2:30 and strange wonder

I think it is always a bit presumptuous to think that our metaphors, even those that we experience personally, give us a real understanding into the immanent nature of the trinity and other things that are really esoteric as far as we are concerned. And let me qualify my use of “real.” I do think metaphors do what they are supposed to in that they do shed light on some reality depicting analogous truth, but to know exhaustively and completely we cannot.

Having said that let me share my experience from last night. At about 2:30 I was awakened by the cry of my 5-month-old son. Half because the monitor volume was low I was feeling guilty because of the thought that he might have been crying for some time and half because of my 2:30 in the morning delirious behavior requires it, I shot out of bed and made my way to his room with haste. I picked him up, gave him his pacifier, and began to bounce him on the exercise ball.

He quickly ceased to cry and at the moment I was overtaken by the deep sense of satisfaction one feels when they are able to provide for a need of a child. Ironically I discovered that in giving a small bit of grace (can I call it that) I experienced a deep and profound moment of grace myself. And I dared to wonder what the Father must have experienced in offering us the excruciating remedy that he did.

convocation

Sunday evening I made my way over to the Ferrell Center to take in the freshmen convocation service. The real reason I went though was to hear Burt Burleson. This was my first experience hearing him outside of Kyle’s funeral, I’m going to try and make a point to hear him speak whenever he is outside of Dayspring on Sunday mornings.

He is like skating on butter. The mere sound of his very pastoral voice is like aloe applied to burned skin, soothing. I even think his voice might be my favorite southern one. I used to tell people that the reason Greg Boyd was the best preacher I’d ever heard was because he could somehow reach down into the deep places of your soul, pull out what was troubling you and hang it in front of your face so that you had to deal with it. He did this in a very passionate and often loud way. Burt did the same thing with a soft and poetic voice.

I guess they call his style narrative, and his youth pastor and my friend Chris advises me, Burt simply preaches a narrative as if he were going down a river and at critical points turns the direction with a slight bend in flow.

It was graceful.

long lost friends

For my waco readers this post will have little relevance. I have recently stumbled upon some old friends via facebook. I like to introduce new people who earn themselves links on my blog.

I recently told one of them, Brian, that these two are responsible half of my theological education. The comment was a bit tongue and cheek, but is not altogether untrue. I had the privilege of living with Brian my junior year and Ben my senior year and both of them labored many times into the wee hours of the morning fielding questions from a theological novice, then marketing major. As far as my experience at Bethel is concerned, these two along with the links to erik and morrow, both on the side of my blog, are responsible in large part for my theological development.

I think the really neat thing about both Ben and Brian is that though they come from entirely different convictions than I do concerning the faith, we found much in common and in the process of long conversations and severe disagreement I found grace in their answers and demeanors. More than any theological argument they ever offered me, the way they lived their lives offered a compelling apologetic for their case for God as they understand him. This I have never forgotten.

I'm glad to introduce Ben and Brian.

done

Yester afternoon I got home and found that in the mail I had received my diploma. It was curled up in a mailing tube ready to be put into a matt frame that would cost me $150 because it has the name Baylor on it, but which I probably won’t buy.

93 credit hours later I am finished. I get up each day without the impending reality of another project to be done or another book to be read. For the first time in 20 years I am free from academic tyranny.

I am officially master of the divine, so if anyone has any questions I’ll have the answers. Actually, I was thinking about this last night and realized that I’ve probably left seminary with more questions than I came in with. I wonder if that means the seminary did it’s job or if it means that it did not.

Well, it doesn’t seem to matter to me right now because this evening I will begin the second book that I’m not required to read since I’ve graduated. I think I’ll reread Kyle’s books and try and hear fresh what he has to say to me. Then after I feel like setting down the book I’ll watch t.v. without feeling guilty or perhaps I’ll find a house project to do. The best part is that it does not really matter.

Grace for today friends, grace for today.

P.S. I’ve often heard people talk about how they would “die to be back in school, because it is so much better than the work world.” Granted I love my current part time job, thus far I have found this hypothesis to be undoubtedly false. Though I absolutely loved my seminary education, I’ve decided with a little bit of diligence I can keep on learning by picking up a book here and there and being active in discussions with friends with similar backgrounds. The difference? No deadlines, papers, or pressure.

9

August 9th 1998 was the first time Lindsay and I went on a date. Today it has been 9 years since then. We were between our sophomore and junior years of high school. I was getting ready for what would turn out to be a poor season of Tomahawk football, while Lindsay began participating in a state bound cross country team.

I had used every excuse I could think of to get over to her house except for the obvious and honest one, namely I had somehow become completely enamored with her and that by merely being in her presence the world somehow seem a bit more magical.

We spent that day, August 9, 1998, water skiing and tubing behind her parents vintage and yet stellar Baja ski boat. Her then little sister, now preparing for her first year as teacher in Baldwin, Wisconsin, had a friend over and so the four of us took turns taking laps around Lake Nokomis.

That evening I hung around long enough to earn an invitation from her parents for dinner, which turned out to be some tasty grilled chicken breasts and a couple of side items. Trying not be awkward, we made our way above the patio the overhanging balcony and looking across the lake I asked her if she wanted to go mini-golfing, which Texans I have come to learn often call putt-putt golf.

We went and the rest is history. I remember the night well including my confessing that the reason she was beating me was because I couldn’t concentrate. Which as cheesy as it may seem for one high school sweetheart to say to another on their first date, was completely true. I was Cinderella at my proverbial ball. The fairy tale had just begun.

At moments like these, Lindsay and I do a fairly good job of reflecting. We frequently return to the question that goes something like this, “when we first started dating did you ever imagine that this…” “this” of course being the current chapter in this perfect story that we get to call our life.

Today after Lindsay got home she took some time to play with Roy. She evoked from him a laugh that I had not heard before, but that was so powerful that it disturbed my Thomas Merton reading. I set the book down grabbed the video camera and shot about a minute of footage. I listened to him laugh and for some reason the thought that crossed my mind, was that, Roy is our creation and that he is his own person with his own laugh. Roy is better than all the cars we will ever have, all the homes we will ever have or even the best jobs we will ever have. His presence in our life reaches down to the deepest parts my soul and elicits emotion in me that I did not know I had.

Tonight I got to bed thinking that I would have never dreamed of this in my wildest dreams…

grace for 9 years and God’s grace for 99 more

For Grandma's and Grandpa's up north

Providence for who?

Today my niece turned three. To celebrate, her dad took her to breakfast, then the whole family went to eat a picnic at Como Zoo and to take a quick trip through to see the animals.

This evening they were heading to my brother-in-law’s sister’s house to celebrate Calla’s and another in-law’s birthday conjointly.

As they got ready to leave, my sister ran back downstairs to grab the girl’s swimsuits, delaying their departure by about a minute.

Coming to a stop somewhere around Washington Ave about a block away from the bridge that collapsed this evening traffic came to a halt. Strangely, cars began turning around and heading the wrong way.

Tonight my family offers earnest and heartfelt prayers for what seems to be the grace of God. And I wonder what the prayers are of those six families who have confirmed losses thus far.