presentsense

Luke and Leia and ethical conundrums. (or...Two Births and a Funeral)

Hayden (8 yrs. old) asked me last night who was older, Luke Skywalker, or Princess Leia. I told him that I thought they were twins, so they were the same age. He reminded me that even with twins, one is born first, and of course I conceded his point and said that I didn't know who was older. (Some Star Wars nerd must know the answer - surely they wrote it down somewhere). Anyway, conversation between me and Hayden over, my mind started racing to find far reaching implications.

So here's the thing: First, let me say that I know that since Luke and Leia are of the opposite sex, then they must be fraternal twins, right? Which means that their conception likely did not occur in the exact same nanosecond, so one must be older than the other, but it would be empirically impossible to tell which was older.

If however, they had been identical, the biology presents an interesting "other" situation. Basically, I'll put it this way: Identical twins occur when a growing zygote splits into two separate embryos. This happens at a distinct singular moment in time. Before this singularity, one zygote exists, and after, two embryos exist. So, which of the resulting twins is older (in the Christian/Chinese sense)? The answer is that they are both the same age. But then, life began before that, right? - at conception. Well then, what happened to the life that gave rise to the two lives at the singularity? Was it a separate "other" life? I would contend that it was, and that therefore, again using the life begins at conception logic, that a funeral is in order for the life that somehow ceased to be at the split.

If you wanted to take the converse approach - that one of the lives began at conception, and that the second one was formed "out of" the other, what would we have then? One gives rise to the other? One would not exist were it not for the other? One life depends on the existence of the other and a freak mutation? Is this ambiguity the reason that the majority of Americans SAY life beings at conception, but PRACTICE (through dates of birth) that life begins at birth?

On creativity

Lately, it's been a real struggle for me to get motivated about my job. Like most jobs, it's stressful, of course, and as with many jobs, that stress is not counter-balanced with physical activity, so most of the stress gets internalized, and that's not good for me. I get that. I am working on strategies to deal with that aspect of it. You do realize of course that the entire fitness industry is a result of the fact that our economy moved from being based on physical labor primarily (farming, fishing, building, hunting, trapping, etc) to knowledge work and other sedentary pursuits (computer and phone-based jobs). If you plowed your forty in the morning, there was usually no need to hit the gym for a spin class in the afternoon, but I digress.

On a spiritual level, I think my problem can be closely tied to the fact that what I do for a living is rarely - if ever - creative. Over the last two years, my role has been primarily focused on resource management - matching up new engineering requests with available engineers. Shuffling work around. The only thing I do that could even be remotely considered creative is working with spreadsheets. I know that whatever I do I should do to the glory of God, but spreadsheets are not was I was created for. I don't think too highly of myself - trust me on that - but my talent is not nearly maxed out by choosing a new font or making the critical decision of whether or not to Center justify. I know what I do adds value to my team, my boss, and my company, but I am having a real hard time finding proof that I am adding any value to me, beyond my paycheck.

How about you? Are you a creative type? Does what you do for a living exercise that talent? If not, are you frustrated with it? What do you do about it?

The candle

There's a candle on my desk today. My daughter gave it to me for Christmas. I love candles. I guess you could say I mostly love "playing with them." I am not a pyro. It is mostly therapeutic, I think. Sometimes I like to just sit and watch the candle burn in its left-alone-to-the-laws-of-thermodynamics pattern. A slow burn. Usually though, I am not that patient, and I find myself making the candle do things it would not normally do. I use my lighter to melt the walls down or melt holes in the walls, so that melted wax in the pool drains out and down to the desk. This in turn exposes more of the wick, and further accelerates the melting of the candle. Sometimes I take some of the wax that has made it to the desk and cooled and I place it back up into the pool, only to watch it melt again and drain out. Of course it never goes to the same place twice. I suppose I like the randomness that I control in the world of this little candle. I realize that I am greatly shortening the life of this candle. The wick has burned itself away by nearly a third, but I don't care. It's just a candle. I have lots more.

It's fun to think of myself in some weird "God of the Candles" role - dictating and controlling the life of this candle with virtually no regard for its feelings or its kin. In this role, the candle does only one thing - burn - and only in a predictable, containable way. Beyond that, all power is mine. I lit it. I control the wax. It doesn't need me to do its job, but I can make it miserable. It warms me, and its beauty makes something in me happy. If I didn't have any other light, it would keep me from tripping over stuff. But then I wonder, is that really how I think of God? Is it a healthy or true picture? I would like to think not, but I am not so sure. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (and the fingers type).

I think about how a candle works - ok so maybe not this particular one. The wax is the fuel. It's a hydrocarbon, but it will only burn as a gas. Did you know that? Try to light wax on fire. You can't do it with a normal flame. Something has to be added to make the wax evaporate. The wax vapors are what burns. The wick draws liquid wax up, and the heat from the flame vaporizes and then burns the wax. The wick is transformed to carbon, but is not consumed very quickly because of the ready supply of the more volatile wax fuel. But at the end of the candle's life, when the wax runs out, the wick will burn away too. A wooden match stuck into the wax and lit will also acts as a wick, albeit not an efficient one. But it will work. I've done it. You can also blow out a candle, and then for the next few seconds, light the smoke coming off the wick. Done that too.

Flames that burn the hottest, burn out the fastest. The candle will only burn as long as it exists. It consumes itself, and once it's gone, it's gone. I have upset the balance of this candle. Much of the wax that would have been used as fuel has drained out onto my desk. It's beautifully useless. A monument to what might have been. Had it been in a glass or ceramic container, much if not all of its fuel would have burned over time, but as it is now, I have a candle that will fade and be snuffed within a few short hours I am guessing.

The wax pool has risen, and the flame has shortened. This is good for the prolonged life of the candle, but I want a bigger, prettier flame. I guess I think big equals pretty when it comes to flames. Why is that? I mustn't let this candle think it's in control. It's trying to self-regulate! Who does it think it is? Time to melt another hole. There. That's better. Big flame and more waxed poured out. Now to fold the sides in over the flame a bit. Nice. We are cooking.

You know, I have just come to realize that I have enjoyed the hell out of thoroughly destroying this candle, and now it is gone, and I don't have it anymore. I am sad and cold and sitting in a darker room. I miss my candle.

Thanks, Lauren. Your gift was simple and true, and I think it taught me something about you and your brothers. I need to let you burn at your own rate, even if that doesn't warm my hands or tickle my eyes quite the way I want it to. Your life is your candle. I can light you and enjoy you. Maybe trim your wick from time to time, and those things are good for you, but I can also make your life miserable and melt away the very things that will sustain you. I don't want to do that. You belong WITH me, but you don't belong TO me. I just take care of you. You belong to God. You belong to your fellow Man. You belong. Don't forget that.

Grace for imaginary things...

I heard Paul Young make a statement in an interview today that really got me thinking. He said that "I don't have grace for that imagination." He was referring to someone asking him what he would do if Oprah got a hold of his book.

His reply struck me as very true, and something that Steph and I deal with on a daily basis. I have been using  the line "I don't borrow trouble" lately a lot as a personal motto. My meaning is that I have enough trouble today - real and present trouble - to spend any mental time or emotional energy to deal with problems that have not even happened yet, and may not ever happen.

Someone I work with called me in confidence last week and told me that his marriage is dangerously on the rocks. He knew what I went through a few years ago and asked me, "How did you get through it?" My answer to him was quick and confident, as it is an answer that the Holy Spirit gave me during that time, and it has since become my first piece of advice to anyone going through a gut-punching trial. The answer? I prayed for enough grace to get me through the next 15 minutes. That's it. Beyond that time, something was bound to change either externally, or in my own internal emotion factory. At that point, I pray for more grace, but just 15 more minutes worth. Grace was and is my manna.  I can't store it up for later. With Young's statement above, I see it all coming together. Perhaps I should say "There's my book!" (explanation - I remember when I was growing up, if we were driving somewhere and there was a boat for sale, my Dad would always say, "There's my boat!" He still doesn't have his boat, and I still don't have my book. But I digress...)

Looking to the Bible for confirmation, I am drawn to the book of Hebrews, where the author says,

"Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." (Hebrews 14:6 NIV)

Nothing in that suggestion says anything about praying for future grace - for some infinite cosmic power-up to use when needed. At least I don't read it that way. It reads to me like the grace comes only when we need it, and when we don't need it, we don't have it. If you would agree with this thought, then you would probably also agree with me and Paul Young that we don't get grace for things that aren't happening. That, I would argue, is why our worries and fears, should we focus on them, have so much power over us. We have no grace to cancel them out, because they are just figments of our imagination. If on the other hand, we choose by faith to believe that when the trials come, so will come the grace, we can me more confident, less fearful, and more bold about the choices we are making now.

For example, when I go on a trip, my confidence that the trip will go well is directly proportional to my knowledge of my backup plan. One important backup plan is cash. If I have plenty of cash with me, I don't stress out about whether I have remembered to pack my dark socks. I know that if by some chance I forgot them, I have the cash to buy them when I find out that I need them. In a way, grace is like that. Not that I have the grace in my pocket, but that I know it will be there when and if I need it. Traveling through life becomes a lot less stressful when you know that.

On being famous...

You know why it would suck to be famous? Because whenever you would go on a game show, they would make you give your winnings to charity. Even if you were famous but broke.

Why framing stories matter

If you've been anywhere near emergent theology, you've probably heard the term "framing story" once or twice. I know I have, but it has rarely - if ever - been made very useful to me in all the things I have read. So I am going to spend a post or two fleshing the concept out a little bit, in an effort to understand it and why it matters, not only to me, but to all of us.

The basic concept of a framing story is this: Everything we take in through our senses passes through a mental filter - our framing story. A simple example: Rain. If you are a baseball player, rain is a bad thing. If you are a house painter, rain is a costly day off. If you are a TV weatherman, someone at the station did some demographics a long time ago that now requires you to frown when you give a forecast that includes rain. All of these are examples of framing stories. No data we consume are just facts. They all enter our hearts after our minds have spun them, don't they?

Now to take our simple example further and explain why framing stories matter theologically, let's examine a scripture, Acts 14:16-17 (words of Paul and Barnabas):

16In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."

It doesn't sound like rain is such a bad thing here, does it? Even if there were baseball players in the crowd, they would likely understand the meaning of these words - namely that rain is a blessing of God's kindness to all men. As stated before, this is a quite simplistic example, but there are many, many other ways in which framing stories really serve to convolute our interpretation of Scripture, and in turn, our concept of God. Stay tuned in the coming days as I explore some more significant framing stories and how they have affected us and our ideas about God.

Friday's deep thought...

MySpace sucks, and I hate Facebook, but I have profiles on both. I also give money every month to insurance companies. It doesn't mean I have to like it.