Binding the Hands of God

My monthly blog seems to be slowly becoming my yearly blog. That's going to have to change.

If you know me well enough to realize that this blogpost is coming at one of the busiest points in my semester, you may well be wondering why my writing is welling up now rather than, say, during some time when I can actually afford to be producing it. This seems to be a trend with me. Contrary to the literary ideals of Woolf and Barthes, I don't write when I have the time, the perfect space, or the monetary incentive. Neither of these normally accompany my writing; my vacations are spent with family, my Friday nights with friends, and my in-between times with good books. I don't write then. Instead, I write exactly when I don't have the time. Like now, for example: on the night before a test when I have unread readings stacked up past my ears. I'm starting to think that I should stop trying to understand my psyche.

Busy or no, this post must be written. Too much has transpired (and expired) since my last post that I can no longer delay such a communication. My thoughts since November have encompassed far too much territory to express in one post, so I will narrow my scope to a thought I had last summer which has not seen light outside a hurried discussion with one of the profound Salvos Down Under. My thought was about the nature of the Trinity.

Hold up!

Please don't be turned off from my blog because I bring up this subject. I know about the controversy that has arisen in the past year or so because of The Shack, and I want to assure you that my thought has no connection to it. I have purposely been putting off reading the novel so that I would be able to record my thought without being influenced by the mainstream discussion. I do have some vague notion that William P. Young has been criticized for making the Persons of the Godhead seem too individualistic, but that is my only knowledge of the book. Long before I had even heard of The Shack, I was inspired to think about this subject because of my good friend Daniel.

Daniel is an amazing guy: someone I respect for his crazy abilities (ranging from swing dancing to mathematical abstraction), his sincere struggle with God, and his genuine love for others. But Daniel is a Calvinist. At least, I thought he was a Calvinist. It turns out that he just knows how to argue for the validity of any position on the spot, and this quality lends him the power to render his actual beliefs inscrutable. Combined with his playful and truth-seeking disposition, his gift for rhetoric often expresses itself in refreshingly truth-revealing forms. Upon determining that my theological background was influenced by Arminianism, Daniel proceeded to adopt an opposing persona and question me on what had hitherto been the unquestioned foundations of my faith.

I should at this point make it clear that before this encounter, I had never heard of "Arminianism" and had no understanding of what it was. The idea that God gave humans freedom of choice was one that I had never considered controversial. No one I had known had ever suggested an alternate possibility, and I had accepted the idea as self-evident and undeniable. Little did I know, this position, known as Arminianism, is held by only a minority of Protestants. As my Critical Theory professor likes to say, definitions require binary oppositions; I had never needed a label for my belief in free will because I had never considered that there was an alternative. And it was this position that Daniel required me to defend.

I was floored. Here was a man I looked up to spiritually, and he was telling me that I was a mindless automaton without any say about... anything. How could I possibly respond?

The truthful answer is, not very well. In one sense, retrospectively, I'm very glad about that. The main reason I was ill-equipped to answer such a questioning was because I grew up in The Salvation Army. From its origins, The Salvation Army has purposely withdrawn from all theological debate and sacramental practice that it has not seen as integral to faith in Jesus as Saviour. The idea is that too much conflict arises from inconsequential theological debates; one should be able to accept the basic tenants and move straight into service (or even move into service before accepting the basic tenants). It's a good way of focusing on what's important. I still believe that. In any case, because I had never really attended any churches outside the denomination, I had never discovered the Calvinist-Arminian debate, and was quite mal-equipped to participate in it. All I could offer was a simple story.

The story was told me by my program director while I was working at camp. He was attempting to prepare us to answer tough questions about why we believed what we believed. The tough question of the day happened to be "Why is there sin, evil, and pain in the world?" I was shocked. I had never thought of such a question on my own, and I had no idea that this was one of the most prominent arguments against the existence of God throughout all history. All at once, the problem of pain seemed all-consumingly important, and potentially a reason to doubt everything. Fortunately or not, my faithful program director did not wait until panic had taken full force before providing me with the solution.

"Mindless automatons."

Those are the two words that stuck with me from the ensuing explanation. His actual speech was lengthier than that, but "mindless automatons" is all I really remembered. The idea was that God wants the people He has created to love Him in the way that He loves them: out of choice, not coersion. In order for us to exercise our choice, there must be another option, which is consequently dubbed 'sin'. And with that, my moral dilemma was at an end. I was soothed by an easy answer, and largely left the subject alone for several years.

Until Daniel came along. And in some confusedly jumbled way, my former program director's explanation was what I blurted out in response to Daniel's friendly provokation. Unsurprisingly, my defense did not hold up, but our mutual interest in pursuing truth did. Many conversations insued. In the course of time, we dissected the tulip, struggled with the Bible, and generally dwelt on this subject to such an extent that I think I may have partially missed out on getting to know Daniel's other wonderful attributes. We never really came to a conclusion in our searchings, but the questions we were asking changed considerably. While the initial questions centered around whether or not we have free will, the primary question eventually became what free will would look like if we had it.

This is yet another question I had never really considered. I always thought gaining knowledge was like building a house: starting with a foundation and going from there. Why is it that the further I search, the more fundamental my questions become? Whatever the reason, the pursuit of a definition of free will is an important one. It's all well and good for me to claim that I have free will, but if I don't have a definition for "free will," I might as well be saying that I have a jabberwocky.

So I started thinking. And this was my intrapersonal conversation:

"What do I mean when I say that I choose to do something?"

"Well, I guess I mean that I choose independent of God's choice. He doesn't enforce His will on mine. He chooses not to control me. "

"But He created me. He set the entire universe in motion - including my predispositions. The way He set everything up necessitates His determining of all the decisions I will ever make."

"But I make some pretty horrible decisions - ones God wouldn't want me to make, and certainly ones He wouldn't make Himself. That means that I must have made them on my own."

"But if God knows everything, He would have known how to create the world in such a way that all the decisions I would ever make would be the ones He wanted."

"Then either God doesn't know everything, or I don't have free will."

"But... but..."

And the "but... but..." was where I stalled. These are two very basic things I have always held as integral to what I believe: God is omniscient, and throughout my life, I have chosen to disobey Him. I had never seen a contridiction between these two ideas before, but now the discrepancy seemed insurmountable. I couldn't bring myself to deny either of these two tenants, but neither could I reconcile them. Knowing that something I believed must change in order for my worldview to be internally consistent, I naively attempted to solve a problem that has been debated down through the centuries by people who have had far more theological training than I. And I came up with a solution.

... but you may find it disagreeable.

It's my thought about the Trinity I told you about all those paragraphs ago. Think about the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Only one God, but three... Persons. I hesitate to use that term because I don't have a definition for it, and as I clued in earlier when I had no definition for "free will," words don't mean anything without definitions. I will satisfy this difficulty by vaguely defining "Persons" as "constituents." I'm still not convinced that there are only three. I mean, there could be, but I don't see any Biblical evidence for limiting the number of Persons in the Godhead to that. "Trinity" is an extra-Biblical word. But enough side-tracking.

If the preceding statements do not fall under the definition of heresy, what I'm about to suggest might - but it is a possible solution to the Calvinist-Arminian debate. At least, it's been helpful for my views on things. The problem I have with Calvinism is that in removing free will, it makes no account for evil in the world. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this; it's just that no Calvinist I've put the question to has been able to give me an answer. And my problem with Arminianism is that it doesn't provide for a logical definition of free will, because God's creation of me and His omniscience together necessitate His determination of my actions.

What if we could separate God's creation of me and his omniscience? To me, that would solve the problem. "Free will" only lacks a definition because God created me knowing how I would eventually act, and besides that, I can't accept that God would create a person knowing full well that they would reject Him and never return to Him. So here is the only solution that makes sense to me; the only option I know which allows God to remain the omniscient omnibenevolent Creator of a faulty creature like me:

Creation was the undertaking of God the Father alone. For the speck of a moment it took to create mankind, God the Father was not in communication with God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. And according to God's omnipotence, He chose of his own free will to keep God the Father from the knowledge of whether mankind would eventually turn its back on Him or not, just for one solitary moment. In that moment, God the Father created mankind. Mankind was given free will because in the act of creation, mankind's Creator did not know whether or not mankind would ultimately choose Him or not, and God remained omniscient because God the Son and God the Holy Spirit still knew about the future of mankind in that moment of mankind's creation.

You may think that this robs something of God, but I don't think it does. If God is omnipotent, He should be able to choose to limit the powers of one of the Persons within Himself. Without realizing it, I think most Christians already believe this idea. Consider when Jesus was on Earth. Was baby Jesus able to scrawl mathematical formulae on his manger? Could seven-year-old Jesus already speak all the languages that would eventually exist in the 21st century? If God did not choose to limit His own omniscience in the Person of the incarnate Son, why did Jesus pray "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me"? If God the Son knew whether or not it was possible, why would he add the words "if it is possible" to His prayer? God the Son must have chosen not to partake in all the power of God while on Earth. And if God can limit the omniscience of one of His Persons for a specified amount of time, why couldn't He do so with one of His other Persons at another time?

But this is all speculation. How do I know whether God the Father limited His omniscience while creating mankind or not? The simple answer is, I don't. The only thing I can ever claim to know is God and His love (and incidentally, I'm starting to think that the phrase "God and His love" is redundant). My purpose in this mental exercise was simply to determine whether it could possibly be consistent for me to believe what I believe: that God is infinitely powerful and good, that He is the creator of everything including me, that He gave me the freedom to choose or deny Him, and that He loves me and intensely desires to be with me. My conclusion has been... it's possible. Perhaps (or even probably) the solution I've constructed is not correct, but that doesn't really matter. The presentation of a dozen possible solutions are not required in order to establish that a set of beliefs is internally consistent; only one solution is required, whether it is true or no. The point is that these beliefs are not contradictory. Whether they are true, well, that's for you to decide.

The Most Good vs. The Most Love

A photo I took at a retreat several months ago popped up on my newsfeed today because of a new comment. It depicted two guys for whom my deep respect is grossly disproportionate to the amount of time I have been given to get to know them. In looking into the eyes of those two crazy Jesus-lovers, I realized how many of my prominent thought processes this year were sparked in listening to their passions and frustrations that weekend. I was immediately saddened to recall that I did not document what was going on in my mind that weekend, and consequently, much of the origins of that part of who I am becoming has been lost to me. Such a sadness is insupportable when the means to prevent analogous future shortcomings are possessed yet unused. Thus my blogpost published in the wee-hours. Putting off to tomorrow is not acceptable four months past the due date.

I have read more books this year than I normally read, namely due to the twelve-novel English course I took at the beginning of the year. The course was a study of the decadent movement, a period when Victorian values were being rejected, moral tales were shunned as an oppressive and obsolete literary form, and all forms of self-gratification were glorified. Art combined obsurdism with overt sexuality, while the literary heros and heroines lead meaningless depressing lives or else killed themselves. You may think that such an extensive study of ideas so contrary to my worldview must have been tedious and disgusting. You would be right. While I very much enjoyed three of the works, the other nine range from unnecessarily disturbing to possibly qualifying for book burning.

Fortunately, I have found time throughout this year to suppliment my course readings with more nourishing pieces. The two books that have most profoundly shaped my thinking patterns this year are Why the Rest Hates the West by Meic Pearse and The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. Both of these books were given to me by people I love and wish to emulate. Both of these books presented me with ideas that awoke in me a desire to live in a new and more God-glorifying way. And attempting to live my life according to both these books would approximate the experience of being tied to multiple horses running in separate directions (and may have the same effect).

Allow me to explain. I learned a lot from Meic Pearse. Why the Rest Hates the West gave me the solid foundation I needed in order to stand my ground in defending the validity of absolute truth claims against the moral pluralism and philosophical relativism which was so prevalent in my decadence course. It allowed me to be more intelligent in my criticism of western society by expanding my worldview. Most importantly, it taught me how to be more culturally sensitive with my international friends. I was also deeply inspired by Shane Claiborne. The Irresistible Revolution broke me for the poor and the outcast, and invited me to love them as Christ loved them. It called me back to my soldier's commitment to serve the lost, the last, and the least. Perhaps most significantly, it taught me how to intelligently criticize my own life before criticizing the society that surrounds me. Pearse and Claiborne are both committed Christians who fundamentally believe that life can and should be lived differently than the rest of us perceive.

But:

Meic Pearse is an elderly, conservative, established university professor and Shane Claiborne is a young, liberal, unconventional hippie. As my favourite author wrote, "How drearily alike are all the great tyrants... how gloriously different the saints!" I am continually amazed at how diverse Christian community can be, and how beautiful that diversity is. This recognition, however, does not help in my reconciliation of the two guidemaps for life provided by these two radicals. For Pearse's vision for my future would entail getting married in the near future in order to affirm the importance of family, having plenty of children in order to insure biological replacement of myself and my wife, attending university until I received my doctorate in order to be as educated as possible about the world around me, and taking up a high-paying job so that I can give as much money as possible to non-profit organizations that provide aid to the poor in third-world countries. Claiborne's vision for my future, however, would entail accepting life-long singleness so that I could be more totally devoted to the poor, dropping out of university because degrees are pretentious, giving away all my material possessions in order to free myself from worldly ties, and joining a poor inner-city community because what the poor need most is genuine relationships with people who love them. Essentially, Pearse believes that we should make the world a better place by shaping our culture and society in a way that glorifies God, while Claiborne says we're not charged with our society, and that individual relationships are what's really important. Pearse says do the things that will do the most good. Claiborne says do the things that will communicate the most love.

So which do I choose? I like Pearse's vision because I would really like to get married someday, and I would love to raise children of my own. I enjoy university, and would be content to keep studying until I received my doctorate, and finding a well-paying job would mean that I wouldn't have to move out of my financial comfort zone. Then again, I like Claiborne's vision because service to the poor rings true of my calling, and developping relationships with those in need seems like a more authentic expression of God's love than impersonal tithing from a fat wallet.

On the other hand, I don't like Pearse's vision, because endless study and middle-class life often seems too comfortable to be right and too mediocre to be Christ-like. But Claiborne's is no better. I have too much of a desire to have a romantic relationship and a family to proclaim myself celibate, and self-imposed poverty seems very difficult. Also, almost all of the Christians I know and trust live middle-class lives.

I honestly don't know what to do. The first book encouraged me in leading a life I'm comfortable with leading. The second book disturbed me too much to unquestioningly accept that life, and offered me another. Is there a middle ground that runs between the two? Would following such a middle path mean being only half-committed to God's will?

Happily, God has given me plenty more indicators of good choices than just confusing books and circular self-analysis. After His grace, forgiveness, and love, I believe the greatest gift God has given me is a wonderful supportive group of family and friends. When I switched from studying engineering to studying English, God's affirmation that it was the right choice was primarily communicated through my family and friends. I am convinced that if God wants me to make another radical change in my life, those who are close to me (and who are gifted with greater discernment than I) will make sure I make the right decision. For now, I'll just continue on with the information I have been given, straight ahead... until God decides to mess up my plans once again for His glory.

Descartes, Job, and a Girl Named Nancy

Ever since Rebecca told me that her boyfriend was coming in May, I have periodically suggested to her that she may have misheard him. Instead of "I'm coming in May", he may very well have said "I'm coming in maybe". It was a lame joke, but it made me laugh. Similarly, I set a goal to write a blogpost in the month of May. In the end, Rebecca's boyfriend did come in May, but my blogpost did not. I would like to use the excuse that I said "maybe", not "May", but that would not be true. Sadly, I failed in reaching my goal last month.

But no need to dwell on past failings! Despite my increasing workload, I am setting apart enough time to right my wrongs this month. In fact, I already did so several weeks ago. The reason you not are reading that blogpost instead of this one is because I deemed the former to be far too dry for public consumption. It was an outline of my personal theory of human personality. If you happen to be interested in such a thing, let me know. Otherwise, I think it will forever remain on my unposted list (and rightly so, quite likely).

There is a question that I have been pursuing for some time now, and the pursuit has proven to be important in the develpment of my thoughts about life in general. I have discussed the question with close friends, posed the question to people I consider wise, and opened the question to public debate. I have searched for an answer in books, in reasoning, and in prayer. The question is about the nature of the Bible.

When a friend of mine questioned the authority of the Bible near the end of last summer, I realized that I had never seriously considered such a question. If the question had ever arisen before, I would mindlessly subdue it with a Bible verse that stated that the Bible is truth. In essence, my reasoning was cyclic: I believed the Bible was truth because it said it was truth. When I realized the error in my argument, I lost the grip I once had on everything I had ever believed. Put more accurately, I realized that I never had a grip on what I believed. I simply believed it.

In this way, a simple question about the reliability of the Bible removed the foundation of my beliefs, or at least something close to the foundation, and I was left to wonder if I really knew anything at all. My first conclusion, which seemed self-evident at the time, was that there must be one thing that I could never deny by which I can reason other things. In order to prove anything, something must first be known. In order to know that first thing, something else must be known in order to prove it. Essentially, I realized that I must believe one thing for which I can provide no proof. In this way, I might be able to prove other things, and, in so doing, begin a quest for knowledge.

And so I was faced with the difficulty of determining which one fact must be my starting point. I considered, among other things, my own existence. After deliberating over the possibilities for some time, I concluded that I could not freely choose the 'starting point fact' at all. No matter what I chose for my starting point, that fact would remain my starting point forever; I could never call it into question, because it would always remain the one fact which required no proof. Meditating on this thought made me realize that my 'starting point fact' was chosen when I was born, or else when I first thought my first thought. It was the basis for which I was able to call things into doubt at all, and it was also the foundation for all the knowledge I ever gathered, though I had never thought long enough about it to realize it.

Having determined that I could not choose my 'starting point fact' because that it had already been chosen for me, I attempted to discover what it was. If I could be certain of nothing else, there must be one thing that I would still believe, independent of any proof. My immediate response was that Love must exist. My knowledge of Love as an entity was (and is) too real to doubt.

I must stipulate here what I mean by the term "love". The term has been much maligned in various cases, and numerous definitions have been attributed to it. Perhaps the most depressing usage of the word is when it is a synonym of "attraction". Attraction is a wonderful thing, but it is such a separate concept from the most important definition of love that to use the same word to describe both seems ludicrous. Neither am I referring to the emotion that is often called love, which could alternatively be phrased "the enjoyment of". When I normally use the word "love", I am using the following definition, as written by CS Lewis: "Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained." Now take this definition of love, and imagine it as an entity in its fullest and purest form. If I'm right, you won't even have to think that far. The image of that entity is so impressed upon my soul (and, as I now believe, on every soul) that I would have to deny my own existence before I could deny that it exists. I call it God.

This is what I mean when I say that I don't believe in athiests (and Melissa laughs). Because my mind seemed able to call everything into doubt except for God, I determined that He must be my starting point for the re-establishment of my body of knowledge. Daniel was later to tell me that the philosophical term for this 'starting point fact' for which I can have no proof is "axiom".

I was satisfied with my axiom because it was singular and I could not question it. My subsequent thoughts remained less systematic for a long time, namely because my initial troubling question was not about the existence of myself or my surroundings, but rather about whether I was leading a proper life. For all you philosophically-savvy readers out there, I was not seriously asking an ontological question at this point. For the time being, I more-or-less assumed that my belief in God justified my believe in the existence of myself and the rest of the universe. It was not until I took a philosophy course three semesters later that I wrote a formal proof that God must be my axiom and that my existence and ability to reason all other knowledge must necessarily follow from that axiom.

Ignorant of my far-off future philosophical treatise, my thoughts then turned back to the reliability of the teachings found in the Bible. If I lived my life according to Biblical standards, would I be living the life I should be leading? Was the pursuit of God's purposes and the development of my relationship with Him the proper focus of my existence? The longer I struggled with this concept, the deeper my questions dug, even to the point of my questioning the reality of my relationship with God. These questions became supremely important to me, namely because I considered my relationship with God the most important aspect of my life.

I began asking these questions to others. One of the first answers I received was something to the effect of "The loving God I know intimately is clearly found within the pages of the Bible." This was true; the depiction of God in the Bible did seem consistent with my foreknowledge of God. Still, the Bible said that God did a lot of things I didn't understand. Also, I knew of plenty of other books whose depictions of God were also consistent with my foreknowledge of Him. While most of these books were based on the Bible or were at least written by people who believed in the truth of the Bible, I could not see any reason for believing the Bible to be more truthful than, for instance, "The Purpose Driven Life." People often say that books present truth, but only the Bible is Truth. How is "being truth" different from "presenting truth"? There must be a difference, or else I could call "The Purpose-Driven Life" Truth.

In this way, my question switched from being "Is the Bible true?" to "In what sense is the Bible Truth?" I had rephrased the question for three reasons:

1) I had accepted that the Bible was at least true in some sense. If it was true in no other way, it was at least true in that it states that God exists.

2) I knew of other sources that were similarly at least true in some sense.

3) I wanted to determine whether or not (and how) the Bible being true is different from other sources being true.

So I began to ask people who believed that the Bible is truth what they meant by that. I posted the question on my Facebook profile page. I asked my Bible study leader and fellow students. I even sent the question to an online Christian magazine.

A pattern started to emerge. Almost every time I asked someone this question, they would bring up the allegory-versus-literal question with examples like seven-day creation and Noah's world-wide flood. But that wasn't the question I was asking. Some parts of the Bible are obviously allegorical, such as Jesus' parables. I have never heard anyone claim that they are literal. On the other hand, some parts of the Bible are obviously literal. The existence of a historical Jesus, for example, is not seriously doubted by the vast majority of non-Christian historians and scholars. The statement that the Bible is either allegorical or literal was too simplistic to be helpful.

I began listing specifics: Why are the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke different? Is the order of events in the gospels strictly accurate or used as a literary device? Are the dialogues and monologues exactly what the historical people said or are they summaries of a general concept expressed by their lives? Are the things that Paul tells his specific audiences to do absolute moral truths that we should all live by? Essentially, what does it mean to call the Bible Truth?

This is the question I wrestled with for a long time. Neither my Bible study leader, nor my friends, nor the online magazine ever got back to me with a satisfactory answer, but many told me that they would pray for me. Interestingly, some of them said that they would pray that God would give me the answer to my question, while others said that they would pray that He would help me through this period of doubt.

Because I was not getting an answer from my discussions with others (and because I thought I would annoy them if I brought it up anymore), I stopped asking people whether or not they thought the Bible was Truth and started asking God the question instead. You might think that this is the obvious turning point in the story. Once I brought the question to God, the answer must have seemed clear, right? It's the promise God made to Jeremiah: "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

As Natalie is apt to say, no dice. I began reading through the book of Job, hoping that his struggle with God would help me with mine. I read one chapter each night, each time bookending the reading with the prayer that God would teach me what the Bible was. He didn't tell me. Some nights, I would wait up for a while after I had read my chapter and listen intently to the silence. His voice was not on the whisper in the wind. In time, I finished the last chapter in the book of Job, and while I had learned plenty of things along the way, I felt no closer to having an answer to my question of Biblical truth.

I took a break. Several weeks passed, and there were no developments. Then one night, I was invited over to the Williams' house for a casual group get-together. After several rowdy games of Smash Brothers and James Bond, someone's estrogen attempted to burst free from the night of testosterone endulgence with the suggestion that we watch "Enchanted". Somehow, the bill was passed, the video games were put away, and we spent the rest of the night watching princesses and frills dancing across the screen.

Needless to say, I was not at this time dwelling upon the deeper epistemological questions of life. I was not petitioning God; I was passively watching a movie. It wasn't even like I was watching a profound movie like "The Matrix" which might have raised questions about the meaning of life. Quite the opposite: I do not hesitate to say that "Enchanted" is the lightest, sappiest, girliest film it has ever been my experience to encounter. And this was the medium by which God chose to speak to me.

If you haven't seen the film, this is the general premise: a fairytale princess is thrust into the real-world city of New York. A man reluctantly takes care of her in her distress, is discovered in an innocent but compromising-looking situation with the 'princess' by his fiance, Nancy, and Nancy becomes quite angry and leaves. In a show-stopping number, the fairytale princess sends a gift to Nancy on the man's behalf, and upon receiving the gift, Nancy forgives the man, saying "If you say nothing happened, nothing happened. I trust you."

My two favorite images that express my relationship with Jesus are brokenness and freefall. Both images were particularly evident to me in the moment I heard that line. I was broken because I realized that, no matter how much I try to put God in a box so that I can label the things He does, He is never contained and therefore often does things in a completely new and unexpected way. I spent weeks reading the book of Job and searching for God's voice, and after all that, God decides to speak to me through a sappy line in a girly movie like "Enchanted"? I love my God. His message was for me to freefall: not to abandon my questions or ability to reason, but to trust that He will grant me the discernment and wisdom to understand what He wants me to understand if I seek Him in everything. That's why I say 'grace' over movies and television shows before I watch them (thanks for the idea, Mara).

And so, I will trust the Bible as the only explicit guide to life that God has presented to me. While many of the other questions that I posed are still left to be answered, I do not believe that God would be satisfied with my struggle with Him if I stopped searching for the answers now.

Surrender

I would like to take this opportunity to express both my apologies and my appreciation to any readers who have periodically been checking this site in hopes of finding a new blogpost over the past year. You have been faithful when I have been faithless.

The goal that I had set nearly two years ago was to write at least one blogpost a month. My last post was in March. The month after March is April. Guess what month it is now? April! And the last day of the month, no less. As Mara would say, I just squeezed under the wire once again... in a sense.

There has been so much going on this year that one blogpost could hardly approach all I want to express. Rambling about my trip to Zimbabwe could constitute several posts in itself. Nevertheless, I must satisfy myself with a sweeping summary of the year's trials and adventures. In fact, to do the story any justice at all, I need to go back at least five years.

It was my last year of high school. I liked my math courses, so I decided that I wanted to be an engineer.

No, I did well in my science courses and decided that I could be successful as an engineer.

Umm... the engineering program included paid work terms and I figured God could use more engineers?

OK, you got me. I really have no idea why I went into the engineering program. Perhaps it was because my English teachers refused to give me 100% on anything no matter how hard I tried. Perhaps it was because I thought it would please my parents if I went into a high-paying career. I don't know. I don't even know if that initial decision was a mistake. What I do know, however, is that God would never be silent on an earnest a prayer unless He had reason. I think my prayer went something like this:

Dear God,

I have to make an important decision about my future real soon. I have to choose the career that will define the rest of my life, and I have to decide in the next few days. I've been praying about this a lot, but the only thing I feel like you might be calling me to is missions work, and there are plenty of degrees that can lead to that. Unless you tell me to do something soon, I'm going to go into engineering. I know I often don't listen to you very well, so if engineering isn't what you want me to do, please make me fail out so I won't have to make the choice myself.

Your son,
David

Writing letters to God is fun. If you've never done it, you should try it sometime. Please note how urgent and life-binding I thought my university decision to be. I try to recall this troubled mindset whenever I need to summon compassion for a first-year. It is the second last sentence in this particular prayer that gives me pause whenever I want to say that going into engineering was a mistake. It is the last sentence of this prayer that I tried to forget when I came out of my fourth year of engineering having failed a course.

It was a stupid course! It was taught poorly! My work wasn't properly graded! These were my excuses, and while I still believe some of them to be valid, they were attempts to ignore my four-year-old prayer. I had failed a course that, beyond reasonable doubt, I should not have failed. Before going on my three-month work term in Zimbabwe, I, like Gideon, decided to put out a fleece; the supplimentary exam. When I came back from Zimbabwe, I studied diligently for the last full month of the summer, wrote the supplimentary exam, and failed once again. The conclusion should have been inescapable. Sadly, pride is a master escape artist.

My subsequent plan was moreso a product of practicality than obedience. I had to wait another semester before I could take the course again, so, not wanting to waste my time, I started a second degree. In an elaborate plan, I determined to transform the added year in my engineering degree into an opportunity to complete two degrees in the same timeframe: one civil engineering degree and one English degree with a French minor. Rather than doing a six-year degree in seven years, I would have both a six-year degree and a four-year degree in seven years. It was like the "worn and loved" teddy bear I sewed together in junior high that had the stitching on the outside; I took a mistake and made it look intentional. I was trying to save face while losing sight of His face.

He didn't abandon me. When I shut my eyes as tight as I could and asked my God to let me see, He did not give up on me. My life is nothing if not a testament to the faithfulness of my Lord.

I was unwilling to leave my engineering degree unfinished, even though I didn't enjoy the courses and knew it wasn't what I should be doing with my life. With this mindset, I spent my open semester taking Arts courses: English, French, linguistics, and religious studies. It was amazing. I had a wonderful semester, better than any semester I ever had at the university; I wanted to discuss the course content with my professors; I spent my free time doing extra reading into the material; I looked forward to writing finals, not because I wanted the semester to be over, but because it was a chance to express what I had learned. It was beautiful. Still, I retook the engineering course the following semester. I'm sad to say that it wasn't until the last month of the semester that I acknowledged what I already knew; I wasn't supposed to be doing engineering. There was a reason that my reaction to my English courses was so drastically different from my reaction to the engineering courses, and it was more than ability or personal preference.

Deciding to drop engineering and switch fully into English was one of the most difficult and drawn-out decisions I have ever made. Thankfully, I have received plenty of confirmation that I did the right thing. Many people who know me well have told me that English seems right for me and engineering does not. I had expected at least some negative reactions to my decision, but I have only encountered two: one from a fellow engineering student who was sad to see me go, and the other from a professor who, after hearing more of my story, encouraged me more than anyone that I was doing the right thing. In these days, I am realizing how important it is to have close friends who know my heartsong. I forget it all too often.

Speaking of my heartsong, a good friend of mine reminded me of another verse a few nights ago: the part about missions. Sometimes I think the only reason God let me stay in the engineering program until my fourth year before telling me to switch was because that was exactly how long I needed to stay in order experience a work term in Zimbabwe. Most of the time, I remember that He gave me so many other opportunities for growth while I was in engineering as well. I learned about a lot more than just engineering concepts over those four years, and He knew I would. So was a three-month stint in Zimbabwe the fulfillment of my passion for missions? I ask myself that question sometimes. I ask because the future I envision doesn't seem to take missions into account.

My current plan is to continue on with my English studies into a masters and a PhD so that I can teach English at a university. Maybe that's what I should do with my life. Maybe my life will always be a, "constant realign under [His] love devine". I know that worry is the antithesis of trust, I try to remember that any plan I could come up with on my own could never work, and I believe in a God who needs no help with the planning. I require no more reasons than these to attempt to surrender more to Him each day.

So here I lay both my brokenness and my joy. Do with them what you will. With this post, I take up my goal of at-least-monthly blogging once again. I expect you to hold me to it.

Purity, Chivalry, and Honesty

Another month has drawn to a close, and I am nearer to my monthly blog post deadline than I have ever been. This has been another busy month for me. It seems that my standard response to new tasks and opportunities has become "I'll have to do that in August". Oh August; that month of semi-perpetual freedom that stretches between work term and university. Although that is theoretically the next time my life will become relaxed, I am not looking forward to it at the expense of the present... or nearer future.

The month of March has been full of study, but as my uncle Kerry likes to remind me, a jar full of rocks is not a full jar. The spaces between the rocks have been filled with many beautiful pebbles; evenings watching Green Acres with my family, intriguing conversations with permanent fixtures at the UC, reunions with Twi'leks and humans, and even some good clothes shopping. I've enjoyed Bible studies at Steve Noseworthy's house, had some amazing SNACs with more amazing friends, and savoured some sweet car rides. Purity has been sought, found, and debated (courtesy of The Muse), SASF hierarchies have risen and fallen, and the important questions of life have battled the desperate questions, as they always have.

This was the first year that the youth group decided to have two chivalry nights instead of one. That way, there was more time for each group to prepare. If you have never heard of chivalry night, allow me to explain. The idea of chivalry night is that the males in the youth group prepare a meal and entertainment for the females, while the females do the same for the males. One group presents what they have prepared and then the other group presents theirs. After everyone is finished, a 'winning' gender is chosen by a neutral party - generally Valerie, our youth pastor. Still, the validity of this claim could be contested with the simple suggestion that those who receive the best meal and entertainment are the real winners. In my opinion, the females were the most chivalrous this time around. Michelle's kisses were sweet (and thoughtful), Allison's wings were heavenly (oh Steve), and Laura's poetry was touching (even if she thinks I'm old!). If any Temple youth group females are reading this - thank you!

This has been a great month of rediscovering joy. In a Mara colloquialism, allow me to explain what I don't mean. I don't mean that I have been happier this month than I was last month. I haven't been. I don't mean that I had forgotten the wonderful blessings God has graciously bestowed upon me. I hadn't. What I mean is that I trust God.

If you had asked me a month ago about that for which I most needed prayer (and if you could phrase your question as grammatically questionable as I just did), I would have told you that I had divine trust issues. Trusting God isn't as easy a thing as it might seem. I can't trust God by simply telling Him that I do, or even attempting to live like I do. It's not like entrusting - that's a lot easier. I can entrust God with my money by tithing. I can entrust God with my emotions by not getting attached to what isn't Planned for me. I can entrust God with my education by studying hard and attending class. But to trust God, I have to do a whole lot more. I have to give Him the worry I harbour about the money I no longer have, the anxiety I hold about the things that aren't in his Plan, and the stress that eats away at me about the grades I'm not getting.

I do. Praise God, I trust Him. He gives me all the strength and mercy I need to do so. This is my one and only boast, and I proclaim it with all the joy with which He floods me.

Claiming my Window

Happy Valentine's Day! I realize that this post will be up for longer than February 14th, but I'm continuing on a long family tradition of wishing people random celebratory salutations on normally non-celebratory occasions. I'm excited today because I got two - count them... one, two - two unexpected valentines. I also got two pretend valentines by e-mail.

If you're a friend of mine and you think I've been avoiding you recently, I haven't been. I would love to contact you. Unfortunately, my professors at the university have taken me hostage and I'm unable to contact the outside world.

"Well, how are you writing a blog post?" says you.

I'm glad you asked. It all started this morning when Mom and I forgot to go to the travel clinic up until fifteen minutes before our appointment. Considering it takes half an hour to get to the travel clinic and I hadn't eaten breakfast or packed my bookbag, we were quite late. I quickly crammed my bookbag full of the first school-related items I saw, shoved in my toiletries along with them, and ran out the door. I ate breakfast on the way. When we got to the clinic, three wonderful things happened:

1) We didn't miss our appointment.
2) We got free Canadian flag pins.
3) We were informed that I didn't have to get a needle!

It is a beautiful thing when joy comes in the form of an absent needle. The travel clinic consultant was a very animated woman who had a wide smile and even wider hand gestures. I mean, this girl could compete with Steph Duhammel (whose blog, by the way, is difficult to link to as it is on paper). Anywho, the consultant explained about all the pills, ointments, drinks, and precautions we will have to take before, during, and after our trip to Zimbabwe. Suffice it to say that it's a lot of stuff to do in order to stay healthy.

"Why are you going to Zimbabwe, David?"

An excellent question! I am going to Zimbabwe as part of my undergraduate engineering program. I will be there for three months during which I will be staying with Dawn Howse, an amazing woman who is serving in The Salvation Army as the only medical doctor in the village of Tshelanyemba. She grew up in Newfoundland at my home corps, and I know a lot of her family. I grew up hearing stories about her work overseas and seeing her presentations about it when she came back during summers. I feel so honoured to have the opportunity to go and visit her in Africa. I've never been outside the continent, so this is a first for me in a lot of ways. Dawn has a bridge feasibility study she would like me to perform. I still need to work out logistics, but things have been working out well so far. I'm really looking forward to learning from Dawn. Apparently she's going to teach me to bake bread. I'll be staying in Tshelanyemba for the three months following this semester (over the summer). During the last three weeks of my stay, a missions team made up of Salvationists from St. John's and Montreal will be going to Tshelanyemba. A bunch of my friends are going to be participating in the missions trip, including my mom and my youth pastor. It will be good to have them sharing in the experience with me.

"So what does all this have to do with your inability to contact the outside world?"

Thanks for keeping me on track. You've been a great audience. When Mom and I were finished at the travel clinic, Mom dropped me off at the university. While there, I shaved in the university centre bathroom, attended my classes, finished a project, played golf in the cafeteria, attended a tutorial, and then sat down to study for my three huge exams coming up within the next few days. In order to begin studying, I lifted up my pencil case and thought, "This seems lighter". I then proceeded to open the pencil case and, to my great surprise, discovered an immense lack of calculator. Upon this discovery, I used a considerable amount of time perusing the university persuing my calculator. Having no success in this effort, I called home to ask my brother if he knew where it was... and he found it. Joy also comes in the form of present calculators. Although I was elated at the prospect of being reunited with my calculator, I was left with one more hour at the university. Having no calculator with which to study, I was given a brief window of opportunity with which to contact the outside world in the form of a blog post... and I took it.

And now, I leave to leap beneath the waves which would o'erwhelm my soul with concrete I-beams and iterative eigenvalues. See the dislodged beatitude of James 1 to find my joy throughout the storm. It's not an absent needle.

According to Plan

I was right when I wrote at the end of my last post that there was a lot to look forward to. The past month has been a whirlwind of events. With few exceptions, everything has been going wonderfully. It may not be going the way I planned it, but it's all still going according to The Plan, and that's all that matters.

My last days in Calgary were fun, although it was a busy time for most of my friends there, so I wasn't able to say goodbye to most of them. On the flight to Toronto, I sat next to a girl who was nervous about flying alone. She talked to me the entire flight, to keep her mind off being in an airplane I think, and when we landed, she followed me around until she needed to catch her connecting flight. It felt really good to be able to make someone feel safe for a while.

My flight home was spent watching Cars. That movie is well-made. I loved the bloopers. When I arrived in St. John's, I was overjoyed to find my mom, my brother, Zach, Steph, and Cathy waiting in the airport to greet me. It was especially good to have Zach and Stephanie there because I've never had friends waiting for me in the airport before. It was a beautiful gift.

The week that followed was a busy and enjoyable one. It was filled mainly with buying, making, giving, and receiving gifts for birthdays and for Christmas. I went to see Night at the Museum with a group of old high school friends I make a point of seeing at least once a semester. It was especially good to spend time with Timothy. It was a short oasis when neither of us had commitments, we were both in the same province, and we could just play video games together. Life should be filled with more of those times.

Christmas day was a lot of fun. I think we received enough DVD box sets to last us until the Second Coming. I discovered that my family has been sucked into two more television series while I was in Calgary - Jericho and NUMB3RS. Apparently, I need to watch eleven episodes of Jericho and six episodes of Lost before February in order to maintain my membership in the family (or at least my freedom to eat supper with them).

Two days after Christmas, I headed off to St. Louis to attend Urbana. I had never been to Missouri before, but I attended Urbana back in 2003. My experience this time around was much different than my first. When Urbana started in the 1940's, it was held in Toronto, but it has been held in Urbana, Illinois ever since then. In 2003, the conference outgrew the location, and so the conference was moved to St. Louis this year. They decided to keep the name "Urbana", even though it's not held in that town anymore. It's too well-known a conference to change the name, I suppose.

All in all, I liked the new location better. There was much more room in the stadium, it was easier to get around, and the Gateway Arch is within walking distance. Zach and I took an afternoon to admire the Arch and pretend to be photographers. Our results were fairly convincing, if I do say so myself. The only two negative aspects I could discover that resulted from the location change were the price and the housing. The price went up because the stadium cost more to rent. This was not so much reflected in the cost of attending the conference but rather in the quality and quantity of meals. Lunches were not provided and suppers were scanty (except the last one). The housing was in hotels, which was only a negative in the sense that they cost extra and that the breakfasts consisted solely of donuts and greasy muffins. Almost all the Salvationists were in the same hotel. It was wonderful to be a part of that brief community. I met a lot of great people.

There were only six Canadian male Salvationists attending the conference, so we pretty much stuck together the entire time. Of the six, two of us were from Newfoundland (Zach Hynes and I), three were from Ontario (Matt Kean, Dave Ivany, and Nathanael Homewood), and one was from Winnipeg (Edi Mutambo). Zach is an even better soundboard than he is soundtech, and that's saying something. He's also a super close friend, so it was amazing to have him there. As soon as I saw Matt, I knew he was Daniel's brother. They look, talk, and act more similarly than any two people I know. Their mannerisms are identical. Even their sense of humour is the same. I really appreciated his openness throughout the week. It was good to connect with Dave again (he likes the word 'connect'). Dave makes a point of getting to know people and bringing people together, and he does a lot more than he admits to. It was very interesting and enjoyable to hang out with Nathanael. He's the first lay DY in the country, and it seems like he's doing a great job... when he's not throwing random objects at girls, that is. He has some good ideas and awesome interpersonal skills. Seriously. Last but not least, Edi "the man" Thanksgiving. His last name means thanksgiving, and it's obvious to anyone who meets him that he's the man. Such tact and style! It must be a Nigerian thing. Anyway, the six of us held a small group each night to discuss what we'd been learning and how we'd been growing. I've never had such an amazing bond with such amazing guys before. It was a huge componant of my week.

During Urbana, all the Salvationists got together at a local corps for a kindred session. It ran all morning, and it was awesome and awe-filled. Collette Webster organized the session, and she did a really good job. I have a feeling that had she not gotten involved, I would have had a very different experience at Urbana (thanks, Collette!). The worship team that performed was called "The Singing Company", and it was a really cool group. They were a bunch of teens and tweens with guitars, a drumkit, and a tambourine. They sang songs from the red song book, but as if they were contemporary worship choruses. I had never realized that there was so much great poetry and depth of insight in the song book before! We all got free CD's called "The Red Book Sessions" that were made by the band. That CD has become one of my favorites. We also all got sweet scarves with "Sally Ann" embroydered on them. They were made by former prostitutes and recovering alcoholics in Bangladesh.

The worship at Urbana was beyond words, the community was beautiful, the Bible studies were intense, and the messages were poignant. The drama wasn't nearly as funny as three years ago, but it was ten times as thought-provoking. A lot of important and difficult issues were discussed, and I was given a lot of information that I hope will be useful. I attended sessions on French Africa and the African diaspora. I bought and received books about Islam, postmodernism, and anti-Americanism. It was a thick week, consisting of a whole lot of good experiences but very little time to process it. Leanne told me it would be overload.

On my way back from Urbana, I didn't watch movies. I slept solid the entire time.

My original plan was to visit Leanne and Dallas in Ontario on the way back from Urbana. I was supposed to stay with them for five days, and I was really looking forward to the time to catch up. On the last day of Urbana, I got a phone call from my mom. She told me that Leanne was pregnant! Unfortunately, it runs in her family to get sick during the first trimester, so she was in no shape to be entertaining guests. There was a bit of a scramble, but in the end, the flights were rearranged so that I could go straight to Newfoundland. I was sad to miss out on visiting Leanne and Dallas, but I'm excited for their baby. Please pray that the baby will be born healthy and good.

Since I have been back, university has started up again. My courses look good so far, and my professor line-up is looking good too. I'm glad to have a 'regular' semester again. I haven't been at the university for a year except for the summer semester when very few people are around. Now, I see so many friends around it's crazy. That's an aspect of this semester I'm really enjoying. I have also started going to a Bible study led by Betty Cunningham that I'm quite excited about.

If you've stayed with me thus far, I must say I'm impressed. I was starting to think that this blog post was like the document about which Winston Churchill once said "This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of ever being read." There is so much more I could say about what I have been doing, learning, and thinking about, but at some point writing about life gets in the way of living it. I'll be back next month.