Introspect

Not sure what category to put this under..Religion? Geeking Out? Introspect? I think it's some of all of those.

If God Wrote Code..

• It would be bug-free. No patches, no service packs.
• 1.0, which means that one release would have every feature required. And, as new requirements were found, the software would already have this feature implemented.
• User Interface. The software would work the right way and feel the right way, regardless of the user.
• Everything. Regardless of the application, the software would solve the problem.
• Adaptive. My install and your install might be very different, because the software would know us, know what the requirements are, and install itself according. It would also change with us. And change us over time to be more like Him.
• We don't have to use it. But using it makes us better.

Flying home today. w00t! I have to pass through airports, which aren't any fun (I've covered this already), but the passage back home is always more pleasant than the departure away.

Having spent six years in the Navy, I am familiar with the feelings of departure and arrival. The difference is, obviously, scale. When I fly on business, it is short and the time spent during these phases of travel brief; the pace frenetic. Leaving port is an entireley different ordeal. It takes several hours to prepare a ship for departure. During that time, while busy, my mind had the opportunity to experience departure very deeply. Securing my workspace for sea; securing my berthing area; locking away valuables; reporting to the fantail to join the crew on line 6 to prepare for departure. Stories are swapped and sailors laugh and skylark. Loosing the 6 inch line that is extending the shore to your ship. Making that disconnection always feels like a ragged cut has severed you from you, and the person that you are on shore is standing on the pier watching the sailor depart. The sailor at sea has taken over. I watch as the pier slips away behind us, thinking of Teresa, and home, and friends on shore; holding on to that shore-person as long as I can. As I become a sailor, I laugh and cut-up with the rest of the crew, getting my job done and watching those familiar Bay landmarks shrink and disappear in our wake. Inside, I mourn the loss of home, knowing that it won't be seen again for two weeks, 2 months, or 6 months...each timeframe different but each departure filling the same time-space, creating the same feelings. The shore-sickness is a sea unto itself, shifting and rolling underneath the surface of the sailor, masked by bravado and humor. It's always there, always part of the sailor. The return home is an acknowledgment of this sickness and it allows us to dive into that character again, daydreaming about the first day home, the sights and smells and sounds of shore, as different from sea-life as dark is from light. The anticipation lasts a day or two, or a week, or even a month. Each day closer brings you back to you, merging the lubber and the sailor until the two have met again, the line tossed on shore and made fast, the gangway lowered and liberty called. Teresa hated me leaving and hated me coming home. Leaving hurt too much and she had to buffer herself against that pain and loss. While the shore-person inside of me might have stayed, she received no benefit from his presence. And when I came home she had to adjust to my physical presence, which is always different than the mind-presence of a person you miss. Plus, I smelled like the ship. She hated the Navy, and with good reason. I hated it then, but hate it less as time separates the sailor from the shore-person that I am now. It is times like this, times spent in airport chairs eating airport food, that I catch glimpses of the sailor I was and experience again those feelings of loss and gain. It is a brief encounter, but one that makes me remember that gulf and appreciate the life that is being lived now.

I was going to write some stuff about this weekend, but I'll let this post stand on its own. More later.

I've been thinking alot lately about those two titles that are given to Jesus Christ. Chris Goldman, about a month ago, said, "There are many who are willing to accept Jesus as their Savior. The number of people who are willing to accept Him as Lord is far fewer."

So, what does that mean?

I began by thinking about those words and what they mean to me. For someone to "save" me means a couple of things. First, before the act of saving, I was lost and incapable of rescuing myself. Second, it means that there is nothing I did to earn it. This is true of any type of salvation, be it my soul from eternal damnation or a child from a burning building. Using the child analogy, you can sense the helplessness in that situation, but it's harder to sense the fact that the child didn't earn his or her salvation from the fire. We place value on human life, and I don't think it's wrong to do so. In fact, I think we don't place enough value (more on that another time). But, in the end, if you are the savior of that child, how has that child earned the price you are willing to pay to provide rescue? After all, you would be risking your own life (and may lose it in the process), which also has value. So, while the child's life may have value, he or she has not directly "earned" salvation. So, if you picture yourself trapped in that fire, how hard would it be to reach out to the one risking everything to rescue you? You wouldn't even have to think about it.

The correlation to Christ as Savior is a bit tougher, though. First, in order to accept His brand of salvation, you have to categorize yourself as "un-saved." This is harder than you think. We have alot of things that get in the way of this, including our pride and sense of our own abilities. Also, it calls us to look at our lives as they currently are, which for a typical American really is pretty great by the world's standards, and then say, "This isn't enough. I am lost in all of this." It's because of this relative comfort that religiosity in general, and Christianity in particular, is shrinking in the US (there are other factors, I know. I'm being very general on purpose). For me, I have no problem working out that I need Christ to save me. It isn't hard for me to look around and see what sin has done in peoples lives, what pain and suffering those choices have caused. I have felt it first-hand.

Still even though it's more difficult to allow yourself to be saved by Christ, there are still truckloads of people who proclaim their salvation through Him.

But Lord? That really is a different matter altogether. You see, a lord is someone who has the rule, who enacts a system of acceptance into his kingdom and who expects certain things from those who would call themselves citizens. If you identify yourself as an American, then you are going to accept the lordship of the US governing body. This accords you all sorts of privileges, like freedom of speech and the right to vote. It also means that you are bound by its rules, which means you have to pay taxes and you can't drive 160 mph on the freeway, among other things.

So, to accept Christ as Lord is to say, "Since you risked so much for me, even to death by crucifixion, I acknowledge that there is a pattern after which you want me to live, and will strive my very best to do so." THIS is where the rubber meets the road. You see, it isn't enough to say, "Jesus Christ is God Incarnate, Messiah, and Savior." That doesn't make you a Christian. What makes you a Christian is you implementation of His pattern in your life. In other words, we have accepted citizenship into His kingdom, now we have to follow the rules and pay our taxes, as it were.

So, what does that entail? Well, theologists and preachers have been going on about this for centuries. I'm not going to start the argument again here...what I will do is say this: By accepting Christ as Lord, you are accepting His complete authority in your life. In doing so, you are relinquishing your specific "rights," and esteeming others higher than yourself. You are also accepting that He gave His authority to a certain group of guys, the apostles, and being the good Jewish boys that they were, they ensured we would have the pattern of His kingdom to follow in the things that they wrote. It is one thing to tell someone how to do something, it's another thing entirely to write it down. So, since we have this written record passed to us through the centuries, those of us who accept Christ as Lord would do well to listen.

I didn't say interpret. I said listen.

That's the crux of it...when I interpret something, I am running it through filters of my own in order to consume it in a manner of my liking. when I listen, truly listen, I am turning those filters off and not letting my predeterminations tell me what's important and what isn't. Just because an apostle may have written something only once doesn't mean it carries less weight than something he had written down dozens of times. Both of those things stem from the authority that I am choosing to recognize, and both of those things are parts of the pattern that Christ established.

He is my Savior, and He is my Lord. I am trying my best to listen.

I haven't been this tired in a very long time. I haven't had a full night's sleep in over a week. I'm the type of person who cannot sleep when they are stressed. I toss and turn and cycle through all of the stuff that is in my head, endlessly churning through past conversations and future possible outcomes. Never restful, never really sleeping.

I'm really good at telling people that Christ says to cast your cares on him, that tomorrow has enough worries of its own. I'm not so good at self-application at times like this.

One major shining light is that my relationship with Teresa is the real unquestionable in my life right now. I do not fear for us as a family, and I have every confidence that she loves and supports me.

I think any married man can say this, but I have not always done right by my wife. She deserves far better than I have been, or am now. We have been married for 16+ years, and I can say this: there has never been an attitude of surrender in our relationship. Neither of us has ever desired to give up, even though times may have been really tough (remember the Navy? blech). She has been eternally patient with me, even when I have been irresponsible in decisions. Today, I am not what I was 16 years ago. Pff...i'm not even what I was ONE year ago. I have devoted more personal time now in my life than ever before towards spiritual growth, and I think she would tell you that it shows. I am not tooting my horn, but I believe that we all have a responsibility towards gaining real maturity, and I take that very seriously. Or, at least, I take that seriously now. My wife is my love, my cohort, my companion, and my dearest friend. She isn't perfect, but neither am I. And here is the absolutely most beautiful thing: she doesn't love me for me; she loves me for the Spirit that lives inside of me and transforms me to be more like Christ. If she loved me for me, she would have left me inside of a week. I continue to strive to be better today than I was yesterday, for two reasons: I love Christ and want to be more like Him, I love my family and want to be more for them. It doesn't always work out like that, but that is my goal.

My life, in almost every other area, is in a state of turmoil. My life inside of my family is a sea of tranquility and a bedrock of unconditional love. Because of that, I will get through.

'nuf said.

At the base of every tree there are roots. All trees have them, and all trees are reaching towards the sky, towards sunlight and nourishment. No tree can live without its roots, dug deep into the soil. This is why we, as people, identify so easily with trees, why we experience peace within the dappled shadows of their leaves, tucked into the folds of earth and mulch wrapped around where the trunk ends and the roots begin.

Every person, everywhere, has roots. Mine are here, in Kentucky.

It is always a strange experience when I am around people who knew me as a child. There are pieces of them that want to continue to interact with me on that level because of its familiarity and, in no small part, because dealing with me as an adult is an acknowledgement of time passing and growing old. We all have little reminders of aging in our daily lives, but it is shocking to be confronted with an adult face that you last saw as a child. I am an instant reminder of times past, and all conversation is based on reminisces.

There is always pain with the searching and finding of roots. The exposure of things past requires effort and work. Memories, unthought for many years, resurface. Especially of my father. This is the hardest part of my return here. Everywhere I go I see him and people who knew him. Wherever I am those who knew my dad are reminded of him again. Old sympathies are reflected in older faces, sadness dimming the corners of happy smiles. I have grown accustomed to living without these reminders of him, surrounded by friends who did not know him and know only me.

I am different in Kentucky.

There is happiness here, too. Friendship rekindled that spans the years of child to adult. And I would be a liar if I did not say that there is a measure of satisfaction in knowing how far I have stretched towards the sun since these people last saw me. Yet another benefit of this excavation: a true finding of your growth.

I am glad I'm here, but I'm not here for me. I'm here for my mom.

My mom lives with pain and discomfort. She is diabetic (as was her mother). She has undergone a double masectomy as she fought cancer, and so far, has won. Arthritis betrays her movement and her current disease is stealing her eyesight. With all of that, she lives daily with the loss of her husband. I enumerate this not to make you feel sorry for her. She has enough sorrow to share. I do this so that you can know her, and know why she is who she is. If you know me, you know that my relationship with her has not been the easiest all the time. It is fine now...well, mostly. I spent many years cycling between angry and indifferent. Angry because she does not allow me to grow up in her mind. Indifferent because she lives in her worry and sorrow, and I cannot do that.

I love her, too. I am who I am because of her. She gave me life and sustained me, even when times were very harsh. I remember her struggling to make supper for us as she fought against the terrible side affects of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. I remember her attempts to shield us as Dad deteriorated. I remember us being very poor, and she would make my clothes because it was cheaper than buying them at the dollar store.

Our relationship now is very different than it was then.

I sit here next to her as she slips in and out of sleep, the pre-op drugs taking effect. In some ways I am her reliance now. She is nervous about today, as anyone would be. She is tired of not being able to see clearly. She loves to read, and cannot.

Dear God, I hope this surgery helps her.