Something

Why is it that struggle induces sleep ... passivity, longing to sit still and think about nothing or sit and listen to music. I think it is the weight of thoughts that weigh us down at time ... But honestly that is seldom true, thoughts alone are nothing ... no real weight and no real lift. It is life and reality and people that weigh us down or lift us up.

Mind splits as I ponder my place,
heart and water spill around and slosh out,
wandering feet would like to walk in a forest,
Something peaceful and pretty
even if it is cold.

But instead I am here and I must find my place right here.
This is always the solution,
Escape is rarely a solution ... only when you are on your way to murder
or theive or pillage,
should you flee with quick feet.

All other times you must plod directly into life,
whatever life will meet you.
You must believe that even if the times are dark and cool,
Even it is is many nights that pass before there is a spouting,
You must believe.
God will grow you if you believe.

Plant yourself, one foot after another and God will give increase.

This isn't all, it never is, but it is a big part.
It is a hard lesson to learn in our time of constant illusion
and corporate day dreams,
When imagination can actually be your problem.

God take our imaginations,
right now they are worth less than dung.

May we have dreams of your kingdom and seek it with sweat and tears.

May the gospels grant substance to our tireless imagination,
Tempered with the prophets and the epistles and the Old stories.

Old Notes (same Jason)

I am reorganizing my personal library (hopefully to make it easier to reference and find things) and just came across a note in my copy of "The Prophets", by Heschel. Its on Lee University paper, so it must have been while living in Cleveland just after I graduated. It has two things written on it with numbers out beside them:

1. "Ideas are dangerous, but are often treated lightly and glibbly ... especially in academic circles. There is hardly such a thing as a "merely academic" discussion. "The killing fields of Cambodia come from philosophical discussions in Paris." (Paul Johnson)"

Yep, I still agree. I think that quote is from when I attempted to read Johnson's "Modern Times" a giant history of our centure (1500 pages or so) ... maybe I should pick that one back up. It sounds good.

2. "You no longer have to be brilliant, intelligent and elite to come to the conclusion that life is meaningless ... that message is spoon-fed to millions."

Yep, that's still true as well ... except people seem to care even less that this is happening. Well I add to that as a further wake up call from Abraham Heschel "Are we alone in the wilderness of self, alone in this silent universe, of which we are part, and in whihc we feel at the same time like strangers? It is [precisely] such a situation that makes us ready to search for a voice of God in the world of man: the taste of utter loneliness; the discovery that unless God has a voice, the life of the spirit is a freak"

God help us.

Augustine and Everything After (by the Jason Crows)

Aren't blogs the right place for woefully cheesy titles like that?

Let me preface by saying that I imagine many people will find this stuff very boring so don't read it if you don't want to. Blogs are for thoughts and these are definitely thoughts I have. On the men I talk about (Augustine, Luther and Calvin in particular), I automatically have great respect for well-repected men ... what I mean is that I am pretty new into this information and processing it as I can, but know I am far from getting the full picture. I intend to do a lot more reading on this topic and hopefully will be more estute as I go.

I have found that if I wanted to I could spend hours and hours writing and re-writing and I don't have the time for that ... so here is random thoughts on church history part 1 and I will either clean some of it up later with an additional post or make a more complete statement.

So I have almost completed two pocket history(s) related to Christianity; A History of Theology and a History of the Church. I love reading this stuff because I love seeing where all the modern thoughts came from and seeing how some of them are not new even when we think they are or they are new and ridiculous because of being new.

The biggest trouble I am currently having is figuring out what the truth is with Augustine's Grace vs. Free Will discussions and with Luther and Calvin's formulations of salvation. I honestly don't think they are straightforwardly dealing with the reality of our world or with the reality of the scriptures. They both get some grace because they formulated their thoughts as reactions to heretical thoughts ... Augustine to the british monk Pelagious and Luther and Calvin to the out of their mind at the time Roman Catholics. All of them want God to have absolute sovereignty and human beings to have absolute depravity. The only free will we have, according to Augustine, is the choosing which sin we want to pursue.

I understand the philosophical problem completely ... well as much as someone who has never taken a philosophy class. The philosophical picture needs to be black and white and very tidy ... so if God is to be in absolute control then that must include control over human will, individual or otherwise. The formulation becomes that we are completely passive while God's grace is active in saving, redeeming and everything else. Luther even says that repentance is a gift ... which follows right along with Augustine's argument.

So, it comes down to the elect and the damned, predestination or what Augustine called monergism (which I think refers to the fact that only God has any power). But, what about the Bible? All Christians are quick to say that you can only get so far with philosophy so why do all these guys keep going back to it before the Scriptures. They seem to figure it all out philosophically and then try and make the scriptures support it.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that philosophy is bad in any way and the people that push for only learning from the Bible or only using biblical language get pretty confused as well. There are times when philosophy and rational discussion is our only recourse to make sense of the world and even our task as followers of Christ. BUT, these giant systems of interpretation that have greatly influenced the church, especially Protestant thought, don't seem to line up with the Scriptures very well at all.

I mean, what about the constant call for repentance. Why do all God's men, Jesus included, always walk around telling people repent? How does this system fit, in any way, with the story of the Prodigal Son? Can you imagine Augustine's view of God (at least in this aspect) being the same father Jesus describes running down the road to meet the lost son and falling on his neck with tears ... and then turning to the older son and inviting him in as well? I imagine if Augustine had to re-write the story it would have to include a little less choice on the son's part.

But it seems the biggest problem with all this is the obvious one ... how do you establish any real human responsibility if absolute power and control and action is given to God. That is what set off Pelagious in the first place ... coming into town and finding a lot of indecent behavior and then reading Confessions with Augustine saying that decent behavior (or self-control) was a gift from God ... so instead of putting forth moral effort, we are left to wait like a bunch of island charismatics for the gift of continence.

And then the same rap could be said about Calvinists ... don't know how true it really is, but i have heard that Protestants didn't do any missionary work for nearly 200 years after Calvin worked out double predestination. There is just no way that fits with the Bible.

A Christmas Poem (2005)

I wrote this poem last year and gave it to Tara as one of her Christmas presents ... but I thought it would make a nice post for the holidays.

I don't know anything about formating text ... but everything is supposed to be centered and the scriptures at the beginning are supposed to be smaller font and act as quote introductions like Eliot uses in all his poems (except he usually uses quotes in latin or french)

"As to the exact day or hour, no one knows it ...
be constantly on watch! Stay awake!
Mark 13:32-33

"Peace is my farewell to you,
my peace is my gift to you;"
John 14:27

Snowfall is a soft sound---a softening sound---smoothing
out the dissonance of an auto-crowded city.
Does anyone listen during these quiet sky-sent moments?

I whispered to my lover,
something about the mood of the moment.
I spoke in hushed speech,
preserving as much of the silence as I could,
but I was excited.

(whisper)
"Into the darkness of winter,
falls a precious white.
Into the blackness of the longest night,
is sent us something pure.
When ugly things bare their teeth
and wicked men attempt to hide their dirty deeds,
a savior is born."

We sat there a long time,
still throughout our entire bodies.
Except for the quivering hairs,
the listening hairs inside our ears.
They were enjoying the sound of the snow.

We had our blankets piled up,
to offer us protection from the winter cold,
the white cold,
the silent cold.
As everything was being covered outside,
we lay covered and quiet.

But we did not sleep.
No, we were much alive.

And then there was a rush of wind,
and a voice, almost audible,

saying,
"The war was won,
but the war is still fought,
Men love war but God loves life.

PEACE ON EARTH

PEACE ON EARTH

Peace on earth."

With this last line singing loudly in our ears,
we decided to go and find our children.

They also laid under layers of blankets,
but with open eyes.
They were watching and they were waiting.
Little had they slept,
refusing to forgot their task.

With tired, but joyful eyes
they watched and waited
for Christmas morning to come.

the tension of the age

The biblical account of the earth really makes sense to me. The old story about creation being blessed and then given to human beings so they could wisely stewart and care for it. And then when they rebelled and sinned everything fell downward and death and darkness began to grow where there used to be blessing.

This is our world. Our world is covered in both beauty and terror. there is light so rich and full that no imagination is wild enough to contain it, there is dark so evil and destructive that no shrewd wisdom can overcome it.

This world of ours is very complex. It is so bright and vibrant, full of rich colors and diversity ... and brilliant inventions. Even within the world of humans I am constantly astounded by the creativity of human beings, from the cd player that reads code and translates it into music, to the music itself. From the jet liner to the literature of the brilliant men and women scattered over the earth and throughout time.

But in those very same places (the earth and humanity) there is a terrible darkness, pockets of fear and evil machinations. People using their creative power to control and manipulate others so they can have transient pleasures. Even the world itself seems to be turning on inward with violence, destroying anyone in its path. There is flying sickness and death. There is pain and loss and suffering. And there is just void and unknowing. There is emptiness and desperation. There is loneliness.

This is the reality that must be held in our minds as we look upon the old gospel story. The good news that Jesus is a great warrior, who in God's strange way fought evil and death itself through suffering and dying innocently ... and that his walking out of the tomb was an open door to new creation, restoration of the blessedness of the old creation ... that the Creator God had found a way to work within the messy world itself to bring about a light and life that would win over darkness and death ... it is more breath-taking for facing the whole story.

Josef Pieper Quote

"We have, he writes on one occasion, 'lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity.' That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort."

In order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. This is profound and rubs against most current understanding of knowledge. Knowledge is only knowledge when it is lived. You can know something, but you only know it as much as it affects the way you live or informs the way you live. Truth of this sort places a demand on us and if we say "no" to the demand with our actions we can't claim to know the truth at all.

Heschel says it this way: "Deed and thought are bound into one ... Spiritual aspirations are doomed to failure when we try to cultivate deeds at the expense of thoughts or thoughts at the expense of deeds." Then he asks a question to further make his point "Is it the artist's inner vision or his wrestling with the stone that brings about a work of sculputre?" The art is not disconnected from the artist's mental vision, but it also will never be art if the mental vision isn't brought forth through a physical medium. "Right living is like a work of art, the product of a vision and of a wrestling with concrete situations."

This is it.

Merton's prayer for us: "Untie my hands and deliver my heart from sloth. Set me free from the laziness that goes about disguised as activity when activity is not required of me, and from the cowardice that does what is not demanded, in order to escape sacrifice."

Life vs. worthless fantasy

"I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood." (the artsy fellow from "Phantastes" by George McDonald)

The hero or anti-hero is a romantic who sets out to wander in a fantasy land on his 21st birthday. He sets out like any young punk, full of himself and ambitious to share his gifts with the world ... you know write a great novel, paint a great picture, save a few women. By the end of his journey he has finally learned that none of this was the way forward. "He that will be a hero, will barely be a man" so full of fanciful dreams of glory and fame there is no place to walk on the actual road touching his feet. I have been in that place. I have spent many afternoons with my head full of vain dreams of glory and fame. Far from actually thinking about the world that needs saving, my time is consumed by thoughts of me being the one to save it.

It has been only recently (within the last few years) that I am starting to understand the calling to be a doer of my work. To take what is within my path and carry it forward. To keep my hand to the plow and make sure the rows are straight. Not that this is always as obvious as I would like ... but I am attempting to live within my body and not just in my head.

Life must be lived to be meaningful. Thought and deed must go hand in hand. I have found that the artist and the intellectual and maybe the mystic, have a common struggle with these connections. Contemplating, thinking, feeling, are often a way of looking at life and it is hard to look and live at the same time.

There is a tendency to miss one for the other. We must always use our skills of thinking or feeling or contemplating to work with the stuff of reality. Otherwise we easily drift into worthless fantasy.

Old Poem

This one reminds me of chaotic jazz or "post-rock" in that it is mostly word noise that occasionally breaks into understandable melody only to fall away into noise again ... the noise makes the understandable bit more powerful and even the noise seems to carry with it real (though unpolished) possibility.

By flip up top of radar guns down,
fly up low and down.
meat cut and out of bourbon and flying solo,
fly and fall and flip and gallows swing,
if fifty by twenty-two were to fall again
we would love a break of two fit setters
find us a bird bright from burning sun
scorching birds and falling flies
flicking love again with an evil snail
slow moving and licking earth,
falling and falling down farther,
now in a hole
now a digger . .. will I arise,
for a ground opens up
swallows and falls and loves
cuts and draws and kills
when will this over it again I under it again.
and then my face will smile and crack with widening gaps,
finding another hole in my side
another missing part
I can't know anything and won't decide.
like a miserable bird on the wire,
falling and flying and losing my mind
mid down and fall sowing the seed of life.
over a multitude of yellow words I fade
and peal and no more decals
no more nose, no more eyes
empty hearts dripping solid liquid
hard blood and dust and flying squalls
no quail today, but there is plenty of foul.
what will you have. .. be it dirty chickens
or pigeons or rabbit, hare high and hare low.
ears hearing and dying for a taste,
tongue tasting and dying for a listen,
eyes longing to smell and nose wishing to see,
only the hands are happy with their seeing,
and smelling and hearing. hearing hands will find busy
works to live on
all alone in the dirty ground of nowhere.
falling in and flying out, when I will find a looking
where is my looking,
where is my looking.

Biology and Morality

There is the greatest need for a larger comprehensive view of reality. It seems that with the rise of scientific thought, perhaps especially when science turned toward history with Darwin and social evolution, has given way to accepting the way things happen in history and the way human beings are apt to behave as the main vehicle for deciding how they ought to behave.

I guess even the scientific method is being used to adduce morality and since we cannot properly observe mete-physical truth (meta being an important descriptor), we are left to simply catelogue all possible behaviors and their apparent health risks. What is more we do all this in relation to the individual, ignoring society, or in relation to the collective, ignoring the individual. But what if the whole idea is bunk ... what if scientists are simply asking questions they have no capacity to answer.

We must return and further the pre-Enlightment thought of the "Dark Ages" which sought to see reality in both its visible and invisible happenings. There really is such a thing as love however difficult it is to physically observe (sex can be an action informed by love, but until we understand the invisible, emotional, theological reality we will not properly act).

We cannot look to biology to find morality or we will find nothing ... or what has only started to breakdown into nothingness, the meaningless drive toward progress. Progress in what sense has always been the question. With heightened analysis of of biological health it has become a drive to produce longevity and pleasure ... but in all honestly both of those words need more definition than science can give.

Love (a poetic/theological attempt)

Love is both more violent and less so than any tired modern description.

THere was this thought rushing around
and darting in and out of my ears
and up through my skull
like the busting blood of those naked
celtic warriors, chewing their drugs
screaming and holding axes.

But my thought is about love.
I see that the world is lost without love
and is actually upheld on love and by love.

The problem is the american romantic bubble gum,
shiny paper, pulpy love that goes around these days
and passes for love. Or the tired physical love that
needs diet pills and photo shop and deceitful moans.
Our love has grown false and superficial and so has our humanity.

THe love I am talking about has nothing to do with all that.
I am talking about the love between a farmer and his plot of dirt,
I am talking about the love between a Father and his son,
I am talking about the love between a woman and a good meal,
I am talking about the love between a man and his wife
and the love between a woman and her husband,
I am talking about the love between a child and wonder,
I am talking about the love between God and his creation.
I am talking about the love between creation and their GOD.

THis love lifts up and fills with purpose.
This love knows duty and responsibility.
This love has a plan. This love will fight and pray and smile
and enjoy and suffer and long and bless.
This love will hate. This love will hate the enemies and
naysayers and all that stand against,
between and opposed.

UNLESS there is a possibility that these enemies can be
brought into this love. Then there will be hope
and grace and long-suffering and forgiveness.

This is love.