An Amazing Complement

So I started to write a poem for my blog today but it was turning out really crappy and trite.

I hate it when that happens.

Especially since the chair of my thesis committee gave me such an amazing complement yesterday. And he didn't just say it privately, that is what is so nice. He wrote an email to myself, and the two other profs on my committee regarding my latest draft. He first of all said that except for some minor changes it is ready for defense and that we should set it up for October. Thank God. Then, speaking to me he said:

"Brad, the latest draft is a significant improvement from the previous one, and there are moments where your writing reads quite beautifully."

Moments where your writing reads quite beautifully. There is nothing in the world that is a better complement to a writer, especially one who is creatively minded as well as analytically so. I have known for a long time that I could write well, and that in any class I could pull an "A" from a paper without too much effort. But to be told publicly that my writing reads beautifully is such a huge thing for my confidence. It is important to me that I be able to think and write intelligently and with clarity, but it is even more important to me as a lover of literature that I be able to write even just a sentance or two in a piece that strikes and grabs a reader. One that makes a reader pause, go back and read the sentence again because it moved them in some way.

That and the fact that if he thinks that even only in "moments" my writing reads beautifully then I have a LOT better chance of passing my defense!!! Believe me I am getting nervous about that!

I'll fight anyone who says Bob Dylan wasn't a great poet and a prophet of sorts.

. . . .Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' whoThat it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'. . . .

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
(Dylan, B The Times they are a Changin' Columbia Records 1964)



Ok so I italicized some important parts of this song. Basically the ones that gesture towards the words of Christ. Why? Because the last five months have been a time of change for me.

Everything has been flip flopped and the "order is rapidly fadin'." And I am at a point where I know that changes have to and are being made, but I struggle with making some of those changes. Not that I don't want to, but that it seems so hard.

I cry out to God to make or help me make changes in my life -- real, deep down heart and soul changes -- and nothing seems to happen. Of course one can say that I am being impatient -- which I am -- but I want nothing more then to serve God and live the life that he intends for me. And though I have good intentions, I fail miserably.

Lessons in humility. That has actually been a motto of mine for this last little while. And it is true. For real change to occur we must have true humility, because we must know that we can't do it on our own. Our prideful flesh says "I can do it, I don't need your help." . . . and then we fall flat on our faces.

What changes do I long for? Simple: I want to live an incarnate life. I want to live in continual engagement with the Spirit of the living God. Catch-22. The change I want is what I need to make that change. Doh. So how does it come about??? Struggle, continual grasping, continual questing and quest-ioning.

But I am impatient. I want the times of my life to be changin' NOW. But as the song goes what is first now "will later" be different.

Can't later be now?????

Practice over theory . . . FINALLY

Hey,
What can I say, as those of you who know me know, it has been a crazy summer. But yes, my sister is right in her comment on the last post, the major substance of my thesis is done now, and I pray that my committee doesn't want too many changes. I love what I do, but at the moment I am kind of tired.

My thesis is about love, true Agape love that can only come through an encounter with Christ, because he was the first and only person to show this sort of love. As we continue to encounter and re-encounter Christ, our identity changes, it shift to be an identity that is has Christ in it, and consequently can see the world -- see other humans -- as Christ sees us.

This completely lines up with what my wife is talking about here. Mercy -- Charity, Agape -- complete self-giving and other-receiving love is incredibly hard to do. And yet, as christians that is what we are called to do.

Okay, enough theory. How is this playing out in my life?

Well, I am in a spot in life where I have chosen a few people with whom I am completely open and honest with. And as for the rest of life and my interactions I am doing the same as much as I can and still protect myself.

What does this mean? It means I am in a place where throught the strength of God, I am stepping out in trust with people. This is incredibly scary for me, as I have always been one to do things on my own and specifically NOT to trust people.

I am trying to put into play everything that I discovered through my recent research (both for my thesis and just in life). I have found that I need to trust, I need to open my arms and invite people into an embrace of relationship. If it is not reciprocated then I have to trust in God and give everything over to him.

Amazingly simple to write, incredibly hard to live.

I love my God, and I wish to follow him and live a life where the traces of him continually accrete in my identity.

For me that mean to give God my heart, soul, mind in total and complete love. And in doing so to give myself in the same way to others in my life.