The Blueprint Myth

I've always envied people who know, instinctively, passionately, what they 'want to do with their lives'. Because, in the spirit of frank honesty, I've never had a clue what to do with mine. I've never had that divine revelation, where you know, in your gut, that this is what I'm supposed to do, this is what I was meant for.

It gets kind of frustrating, to be honest.

I used to wonder if somewhere back in elementary school, the teachers decided to hand out blueprints to each student, showing them their lives in full-disclosure. These blueprints would have explained to everyone what they were good at, what they were passionate about, what these talents and desires mixed together would amount to, what career goal they would follow, what kind of education to get, etc.

I was late to elementary school a lot, so if they had handed out blueprints, I wouldn't be surprised to find out I had missed getting mine. Clearly they were given out at the beginning of class, while I was still in my dad's car wishing I wasn't late, again.

Over the years, various teachers and other adults in authority would give us some assignment about 'what we want to do with our lives', or somesuch thing, and I would always borrow my future career goal from whomever it was that I currently wanted to be more like. I internalized their desires, and would pretend they were mine.

But they weren't.

Which left me with no real goal. I did well in high school. I went to college because I was supposed to. I didn't do well in college, because I was floundering. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what I wanted to do, I didn't know why I was there. I changed majors several times, hoping to find something that suited me, something I could get passionate about, something that I could latch onto and make important.

Of course, I didn't find it, though I did find myself.

Unfortunately, that really didn't help either. Finding myself gave me a life goal. It's a great goal, and it's something I can honestly say I am passionate about. It's something that is noble, honest, and fulfills my desire to not only do something, but to be something.

What is this life goal?

To help people.

It's profound, and it's simple, and that's the problem. There are so many, many, many ways to help people in the world. It's irritating that these life decisions and goals don't come with the mythical blueprint. I still find myself asking "okay, so where do I go from here? What's the point of this current situations?"

I suppose I have to believe that other people around me suffer through this same wilderness. Otherwise the average American wouldn't change careers seven times in their lives, right? I have to believe that we're all looking for the perfect fit, for the moment we find the place, the job, the city, the person that brings all of the best of us out, that brings us to strive upwards and onwards, the thing that give us something to not just do, but to be, to believe in.

So, I guess I know what I want to do. I just need to discover the how.

But that's not really something to worry about, anymore. I know who I am, and am confident within that. I am not afraid of journeys, and with some simple goals, life opens.

Right now, I am going to look for how I can bring joy to others, express love for others, just flat-out help others in whichever position I find myself in. And I'll do what I can to teach others to do the same. And I guess we'll all discover what that looks like, and what that means in the process.

May we enjoy the journey. And each other. People are what life is truly about. Not jobs, careers, or even money. Those things all exist so we can have a life, so we can enjoy one another, and love above all else.

Are men like me.

There are days where I fail to believe the words I say. Where I fail to live as I desire, fail to be who it is I want to be. There are too many times where the Holy is just not worth the pursuit.

But, if I am to be honest, the reasons behind this failure, this utter disinterest, are very simple and quite apparent. The pursuit of love, of peace, the pursuit of a life lived through the Spirit...

It isn't easy.

And of course, when the easy option lies before us, and beyond it, we can see a long, torturous path, littered with difficulty, barriers, danger, strife, and a very real, very strong chance of hurt, whether physical or emotional, how many of us are going to turn the handle, and walk through the open door? After all, it's so easy to be angry, so easy to be petty, so easy to be upset, haughty, victimized, arrogant, selfish.

I must confess, this is so easy to see in others. In any crowded group of persons, if you take a seat and observe, you can see these traits in full display. Couples arguing, instead of listening to the very real hurt and insecurities they are obviously displaying. Parents ignoring their children, children ignoring their parents. Management taking advantage of their power over subordinates, subordinates harboring anger against those in power above them.

How easy it is to diagnose the problems of complete strangers. To watch them walk through the door of Ease and Complacency, of Shields and Barriers. To yell inside your head "If you'd just stop and listen!"

Peace is so easy to see from the outside.

But, from this angle we too grow complacent. Feeling safe and haughty in the mental towers from which we look down on those we observe. From such great heights, we could solve the problems of the world. Until we find that our tower of solitude and safety has itself become a tower of war, of violence, as we engage in the exact same behaviour we find so contemptable in others.

It is so easy when you know you are in the right. When you are that employee taking the sword of your manager's tongue, when you are that significant other being ignored and isolated, when you are that child being held to the expectations and dreams of a parent who gave up on theirs so long ago...

Stop. Listen.

I must confess, I am this person, far too often. The pursuit of peace, of love, at all costs, above all else, these are the basic tenets of the Faith to which I claim adherence. But practicality is a seductive mistress, and she has no qualms with turning your peaceful life upside down. When it feels so clearly as if I am the victim, or as if I am the one in the absolute right, it is so easy to find myself landing in her arms, and saying "my feelings are justified. Yours, oh emotional combatant, are not. Now, feel my anger."

But these enemies we build in our lives, these people we find ourselves opposite of, well, they're not going away. Life will always have obstacles, and more often than not, these obstacles will be human-driven, if not human.

And that's the key word here: human.

My enemies, well, they are men like me.

I have found, in recent times, that when I am in these situations, there has been a voice in the background screaming "why are you trying to do what you're doing? Why are you angry? Why are you upset? Calm down, and remember that you are a person, and you are dealing with a person. Stop. Listen."

I am attempting something relatively odd in this world of ours.

But it is something ancient and powerful. The very Creator of All spoke of it when He graced the world with His physical presence two-thousand years ago.

He said "Love your enemies, and do good to those who persecute you."

He said  "Love endures all things."

And it hurts to think that's true.

If I love my enemies, especially if I love them as I love myself, how can I let this emotional violence continue?

For my enemies, they are men like me.

Are men.

Like me.

When we allow love to break through the barriers in our lives, when we commit to ignoring the door of Ease in our relationships with others, we are able to find peace. When we stop ourselves from generalizing, from that selfish mindset that says my emotions are more important than yours, then we can let love break the barriers. When we allow ourselves to drop our guards and barriers, and share with others who we really are, and accept them for who they really are (humans, just like us), something profound happens.

Our enemies stop being people just like us.

Because they stop being our enemies.

They become people.

They become friends.

They can become family.

He said "Blessed are the peacemakers."

And He showed us with His life. He showed us with His death.

In the end, this all comes full circle. The ideas of peace and love are so intertwined, on such an elemental and intimate level, that it is impossible for one to exist without the other. To seek one without finding the other. The further we walk in the way of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Love, the further we walk in peace.

This kind of life, this kind of mindset, it is not easy. It is not painless. Life has taught all of us, often brutally so, that sometimes when you open up to others, abuse happens. Peace and Love don't come without a cost. We will be taken advantage of. We will be hurt by those we love.

He was.

But that fear is what pushes us into walls, into barriers, and ultimately into that tower of selfishness and isolation. And then the cycle and cynicism deepens.

But when we remember that those who hurt us, well, they are men like me.

And when we remember that we do those same things, we have the capacity to hurt those who love us, we must engage in the most important action and outpouring of love and peace:

Forgiveness.

It is the ultimate freedom.

But that, as they say, is for another time.

Falling Through Life

Fall, to me, has always been the most transitory of seasons. Maybe my life in Oklahoma is to blame here, but Fall always seems to bring Winter far sooner than I feel Winter merits arriving. It seems as if one day the weather is warm, the colours green, and inviting, and with little warning but the calendar months changing, the green has been lost, the weather is crisp, the wind chilled, and life's outlook bleak.

In short, I never liked Fall, because Fall brought Winter. And to someone who studied literature, even as briefly as my collegiate career can attest, it is hard to disassociate Winter from death.

The leaves fall, the grass withers, and where the breeze brought relief, it now brings a soul-searing chill. The world loses all colour during the Winter, and what is Fall but Winter's prelude? It is Fall where the world sheds its warm, inviting skin, mere skeletal limbs left nakedly reaching to the sky. Hollow shadows of the life and vitality they once claimed.

I know I am not the first, and I shall not be the last to make this claim, but Fall invites sorrow and mourning into the world. It seems, subconscious as it may be, that as the seasons change, and Winter approaches, our moods become tense, our tempers a reflection of the days' shortness.

But Fall is not Winter. And dying is not death. These things are mere heralds of what is to come. Shadows of the reality that shall soon be bursting forth. And before the death, the dying brings with it a sort of beauty.

It is a sobering beauty, a beauty as grand as it is sorrowful.



The world knows, in these fleeting Fall moments, that its moments are few, that its gasps are ragged, its pulse erratic. And so, with the last of the dignity maintained by any self-aware metaphor, Fall goes out in a blaze of colour, of life, a display that marks the vitality to which it once made claim.

And this dying man's last hurrah is one of the greatest moments lived. The beauty is stark- the sorrow is deep.

But my new-found appreciation of Fall, marked as it was by an incredible moment of insight belonging to someone else (like all good moments of insight in life!), brings to life a truth more profound than the imminent death that approaches and threatens as Winter.

Because the true beauty of Fall's glorious, incredible, and naively defiant last stand lies in another arena all together.

Hope.

Because beyond Winter, is Spring. And those beautiful dying gasps, defiantly uttered by Fall, are but mere shadow when compared to the staggering display of new life lovingly created in Spring's triumphant debut.

From here, the lesson of Easter, of Resurrection, of new Creation is clear. Just as the totality of Death, of Winter, sets in- Spring bursts forth into the world. Bringing with it a new life that is deeper and somehow more real than any of the life previously known. This is the hope of the Christian claim.

It is through death that death itself was defeated. It is through Resurrection that this defeat was made known, that a Kingdom was proclaimed, that the claims of its Lord were made known in their completeness. The Christian life hinges on the literal metaphor that is the yearly seasons. From death will spring life. Jesus was raised as the firstfruits, and we Christians claim that we too shall share in the Resurrection. Eventually, we too shall find our Winter transformed into Spring. Literally. Jesus was raised- and so shall we be.

It's a surprising view. And it changes the way life itself is lived. For if all things shall be made new, if this life, this body, this earth shall give life to the new, well, my life here matters. Instead of the old "Just passing through, the world is going to end destructively, so why bother changing it?" mentality, we have a life of importance. If through Christ His own shall be Resurrected, in the same manner as He was, if this world shall be transformed through the realization of God's presence in all things, well, why should we not strive to be the herald of this Kingdom? As Fall is the herald not of Winter, but of the hope that is Spring?

I'm no longer interested in living life to survive and escape off to Heaven in the clouds. As metaphorically as those words could ever be. I'm interested in living for a Kingdom that shall one day be fully inaugurated here. It is here now. It will be here in the future. Now and not yet. It is a divine tension that inspires the truth of the love I have touched on prior. It inspires that love into action.

From now on, I endeavor to Fall through Life.

***

This is a sort of rambling essay on Fall, Death, Beauty, Resurrection, and Mission, all in one. It's not what I set out to write. But I suppose it's what I needed to write. The Christian overtones may not be appreciated to their fullest by all. Or by any. But as much as I sometimes wish to escape the mentality of so much of my brethren, brethren they remain. These are the thoughts that inspire me, motivate me, define me. I suppose there are times for greater coherence, for thoughts that are written from anywhere but the Christian wilderness, there are times for cynicism and realism. There will be a time for the essay on my perspective on Forgiveness, as I intended to lay down in this entry. And that is a time for more caution, perhaps.

But now is not the time.

(And yes, I am patting myself on the back for the less-than-creative, yet snarky usage of my blog title in the body of the blog.)

But seriously, what is love?

A lot of Christians have an odd habit of making a big fuss of love. From "God is love," to "Jesus loves you," to "Hate the sin, love the sinner," love is a word from which Christians get major mileage.

Sometimes I wonder why we do it.

I mean, to a lot of people out there, Christians aren't the ones expressing love. Condemnation, hate, anger, this is what so many see in us. Perhaps we should admit: we have made a mockery of love.

It's easy for me, as it is for most of us, to love people I like, people who like me, people who care for me, and people who just so happen to be quite fantastic in most regards. I mean, seriously, awesome people are, well, awesome.

But I wonder, is the love Christians profess to believe in, well, isn't it bigger than that?

And since the answer to that question is a resounding "Yes!"... What then, is love? True love, deep love, saving love, Jesus love?

Jesus love is best exemplified when we are able to love not the ones who love us, the ones we like, but when we are able to love the ones we cannot stand to be around, the ones we detest, the ones we wish were in someone else's life, somewhere else. To love people who we or society deem loveless, well, that, friends, is love. To wish well upon those we want to hate, to pray for those who wish us ill, to give to those who would rather take.

After all, this is what Jesus did. Who Jesus was.

When we are known for what we are against, rather than who we are for, well, the paradigm could use adjusting. Love should not be conditional. Love is not a reward/punishment motivator. When I withhold love because I disagree with someone, whether it be politically, theologically, emotionally, or even religiously, I am not representing the One whose image we bear. I am not respecting the image of the One we bear in the other. When you are a Conservative, and I am a Liberal, there should exist between us love, not malice. Disagreement has never been an excuse for withholding love.

Even excommunication is an act of love, a last-ditch effort to bring a person back to their home. Even then, in a moment where differences are near-irreconcilable, there exists a love that is greater than human, greater than I, greater than you.

It shouldn't matter that your sexual preference is for the same gender, we should love you. It shouldn't matter that your religious belief is atheistic, we should love you. It shouldn't matter that you didn't do your dishes, we should love you. I should love you. Jesus loves you.

And more, love with an agenda, is this love? If I am offering support to you, just in the hopes that it'll lead you to agree with my religious beliefs, is that love? Would a realization of my agenda bring you closer to the God I claim is Love? Make no mistakes, I am a believer in the Gospel, Evangelism, truth. But if my only goal in a relationship is conversion, am I being truly loving?

I want to love unconditionally. I don't want to withhold love when I am upset or disagree with someone. I don't want to be known for what I am against, instead of what I am for. I want to agree with Jesus, when He tells His followers that it is through their love that the world will know they belong to Him.

And God knows I'm the last person to claim any superiority in this arena. There are people I can't stand, and I have failed in Love. There are people I disagree with, whose mere presence can infuriate me. I have failed to love. There are people who spew hate and vitrol from their mouths, and claim this is what God wills. I have failed to love them too.

I think the truest mark of theological accuracy is in this: Does it cause me to love God, and through my God-love, love others? As beings equal to myself? As beings more important than my own desires?

There are times where it is hard for me to consider myself as a Christian, when the actions of so many seem so far from what it seems to me the faith is about. There are times I think of Christians in the third person, as if I were not amongst this brethren. As if they were someone else. But this love. This love that compelled God Himself to equate Himself with us, to declare that victory was found in sacrifice, not battle, in love, not politic, in service, not power. To culminate this Truth in death and resurrection?

This is where I could not claim separation. If this is what Christianity is about? If love is the end-all, and the expression of this love the purpose of this life?

Then Christian I am. How could I be anything else? When this love, so profound, so beautiful, so perfect is waiting?

And so I apologize to anyone and everyone whom I've ever failed to love, and to whom I will fail to love. I apologize for all of us who have ever loved with an agenda, who have used love as a currency to get the behaviour we desire from others. For all of us who have forgotten that to love others as we love ourselves means we have to love ourselves... and others. For all of us who have judged and divorced from our minds and hearts. Of this we are all guilty. And I perhaps, worst of all.

I just pray that we remember to love. And to love. And to love some more.

Because Love won. On the cross, in the resurrection, in life, love won. And as love won, love wins.

It always wins.