one me at a time

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do." -Edward Everett Hale

 

"i am going to make a lasting difference with my life!"

"what idiocy," frail keith scoffs. "who am i to change this world, a planet upon which there is nothing new under the sun?" 

faithful keith timidly responds, "with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 

i know that frail keith will likely have the upper hand again soon. this is my tragic flaw, my achilles' heel: Frailty imprisons Faith and tosses him in a prison of apathy, scorning and taunting, "who do you think you are, to dream of living a life beyond you?" then, licking my wounds in my hypnosis of self-pity and hopeless abandonment, i hear a still, small voice whispering, "beloved Littlefaith, why do you doubt?"

to go beyond myself, to bless a life other than my own, is this such a vain pursuit? 

we were created to live for others. we were reborn to look past ourselves; to reach out to those trapped in the realm of the Deceiver, where people die alone on the street, abandoned and despised in a world in which they did not belong. i know a Kingdom in which they do belong, a Kingdom that transforms ragged misfits into children of the King.

i, like little mephibosheth, am a crippled outcast who has been welcomed to the King's table, and i know my King has come to heal the sick, to feed those who are hungry for the Bread of Life and thirsty for Living Water. He has gone into the highways and byways, calling to all so that the table of His wedding feast will be filled. i even have brothers and sisters who have sunk beneath the waves, who were once walking on the water but the wind has frightened them and they have begun to sink.

the only hand most of them need to lift them, to put their eyes back on the Lord, is the hand of someone to pour on them love and encouragement, to let them know that the Master of the wind and the waves does care, and He has saved them.

all men are to know that we are Christ's disciples because we love one another, but so often we are so caught in our own 'individual spiritual life' that we pass by our neighbor - more than that, our own family, who have been beaten and robbed by the Robber and left for dead. when will we realize that he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God, whom he has not seen? this love is the perfect bond of unity, and it is this that demonstrates the love of Christ to a world of counterfeit lovers.

is it too much for little ole keith to do something with this one chance at life he's got? yes, i suppose it is. alone. but i'm not. and maybe, just maybe, my heroic rants about changing the world, about going beyond anything i ever thought i could be and impacting lives for eternity, will help fertilize the ground for this tiny seed of faith that i know has been planted inside me. one day, this mountain of apathy and self-obsessed frailty will be tossed into the sea, and i will live to be all my Savior intended me to be.

faith-full eyes

faith is a passionate intuition -william wordsworth  

as a child i was a master lego-builder. this was back in the day when one could take pride in constructing a lego masterpiece, before all of this "put these three pieces together and you have the entire star wars trilogy." no, sirree, this was manual labour. as the foreman of my building project, i grew very attuned to my materials. i would train my eyes to only see the colour i was looking for, whatever the colour may be. sure, it would still take me a while to find the piece i was looking for, but when it was in my field of vision it would jump out at me because of my expectation of it.

to the pure, all things are pure -titus 1.15. 

if you truly desire to see God’s beautiful tapestry being woven in your life, then see it. it is there. we’re not talking about believing in aliens here. the reason we are able to have faith is because, consciously or unconsciously, we have encountered the substantiation of God’s goodness in our lives.

faith is the reality within our soul of what is hoped for. it is the proof of what we cannot see with our eyes (heb 11.1). Jesus often repeated the bizarre saying, “he who has ears, let him hear.” i’m sure he wasn’t talking to multitudes of van goghs or evander hollyfields. they had ears, and those ears were built for hearing what he was saying to them.

human capabilities haven’t changed that much in two millennia. in the same way, we have eyes, and these eyes are created to see where he is working in our lives: today, in this very moment. sometimes i need to stop and ask myself; are my eyes tuned to see the brilliant colours of his tapestry, or are they captivated by the fleeting shadows of this world? seek and you will find (matt 7.7).

it worked with lego, and it works with faith.

crackers and hot chocolate

my friend darcie told me tonight that sometimes i remind her of a little boy.

at first i was tempted to be offended. after all, i haven’t dedicated myself to goofing off for 23 years only to be mistaken for a little boy. or have i? in a psych class at briercrest we took a survey, and it revealed that i was one of the top two students in my class for highest degree of Positive Cognitive Stimulation. it sounded pretty exciting.

i found out it means that i’m quickly and easily excited by almost anything. particularly shiny objects, i’d imagine. kind of like a cat and a laser pointer. simple things have always entertained me, but even more-so when i was actually a child. there was never a more thrilling moment than when i had just borrowed a new hardy boys book from the sault ste. marie public library and knew that i would secretly stay up most of the night (which for me, then, was probably until 10:00) reading in bed with my flashlight and eating crackers and drinking hot chocolate.

in such a starkly uncomplicated life, i see a side of me i like, a me that is still here but only comes out to play when i'm not preoccupied with stressing out. in those days, i was an adventure-seeker, finding intrigue and heroic potential in everything. the simplest activities took on a mythical flair, and as i read my book i really was an ingenious detective with my friends chet, joe and frank as we saved damsels in distress and stopped cruel jewel thieves from destroying civilization as we know it.

now it seems like more of a compliment than anything when someone says i remind them of a child – i think i’d even like to remind myself more of a child sometimes. children seem to have the upper hand when it comes to recognizing life in all its fullness and potential. in fact, Jesus said that anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. i think that means that the Kingdom is pretty exciting business. perhaps even something worth getting out crackers and hot chocolate for.

prince by birth, beggar by trade

"against you, you only, have i sinned and done what is evil in your sight." 

whatever Dave. you knocked up a married girl and had her husband killed. there were more involved than just God.

or were there? I guess, technically speaking, as fallible human beings ourselves, what actual right do we have to judge others for thier fallacies? maybe there is only one Lawgiver and one Judge after all.

i'll never forget a time many years ago, as a young boy, when Emily was struggling with anorexia. as we were going through the gift store, i saw the perfect present for her to show her how much we cared- a mug with a cuddly picture of a bear on it and the words "we love you beary beary much." i was very excited to give it to her. i don't often pick things out for people, so when i do, my whole heart goes into it. we went to her room, and i was nearly bursting my breeches to see her reaction. needless to say, it wasn't what i was hoping for. she said she hated it and didn't want it. it was as though it wasn't the actual mug that she hated, but it was the love behind the mug that she was rejecting.  i cried long and hard that day. maybe i would never give a gift again. at that time, she was resentful of my parents for putting her in the Toronto Children's hospital, and she thought that they had picked out the mug for her.

it wasn't long before she was back to her loving self and has been a supportive part of our family ever since, but for a brief moment in time i caught a glimpse of what it was like to be our Father God. he had crafted his most beautiful creation, humanity, and had placed them in a paradise custom-tailored for their happiness. he loved them more than anything he had ever created, and desired to give them the a more extreme, powerful gift than anyone had ever received - the gift of freedom. "if you love something, set it free," the saying goes,and he did just that. this freedom was the ultimate expression of his love. unlike everything else he had created, these people could either come to him, the Father of Lights and giver of every good and perfect gift, or they could turn away from him, to nothingness. they chose not-him. they threw his gift in his face, and decided on death instead of life, rejecting his love - rejecting him.

every time we sin, we may not consciously recognize it, but it is the action of stabbing ourselves in the heart - not because we don't want life, not because we enjoy our own pain, but just to see our Father's reaction as we die in his arms. sin causes us pain... it destroys ys. no one naturally desires to destroy themselves. the only motive is power - power to choose not-God, in the desire to be a god ourselves. deep down, we know it's an impossibility, but in the very fact that we know that God is God and we will never be, there rises up a hatred of his goodness - a goodness that we will never attain to,and a love we will never fulfill. we are prostitutes, running away from our faithful husband for the very reason that we resent his perfect love in the face of our imperfection. there is nothing we enjoy about others' beds. we despise ourselves when we are there. but that's the only way to have autonomy. that's the only way to preserve our pride. that's the only way to avoid accepting grace - the charity we breathe to live.

smallness

The world is charged with the grandeur of God. 

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; 

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. 

Why do men then now not reck his rod? 

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; 

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; 

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: 

the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. 

And for all this, nature is never spent; 

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; 

And though the last lights off the black West went 

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -- 

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

God's Grandeur by Gerard Manly Hopkins

This morning, as great frosted snowflakes filled the air, invading the emptiness of space and filling it with their soft light, I came to realize, yet again, how incredibly human we are in the face of God's beauty. Overtaken by the immanence of creation, every man and woman becomes a child before their Creator. There are no pretensions, no façades left to hide behind in our frail nakedness before the One who sees all.

This is how we were created to be - walking with our God, open and unashamed. Only in divine simplicity do we see ourselves as in a reflection and Him face-to-Face. Crafted to be loved by Him, indwelt by Him, and captivated by His gaze, our separation from the One who sustains all things by His powerful Word has caused an emptiness that can only be filled by Christ. Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him, as Augustine says. Even then, in a sin-soaked world, we are left with an intellect that takes emptiness and non-existence for granted. How I long for my home where all is in God and all is His truth, where, as in the purely natural and super-natural realms, contradictions fade away!

Earthbound it can be so difficult to see myself as God sees me. As with the stars at night, it is only when I look away from my own feeble flicker to Him that I can see even the faintest glimmer of His life in myself. Sometimes it takes the smallness of me in light of God's grandeur to help me realize that I'm here at all. Oh Lord, you have searched me and you do know me. Praise be to your Name.

"One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple" (Ps 27:4)

this is love...

In Plato's Symposium, the ascent of love of beauty is as follows:

1. Loving the beauty of one body  
2. Loving the beauty of many bodies  
3. Loving the form (ideal) of beauty found in all bodies. 

I have loved the beauty of one girl, and I love the beauty with which God has crafted many girls.  Even more than that, I love the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, and the beauty of a woman who fears the Lord.  In fact, I find that it's easier to love the form and the ideal of feminine beauty than to find that one girl that I can choose to love for life in spite of our inadequacies.  It turns out that I don't just want to love the form of all beauty - I'd rather love and cherish one imperfect earthly example, a girl with whom I can share struggles and triumphs, someone who understands me and who will love me in spite of all my manifestations of ugliness.  The problem is not identifying the form of beauty, it is finding the girl with whom I can share my life.

In my case it is not exemplary of the Republic, where the philosopher is forced to descend to the realm of the images in order to lead others to see the form of the good.  I desire to be actively involved in the world of the images, in the world of particulars and the senses: it's what I find most difficult to do well.  In fact, I don't think one actually knows the Good if he or she can't express this knowledge in daily life.  In our example, one cannot know true love of beauty without being able to demonstrate an imperfect love to an imperfect girl; it is the very existence of shortcomings that make this love so beautiful.

In the same way that I often long for that one girl I can love and be loved by without restraint, I often long for the person of Jesus to be here with me - so that I could love my God in human image, who in turn loves me, a human in God's image.  It seems easy to love the Lord my God, the One who shines forth, perfect in beauty, as Asaph describes Him (Ps. 50:2), the completion and example of everything that is good and right in this world; the One who gives being to everything in reality (Acts 17:28).  Jesus Christ, while through faith we see Him eternally incarnate in history, is presently sitting at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven (Heb 1:3).  His flesh, except in the precious symbol of communion, is no longer evident in our daily life.

Would I love the incarnate Son?  This one who was despised and rejected by men, like one from whom men hide their faces, one whom was despised and whom we did not esteem?  If Jesus Christ was here today, would I be offended (skandalizo) by Him (Mt. 26:33)?  So often I long for Him to be here to love me, practically and empirically (although even then I would hate to imagine the radical change His love would demand in my life - Mt. 10:37), but if He were here, would I really love Him?

Whereas there really is no univocal substitute love for a wife (although Catholic priests would claim it in the Church, and many Evangelicals would try to substitute Christ), we do find that God has made it possible for us to show our love for Christ on earth.  Not only are we commanded to a spiritual adoration of God through prayer, contemplation, and meditation on Scripture (along with quasi-physical representations such as communion and baptism), but we are given ways to physically, empirically demonstrate our love for Christ.

• We are told that the final judgment will be "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Mt 25:40).  
• "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" (1 Jn 3:17).  
• The second great commandment is to "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mt 22:38).  

God has provided the means by which we can love Him with all of our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength.  Do we?

Personally, I find myself sadly lacking in practical love for my Lord.  All too often I echo along with Teresa of Avila

"Oh God, I don't love you, I don't even want to love you, but I want to want to love you!"  

Would I have the strength to offer rides home to my brothers and sisters after a time of fellowship no matter how tired I was or how late it had gotten to be?  Do I have the motivation to help the homeless or minister to the elderly?  Do I use my money to glorify God rather than to glorify myself? 

In light of the evidence, all I can muster is a frail whisper, 

"Dear Jesus, I want to want to love you.  

Please give me the strength to do so today."

still goin'

today, as i was waiting for infamous route 111 to not show up, i saw a car go by. "that's exciting, keith!" you say. "very odd to see a car go by when standing at the roadside." i'm glad you're so enthralled. you'll be even more thrilled to know that this was no spectacular car. it looked like an older honda accord, its faded blue paint and triangular styling giving it a dated appearance.

i suddenly got the impression that this car never stopped. its chugging engine, audible above the other cars on the street, led me to believe that this car was not planning on taking a break until it got a long, long way - until it arrived at its destination, in fact. sure, it probably couldn't do much above 50, and were it to drop below 45 it would probably give up in a huff, but at its temperamental 'happy speed' it could keep on going until everything in it quit or it reached its goal.

quite frankly, i saw myself as this car. often i feel that my engine is getting weary. strange rattling noises come from the frame, and the motor sounds a bit strained and coughs every once in a while. i've been travelling for 23 years now, and sometimes feel that i've never pulled off the road, except to get gas once in a while. i think maybe i should stop at the side of the road and check my oil level. i'd like to test a few things under the hood and give the engine a good listen.

honestly, though, i'm scared to stop. what if it refuses to run when i try to start 'er back up? the best thing would really be to go to the Mechanic. i know He knows cars. He must really enjoy them to work with them all day. the problem is, i know he fixes so many cars, but would He really be able to fix mine? would He really want to fix mine? in theory, He knows what He's doing. in practice, though, sometimes I don't know if He's going to come through. plus, it means spending a good deal of time away from this road - and everything seems so frantically urgent on the highway. it's going to cost quite a bit, too. i'm going to have to give up some things that i have grown to enjoy in order to pay for the tune-up.

may i have the strength to let go of my worries and concerns and turn to Him. may i be willing to pay whatever it costs. may i let go of my pride and selfish ambition and let Him decide what's best. may i be an example to all others on the road, that they, too, might have the strength to hand their keys over to Him. 

i think i'm a hedonist

"Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in grief" -Proverbs

While we are earth-bound, there is always a white tinge of joy in every dark cloud, but there is also a dark cloud of sadness staining every sunny sky. We all long to be completely and utterly satisfied, filled with an eternal happiness. Epicurus went so far as to say that 

"Happiness is man's greatest aim in life."  

I think there's a lot of truth to that. After all, even if you think your greatest aim is someone else's happiness, it is still because it makes you happy to see them happy. In fact, I don't think God would have it any other way. Because He loves us, His greatest desir is to see us fulfilled and happy - with or without Him. We try so hard to be happy without Him and without His ways. All sin is seeking our own happiness apart from God.

The problem is not that we're seeking happiness, it's that we're not very good at it.

"Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible." 
-Augustine

What could be a worse hell than having one's greatest aim become an insurmountable impossibility? Aristotle surmised that true happiness could be found in the intellectual virtues and true friendship. John Stewart Mill settled for a system of ethics where each could at least pursue their own idea of happiness. The fact of the matter is, though, that,

"God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.  There is no such thing"  

-C.S. Lewis

Do not be ashamed to seek pleasure. Only, seek it well. 

For us who are in Christ, our greatest pleasure is to be found in loving God and loving others. As for myself, I take these words to heart:

"Be happy, young man, while you are young, 

and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. 

Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, 

but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment"

-Ecclesiastes

I have chosen to delight myself in the Lord, and I know that He has given me the desire of my heart: Himself.

the eternal now

waking up this morning i opened my window and suddenly my room brimmed with life. the sun danced on the walls, the song of the birds provided the musical score, and the crisp February air shocked my senses into the realization that i was, in fact, once again face-to-face with consciousness.

it is reminiscent of when i was but a wee lad... springtime on the Island. each day i would leap from my bed, filled with joy at the prospect of setting free tiny rivers to flow without restraint while the world around me brimmed with its Creator's goodness. i would fall in love with a simple blade of grass and there, for a moment, not even Solomon in all his splendor could compare to this magnificent creation.

in jaded hindsight, it all almost sounds absurd. what i wouldn't give some days, though, to become that boy who was me in order to experience life without limits again.

it's not life that has changed. each moment is bursting with a vividness that only God can comprehend, a potency that goes beyond any self-absorbed pathos.

the Greeks sought immortality in their thoughts. in a way they attained it; that is, their names and their thoughts attained immortality. however, they, as individuals, are very dead. Moderns realize the dissatisfaction of an unenjoyable post-life, so they scramble to obtain temporal material possessions... until they lose their possessions and die just like the Greeks. we all seek immortality.

it's only in Christ that eternal now is fulfilled. only Christ destroys the time-eternity barrier and unites materiality and the transcendent. in Him we are called to an unfathomable optimism in each moment of existence - that right here, right now, in more ways than i could ever imagine, in more places than i could ever be, God is orchestrating His perfect symphony. it is by Christ that we are told "whatever you do for the least of these brothers..." and "no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life." this moment has an eternal significance. not only can we examine each moment in light of eternity, but in each 'now' there is an eternal dimension. possessed by an infinite God, each moment is an eternity - is our eternity.

truly God has made everything beautiful in its time, and has set eternity in the hearts of men (Ecc 3:11). seize today to praise Him that we are able to participate in eternal life through His Son (Jn 3:36). not a single moment of this life that we live is experienced in vain.

deserted haven

it has been many long weeks since i first stepped foot in this arid desert. my empty water container lies a good three day's journey behind me, without doubt forever lost in the swirling sand. my hair clings matted to my head and my raw skin bears only the salty remains of my last few drops of sweat.

i glance down at what used to be my shirt, now torn in two and tied to these chapped and bleeding feet. i know i can't glance down for too long. if i loose my balance and fall with one of these shuffling, stinted steps i will never rise. my throat is parched and every painful breath echoes its rasping call inside my head, only overshadowed by the whistling winds over the dunes.

no longer do i even attempt to keep my mouth closed from the flying sand. lips protrude permanently, dry and cracked, no longer able to keep the stifling gusts from tearing apart my fragile mouth. out of this brittle skin all i can do is stare forward with lifeless, empty eyes.

dizzied, i stumble. i fall.  through the ground i plunge.  

gasping for air, with a mighty thrust i am propelled out of these deep, cooling waters and onto a mossy embankment. a peculiarly massive tree, with great sweeping boughs and strongly chiseled bark provides an expansive canopy as i lay panting under its stately protection. strangely invigorated by this placid pool, i nestle within the stout roots of my elderly guardian.

as my breath slows to a more reasonable pace, i catch an intoxicating fragrance in the air, as though spring is out romancing a garden of lilacs. the thick green grass interspersed with mossy embankments and stately stones clothes the forest floor in artistic simplicity. a calming rustle meets my ears as the gentle breeze flows through the jostling leaves above my head.

Here and there, gatherings of vividly-painted flowers poke their heads out from the moss, while laughing larks chase each other through the architecture of the overhanging branches. the pool is larger than i first thought, i muse as i bring a cupped palm-full of liquid refreshment to my mouth. the quiet chuckle of a tumbling water-fall not far off lulls me to sleep as i sink contentedly into my thickly-pillowed nook.

wanted: professional day-dumper

it's really too bad that there aren't jobs out there for people who are just really good at killing time. and i'm not talking manslaughter here. this is first degree. it would be an ideal position for me, considering i have a general studies b.a. and am getting a bachelor of philosophy. at the end i'll be pretty good at thinking of most stuff, generally.

unfortunately, people don't want you to philosophize about their car troubles. they want a mechanic. in the same way, my coursework right now doesn't want me to sit here and philosophize about doing it, it wants a real bona-fide student to sit down and do it.

Victor Hugo wrote,

"One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation." 

John Milton put it this way: 

"They also serve who only stand and wait." 

Both are beautiful sayings, and there is truth to what each says. Unfortunately, they're both also highly impractical. Thinking is not going to get me a good mark on my midterm. Sometime I'm going to have to put something down on paper. It has also been said that idle hands are the devil's workshop. Even then, in a twisted way, something is reportedly being done. No, I think I'm just a plain old unaccomplisher. Perhaps it's time for me to stop potentializing and start actualizing. Perhaps it's time for me to stop crapping diem and start carpeing it.

metaphysical ink

is it possible to be a writer without writing? i don't think so. but if it were to be, i'd certainly be one. sometimes i dare to dream of myself as a great writer, one who has changed the flow of history with his great work... novel, prose, poetry... does it really matter? in the realm of metaphysics, it really doesn't. it doesn't change the fact that i have no books in my name. 

it doesn't change the fact that i have created a blog but haven't written in it for years now. it is here hypothetically to timidly etch out some of my less-insane-thoughts so that possibly someone, somewhere, can see a side of me that is closer to me (if that were possible) than normally, but a side still removed enough that the reader isn't scared by my transparency and forced to flee into the night at the thought of bearing the burden of someone else's joys and sorrows. 

life is a powerful potion, one that can only be taken in small doses due to our distance from its Source. to drink someone else's potion becomes an experience too much for one person. each day has enough worries of its own, as Someone I know once put it. this said, time to do battle with the worries of this day.