On the Virginia Tech Shooting:
April 2007…

I just added Cho Seung-Hui to my Word spell-check dictionary.

He doesn’t deserve such recognition. It’d be better if, for years to come, whenever anyone typed his name in any document, it would promptly be underlined with red.

But people will be writing about him for decades, though likely not with the spin he was hoping for.

Apparently, he thought himself a martyr. In the videotaped manifesto he mailed to NBC, he associates himself with the boys from Columbine. With rotting hatred he blames every person caught up in the culture of the day. People like you and me. People with laptop computers, email addresses, cars that run, and dreams to pursue. All said, Cho insists it is our fault that all those students are dead.

And on this point he is right. He is right in the abstract.

But in the specific, he is very wrong.

Make no mistake; Cho Seung-Hui is a murderer, not a martyr.

But it is true that we all share in the eventual breakdown of humanity, and the destruction of creation. Not in his act specifically, but in our disposition corporately.

It is true that each of us has blood on our hands.

It is true that we all contribute somehow to the cause of this effect.

And we are not excused from our own sin just because he was the one who pulled the trigger, over and over again.

Does it hurt yet?

We are quick to categorize, aren’t we? Cho is a creature unlike us. We could never do what he did. Our hearts are not so bent.

Ah, but our Story says otherwise. Our story claims that were it not for the fear of consequences enforced by civil law, we might all very easily be predisposed to crimes of such magnitude.

And more profoundly, apart from the redemptive work begun by God in Christ (and promised from before the beginning of all time), manifested in individual hearts and corporate communities, we would end in a royal bloodbath for sure. For the bent to have our way, the demand to be paid heed to, the ache to be respected - even loved - unchecked, would drive us all to take matters into our own hands.

And our hands would drip with blood.

Yet perhaps a royal bloodbath is precisely what we need, but of a very different kind.

Royal as in the Kingly kind. Blood as in the blood of Christ.

Perhaps what disturbs me as much in Cho’s words as I am grieved by his actions, is his violently flawed interpretation of the life and death of Christ, as paralleled by his own:

“Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.”

Cho died hating those he killed. Cho brought death.

Christ died loving those who killed him. Christ brought life.

Big difference.

We don’t need Cho’s revolution; we need Christ’s.

If it is a bloodbath we need, it is the life-giving blood of Christ. His is the death and revolution we need. Blood that not only covers us in forgiveness, but blood that pulses through us in life-giving, world-transforming, life-change.

In the end, Cho is responsible for his crimes just as we are responsible for ours. And the greatest crime of all time, the crime for which the blood is indeed on our hands, is the rejection of the God who loves us as God loves us in Christ.

Accepting Him is receiving His life and accepting His ways - perpetual re-creation through self-sacrificial love.

Love that gives life. Not hate that takes it.

Love that takes the bullet. Not hate that pulls the trigger.

We watch the news and we wake up to the world that is. It is broken. There is real evil here. Left unchecked and unrestrained in any of us it would wreak the eventual destruction of life. It happens every day. And what is done cannot be undone. But what may otherwise become the inevitable end in any situation can be avoided - the story rewritten - by the simple but sustained invasion of heavenly presence in and through the lives of those who belong to God. We go to Him to be saved from our own darkness, and then we participate in the dawning of His kingdom here. Simple, faithful acts of kindness, forgiveness, acceptance, and appropriate and well-timed truth-telling can rewrite a person’s story from one of destruction to one of deliverance. I am watching this happen this week.

A week or two prior to Easter, a friend of mine confessed to me his fantasies of murder. He had been hurt before. He felt altogether unloved (though this may not have been an actuality, it was true in his mind).

A vague suicide note months before had landed him in a mental-psyche ward for three days and an incurred bill of $3000 for what he suggested was liability reasons. He determined never to mention his fantasies or suicidal thoughts to a professional ever again. But he was willing to do so with me. He needed to talk it out. He needed someone to hear the person beneath the pain.

He confessed serial killer tendencies. Days later he had strung up an extension cord.?Ǭ† Wrote the note. Called me in a last-ditch S.O.S. Acknowledged recently that had he easy access to firearms, someone would’ve been dead. I opted out of an Easter Service band rehearsal to pick this guy up and drive around a Minneapolis lake for three hours while he stabilized and made specific plans to make it through another day. Spent most of the time listening and loving. Spoke proactive truth when it seemed appropriate to do so. I have no doubt that death was prevented that night.

But this was not an isolated incident of redemption. Ten years ago this friend left the church in a spiteful rage. He systematically isolated himself from every Kingdom representative he had ever known. He tried to do the same with me, but I wouldn’t let him. He was my friend, and I loved him, after all. The culmination of ten faithful years of sustained (though not consistent in measure) presence in his life was realized in that evening by the lake and in the daily interaction in weeks that followed. There is now this day the evidence of unfolding redemption in his story.

The potential shedding of blood in and by his life was prevented by the preemptive shedding of Christ’s blood on Calvary. Christ’s selfless love saved me, inspired me, and empowered me to play a part in Christ’s salvation brought to this broken world.

So this causes me to ask a question regarding Virginia Tech: where were God’s people in Cho’s life? Where were the Kingdom representatives? Not all evil can be prevented in this world, but it can be curbed. We do not know of the violence that goes unrealized in the otherwise destructive lives of those who’ve been redeemed by God. How many of us are there in the Kingdom today that might have been perpetrators of these very deeds were it not for the redemption Christ has already brought (and is currently bringing) through our lives?

Never underestimate “unnoticed” acts of kindness. Never assume the little you can do makes no difference. Indeed, Christ knows the force of the revolution He has begun. Let us trust Him to do what He does greatly through that which we can do but feebly.

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH
PSALM 23

It was a warm spring weekend at the end of April 2005. I had been incredibly busy for four months. In the studio and at church, the demands of ministry had required more of me than I had to give, and any capacity I’d once had for compassionate ministry had shriveled up in the pressures of the season. I hadn’t spent time alone with my Creator for months. His Word had become foreign to me. I was still teaching it, but I hadn’t listened for a long time. As a result I’d become spiritually stale in faith and deed. Akin to a dead man washed ashore after a shipwreck, I needed reviving. I needed new life breathed into me. To be brought back to life. To be rescued and revived.

My wife willingly gave me blessing to take a three-day silent retreat at the completion of an album that had consumed me for so long.?Ǭ† I drove northward from the Twin Cities towards Inspiration Point Bible Camp near Fergus Falls. I brought no music. On the drive up I sought to recall passages of scripture that I had memorized in years past. And while when speaking or teaching I occasionally find scripture as accessible as though I had a photographic memory, that afternoon heading west on Interstate 94, in the spiritual comatose nurtured by my apathy, all I could remember were the words of the 23rd Psalm.

Psalm 23. The foremost psalm of comfort and consolation. Undoubtedly the most well-known Psalm, if not the most loved, across all cultures and generations in the history of the world. In brilliant poetry Israel’s King David identifies the Lord as our Shepherd, and we as His sheep. That afternoon as I drove, I flipped open a little NIV just to make sure I was getting the verses in the right order.

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”

Paths of righteousness… Sounds like the right road to be on. Sounds like it goes someplace good. If the journey makes a man’s life, this is the journey by which a life is made good. The path is righteousness, and I would assume it leads to righteousness, as well.

There are three things we can know about this path from these verses: 1) Who leads us on it: It is the Good Shepherd, the Lord, who takes us down this road. It is He who directs our steps and keeps us on this road - on this road, and not another. 2) Why we’re on it: The Good Shepherd has put us on this road for His purposes - for His name’s sake. This is important to Him. He’s got His reasons. 3) Where it goes…

Did I get the order right? Verse four comes after verse three, right?

“He leads me on paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…”

I had parked my car at the bottom of Inspiration Peak at the tail end of my three-hour drive. It was an hour before sunset, and I felt a good hike up to the second highest peak in Minnesota might be a good thing to do before checking into camp for the night. The hike was harder than it had ever been before. I was so easily winded. I assumed I was merely out of shape.

A half hour later at the top of what the Ojibwe call “Rustling Leaf Mountain” I sat down on the backrest of a wooden bench to watch the sunset. It was warm up there. And windless. There were no leaves rustling when it first occurred to me that the paths of righteousness in David’s Psalm lead through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. This is where the Good Shepherd leads His sheep. This is where the Paths of Righteousness must go.

I silently cried sitting there that evening, watching the sun go down on what I felt was another passing season of my life, as I knew somehow that this truth had deep and painful implications for me - indeed, for any sheep who was in the Good Shepherd’s care.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death did not sound like a good thing to me. Three words converged into one moniker maliciously dripping with negative implications.

Four years earlier I had gone backpacking with three other guys for a week in the Utah desert. We’d hiked five miles into a little valley called Hackberry - seventeen miles from the nearest highway - and set up camp at the base of a narrow canyon.

During the day we would hike up and out of the canyon into the high places. There we could see for miles, and it was beautiful. But in the middle of the canyon, there wasn’t much to see but the gray, rocky canyon walls. In the valley, there was no reference point, no horizon?Ǭ† - there was no way of knowing where we were. Without a guide or a good map, one could easily get lost in the valley.

Another thing about the valley is that there was so little light. While the days at that time of the year were near fourteen or fifteen hours long, the sunlight reached the valley floor for only six to seven hours each day. And when the sun did shine into the valley, it was a stifling heat, stale and breathless. But most of the time, it was dark and cool, a constant shadow. Not shade. Shade is good. This was shadow. A blocking of the sun.

I guess there was at least one good thing that could be said about that valley - there was water there. We set up camp next to a stream in the middle of this valley. More specifically, right next to a spring that fed the stream. This was the freshest water one could find in that desert. We’d fill our canteens every morning there in the valley before heading to the high country for the day.

I’ve heard that this was also often true of the valleys in the country where David was a shepherd as a boy. The freshest pools of water were in the valley. That’s one of the places a good shepherd would bring his flock for water. To drink elsewhere would be risking contamination or disease.

There’s something else I remember hearing about those valleys in David’s day - they were dangerous. It was a dangerous place to be. Thieves and beasts lurked in those shadows. Wolves lay in wait for the unattended sheep or traveler walking through the valley alone, posed to attack their prey when there’d be no one near to help or to hear the cries.

No, I do not think I like The Valley of the Shadow of Death. I’ve come to intimately know something about this Shadow and its valley. Something that is suggested by the valley imagery and implied by its name. And something that has been experientially proven to me.

As I sat on that hill that evening watching the sun set - as I was catching my breath from the hike up the path - a cancerous tumor the size of a man’s hand was spreading its fingers over every vital organ in my chest, threatening to choke out my life in a matter of months.

I would find this out just a few weeks later. And the subsequent chemotherapy necessary to rid my being of this cancer would change the landscape of my life for at least the next two years. I could tell of four specific occurrences in which death loomed so near I shivered in its shadow. It was all I could see. And I would have to tell you that I was afraid. I was afraid mostly for my family. Who would care for them if I were to leave this world so long before them?

While many might legitimize this fear in terms of genuine love and concern, I have seen it to be in me a lack of trust. Could I trust our Good Shepherd to do here what I could no longer do if I were dead? Could I trust Him enough to agree with Him when He said it was my time to go?

King David did not quiver in this shadow, and he has left his God-inspired poetry as a clue for us as to how this was so for him. He tells us why he did not fear, and why we need not fear, as well.

“Even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for THOU ART WITH ME, THY ROD AND THY STAFF, THEY COMFORT ME.”

In the darkness of the shadow of the valley, the sheep may not be able to see the shepherd, but it could feel the end of the shepherd’s staff nudging it along, guiding it first this way, and then that, keeping the sheep on the path, near the shepherd, and out of harm’s way. And though not knowing much (why they were there, where they were going) the sheep would know that if there was the shepherd’s staff, then there was also the shepherd.

We do not have a physical rod or staff to guide us in this life, but neither are we sheep. We are people. And just as a rod and staff would provide guidance and security for a sheep in the shadows, the Word and the Spirit do the same for us in our darkest seasons.

The Word of Christ and the Spirit of Christ testify to the presence of Christ, who evoked this imagery when He spoke of Himself as The Good Shepherd. It is through these means - the Word and the Spirit - that God seeks to communicate to us still that He is with us, and our valleys are no surprise to Him. This rod and this staff tell us that God is here, He knows what He is doing, and we can trust Him to work His good through this bad thing.

There was one other significant thing that God did for me (and in me) that weekend up near Inspiration Peak. The evening I left the camp I stopped my car where the gravel road leaving Inspiration Point met up with the highway. There was one book I had brought along that I hadn’t found the time to read, and fortunately for me, the author of this book had included a CD of himself reading the book. Convinced that it was alright if I listened to something other than music, I put the CD in my stereo and pulled onto the highway.

The book was by Minneapolis Pastor John Piper. It was poetry - a four-part poem on the life of Job called The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God. As a work of art I consider it to hold the potential of a classic. And as balm for the soul, I consider it one of the more foundational works in fortifying my faith in the strength and goodness of God.

I drove the backroads of central Minnesota for forty-five minutes that evening in a life-changing blurr. With the sun already set, the moon rising high, the windows down and tears blurring my vision, I drove slowly, turning onto whatever road seemed most conducive to the solitude I needed to fully absorb the story I was being told.

Job’s story spoke so deeply into my being that God could be trusted. And that God was so good, and so strong, that His good purposes would be accomplished - not merely in spite of Satan’s rage - but even in and through Satan’s efforts to destroy whatever God has made and is making good.

Redemption is something God does. No one does redemption like God. He alone can take something absolutely awful and take hold of it for the absolutely best possible outcome. It is for this reason that in this season of Lent we remember and honor Christ on the Cross. For on Calvary, God brought that which is absolutely good through that which was absolutely awful. Christ, with our sin on His body, hanging upon our cross, was forsaken by God so that we need never be removed from God’s life-sustaining presence. Because of Christ we can always say, “the Lord is with us.”

And In the Garden of Gethsemane we see the Lord in anguish, crying out to His Father on the eve of His descent into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He prays with blood and tears for another way to the other side of this valley. Yet being it was clear to Him that His Father was leading Him on this Path of Righteousness as He always had, and that this Path went through the Valley, Jesus spoke His resolve in these words, “Not my will, but Yours, be done.”

So God in Christ, our Good Shepherd, knows exactly what it is like to want a way out, to ache for a better way. God gets it. He understands. Yet in the perfect display of trust which followed - His body broken and His blood spilled out - our Good Shepherd not only taught us trust, but fulfilled trust for us.

In faith and in the sacraments we bind ourselves to Christ. We remember His suffering and His obedience. We remember His trust in following His Father into the Valley and to the Cross. And we bind ourselves to Him. I need this. I need communion. If I am to walk the path into the valley I need more than the faith I can muster, I need His. I need to commune with The Good Shepherd. I need Him with me. I need Him in me.

There is one last vital thing we must remember about valleys, and it is so obvious that we can too easily take it for granted. It is demonstrated in Christ’s resurrection. It is implied in the language of the 23rd Psalm. And it is the substance of the hope that keeps us walking in the Shadow of Death, whether that death is the death of a relationship, a dream, a career, a loved one, our health, or our bodies.

The vital thing we must remember about valleys is that valleys lie between high places. Though the path of righteousness leads into the valley, it does not end there. It goes through. The Shepherd is with us through the valley. There is an end to this struggle.

“For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love” (Lamentations 3:31-32).

“After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all Grace, who called you to eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (I Peter 5:10).

There is a view on the other side of the valley that will be worth all our sorrow. To see it, God must first heal our eyes, and He does this in the Shadow of the Valley. God has things to tell us on the other side that we cannot hear unless our ears are healed, and He does this in the Silence of the Valley.

The Word and the Spirit, our Shepherd’s rod and staff, assure us that “the end of a matter is better than it’s beginning.” Though the Good Shepherd may lead us into The Valley of the Shadow of Death, He does not leave us there. The path goes through. We must remember that just as Christ is no longer on the Cross or in the Grave, we are travelers - visitors - in the Valley. Not residents, not citizens.

“For our citizenship is in heaven…”

It is the High Countries to which we belong. It is there from which we have come, and it is there to which we are going.

“And [we] will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

AMEN.

Eat This Book: What I think of The Message Bible

One of my primary texts for life, from here on out, is Eugene Peterson’s “Eat This Book.” I read it through quickly this summer, and intend to spend more time with it soon. In “Eat This Book,” Peterson makes an elaborate and tangible case for a hermeneutic of action. He says that HOW we read the Bible is as important THAT we read it.

Drawing from John’s apocalyptic experience in Revelation - the one in which John is told to “eat the scroll” rather than copying it word for word - Peterson strongly suggests that scripture is to be so integrated into our life that it becomes both what we are and what we do. The question to be asked (and answered) of the text with as much gusto as “What does this mean?” is “How do I live this?”

A common theme of contemporary Christian conversation is what John Eldredge refers to as “Epic.” Though it is not new (Peterson regularly quotes Karl Barth along these lines), in “Eat This Book” we hear with clarity and conviction the invitation to enter into “the world of the Bible” (Barth) - to recognize and play our part in the story that God is telling.

Whether Eugene specifically made this point or not, I recall at least the implication that an approach to scriptures that addresses them solely for purposes of systematic theology is extremely deficient. And I know that I’ve done this: it is reading every word through the filter of our doctrine, and sorting the verses into categories or theological systems that have been pre-established. This is not a bad thing to begin with, and as it is fleshed out in the relational experiences of our lives it actually plays an essential role in God being seen in the world. But divorced from living, or taken to the all-too-common extreme of discarding, ignoring, or explaining away verses that don’t fit into our systems, this approach becomes the bane of true God-blessing faith.

Instead, Peterson reminds us to engage the narrative that is the Bible - the story that God is telling, the revelation it is of Him - so as to become part of it, or better said, to recognize that we are part of it already. Story is how the human race and individuals in it throughout history have found meaning, and learned what they most remember. This is evidenced in the oral traditions of nearly every people group prior to Guttenberg’s printing press. Since then somehow (perhaps arm in arm with Enlightenment rationalism), we’ve lost the sense of wonder and bigness that we are both born with and drawn to within the context of Epic.

When we were kids in Sunday school, we heard of a shepherd boy who slain a giant with a rock and we learned that God plus one is a majority. We heard of a man with a boat full of animals and learned that God takes seriously his desire for the families of the earth to live as he made them to. Stories teach without stating plainly the truths that they convey. And as such, we come to understand these truths in a way that is much deeper than merely being able to reproduce how’s and when’s and who’s. The ability to recall simple facts can lead us to believe we know something that we don’t yet really know. We may be able to answer the question, but are we living the truth affirmed with that answer?

I remember when it first occurred to me I could read the Bible like I read a novel: start at the beginning, read until I get tired or distracted, put it down, pick it up where I left off the next day, and do it again and again until I am done (I don’t feel badly if I don’t read three chapters a day of whatever novel I’m reading). I realize this may not be a particularly new idea to most of you, but it was to me. Like an old idea made new. I had been taught somehow that scripture was supposed to be used to make points, and the best way to do that was to find the verses that proved your point and ignore the rest. So this was how I read the Bible.

Until January 1998. For whatever reason, I thought I’d try reading the Bible this other way - as a story. It wasn’t that I abandoned “daily devos” or stopped thinking about doctrine or theology or anything like that. I just added to that an effort to enjoy reading the Bible. Just enjoy it. I got engaged in the story. I imagined. I saw. I felt. I wondered. And I enjoyed it.

And as I enjoyed it, I began to realize that I was a part of this story - that this God who was doing all these things with and through all these people knew me. And I was coming to know Him. And what is scripture, if not a revelation of God and his dynamic relationship with his creatures?

I should mention that, while I started with Genesis in 1998, I just finished Jeremiah this spring, eight and a half years later (that is, within the context of this progressive reading… I’ve read more elsewhere). But what I have read this way has gotten deeper inside me than what can be absorbed by study alone.

Peterson does go to great lengths to affirm the necessity of study, however. His aim is not to discredit serious scholarship. Peterson himself is an educated student of the scriptures, and “The Message” Bible (which he describes translating/paraphrasing in “Eat This Book”) is subsequently a serious work of scholarship as much as it is a work of art. He merely seeks to enlarge the spectrum of our interaction with the text.

I’ve long understood the responsibility of an artist (and a preacher, for that matter) to “make truth new:” to expose us to what we may already know or have already heard in a way that causes us to “notice” it again, or in a way we hadn’t before. This is one of Eugene’s intentions in “The Message.” He says himself of the work, “Writing straight from the original text, I began to attempt to bring into English the rhythms and idioms of the original language. I knew that the early readers of the New Testament were captured and engaged by these writings and I wanted my congregation to be impacted in the same way. I hoped to bring the New Testament to life for two different types of people: those who hadn’t read the Bible because it seemed too distant and irrelevant and those who had read the Bible so much that it had become ‘old hat.’”

It is commonly acknowledged that “The Message” is not a study Bible, but a readers Bible. It is aimed in part at reintroducing those familiar with the text to the wonder and amazement of it all… the bigness… the grandness of the story of which we are a part. (Walter Wangerin’s “The Book of God” does this in similar, though more liberal, fashion).

For those of us either critical or merely curious of Eugene’s “translation” of the Bible into “The Message,” he provides context and explanation for the work and his approach in the final chapters of “Eat This Book.” Referring to two archeological discoveries of the last century, he makes the point that much of the original text was written in a language that was part and parcel of the common everyday life language of the people for whom it was originally written. He makes a strong case for the translation process including an application of the cultural idioms of the currently addressed people group.

Acknowledging that many have preferred a more “formal” language in their interpretation of scriptures, he traces this to the assumption that the original text actually included certain words intended specifically for the purpose of speaking things of God. This assumption had been made historically on account of certain words that appeared only in the scriptures, which were absent in other pieces of literature from the same time period.

The two pertinent archeological discoveries uncovered these words, however, on shopping lists and personal correspondence (letters between family members), suggesting that, while the words were not used in formal literature, they were very much a part of the common tongue - the everyday life language of the people. The conclusion of these discoveries affirmed for Peterson his efforts to convey the message of the scriptures in language and form that does for us what the original language did for its original hearers.
The sum effect of his dissertation for me was liberation. Suddenly, in at least one way, I was off the hook. If in reading the Bible I read a verse that caused tension between it and my current understanding of systematic theology, it wasn’t my primary responsibility to reconcile the two in the realm of explanation, but to live what I did understand in the realm of experience. For Peterson, the best way to come to understand what we don’t know is to live what we do. It is, in essence, how we “eat this book.”

Lastly, while it might be simple for a critic to write off “Eat This Book” as a defensive move by one striving to vindicate (and perhaps sell) his paraphrase of scripture, I sensed Peterson to be far too pastoral in his writing to be accused of such capitalistic and egocentric motives. And I mean “pastoral” in the best possible way: one who cares as deeply as we understand a good shepherd to care for his sheep. I am one sheep who feels cared for as I read “Eat This Book.”

(Consequently, I also purchased Zondervan’s NIV/Message parallel Bible with a snazzy blue leather duo-tone cover. And I like it very much.)

(Or “Eli’s delight in my delight in him is my delight”)

What?

Eli is four months old now. I just watched him trying to roll over ?¢‚ǨÀútil his face was red and frowny. I held out my pointer finger for him as he was lying on his side, and he reached for it, grabbed onto it and began to pull like crazy. He was moving mountains with that little body of his. His face got redder, he pulled, and he rolled over onto his belly.

I celebrated like he had done it himself. And I imagine when he finally does get over on his own (probably in the next few weeks or so) I’ll likely do a little dance for him. It’s a big thing for a little lad to be able to get around like that. Roll this way. Flip that way. It’s an infant’s rite of passage; like a driver’s license for a wee one.

A couple weeks ago, Eli and I had a moment. We connected. It was after supper. I sometimes do the cooking (because I really like eating), and when I do, Jen so kindly cleans up my mess after we eat. This was one of those nights. As she was moving dishes from the table to the dishwasher, I sat at the table with the boys, showing Aedan how to play Wheel of Fortune like a winner, and talking through the day’s events with my offspring.

Eli sat in a little bouncy chair on the floor for a while, being perpetually bounced by trained daddy-reflexes in my left foot, and then began to fuss a bit. I probably would too if I was the odd man out - tucked under the table while the big guys talked about important things up top. I picked him up, set him on my lap, told him he was cool, and asked if he had anything he’d like to offer our conversation.

He looked at me for a moment like I had just solved the world’s problems with whatever I had just said, and his face was just so darn cute that I grinned a bit. Just a bit. I gave him a little rise in my cheeks, squinted my eyes like one does when agreeing with a pleasant proposition, and in that moment, his tiny face (chubby cheeks notwithstanding) exploded in a display of pleasure I’ve not seen on a human face this side of the grave. His mouth went wide open - you could’ve seen all 32 teeth if he’d had them - and his eyes sparkled like an Independence Day sky filled up with a hundred of those willow tree fireworks, dangling and flickering for what seems like hours.

This sudden explosion of simple and utter joy in the face of my son caught me off guard. It was so incredibly contagious, that in a split second my face did the same thing. And then this unbelievable thing happened, his smile got bigger, and his eyes got brighter. Then so did mine. And so it continued for a full minute or more, each of our smiles getting bigger and bigger, basking in the pleasure of the other. The joy was uncanny and unrestrained - seriously akin to an explosion. Aedan just stood at my side and laughed. The muscles on the sides of my head began to seize up. I hadn’t used them like that for a long time - holding a smile so huge and so genuine for that long, laughing that hard with my boys - that my eyes began to water.

It’s happened just like that many times since then - almost once a day - but that first time is something I’ll never forget, and not merely because it’s the only time I can remember pulling muscles in my temples. I’ll never forget that Eli taught me something that night. Or better said, that God reminded me of something in that moment with Eli: As that undeniable pleasure, that irresistible joy exploded in the face of my boy when he saw me delighting in him, and as his delight became undeniable pleasure and irresistible joy in me, it occurred to me that it had been a terribly long time since I’d delighted in Abba like that.

“Abba,” Hebrew for “dear father” or “daddy,” is how Jesus invited us to address His Father, our Creator God; the Sovereign Almighty. It’s absurd, but truer than the reluctance rooted deep inside me, or the distractions traipsing all around me that keep me from enjoying such an intimate relationship with this God who invites it.

It’s hard to imagine a stoic, almighty being delighting in me as I delighted in Eli that night at the kitchen table. Especially when it feels like I’m still learning to roll over at thirty. But I don’t believe joy or delight, or even pleasure, for that matter, could be man-inventions. We’re just plain not that clever, or that good. If I can experience such depths of goodness in the delight of my boy as his daddy, I have to believe that God experiences the same with His children. It has to come from somewhere. But it’s more than a God-invention. It’s in who He is. And we experience it because we, as humans, are made in his image.

But like I said, I haven’t experienced that with God for a long time. I haven’t experienced His delight in me as His child. I haven’t belly-laughed with sheer pleasure at the absurd actuality of God’s love for me. But it’s not that I don’t believe in that delight. I know of it cognitively. The Bible states it plainly enough, over and over again: “For the LORD your God has arrived to live among you. He is a mighty savior. He will rejoice over you with great gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will exult over you by singing a happy song.” Zephaniah 3:17 NLT. The sustained theme of God’s relentless pursuit to be the delight of His children is written throughout the scriptures. And on this side of the Cross - God’s decisive interaction of justice and love - I too am His child, and the Bible says He actually does delight in His children.

It’s not unbelief, not lack of knowledge that keeps this experience intangible and aloof for me. I’m guessing the problem lies somewhere in the direction of my gaze, and that when I do glance at the face of my Abba it’s only that - a glance at, rather than a gaze into. As Eli sat on my lap that evening, he was captivated by my face. He waited for my approval, and when I merely hinted at my pleasure in him, his joy ruptured all over the place. Through his eyes, his smile, his laughter, and his jiggling baby fat on his arms and belly, his delight in my delight echoed throughout his body, and in the only way he knew how, he lived out my delight. His joy struck a reflex of pleasure in me - the source of his pleasure - and I rejoiced in it in a most natural way. I laughed with him. Couldn’t help it.

I wonder how a moment like this with our heavenly Abba might change our lives. I wonder how it might change mine. I can see now how I’m not allowing the opportunity for such a moment. Instead of gazing at the face of God in scriptures, in patient prayer, or in beauty and goodness, I gaze at my troubles. And if I do glance at Abba, it’s merely a glance, quick and unfocused, with an urgent request for Him to stop staring at me and notice my troubles. I plead indignantly, like a spoiled child, “Do you see all this? It’s too much for me! So what are you going to do about it?”

But it’s not that Abba doesn’t know of our troubles. He ordained them. They may very well be the stuff necessary in the remaking of the man or woman He created us to be. Like learning to roll over or sit up, fighting the gravity of this world, building strength in the muscles He made us to have and use. For things like laughter and smiles, jiggling baby fat, and good works that He ordained for us to do.

It’s just that He knows so very well that we can’t endure them, much less conquer them, if we gaze intently at our troubles. Hebrews 12 tells us that Christ Himself endured the Cross only by setting His gaze on the joy beyond it - the joy of being reunited with His Father, with a pure and spotless bride to boot. It’s not that He didn’t see the Cross - it was in the foreground, fuzzy maybe, a bit out of focus - but He didn’t gaze at it. He saw His Cross, but His gaze was fixed on the face of the Father.

Yet while on the Cross, there was actually a moment when that face was intentionally turned away from Him, as our sins were laid on His bleeding body - the only time in all eternity that the Father did not delight in His one begotten Son. He did this once for all, so that we as His children need never to experience the actual and painful absence of Abba’s perpetual gaze. It is His gaze on this planet, and His delight in His children that provides for whatever goodness and whatever grace there is in this world, or in our lives.

Because Jesus endured such rejection for me, I can know that in the midst of my troubles, and in spite of - no, because of the fact that I feel like such a disappointment so often (still learning to roll over at thirty) I can, and must gaze into the face of my Abba. Perhaps fearing to find disapproval and disappointment, but hoping nonetheless to find the squinty eyes and rising cheeks of an oncoming explosion of divine and existential joy. Because of the Cross of Christ, this is the God we encounter, an “Abba, Father” who really does delight in His children.

And I trust that as Abba seeks to communicate His pleasure to me, I will remember the sore temples that Eli gave his daddy that night, and believe that my delight in God is inexplicably more capable of perpetuating that joy in cosmic proportions. So much so that maybe, if it were possible, my Maker would pull a muscle or two in a gigantic, uncontrollable grin.

Praying my gaze may be as His,
Jeremy

Hey! Look at me! I’m blogging!

Like the new website? Many thanks to Mark Haugen (Lift-Off) and Jessi Gurr (Iceberg Hosting) both of Morris - they’ve really done most of the work. I just write stuff, they make it look pretty.

Also, I can’t pass up the opportunity to express how indebted I am to a Mr. Kevin White. He’s been the guy behind jeremyerickson.com for the last six years. Unheralded, he’s been in charge of maintenance, postings, design, online orders, shipping, mailing lists, and much else. He’ll still be doing much of that in years to come, but I haven’t had the opportunity to thank him like this till now (kinda behind his back). So thanks, Kev. It’s been good.

I’m reading this book on perfectionism by Dr. Richard Winter. He’s a professor and practicing Psychiatrist at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis. The book’s called “Perfecting Ourselves to Death,” and I’ve heard him lecture on it several times before (he’s also a L’Abri guy). So why, you ask, am I reading a book on perfectionism?

Because I have a particular bent towards perfectionism, myself, and sometimes, to be frank, it makes life rather miserable. Not just for me, either, but for many around me. A main thrust of the book is helping the reader to understand perfectionism - how it can be good, how it can be bad - and then offering practical help in overcoming and/or learning how to live with it. What I’ve found to be arresting - a hunch I’ve had all along, which research confirms and his writing makes clear - is the way perfectionism can contribute to procrastination and indecisiveness. He puts it this way: in the mind of a perfectionist, it is “better to be blamed for lack of effort or efficiency than lack of ability!”

Though I haven’t read this section yet, I’m guessing one of the practical ways of overcoming perfectionist tendencies is to intentionally do something counterintuitive to that particular bent, like launch a website before everything’s in place, and before all the bugs have been worked out. Well, that’s what we did, and Dr. Winter, I’m feeling better already! Thank you.

So that’s my first blog. How’d I do? My understanding from reading the blogs of those who have blogged before me, is that this is a place for me to either rant or confess. While I have little doubt I will do a bit of both from time to time (I guess this might’ve been my first confession), I do intend to use this forum for much more. We’ve ditched the message board, so if you’ve got something to add to the discussion at any time you can post a comment beneath any one of my postings - here or on my cancer updates. Or you can send me an email. In either case, thanks for reading.

Relaxing my standards a little, and loving it,
Jeremy