guardian, placed in a palace full of competitive women, and then married off to a man who slept around and who possessed carefully guarded machismo (Step lightly or get shipped off and replaced!). Esther’s people were being annihilated before her eyes, and she probably had a foreboding feeling in the pit of her stomach that she would be next. It seems to me that Esther’s story falls into the same category as good people getting cancer, or honest business men finding their hard earned cash performing a disappearing act overnight. If I had lived during Esther’s time, and if she had been one of my home girls, I’d say she didn’t deserve any of that rough stuff to happen to her, but, the way that God orchestrated everything in her story is breathtaking. The story resembles a tightly fitted puzzle which leaves the best pieces for last. All those hard things that happen to Esther make sense in the end. All the ugly loose ends are neatly tied, and it makes you want to praise God for His majestic strength and omniscience. At the end of the book the hard things in Esther’s life don’t look meaningless after all, and we are not left pitying her state or feeling like her life was permeated with injustice. I think the last 3 chapters are a taste of heaven. All the hard things in this life will someday resolve into meaning and we’ll have a new light shed on this life’s twists and turns.
Not about Esther: Esther 3:15 really bugs me. It says that while the king and Haman sat down to drink, the city of Susa was in confusion. Their Edict was causing mass chaos and slaughter, and they decided it was a brilliant time to grab a bite to eat. It reminds me of the scene in The Lord of the Rings where Pippen sings his haunting ballad while the king pops grapes into his mouth, and while the king’s dear son fervently battles away in a ruined city. It grossly emphasizes a lack of concern, accentuated by the fact that those kings were the primary source of the tumultuous events taking place while they dine. To think about it is upsetting, but I suppose it is a reminder about priorities, and points me towards double checking my grape-popping habits. I came across this quotation from C.S. Lewis the other day, and I think he completes this thought nicely. “My own experience is something like this. I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends… or a bit of work that tickles my vanity…, when suddenly a… headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly… I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that… my only real treasure is Christ.” This New Year I want to focus on proper priorities, and I’m looking forward to the time when all the happenings of my years will make perfect sense.

Welcome to the Garage

When you come across the word "Supersonic" what immediately comes to mind? Sports cars with jet engines attached? A drive thru Sonic where everyone is on rollerblades? Wait, even better: A drive thru Sonic where you receive your food in one of those cylndrical tubes that you use for bank transactions (Super!).
I just got a job at a place called Supersonic, and it's actually not like that. It's more along the lines of a music shop with a garage type of ambience to it. Perhaps not the place my collegiate colleagues would have voted me most likely to work at, but I find it to be an interesting place. At Supersonic, we sell guitar cables. Loads of them! Some of them are black; some of them are the color or Skittles. The walls of the music shop are choca-block full of musical gear. Everything from harmonica holders to sleek triangular Jackson guitars. We carry drum sticks with shock absorbers in them, and cymbals that are arranged and displayed to look like Chinese Christmas trees.
So if you're in the Topeka area, stop on by Supersonic! Jam a bit; chat a bit, and check out the garage for yourself!

Live Hard

One of the slogans for Lincoln Douglas Debate used to be Talk Hard. I have decided that my new motto for the next while is going to be Live Hard (It is perhaps jumping the gun on a New Year's Resolution, so it is just a goal). The draw back to claiming these two words is that there might be some Hedonistic Rock Star Philosophy associated with it: "Wear out your body, 'cause Baby this is as good as it gets!" But, really, I have different plans for those words and how I want them to motivate me in the weeks to come.
I can relate well to Elijah. After Mount Carmel victories it is in my wiring to lay down and lose vision for what is to come next. I also realize that it is easier to detect the Wilderness Elijah mentality in others, more so than when it is found within myself. For example: Elijah. Elijah would be a good example. :) Another example: A few weeks ago a woman a little past middle age said to me "I don't understand why the Lord has had me live this long." I left that conversation feeling disconcerted. From my viewpoint she had a tremendous amount to live for and should keep truckin' for all she's worth! But it made me wonder afterwards if I had allowed that same kind of thinking to creep into my own head.
A few days after that conversation I drove a Burmese girl named Kaung to the hospital for a post operation check up. Kaung had a hole repaired in her heart, and the Doc wanted to see how things were holding up. Kaung bravely proceeded through the gauntlet of heart tests: EKG, Echocariogram, and X-Rays.
As I sat in the dark room watching Kaung's heart lub-dubbing on the screen, and hearing her father quietly chuckle at the Homeward Bound movie playing in the background, it hit me that life is an incredible gift. There is no guarantee on that next heartbeat.
So I guess that is where my motivation comes from for acquiring a new motto. Even though I don't want to emulate Elijah curled up in the wilderness under a juniper tree, I do want to get a taste of his Mount Horeb experience. To hear the Lord's voice; to be sustained by His food; without carrying loads of baggage with me. To live hard, even during the quieter pauses in life.

Letting Your Hair Down

I played my violin this evening at a nursing home fund raiser. It wasn't because of any altruism on my part or because of the pristine condition of my heart. I played tonight because the lady recruiter was insanely sweet and my mouth was unable to utter a resolute "no" when she asked me.
I chose to play a medley piece that cataclysmically collides three short songs together, and cleverly fills in the gaps with arpeggio structured cadenzas. The piece was simply chosen because I figured it would fullfill my alloted minute quota. My favorite sliver of the repertoire is the last breathtaking 10 bars that unite to bravely form the piece's conclusion. The last section is composed of mad running sixteenth notes, whose sole purpose in their short-lived lives is to propel everything forward. The notes build hyper-tension by picking up tempo as they climb several octaves and push toward the brilliant dynamic of fortissimo (Voila!). The whole piece is built around that finale ending. It careens maniacally forward and then when it cannot soar any higher in that blue cloudless sky it spits out a few notes, as if in afterthought. Kind of like "Here are some double-stop Ds. Take that!" It gives me a head rush to greet those notes and they are usually played with an extra fiesty foot stomp, just for affect. It's all about attitude. No room for timidity here. Risk-taking-anxiety is thrown out the window. It's all about abandonment, really.
It really is all about abandonment. Letting the hair down. Daring the instrument to catch on fire!

...perhaps a bit bewildering for the elderly... next time, maybe, I should play Brahms... or something.

Purge the Closets

I remember reading once about the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets found the day he was assassinated. Along with spectacles, a pocket handkerchief and whatnot were nine newspaper clippings favorable to his presidency and his policies. I find it fascinating that a man who has gone down in our history books as being one of the most courageous and greatest American presidents of all time cared about newspaper clippings. It makes sense, though, he was human after all and words of encouragement can do wonders for those battling their way upstream.
After being prompted by the words "Purge the closets" written on the bathroom mirror at my oldest brother's house, I have been inspired to intensively clean out my closets, and have been trying to coax myself to part with what I don't need, or what I predict will not be of much value to me in ten years. Books, letters, CDs and clothes are all at risk of getting their Closet Status changed. As I have been weeding through the random ensemble of articles I wonder what an alien observer would think about the contents of my closets. Would they find it weird that I keep 2 hockey sticks, or would they raise their eyebrows at well intended half started projects? I know you shouldn't get overly zealous with what others think of your closet space, and nobody is on the verge of writing articles about my pocket lint, but it is a reminder to me that if there is anything in there that I'm ashamed of it's time to bag it up and give it to Goodwill. Quality newspaper articles are far better than skeletons.

Thoughts for Chewing and Swallowing

Excerpt from Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman, Oct. 17th

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Gal. 6:14

"They were people who were living to themselves. Their hopes, promises, and dreams still controlled them, but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for a repentant heart and had surrendered themselves with a willingness to pay any price for it, and He sent them sorrow. They had asked for purity, and He sent them sudden anguish. They had asked for meekness, and He had broken their hearts. They had asked to be dead to the world, and He killed all their living hopes. They had asked to be made like Him, so He placed them in the fire "as a refiner and purifier of silver" (Mal. 3:3), until they could reflect His image. They had asked to help carry His cross, yet when He held it out to them, it cut an tore their hands.
...Yet God strengthened them and protected them, even from themselves. Often, in His mercy He held them up when they otherwise would have slipped and fallen. And even in this life, they knew that all He did was done well. They knew it was good to suffer in this life so they would reign in the one to come; to bear the cross below, to wear a crown above; and to know that not their will but His was done in them and through them."