Here I Am; Send Me!

Yesterday we talked about Cassie Bernall, one of the martyrs of Columbine High School.

What if God were to ask you, directly, "Please accept a horrible and frightening death, for Me. Please?"

Would you do it? I'll bet you would. (I, on the other hand, would probably say, "Uh, could I finish something first? I need about, oh, thirty years and I'll be ready for You!")

But what if he asked something even harder than that?

What if He said, "I've come so that you can have joy, and that your joy will be full!"

Yep. That's what He said. Being fed to the lions is a whole lot easier.

What He wants is that you're happy in your life, with the gifts He gave you, and all He wants beyond that is that you're living in the world for Him.

Maybe you have a gift for...oh, say, bowling. "Big whoop," you say. "Bowling?" Not exactly being a missionary among headhunters, eh? (Well, some leagues I've been in, maybe not so different...)

But as long as you're clear in your loyalty, bowling's the gift He gave you. He wants you to enjoy that gift, and He'll make your enjoyment serve His purpose.

You do your part - have fun - and He'll do His. It's as simple as that.

All you have to do is play the game, literally. You don't need to yell Hosanna! after every strike, or sit with an open Bible between throws, pestering all and sundry to repent. Just be a good sport, be thankful when you win, be thankful when you lose.

In other words, live your gift as a Christian.

And what good will that do? How many souls will you save?

You'll never know. But God will, and your trust in Him, your faith that your joy is a part of His work in this world...that's your gift to Him.

And it's your work for Him.

You can't count the fallen sparrows. He can. And when some beer-soaked bruiser who terrifies the pins into meekly falling, merely by showing up...when she looks at you quizzically, wondering how you can smile after your team got thumped, and then one day goes home and picks up the Bible out of curiosity (after learning to read, of course)...God sees that.

And He shouts for joy.

Martyrs

On April 20, 1999, I was at the airport in Sacramento, waiting for a flight to take me home after a meeting at the Caltrans research office.

On April 20, 1999, seventeen-year-old Cassie Bernall was asked if she believed in God. When she said yes, Eric Harris shot her to death. She was in Colorado, at the Coumbine High School.

It's easy to talk about martyrdom. All but one of Jesus' Apostles were killed for their faith, as have been uncounted thousands in the centuries to follow. Most Christians secretly harbor the wish that they might have the chance to put their life on the line for Jesus, to truly demonstrate that they'll follow Him to the end. (And most, like me, would prefer to survive that kind of encounter, to be able to blog about it later.)

Facing the real thing is something else, and when you come up against a real-time example of that kind of steadfastness, it's sobering, because all the brave talk melts away into an uneasy question: Would I have done the same?

The shotguns of our imagination are harmless, and shoot daydream shells. What Cassie faced was a black hole leading to Eternity, already smelling of spent powder.

The atmosphere of our dream-life places us on a pedestal, with background music by Vangelis (remember Chariots Of Fire?).

Cassie was hiding under a table, probably clammy with the sweat of fear. The sounds she heard were scrams and shout, doors slamming, and the methodical footfall of her executioner.

She could have said no.

She said, "Yes."

(Subsequent information contradicted the story that she said anything, much less the strong affirmation of God's grace in her short life. A friend who was with her said that she merely prayed quietly.

Sounds like a "Yes" to me.)

On Dying

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - roughly, "it is right and sweet to die for your country".

This is the sort of rubbish that middle-aged politicians and writers love. Wrap yourselves in the flag, boys, and go down humming "God Save The Queen". It makes for good funerary eulogies, and great movie endings, with swelling violins and crimson sunsets.

The reality of death in combat is quite different. It's not sweet. It's painful, frightening, and it never seems "right".  The pretty Latin words are a self-serving sop to the politicians, and an enamelled comfort to the bereaved, but they serve no purpose to the folks who do the dying.

Save, perhaps, salt in the wound.

The real reason death is worth risking, and worth embracing, is proximate loyalty. It's the desire, and the need, which is almost sacred, not to let down those who fight by your side.

When everything narrows down to a compressed vortex of terror, girded about by steel and flame, all of the abstract concepts of country, Mom, apple pie, and even freedom go by the boards.

From "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic" comes the line, "...let us die to make men free". Hogwash.

The only thing worth dying for is the hand stretched out to you, in mute appeal, from a comrade whose foibles you know better than you do your own, and whose loss would make the world unimaginable.

The only thing worth dying for is LOVE.

Catharsis (Is) For Dummies

The doctor said that nothing could be done. "All we can do is make you comfortable for as long as possible."

The couple clung to one another, is sorrow and fear, weeping softly...

SCREEEECHHHH! (Sound of needle being dragged across phonograph record.)

Time to end that scene.

I've heard the "can't do any more" line. It sucks, but it's no reason to descend into a mud wallow of bathos. All that does is leach out energy, and God knows I need every bit of energy I can muster.

As U2 say in their song Stuck In A Moment, "these tears are going nowhere, baby". Weeping is cathartic, I know, but catharsis can be, and often is, self-reinforcing. It sets up a cycle of self-pity that can be hard to stop. (After the Viet Nam war, veterans suffering from PTSD were encouraged to "let it all out" in group therapy session. These men, dutifully opening themselves up to catharsis, were more likely to kill themselves later.)

Fighting a serious illness, self-pity is the last thing you need. It's not a "grand tragedy". It's just what you have to deal with, and the best weapon you have for fighting a killing prognosis is a ferociously confident attitude.

Is it unrealistic to say, "I'm not going to allow this to kill me!"?  Not until you're dead, it's not. Far better to be hard, and concede as little as possible. Does it hurt to move? Move anyway. Pain won't kill you.

Vomiting blood? Carry a bag while you're doing yardwork, or puke on the plants. Blood meal's good for them.

And use humor, directed at yourself. Why not? Will you live longer if you dignify a condition that wants you dead with hushed tones and a somber voice? Or are you just paying homage to a stupid "Hallmark Sympathy Card" tradition?

In truth, we are all dying.

Enjoy the trip.

(Please don't think for a moment that I'm belittling a spouse's fear and grief. Honor demands that you have to be there for your husband or wife, and if they need to shed tears, if they need to be held, that's your job. But it's also your job to remain in control of your own emotions, and to make a decision for the positive.)

(Upcoming Book - I'm currently working on a new book, KeepThe Vow, about, basically, How To Stay Married Even If It Kills You. I intend to publish it on Kindle, with a price of 99 cents. If you'd like an advance look, please let me know in your comments, with a non-spammable email: name at provider dot com. I'll send you the work in progress, and if you care to write back with suggestions you'll get a heartfelt acknowedgement in the introduction.)

Movie Review - Dr. Zhivago, Bottom Of His Med School Class

In the 1960s, a generation of young men wanted to be Yuri Zhivago, as played by Omar Sharif in the achingly long film Dr. Zhivago.

Or maybe they just wanted to be Omar Sharif.

One of Hollywood's true epics, Zhivago lurches through the end of the Romanov dynasty in Russia, through Russia's incompetent participation in World War One, and on into the Russian Revolution. The story centers on Yuri Zhivago, a young doctor who is engaged to a irl (I can't remember the character's name, she's so incidental to the story) and then meets the beautiful Lara (played by Julie Christie), the mistress of a rich businessman.

It gets convoluted, but the heart of the story is that Zhivago loses contact with Lara, marries the Girl With No Name, and then meets up with Lara again in Siberia, as they are trying to get out of Russia, seeing as how Communism won't be much fun for anyone.

He ditches his wife, and has an idyllic affair with Lara during the Siberian winter (remember, these are Russians, so for them neck deep snow is balmy).

There is a competitor for Lara's heart - her old boyfriend, now a revolutionary commander. He abandons the revolution to try to find Lara, is caught by his comrades, and executed.

Zhivago and Lara are then forced by circumstance to part ways - and twenty years on he thinks he sees her from the window of a streetcar. He leaps from the moving tram, chases after her, and then drops dead from a heart attack.

Ah, the power and glory of love, unfettered by rigid conventions like marriage! How wonderful, to die in the pursuit of true happiness!

Love is the sweep and flash of the affair, flying free above the mundane prairie of the commonplace, a trysting-ground for the semi-divine who have the audacity to reach out their hands and...

Forgive me. What a load of horseshit.

Zhivago is really a sleazy, tawdry story of two amoral people who can't see any further than their own gonads, and who are dreadfully upset that the world doesn't order itself to suit their romantic desires. It takes its inspiration from Nietzsche's "superman", whose superiority frees him from the bonds of conventional morality, and most particularly religiously-inspired values.

Love isn't everything. While it may be exciting to watch two attractive people prance around in the snow, giving their hearts fully to the chase, the reality is that their mindset can only lead to heartbreak, because, in the end, the chase is everything.

It's like eating without swallowing.

For Better Or For Laughs

One of the things I've seen, often, among married couples is the willingness of one spouse to embarrass the other in public.

It can be a "humorous" anecdote at the husband or wife's expense, or a veiled or blatant jab, that leaves the target - there's no other word for it - standing there, with nothing to say, and hoping the moment will quickly pass.

And usually that's the best thing to do, because the jibe will have been planned ahead of time, a verbal; ambush, and is initiated with no warning and when the chance of an effective comeback is minimal.

So, just take it. And wish the earth will swallow you up.

But, why?

What is the drive to publicly hurt the person you're supposed to love most in all the world? What pleasure is there in planning an attack - again, no other word will really do - on someone to whom you made promises, before God Almighty?

The usual response is, "Come on, can't you take a joke? Lighten up!" I have a pretty broad sense of humor, but I always find that it's a lot easier to take a joke when you're not the planned and crafted target.

Laughing spontaneously at a moment of clumsiness is one thing - everyone has "dog brain" moments, and when you laugh at your husband's putting salt into his tea by mistake, you can be sure that in the near future you'll drive away with a coffee cup riding along on the roof of your car. That's life.

But I've heard a detailed description of a spouse's investment blunders, recounted at a length that made even an uninvolved listener cringe. I can't imagine what it must have been like for the target.

And we were expected to laugh, that someone thought he could actually make money raising alpacas!

Maybe it's a way to blow off steam, to air a grievance that's eating away at the teller of the tale. Therapy? Maybe, but isn't that why we have therapists?

Maybe these are the reasons, or maybe it's something else entirely. Whatever, but when I hear someone making their life partner squirm like a butterfly, freshly pinned alive to a display board, there's one overwhelming thought in my head:

"I'm glad I'm not married to you."

Evangelical Deal-Killers

The Great Commission says to go out and bring Jesus' message to all the creatures in the world, right?

The problem is that a lot of Christians fall in love with certain concepts that are sudden and certain deal-breakers for the secular world. And like moths to the flame, Christians home in on these things, as if they are making sure that the potential convert will still approach, holding his or her proverbial nose.

Here are a few, in no particular order -

• Falling in love with Jesus - I believe in God, and that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead, et cetera, but even for me, the concept of falling in love with Jesus just sounds wrong. At best, it's an intellectual construct based on the church being the bride of Christ, and other wedding imagery; at worst, it sounds like an imaginary friend taken way too far.
• There's little time left, these are the last days - all due respect, but people have been saying these were the last days since the first Pentecost, and most folks know this. If you can't give compelling evidence, leave this one alone.
• You have to develop a personal relationship with Christ - a bit milder than falling in love, but still hard for many people to understand, much less feel. Give them the feeling that it's an early requirement for admission and they'll walk.
• Numerology - the number three means this, seven means this, twelve means...well, it means that we're starting to move into New Age magic. Yes, I realize that there are theologians who put some stock into numerology, but this isn't the time to trot them out, because your potential convert will expect some crystals next, and perhaps a Vision Quest.
• "Are you living a holy life?" - Before you ask someone this, are you living a holy life? If not, don't go here. And if you are, don't go here. Especially if your definition of holy involves "no smoking, no drinking, et cetera", none of which was mentioned by Jesus

Five's enough.

For now.