Requiem

Last month I started this blog with the story of Amy's grandmother. At the time it seemed that she would not live more than a few days, but I guess everyone underestimated the woman. She held death off for another month (making her total time spent in a coma just over four years), but eventually, as we all will, lost the battle with mortality. Today was her funeral.

There is no situation like a funeral to make us realize how dependent we are on God for life and hope. We can push death out of our minds for years at a time, but eventually we will come face to face with it, and at that moment we must all acknowledge that we are powerless to overcome death on our own. For Christians though, we have the hope and assurance that death has indeed been overcome and that we ourselves may participate in the resurrection of the dead. God did not leave Christ in the tomb, and he has promised not to leave us there either.

There is one moment from today that I already know has been permanently burned into my memory. It was during the viewing, while I was contemplating the bodily resurrection that Scripture promises, and I saw Amy's grandmother draw breath, rise, and leave her coffin behind. (Another is any moment that involved the presiding Priest, Father O'Brian. This man's personality was straight comedy. In one sense it was a relief. He unintentionally elicited a laugh from even the saddest in attendance. In another it was kind of disappointing because I find the Catholic memorial liturgy extremely significant and beautiful, but this was all eclipsed by Father O'Brien's demeanor. He would best, but not quite, be described as Stuart Smalley on Prozac after a thousand hours of sensitivity training reading a bedtime story to a four-year-old. At one point, in this voice, he abruptly stopped everything, sustained a histrionic silent pause, then reminded all attending to "Breathe...Just breathe.")

As expected, the most uncertainty surrounds Amy's grandfather. He has spent six to eight hours of every day for the last four years caring for his bedridden, semi-conscious wife. Now he does not know what to do with himself. He said today, "The last four years I've lived knowing that at any minute the call could come. Now I live knowing that it has come."

I can only imagine what that must be like. There are many people attending to his needs, occupying the vast amounts of free time that threaten him, feeding him, listening and talking to him...but if you do not mind, please pray for him. His name is Bob Long.

I recently bought Mozart's Requiem. That was a nice, brusque, post-modern shift in topic huh? Don't worry anyone reading this with other than post-modern tastes (is anyone reading this?); hopefully this will tie back into the overarching line of thought before you give up on coherence and move on to another website.

If you do not know, a requiem is a mass or composition for the dead (Already getting back on track). Now for most today a service or prayer for the dead any time after the funeral seems outdated and superstitious (And I would bet that even the prayers offered during most funerals asking God to recieve the deceased into his kingdom are much more for the comfort of those still living than they are for the dead loved one). And I admit that in some ways I fall into this group, but this CD is beautiful, moody and haunting. No matter what else I pop into my CD player I cannot escape it. So I gave up trying to escape it and started thinking about Christian prayer for the dead (which reaches back into our tradition a great deal).

I soon remembered a time last spring when I was sitting in Christian Worship class. It was one of those rare moments when my attention was not riveted on the words of Dr. John Wright (John, if you happen to be reading this, I promise those moments were rare...or at least intermittent). My attention was quickly recovered though when he said, "...and that is why medieval Christians had no problem praying for the dead." But it was too late, and I thought, "Dang. That sounded interesting. I wish I had been paying attention."

So I went back and re-read the book John was teaching from, Torture and Eucharist by William Cavanaugh, and I think I found the passage that led to the discussion that day. In chapter five Cavanaugh discusses a Christian conception of time, and how it has been lost over the last couple hundred years. He says on page 222:

The medieval Christian conception (of time) is marked by..."Messianic time," that is, the simultaneity of past and future in the present. Representations of biblical figures in medieval dress strike the modern observer as odd, but medieval Christians did not imagine they were separated from the past (or the future) by a wide gulf of ever-advancing time. The biblical figures were "contemporaries," connected to the present through divine providence.

In short, he says that the difference is that after the enlightenment time began to be understood according to human experience and reason. To a human, who only experiences time as one confined by it, time seems to be like a chain that is linked horizontally by cause and effect. To a Christian, on the other hand, time is understood in God, who is not limited by time, but is its Master. In God, Christians understood events in history not as vastly separated by horizontal links, but close and even overlapping because of their vertical links to God. That is why Christ's death is still effective and was able to reach back to the fall, and why Christians have a real hope in the Second Coming of Christ. It has already happened, thought we have yet to experience it first hand.

Now to graft this little excursus fully back into the original line of thought. I have already asked you to pray for her grandfather, and even though I may not completely understand how it can do any good (because I still exist as one within the confines of time), and if it does not offend your enlightened, rationalistic sensibilities too much, please pray for her grandmother as well. Pray that she would know God's mercy and partake in his salvation. Perhaps God honors our prayers before we even pray them, yet still wants us to offer them. Her name is Patricia Long.

Dog

So I just got a dog. I still have not decided on a name. It is a toss up between Cheyenne and Layla. What do you guys think?

If you want to see more of her, click here.

No Worship on Christmas?

I want to continually guard against my natural tendency to make every post on this site a rant. Though quite often warranted, I do not think they do as much good as I wish they did. So let me begin with something positive.

No. Something better than that. Let me begin with some grace.

After all, we are in the season of Advent, and where is grace seen more clearly than in the story of God becoming man to reconcile his beloved yet rebellious creation to himself? Nowhere. Grace animates the story and uses it to give us a tender hug or a punch to the gut (depending on our need). This is a season of joy and hope, because in it we look to the coming of the Christ in history, celebrate the way he is faithful in continuing to come to us today, and anticipate his coming again.

So think on this, and for now, be happy and joyful. (No this sentence is not redundant. It's nuanced.)

Are you both? Good.

Enjoy it for a moment...

Now...can I move into the next portion of this post and kill some of your happiness while sustaining your joy? I hope to do both.

If it were not for God's action in the incarnation (Christ's becoming man) we would not worship as we do. This is obvious. But it does us good to repeatedly think about what this means. Without Christmas we would not know God's fullness as seen in Christ. We would not know reconciliation with God through his faithfulness and blood. We would not be able to gather together with all people, regardless of their nationality, personal history or economic standing, to worship the Creator of us all.

We would know neither peace nor love.

We would not know beauty or grace.

We would not be able to offer ourselves in sacrificial worship to the One whom we were created to worship and in whom we find our true identity.

We would have no hope.

What is more important to a Christian than this?

Leisure time, apparently.

Several churches in the Phoenix area, and, most likely, a few churches in whatever area you live in are doing the same thing (unless you live in the Vatican or an "underdeveloped" country or a country where Christians are persecuted or...heck, pretty much if you live in America or someplace like it), have cancelled their Sunday morning worship services this year because it falls on Christmas day. This makes about as much sense as Stallone making Rocky VI.

Christmas is one of the highest Christian holidays. We should be gathering in our local churches for worship on Christmas no matter what day of the week it happens to fall on. This is like canceling worship on Easter.

"But it's inconvenient and takes away from holiday time with my family. I only get so much time off of work to relax you know."

Good point. I can relate to how terrible it is to be inconvenienced.

Oh, but wait. It was probably pretty inconvenient for Christ to leave his Father, shed his glory and take a human body, and hang from a cross for the very people who put him there. So strike that. After further reflection I have decided that that is not such a good point after all and that I cannot (or rather choose not to) relate.

Besides, it is not even a point that should have to be made. We should be flocking to worship joyously and willingly. Everything that is not worship should be seen as inconvenient and part of our old, worldly lives. Lives that we have left behind.

Further, on the subject of time with our families, every believer is now part of the same family (Matthew 10:37-38; 12:48-49). Do not neglect this heavenly family that we get to fellowship with here on earth. If you want to have some time with your immediate, earthly family (which is a good thing to have, do not get me wrong), there are how many hours left on Christmas after noon dismissal? Take that time to better explain what you are celebrating on Christmas to your children after they have ravished their presents (and no, what you are celebrating is not their thankfulness to you and appreciation for all the money you spent on them). As good as that might seem, we are, in fact, reveling in salvation. Pure and mind blowing.

What is happening here is so terrible because it is more of a threat than all the politically correct language and legislation working to make everyone call this by the non-religion specific term "holidays." Or everyone trying to take "Christ" out of Christmas. They may not have to anymore. We might do it for them.

This is Christians celebrating a different Christmas. A therapeutic, commercial Christmas that gives Toys 'r Us and Microsoft more to celebrate about than it gives to Christians. Ask Bill O'Reilley. (Thanks to Eric, I believe, who brought that clip to my attention somewhere or other.)

This is true Christmas: the gospel. Jesus has come and comes now and is coming again. Let us live this joy. Not cancel it.

If your church has cancelled worship on Christmas, do not go and berate your leadership. Set an example of faithfulness. Find a place to worship. My Church's doors will thankfully, and with thankfulness, be opened.

Anesthesia

Last Saturday started out well. I got a call late Friday telling me that my Xbox 360 was ready and waiting at my local EB Games store. A nice surprise, considering I had resigned myself to waiting at least another two weeks since I was one of the irresponsible people who did not pay for theirs until October. Without a hint of complaint I asked for an explanation. It seems that someone with better things to do with a couple hundred dollars who was on the list for the first shipment cancelled their order and my name got bumped up. So Saturday, right at 10 am, when the store opens, I was on my way to pick up hours upon hours worth of diversion. Though soon, my heart and mind, that were already numbed by the anticipated presence of the Xbox 360, would be sensitized by something bigger and upsetting happening in the world around me.

To get to my EB Games store I drive by a Home Depot. It is not uncommon to see a dozen or more Hispanic men standing in the parking lot outside this particular Home Depot waiting for someone to pick them up and give them a job for a day or two, pay them under the table, drop them back off, and then ignore them the next time when they only stop by for some masking tape or wood glue.

Saturday was different though.

As I approached, I noticed that the crowd was four or five times larger than usual and, curiously, 90% white. Then I remembered the three page flyer that had been put on the windshield of my car a few days earlier by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps calling for a protest of this day labor site. The opening paragraph of this flyer read:

Are you tired of illegal aliens taking jobs away from American citizens? Are you tired of hearing about our schools and hospitals being overrun and underfunded due to illegal aliens tying up our system? Does it make you sick to your stomach to see American companies hiring illegal aliens? Can't get to the border to stand a post but want to do something in your own community? This is your calling...

The flyer also encouraged participants to bring their own homemade signs with slogans like "Viva la Migra." I kid you not. That was an actual suggestion. And if you do not find that small and degrading then you probably should not read the rest of this post.

As I slowed the car to take in as much of the scene in as I could, I tried to figure out why I was so troubled by it all. Then I began to think about how the second greatest commandment, to love your neighbor as yourself, without question, still extends to illegal aliens, and how I could see no love in the protester's actions.

God's love is not restricted by borders or international law, even if the person or persons in question are lawbreakers. (Remember the thief on the cross?) As Christians we cannot be content to love these people only on short-term missions trips, or by shipping our old and unwanted clothing to them in boxes. When they are here it is our chance to love them face to face on our homeland. To Christians it is more of an opportunity than a threat.

I do not pretend to know how to handle this situation on the level of national policy (but here is someone, not that I agree with everything they say, who seems to at least be trying to do so in a much more tender way http://www.humanebordersblogged.blogspot.com). In fact, it is funny to me how every time I bring something like this up most of my Christian friends assume that I am evaluating things from the sphere of national politics. I am not. I am just trying to figure out what it means for us to act like Christians in every part of life. While I do not know how to fix the problem through our government, it seems to me that there must be a better way to go about this than by dumping all of the blame for our problems on the poor who are simply seeking a better life. Do we have to demonize them and set ourselves physically against them by protesting their presence to their face? I wonder how the American flags, which we are told stand for liberty and opportunity, that were being waved by the protesters looked to the immigrants standing on the other side of the lines.

Why do we think that things will be so much better for us if we keep the poor at a safe distance? One of the signs held by a gruff, grey bearded protester read, "Mr. President, they did not die for open borders," and had pictures of fallen soldiers' helmets hanging lopsided from rifle butts. Funny how we are willing to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers to liberate Iraq and create and jump-start their new economy, but not sacrifice here on our own turf for Mexican immigrants. I guess Mexico will just have to wait its turn for us to come and fix them.

I am not saying I expect the United States to open its borders. I am not even saying that I think that would be practical. I am saying that as Christians we are not called to be practical but to live as Christ lived. And if we were to do that our love and compassion would not be limited by borders or frightened by the invasion of what we perceive to be "our space." (Because we know that it all belongs to God anyway.)

Why is it so hard for us to see people whose worldly citizenship rests in another country as fellow human beings, created and loved by the same God that created and loves everyone in like measure, when they are labeled "illegals?"

Yes, it is sad if an American suffers or dies because our healthcare system is tied up by illegal aliens. But it is just as sad if the alien is turned away and suffers or dies so that an American citizen can receive treatment. I do not hold any American life to be worth more than the life of even the poorest Mexican. Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that all of these problems named by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps find their source in illegal immigrants anyway. I think it much more likely to find the source in a much more wide-spread and pernicious problem, human greed and selfishness. Perhaps if some of the school districts with Taco Bells and Pizza Huts in their cafeterias and double-decker tour buses carting around their clubs and sports teams were to share with the poorer districts that are "overrun and underfunded due to illegal aliens" we could better handle the strain, help educate them, and give them hope for a better future.


It makes me sick to my stomach to think that we would rather send these people away to live in abject poverty (do we really believe that anyone would leave a comfortable life, anywhere near comparable to our middle-class existence, to work as an illegal day laborer?), rather than to sacrifice for them. It makes me sick to think of our healthcare system (as corrupt and filthy rich as it is in some areas) sending the poor away to receive terrible care, if any at all, in Mexico. This is selfishness on a wide-spread, corporate level. A sin that undoubtedly both stems from and trickles down to invade individual hearts.

I thought all this. Then, with my windows up, I drove on to get my Xbox 360.

An Open Letter to the Internet

Dear Internet,

Why must you continually make it so difficult for me to starve the passive-aggressive high school bully still living inside of me by tossing me tasty morsels such as this?

http://www.vaccc.com/home.html

Sincerely,
Wilson Ryland

Fear Mongering

The fear machine is out of control. Those who created it (or at least think they did, because fear is, at its source, a byproduct of sin, which pre-dates the modern media by a little bit) now can only hope to exploit its effects while narrowly escaping being consumed by fear themselves. The news creates more anxiety than all the horror and suspense films we watch combined, because, unlike the villains on screen, these may actually exit the realm of television and mangle our bodies, steal our purses or, worst of all it would seem, threaten our "freedom."

This scares us, and we eat it up. Tell us about terror. After all, who wants to wake up to the flash of a weapon of mass destruction with their flesh peeling off their bones like layers of dried glue from the hands of a kindergartner? Tell us about war, for war makes us safe. Right?

The public cannot get enough bad news, and it seems there is more than enough bad news for the media to report.

I just went to the bank to deposit a couple of checks. During the five minutes I spent there I learned three things from the plasma televisions mounted on the wall behind the tellers.

1) A fourteen-year-old girl is considered a victim, not a suspect, in the murder of both her parents. Her eighteen-year-old boyfriend did it.
2) The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (V.H.E.M.T.) is a legitimate movement (to steal their own terrible pun, they are a vehement movement) that wants humans to stop breeding so as to eventually die out and allow earth to heal itself. Check out their website at http://www.vhemt.org. It's actually rather interesting. They believe in abortion, but "only when someone is pregnant." Ha ha. And they portray a phantom-like human form as a future companion to a dinosaur and a dodo. It is nice to finally see a human extinction movement with a sense of humor.
3) A fifteen year-old was abducted and sold as a prostitute over the internet for several weeks before the police found her.

I do not mean to downplay the severity of any of these stories. They (at least the first and third) are terrible, and I pray that the victims will find hope and healing in Christ, but this blog is not about how bad the world has gotten. You hear that enough. Even at the bank. Rather, this is a call that echoes the words of Christ. Christians, do not be afraid.

The world and the rulers of this age want us to live in fear, but we must not, for Christ has overcome the world. Not only did Christ overcome the world, but he also created a space for us to live free from its death and tyranny (even though we remain in the midst of the world). This space is the Church, and no one, not even terrorists, can threaten the freedom we have in Christ. Christ is the ruler of this space. He is our King. All authority and power belong to him. This statement is simple enough, and is one that most Christians would immediately agree with. What seems to be difficult is discerning how this plays out in our lives.

The problem is that when we allow fear to rule we grant certain authority that belongs only to God, to those who have no right to that authority. Christ's kingdom is not limited to some abstract, "spiritual" realm. It is not simply a kingdom comprised of souls. It certainly does care deeply for our souls, but it extends to our physical bodies as well. Christ is ruler of all and Christ cares about human bodies.

So, what does this mean for us today? A lot. One application the Church has not been afraid to speak in authority about is sexual purity. Christians, guard your carnal treasure. But for an application that is often avoided (because talking about politics in many churches can be as awkward and frightening as trying to converse with your parents about your carnal treasure) let's return to the news media and the controversy over torture.

Sen. John McCain (R - Arizona) has sponsored a bill containing amendments that would ban torture by U.S. forces. Vice-President Dick Cheney has made several attempts to exempt the CIA from McCain's bill and said at the outset of our new war on terror that "A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies...so it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective," (Italics mine) and, "we have to work...the dark side, if you will."

Is terror wrong? Yes. Are their terrorist actions evil? Without a doubt. Should Christians be concerned with terror? Again, yes. But stories of secret CIA prisons around the world, from which persons permanently disappear, in which persons are tortured and denied habeas corpus, and America's refusal to register detainees in foreign prisons with the Red Cross etc., should also concern us. Terror can be scary, but we must not allow fear to cause us to approve of torture, nor to turn our head the other way when it happens.

This is not meant to cause dissention. This is not to side with or criticize any one political party. This is just an attempt to hold everything up against the gospel, and thus to show ungodliness for what it is, wherever it may be found. This is just me trying to live out the call of Jesus Christ in every aspect of my life.

If one of our own brothers or sisters in Christ is found in sin we are to hold them accountable. Why then do we hesitate to call sin "sin" when it is found in a political party or politician we happen to side with? Are we that afraid of being called unpatriotic? Christians should be a voice for Christ, not what we perceive to be the nearest thing. We represent truth, what is best, not next to best, and the best thing out there should be (and, I would say is, though she has her shortcomings) the Church of Jesus Christ, not the Republican nor the Democratic party.

If we allow fear to rule (whether it be fear for ourselves, fear for others, or, most likely, fear for both) then Christ is de-throned. This then leads us to give our assent to actions that are intended to guard us from that which we fear (terror) but do not line up with the life of Christ (torture). Evil should be engaged, but as Christians we must not sink to fighting evil with evil.

A Truly Broken Place

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places."
- Ernest Hemingway in ‘A Farewell to Arms’


I have been fighting inertia in getting my blog up and running, but today Amy (my fiancée) provided the push needed to set me in motion when she said something to me that was too beautiful not to share and that epitomizes what I want this thing to be about. Before I get to that though you need some back-story.

Amy’s grandparents had their lives radically altered four years ago due to medical malpractice. Her grandmother was given a shot that many people are brutally allergic to. Standard procedure is to watch a person for fifteen minutes after the shot is administered, that way, if they do turn out to be allergic to the medicine, an antidote can be easily administered and thus save a lot of people a lot of trouble. Amy’s grandmother was left alone in a room with the door closed for forty-five minutes after she was given the shot. She turned out to be one of the not too infrequent ones who are allergic to the medicine. She has been in a coma for the last four years.

Amy’s grandfather was a hard man. It has been amazing to witness the transformation in him as taking care of his wife has become his life. To see the harshness turn to tenderness. The self-centeredness into concern for another. This has been the sweet in this, the incredibly bittersweet.

Now, forty-seven months after this initially happened, it looks as though Amy’s grandmother will not live through this week. The family is gathering, preparations are being made, and Amy’s grandfather is beginning to wonder what his life will become when he no longer has someone to take care of.

Now to what Amy said to me today. She said, “I don’t even know if my grandmother can think in the way we understand thinking to be, but I wonder if she can look back on the last four years of her life and say, ‘I have lived a good last four years.’”

I have to admit that the last few times I went with Amy to visit her grandmother and saw here there with here eyes wandering all over the room or rolled back up into her head and machine tubes jutting out of her as she frequently hacked and choked on the phlegm her body produced to attack the plastic foreign object stuck in her throat, I wondered, “What kind of a life is this?” Now I see that perhaps it was a beautiful one.

In her brokenness she helped bring about some wonderful and miraculous changes in the life of her husband. She, in a very real way, gave him a new life. One that a shallow glance might see as heartbreaking, but one that below the terrible surface is real and brilliant. Her recent life was amazing and virtuous because it was completely lived for the good of another, and lead the other to live in the same way. Is that not as Christ lived? Was Christ’s life not both beautiful and heartbreaking?

It is unsure what Amy’s grandfather’s life will become once his wife is gone. Not even he knows what he will do. But what is certain is that God will bring life and strength out of the brokenness that will come with her death just as he did in the last broken place of their lives.

In Broken Places

Working on it...