Shenandoah!

One of the perks of working at the stereotypical downtown coffee shop is having a piano that cool music students come in and play. It's like having a perpetually changing live soundtrack to work to. One guy plays "on the street where you live," another plays "blue moon," it's always wonderful. Today's person was a guy who, I think, may actually the male form of Ann. The entire time that he was playing his emotion just poured through his music. Part of the way into his little practice session, he played the theme song to a western that I LOVED as a little girl. I couldn't help it, I had a spontaneous happy moment while I listened and as I was having this happy moment I happened to look up and see a tiny old man having the exact same happy moment. He pointed into the air and said "Shenandoah" and then we were friends. How nice to remember that all it takes is something as small as a cheesy western song to make new friends!

"Breathed Immortal Love"

This week we are reading Milton's Paradise Lost, a book which is about as widely recognized as the Iliad or the Bible. We all know OF it, but few of us have actually taken the time to slow down and understand it. However, some of us (namely me) are currently getting the chance to do this under the guise of getting good grades. Tonight is Passover, but I have spent a good portion of it at home finishing homework. Not exactly the most spiritual idea ever, but God is good and he is faithful to meet us where we are. I opened up my homework assignment in Paradise Lost to Book III or the great consult of heaven. In this, Milton imagines that God, father and son, are sitting in heaven surveying for the first time the beauty of creation when they perceive that Satan is flying towards this glorious creation. Understanding immediately what is going to happen the Father speaks to the Son of the implications that Adam will most certainly fall and that there must be atonement for Adam's fall. He explains that because Adam will be deceived, he will receive grace, but that he [God] is fundamentally just and so there must also be the satisfaction of Adam's debt. All of these ideas are familiar to Christians as we have heard this since kindergarten Sunday school. What is not familiar is the idea that BEFORE Adam sinned, God knew. BEFORE Adam strayed, Christ had made a way for his redemption. The part of this narrative which leaves us, as readers, in awe is the descriptions which Milton provides of Jesus, son of God, and the dialogue which takes place to secure man's safety. Let me share just a few with you, I know they're long and in virtually a different language, but take a few moments over these next couple of days, not to read my words, but to imagine with me what has taken place in heaven and on earth to bring us to this day where we can stand redeemed and glorified:

Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious. In Him all His Father shone
Substantially expressed and in His face
Divine compassion visibly appeared:
Love without end and without measure grace.

Man disobeying
Disloyal breaks his fealty and sins
Against the high supremacy of Heav'n,
Affecting godhead, and so, losing all,
To expiate his treason hath naught left
But to destruction sacred and devote
He with his whole posterity must die.
Die he or justice must, unless for him
Some other able and as willing pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death.
Say, Heavn'ly Pow'rs, where shall we find such love?
Which of ye will be mortal to redeem
Man's mortal crime and, just, th' unjust to save?
Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?

This desperate searching of heaven reveals absolute and utter silence. None are willing to subject themselves to the wrath and pain necessary to redeem creation's mistakes, your mistakes, my mistakes. But then a voice rises over the deafening silence:
Father, Thy word is past: MAN SHALL FIND GRACE!
... Behold Me then, Me for him, life for life,
I offer. On me let thine anger fall.
...I shall rise victorious and subdue
My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.
Death his death's wound shall then receive and stoop
Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed.
I through the ample air in triumph high
Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell and show
The pow'rs of darkness bound. Thou at the sight
Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile
While by thee raised I ruin all my foes,
...then with the multitude of my redeemed
Shall enter Heav'n long absent and return,
Father, to see Thy face wherein no cloud
Of anger shall remain but peace assured
And reconcilement. Wrath shall be no more
Thenceforth but in Thy presence joy entire.

And so in a burst of immortal love so deep, so innate, that it is the very breath of who He is, our security is made sure before we have even erred. And all of heaven breathes a sigh of relief for:

Heav'nly love shall outdo hellish hate,
Giving to death and dying to redeem
(so dearly to redeem) what hellish hate
So easily destroyed and still destroys
In those who, when they may, accept not grace.

And for this act of selflessness, our humiliation is taken from us and we can stand, confident, bold, and joyful in the presence of the very one whose wrath would have assured our destruction, finding on his face no trace of the anger which was once directed toward us. And on the face of the one towards whom the anger actually was directed we find no trace of regret, rather pure, radiant joy that we would approach him and stand with him before the father in the victory of light over darkness.

The birds and the bees, or how a wasp can teach you about peace

So this week in my peace and conflict studies class we are talking about mutually assured destruction, deterrence theories, appeasement theories, disarmament and on and on toward our ever raised goal of peace and nonviolence. Exciting right? Ok, not really. Especially not when it's a glorious spring afternoon and the LAST thing you want to think about is a bunch of dead guy's approaches to nuclear warfare while the world around you is bursting into life. What relevance do dead guys have to life now? Great question!

Spurred by the nice weather, I decided that it would be a great idea to sit on my porch and do homework in the sunshine. It was. Unfortunately, there is a rather large, ferocious family of wasps who have also claimed my porch as their own seeing as how it really is a lovely spot. My first girlish instinct when I saw the wasps was to grab the can of RAID and try to kill them. My second instinct was to stop and watch them. Bad idea. Somehow in those split seconds I managed to personify the wasps and give them great characteristics. All of the sudden the lead wasp was providing for his family by building them a home in the best spot that he could find: a sunny porch overlooking some flowering trees. He looked absolutely delighted as he scurried around and all of the sudden I didn't want to kill him, I wanted to name him (Stephen!) I came to the compromise that I wouldn't hurt him if he wouldn't hurt me. This proceeded quite well until he noticed that I was sitting there. At first he seemed fine and I felt confident in our mutual agreement to be non-combatants. However, he got increasingly agitated, eventually taking a few swoops in my direction. Now I came to a point of decision: do I stand by my principles and leave my wasp friend to his own devices, or do I kill him to make sure that I stay comfortable and unstung?


Friends, this is exactly what we are studying and will continue to be studying until the end of time in PCS classes. At what point does turning the other cheek become ludicrous? We vow peace, we vow to disarm, we vow to leave the countries around us to their own business, we vow to make the world a better place, but these vows are only as meaningful as the least common denominator, in my case: a wasp. You see, peace is dependent on individual hearts which makes it both the most beautiful thing to behold, and the most tenuous thing to accomplish. I don't have an answer for how to do this, but in the meantime it is a good and worthwhile thing to think about where we stand and what it is that we want to see. The wasp is a silly example, but then, I think that peace and hope start in our ability to see the small things and grow from them.

The Rain Rain Rain Came Down Down Down

Everyone should live in a small town during the springtime. There is a phenomenon which takes place the first time the sun shines on our little hibernating town when suddenly everyone comes out of hibernation together and it is as though all of people on the street with me are suddenly my friends. We smile at each other, we compliment the other's sunny dress or cheerful shoes and scarf. The flowers burst out in magnificent colors and the trees match the flowers in cheerful shades of green. It is hard to believe that a month ago we rushed to our cars in coats and frowns when all around us the world is almost dancing with excitement and new life. I have never experienced such a glorious and long-awaited spring. I feel almost as though I'm in a movie some days as I rush around trying to soak up as much sunlight as possible, unable to wipe the cheesy grin off of my face, only to see it reflected in the people around me as we conspiratorially remind each other that this is why we live in the midwest: so that we can experience the sheer, unadulterated delight and anticipation of changing seasons. We dream of corn on the cob, late night bonfires, afternoons by the pool, shorts, sandals, popsicles, late night walks under the stars, barbecues, homemade ice cream, naps, hammocks, picnics, and on and on the list goes getting longer with each passing day. In this whole week, two people have especially gotten how I feel: Emily Dickinson and Jim Croce. Laugh if you will, but their words have echoed and echoed through my mind as I've flitted through the sunshine. Listen to what they say and see if the words don't echo a little through your mind as you also experience this process of thawing out...

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

OR


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USVvxcaa4OA&feature=related

Make what you will of them, but then also tell me that you don't feel the same sense of longing for meaning and beauty and sincerity as you watch the world around you bursting into life!