Deep End

Greatness is knowing the right moment to go off the deep end and having the courage to do it.

Taking it All In

Cipi (far left) is an excellent soccer player, just in love with life. Daniel and Vasile (middle two) I knew from an orphanage before they went to FCI. Vasile always whistles these old Romanian folk tunes while doing chores with me. Andrei (right) cut my hair while I was there.

My dear Kenyan friend, Samuel, always scolds me when I leave the country without explaining what I am doing, so I told him I'd write a bit about what I am doing this trip, and I tagged some of you in my note for various reasons so that you'd at least know what my departure/return dates are. :)

Playing soccer against the village kids--we always win by a long shot.

I leave for Romania on Thursday. I have a lot to get done. A lot. More than I think I can physically accomplish. As my dear brother would say, 'whatev.' I would say that I trust God to help me get through it, but I'm just not sure that's how things work. I mean, it is my trust in God that gets me through each day as I learn to find him in my daily tasks. At the same time, it is I and not God who decided to take on all the things I have taken on. And truthfully, I love living on the edge, and I'll do it for a while yet while I am young and my body can. Getting away from the chaos to visit Romania will be refreshing, though. It gives me time to clear my mind, breathe a little more deeply, see the world from a less superficial perspective.

Friday morning I'll have breakfast with Leslie in the Amsterdam airport. Friday night I'm going to stay with Pastor Nicu and his family--he very nicely is picking me up from the airport so that I can avoid the hassle of busing into the city. Sunday I am going to meet my aunt whom I've never met before.

Fundatia Crestina Ioan (The Christian John Foundation, a two-year boarding/trade school for disadvantaged boys/young men to learn carving and carpentry).

From then on I'll be at the trade school where I normally go, just getting into the lives of the young people and sharing the love of Jesus with them. I do everything they do from morning 'til evening: get up early, do chores, learn to carve, play soccer, do more chores, watch soccer, and do devotionals. I also try to break up the monotony of their routine by taking group outings to the Cofetaria (pastry place), perhaps ice skating if it is cold enough, having hot chocolate parties, getting out the boxing gloves, etc.

Timotei at the vise grip.

Another Andrei--my boxing partner. Quite a bit skinnier than me, but a bit stronger. I think he's going to try to beat me this trip. :)

I show the boys, as their peer, the love and hope of Jesus. They show me what it means to live presently, and to really be alive.

Thursday the 6th I am going to meet my sponsorship child. I'm very excited about that, but I'm not sure that I'll get to take pictures due to unfortunate Romanian laws.

Then I'll be back at the school until the 12th, and I'll come home the 13th to catch up missed days of school and get back into the old grind.

Hot drinks are simply my thing--and hot chocolate/card game parties soon became a popular evening pastime.

So, anyways, I'm very excited to go, and I'm working very hard to get things done and ready to leave. I'd very much appreciate your prayers, not only for me as I go, but especially for all the friends and new people I'm going to connect with along the way.

With love.

Johnny

Theism.Deism.Love

Everyone needs a quiet place to reflect and soak in the good and evil, the ups and downs, the successes and tragedies that constitute the human experience. For me, at the end of long, stressful school+work days, I periodically seek stillness in the quiet of my lime-walled, black-furnished, fake-wood-floored office. I warm my hands with chamomile, my body with the aroma of a cucumber-melon candle, and my soul with rest of simply being.

I try to avoid over-thinking everything, and I am occasionally successful, but sometimes I grow tense from the disconnect between what I believe and what I know. I am often troubled by my own struggle between being a theist, and a deist. How much, how often, and why does God interfere with the natural world—or how is the natural world his intervention? I have a range of thoughts, I try to consider both science and experience, but in all honesty, I would rather just live and explore the concept than form any solid conclusion at 19 years old.

Nonetheless, I do have this one thought: deism does mean that, though I follow the way of love, in this life, I am still subject to the turnings of the natural world, and there is no guarantee that my ventures will not end in utter failure. Now, perhaps I believe in some sort of balance (i.e., God's will may be sovereign, and his followers' lives may be held protected in the sense that his plan will prevail—but again, that's where I throw my hands and surrender to the fact that I simply don't know how God works.) Does this mean that we should balance living in love and living in 'worldly practicality'? I don't think so. What I've been realizing is that I don't love so that. Jesus didn't teach us to love so that. We don't love so that people will 'come to Christ,' or so that we will lead successful lives, or so that we will win in the end, or so that anything. NO! We love because we are obedient to God's ultimate command that we should love [Matthew 22:37-40]. We believe that, because God said so, LOVE is the goal, LOVE is the meaning to be found in life, LOVE is nature of the kingdom of God. [Of course, our definition of love is always too narrow or too wide, but we're always learning, and genuineness begins in hearts of humility and obedience.]

Does love guarantee success? OF COURSE! LOVE IS SUCCESS!

Shooting Stars

Last night was frustrating. It's finals time, and I couldn't focus for my life. I was distracted early in the evening, and I couldn't shake it for the rest of the night. Finally, near midnight, I left my work/school office and went home.

Angry as hell, I went out for a hard run. I never run. Well, maybe three times a year.

I ran maybe three miles, and then I sprinted as far as possibly could until I couldn't feel my legs or breathe. I was praying the whole time. Hard.

I climbed on top of two hay bales in some farmer's field, and poured my heart out to the Lord.

It's been a dark couple of months. I've wrestled to surrender my cynicism. I want so badly to return to my childlike walk with Jesus. So badly. I'd give anything. I wish I could feel again, I wish I could hope, I wish I could be settled in his love.

But I wasn't. The Lord developed my cynicism. I idolized reality. It was terrible.

And then, and then there were three shooting stars, and I was released. I grinned at the tackiness of the exchange, and I was filled with the Spirit's hope again. And oh, my friend, that I could express what I have learned. In joy, in hardship, in success, in failure, in hopefulness, and in cynicism, there is only meaning in Jesus.

Before I am an intellectual, I belong to you. Before I am a musician, I belong to you. Before I am a cynic, I belong to you. Before I am anything that makes up my being, I am your child.

Fill me with your solemn understanding, your corrective cynicism, and your childlike meekness, that I may follow you with all of my being, surrendered, and trusting.

The Child-Like Mandate

"I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." –Matthew 18:3-4

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."—Mark 10:14-15

Jesus did not emphasize many statements as a prerequisite for entering the kingdom of God—we would be wise to take it seriously. I am often curious why so little attention is afforded this 'Child-Like Mandate.' The expositions on these passages, and their parallels, that I have heard seem to 'explain them away' more than look for Christ's heart in them. Usually, the passage is reduced to an analogy about faith (children believe their parents without question, so we should believe God without question.)

Mm, maybe that's an alright point, but I think it misses the heart of the issue. In fact, it sort of suggests blind acceptance of Christ's ways which contradicts the biblical concept of honesty—which includes intellectual honesty.

I could point to the child-like qualities that I think Jesus was referring to, but I think that I would miss the point as well. (Although I think it is worthy of note that the one character trait Jesus pointed out in the children was humility.) I think Jesus was pointing to the nature of children as a whole—except their nature—their purity, meekness, love, quickness to forgive, and their faith. Of course, even many children do not reflect child-like traits as they seek to become older, tougher, etc—but most of us, nonetheless, have a general picture of the true nature of childhood.

Shame on us if we grow so enamored with our own 'understanding,' 'success,' and 'confidence' that we neglect the mandate to become as children.

The Un-Owned Soul.

Owned. That describes most of us. All of us.

Cultural analysts point to the current trend to trade in civil freedoms in the name of national security, but that's what has been happening on a social level for decades. We've traded our liberty to think as individuals in exchange for the safety of conformity. In fact, we've been doing it for so long that we're beginning to lose touch with reality. That's the first sign of insanity, and certainly absurdity.

We have forgotten the reality that we are flesh and blood, and we live on a material earth, that exists now, and existed before the twenty-first century. It is real. Our ability to act and choose is real. The fact that we are alive is real. We are a part of history. We can choose to do whatever we wish with our lives.

But we've forgotten that fact. Instead we bow as idolaters before our Golden Culture. Culture is not real—it is manmade. It doesn't exist, it is an idea, an idea that is subject to our approval, not the other way around. We are as described by the prophet Isaiah: He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, "Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?" (Isaiah 44:20, New International Version).

Sometimes the best medicine is to find a lonely field to sit silently in, feel the dirt with your fingers, imagine the people that walked on it before you, and realize that you are bound to the earth, and the earth is yours. Your life is your own. God gave it to you. This is your one chance to be the image
of God. Don't let presumptuous cultural mores dictate who are and what you do.

Think. Examine. Live.

Remember, you are responsible first to God, and then to the authorities he sets up—and culture is not one of them. (Romans 12).

Samson

I'm in Holland with the boys from the band in which I play bass guitar. We are staying with a missionary-friend we have known for many years.

The other day we were having a conversation about Samson. In my mind, he is one of the most controversial of Israel's judges. Honestly, it is hard for me to find any redemption in his story. God gives him a great gift, he uses it to purue his own desires and get revenge on those who have angered him, he lives lustfully, repeatedly engaging in commitments with the enemies of the people of God, and in the end he displays a great lack of common sense which leads to capture and demise.

Of course, one could argue, we are all imperfect, and God used Samson despite himself to slay a few thousand Philistines--to which I can only offer a sarcastic 'yay.'

So he slayed a few thousand enemies. David's strong men accomplished mightier things. I don't think the point of this story is that God uses imperfect people despite themselves. Although it is true that we are all imperfect, I think there is a difference between a leader who is after the heart of God and, well, Samson.

No, I think a more important point to be drawn from Samson's story is that power without maturity, a gift without a right heart, is very nigh useless.

Many powerful people are proud and protective of their power, but that was never the example of Jesus. Jesus used his power to empower others. In fact, Jesus used his power to empower worldly people. He layed his power down to be a servant, to lift others up, to set an example, to be inclusive, to strengthen the weak. In fact, he said that if the strong wish to follow him, they must become weak.

We all have gifts. At one place or another, we are all 'powerful' people. The question is whether we will use our power like Jesus, for others, or like Samson, for ourselves. Samson could have changed the world. Jesus did.