Simplification or Understatement?

Some things in this world are too big, long, or complex to comprehend or see. So what do we do? We simplify, in order to come up with an explanation or in order to explain to those less informed or less inclined to learn. Simplification can be a great tool for and is in fact absolutely essential for communication, and also gives us basic comprehension of things we would otherwise be unable to explain. But I find there is a wide and brightly colored distinguishable line between simplification and understatement; a line that people see but cross over anyway.

When did humans become animals? When did all that were are, all that have become, all that we feel, create, do, and think about become just another organism bent on survival and a slave to instinct; another notch in the evolutionary chain (about a thousand notches above everyone else with nothing coming close to comparison...)? This is more than just an absurd oversimplification, it's an insult to humanity. Can't the complexity of people (all that we have become and all that we strive for and do) be enough to make us realize that we came from somewhere and are made from something more than animals?

When did this world, this earth, this solar system, this galaxy, this beautiful, functioning, and unimaginably complex universe we live in become just an accident? How did all this come from just a trillionth of a chance a billion years ago from matter that just inexplicably always was? How can we dumb down something so magnificent and brilliant to something so illogical and utterly depressing? Can't the complexity of this world be enough to make us realize that it came from somewhere and was made from something more than just chance?

When dealing with something as complex as this universe, or as complex as people, I prefer not to dumb it down. I'll leave it just as it is, irreducibly complex.

Be My Everything

God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping

God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything

God in my hoping
There in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting

God in my laughing
There in my weeping
God in my hurting
God in my healing

Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory
You are everything

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory
Be my everything

Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything



Everything by Tim Hughes

So... you're working...

Yeah, I am. First full time job, and it's quite exhausting. 7 hours a day doing grounds work at a camp of all sorts. I did about four hours of weedwacking earlier today and my hand is still shaking. On top of that, I'm training for a triathlon that's in less than 10 days, so in addition to work I'm doing an hour of running/biking etc. It's extremely tiring, and it's hard to get anything done in the hours when I'm home. I'm surprised I got myself to write this blog.

This job is one of those things that's a blessing in disguise. Last summer, I spent way too much time doing nothing, because A&P was only part time and I left about two weeks early for that. This summer, I've got my hands full making money at least, and hopefully doing a lot more on top of that. Also, I'm going to grow a lot this summer, in learning how to deal with the physical exhaustion and time constraints, and learning many things one the job. And I get to drive 4 wheelers and mowers around a lot. Who wouldn't want to do that. So, for this blessing I'm thankful, though I may not seem like it.

Ever present God

The long intermission in posts has again been due to a mix of busyness and laziness, I admit. So, to whatever small audience of readers I may or may not have, I apologize.


I'm tempted to write another one of those "caught up in life" posts about how we can all get so caught up in life that we forget what's really important. Well, it's true, I can't emphasize enough how distracted I get. But I'll take it a step farther this time. I've pretty much dismissed God in most ways. drowning out his voice in my life except for little nudges here and there that I get from other people and things that happen around me. I've tried to convince myself that I've grown in tremendous ways at Geneva this year. It's true, I've matured in so many ways physically, mentally, and emotionally through all the circumstances I've been through already, and I've realized a lot about myself, which I won't begin to elaborate on. But, truthfully, I'd be fooling myself if I said I have grown closer to God. My relationship has been at a standstill, for the most part, relationally; perhaps in knowledge I have grown through my studies and in Bible class, but not relationally. I guess the problem is, I expected that being in a spiritual environment around Christian people would in effect draw me closer to my Savior. I wanted, like I always had been before, to be hand fed without any work on my part. This mindset has brought me to where I am today.

The fact that Godly stuff is going on around me doesn't do anything for me spiritually. I have to allow God to work through me and be willing to give my life to Him. God will work with the environment around me in response to my submission. But I need to surrender before anything can happen.

Despite all this, I've noticed, now that I look back, that God has been ever-present despite my distance from Him. I've felt Him there, calling for me to draw closer, but in my own selfishness I pushed Him aside. How awesome it is though, to know that my God is never going to stop calling out to me, no matter how far I may stray. By His amazing grace, He is always with me. I'm so grateful for that.

Now that I've realized how far I've strayed away, in these last weeks before finals (and during finals), I hope to come back and make Jesus my priority and my focus, despite all the busyness, as He sticks by my side.

Mess

Take a jar, a piece of paper, a pencil, and some scissors. Write down something on that piece of paper: a line, a paragraph, an essay, but make it something that makes sense and means something. Maybe it took you seconds to think of, minutes, hours even to put it together, but its on paper now and its a coherent masterpiece. Now, take your scissors and cut out your writing into fragments, whether they be sentences, words, phrases, even letters, and collect the pieces. Put all the pieces in your jar, close the lid, and shake violently. Now open the jar and spread the contents out on the table face up. What do you have?

A mess.

What you have is a bunch of letters, words, or phrases that in their current form are utterly useless and incomprehensible but were once something coherent and practical. What you have is a depiction in the physical form of exactly what happens when I take something I have thought of in my head, or even written down in part, and try to communicate it verbally to someone, particularly a group of people. Call it a bodily reaction to public speaking or a minor form of autism. Whatever it is, I have it, and it's driving me insane.

I can't wait for my communications class next fall...

Conflicting Analogies

I find it ironic that my blog pretty much died with the poem "Death be not proud". That might have been the saddest thing ever (I'm sure), but fortunately I don't plan on an end to this blog coming soon. The space between these posts has merely been a long interlude. For that, I apologize.

I remember writing numerous posts in the past about roller coasters. Roller coasters, I thought, were the perfect analogy to describe my life. In the midst of constant struggle, my life would either be on the upswing or the downswing; at the top of the incline awaiting the fall or in full descent awaiting the flat line. But now that I thing back on it, the whole analogy is in another respect totally and completely flawed.

A roller coaster is in its essence a vehicle. It moves you from one place to another. But unlike other vehicles, a roller coaster is uncontrollable. It doesn't have a steering wheel or a winch and doesn't give or turn when weight is shifted. Furthermore, it doesn't actually take you anywhere, it merely brings you back where you started or to an exit right next to where you originally got on. This creates a problem, because life is not a circle. However much someone may try to persuade you otherwise, life does not go from simplicity at birth to a climax at growth to simplicity at death. It is a journey (excuse the cliche).

Saying my life is a rollercoaster condemns my life to one in which I have no control, and in which I have no purpose. If my destination is right where I started, then there's no point in what I do in the middle of it anyway. If I can't change anything anyway, then the inclines and pitfalls are inevitable and I might as well just do whatever I feel like, because non of it changes anything. But this is far from the truth.

I've realized over this Easter that the life God has given us is what we make of it. Even if predestination is true in its fullest, nobody knows their destiny except for God, and thus all we can do is live our lives to the "fullest" in the eternal sense of the word. Despite what my mind tricks me into thinking or what others might say, there is so much good that I could be doing right now and so much stuff that I need to get right in the midst of where I am now. And nothing is going to happen if I'm on a roller coaster. What I need to do is get myself out of that ride, out of that theme park and into my car, where I can take those roads and hills head on with God in the driver's seat.

Death Be Not Proud

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

John Donne
(1572-1631)