Life's End

Riding on the tails of infinity

Aaron Radke — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:02:33 +0000

Infinity inextricably surrounds our finite experiences. We ought to be taught by the infinite tails that lie at our finite doorstep.

A linguistic friend once pulled this amazing piece of infinitude out of his pocket. By impromptu, he said, "Rye bread, salami and cheese from Denmark tastes great on sidewalk cafe's under umbrellas." He continued to remark that no one has ever said this finite set of 14 words before and no one ever else will. In that moment the finite was flirting with the infinite. Every sentence flirts; even this little one.

Examples, of this romance between the finite and infinite surround us. Fingerprints and snow flakes are mind boggling unique. A few notes in a western music scale have provided years of inexhaustible creativity. Often, ecstatic experiences come when time disappears. Finite time dissolves, in deep engaging conversation, an enjoyable thrilling ride or a grasped pure idea. The familiar Gaussian bell curve has infinite tails. In a giant upheaval, Leibniz and Newton sparked calculus into existence by observing infinitude in the instantaneous.

It is difficult to deny the perpetual longing for infinity. I remember as a young child being mesmerized in the simple mobius strip. What is the reason of this wonder? Why am I alarmed at a strand of gray hair? Why is an older woman often surprised at her aging body? C.S Lewis surmised,

We are so little reconciled to time that we are even astonished at it. "How he's grown!" we exclaim, "How time flies!" as though the universal form of our experience were again and again a novelty. It is as strange as if a fish were repeatedly surprised at the wetness of water. And that would be strange indeed; unless of course the fish were destined to become, one day, a land animal. ¹

"if we find in ourselves a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. ²

The mathematical genius Pascal wrote,

For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed.³

The infinite blows our minds. We need to daily go here for worship. Souls are refreshed by wonder. If heaven is a continual further up and further in ⁴, our minds will spend forever perfectly exploring and forever worshiping with wonder.

¹ C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, Harvest Books, October 7, 1964
² C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Touchstone edition 1952, Touchstone Books, 1952
³ Thought #72 W.F. Trotter, Blaise Pascal, Pense'es, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pascal/pensees.i.html , Penguin Classics, 1660
⁴ Randy Alcorn, Heaven, Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois, 2004

Rational Creatures of Worship

Aaron Radke — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 15:12:37 +0000

I spent the morning at the edge of a valley river bank. I felt like Annie ¹. I was merely enjoying the bright sun and babbling rapids when I was given a free penny. A fish fluttered in the water right in front of my face. A carp, of some sort, freely frolicked in the shallow water. I wondered about its strange dance only to find it and three others were chasing down minnows. I think they were all unaware of me. The sun, the rapids, the big fish, and the little fish all declared the glory of God. Then, no longer a bystander, I began to feel a weight of my own unique creature-ness during this correspondence at the bank. I too, as a rational observing creature, was part of this divine interaction and was dutifully able to consciously declare the glory of God. Worship.

God is glorified not only by His glory's being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might communicate, and the creature receive, His glory; and that it might [be] received both by the mind and heart. He that testifies his idea of God's glory [doesn't] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it. ²

¹ Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Harper's Magazine Press, New York, 1974
² John Piper, God's Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards, Crossway Books, 1998 which comes from Jonathan Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World, http://edwards.yale.edu/major-works/the-end-for-which-god-created-the-world/ , Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, 1741

Neurons of Worship

Aaron Radke — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:37:49 +0000

The IBM Blue Brain Project is providing stunning research in cognitive intelligence. With a massive super computer parts of the neocortex are modeled and simulated. The neocortex makes up the largest portion of the human brain. Here, complex patterns are stored and conceptual thoughts are connected.

Jeff Hawkins started Numeta, a company promoting software patterned on the hierarchal storage and processing power of a collection of neurons in the neocortex.

Both Numeta and IBM are revealing fascinating features of our brains. Information is stored by continually presenting it with material. Overtime, the hierarchal pattern of neurons in the neocortex is trained to store essential features of interest. Repeating a wide variety of material provides a highly accentuated set of neurons that contain common essential patterns while deciphering from non important aspects. As an adult of varied experiences, an ornate victorian sofa and a bland wood stool both light up neurons associated with sitting. Two conclusions are:

A wide range of experiences from many vantage points should be explored
Care is required regarding what is fed to the brain; it shapes how the world is seen

At first, these conclusions appear to be diametrically opposed to each other. Choosing a limited set of experiences goes against experiencing all. A combined understanding comes from the concept of value.

Neurons are a distinct opportunity to encode value. Spending time on a topic or activity records value in neurons. Worship is a display of value. All of life is a display of value. All of life is worship.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. ( Philipians4:8)

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. ( Romans8:5-7)

A physical battle for belief in order

Aaron Radke — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 13:29:00 +0000

I got up with a traditional bowl of Total with sprinkled raisins from the Amish country and a douse of soy milk. I thanked God he always provides food and life despite my hundreds of rebellions through the previous day. But an additional, different and new consuming thought flashed across my mind this morning.

Over the past number of months I have wrestled with the seemingly paradoxical balance of the spiritual and physical realm. I enjoy the worshipful wonder in the predictable order of the physical. The spiritual seems to allow this order to be tossed aside. "Redeeming Science" ¹ offered a satisfying answer. The physical world is the actual manifestation of God's Word spoken into existence. The world's physical order is in place and sustained by the commitment God has in his own power and logic. The joy in predictable order is the steadfast order and perfection of God himself. This understanding frees me to know that spiritual interactions with the physical world, that may alter physics, are still part of God's order and even in a greater way.

This morning, I realized the food I was eating was an expression of God's word spoken into being. The laws of physics that hold the protons, electrons and neutrons together and make up of Total follows the order of God's spoken word. I have food because God sustains me and holds my being together also. I want to continue developing this incredible frame of view.

But the next thought shocked and warned me into a need to see a deeper reality. As I munched and thought about the ramifications, I immediately thought of friends with painful illness and people in countries dying from a lack of provisions. How would these people view the physical order of the world? Food is not a commodity. To them, bodies that have physical order to hold them together are a harsh reality that provisions are not being met. The hourly pain, dry throat, cracked lips, sleepless nights, dreams of food, and goal reducing weakness on a physical body is a constant glaring scream that order is not in place. How is this discrepancy of order and disorder reconciled in my mind? How would I view God when my physical needs are not being met? It is easy to think of lofty ideas of theology and wonder when your needs are met, but finding wonder in God when needs are not met is a deeper reality. If wonder is still found, then a deep God is seen to be worth over life itself. He is glorified greater because he is seen as a greater prize.

After a pondering breakfast, I read the following. It is a story about a man who had everything and then lost everything:

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. ( Job1:20-22)

I believe I am in a massive time of plenty. I just pray that I would not see this time as normative and even shape my theology from it. Making a time of plenty as normal improperly shapes my view of who God is and how he interacts with me.

As usually, I think a massively bigger picture of God needs to be grasped. Much of faith is wrapped up in believing God has order to everything, even when the order, to us, seems failing. Why are there many promises and exhortations to

not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ( Matt6:25)

and

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." ( Prv3:5)

or to believe that

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will ( Eph1:11)

and learn to say

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. ( Phl4:12)

Each verse is getting at a desire for order and meaning. Each is rooted in believing the promises that God has a massive order of glorifying himself. The wonder for us is inclusion! He already gave us his son, how much more will he include us? ( Rm8:32) Do we believe it? Lord I believe, just help my unbelief ( Mk9:24).

¹ Vern S. Poythress, Redeeming Science:A God-centered approach, Crossway Books, 2006

Neurons of Influence

Aaron Radke — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 18:17:44 +0000

It was a long drive, through steady snow fall, to meet a friend for lunch on the other side of town. With a filled stomach, I strolled back to the car after lunch. Lost in reflection, I walked with my feet constrained in a crisp tire track of displaced snow leading to my car. All at once, I was profoundly compelled this physical track in this physical world came from a mental decision to meet my friend and pick a specific parking place. As a transistor controls a much greater current, a small neuron in my brain had a profound influence recorded in the snow. Ideas have consequences in the physical world.

Recently, I was given the opportunity to watch a film about William Wilberforce and read excerpts of a biography on his life ¹. This man had a profound effect on the world by thoughts in his mind driven by convictions and affections.

This written reflection of words and letters has a purely physical form, yet they symbolize ideas of a metaphysical nature. It is mind boggling I can simultaneously enter your mind and you can enter mine as I write and you read this sentence through physical media. Additionally, communication is really the only way mind entering is possible. There are other manifestations of communication such as art, music and equations. However, each contain a consistent physical pattern for idea transfer. A thought needs to be expressed into media such as contrast on a page for words or oscillating airwaves against eardrums. Then the expression needs to be demodulated. An idea requires time and energy to be put into a physical organized form. Once formed, it takes both time and energy of another mind to decode the expressed idea.

The requirement of time and energy, both physical, is revealing and challenging. Where we spend our time and energy is a display of our thoughts and accordingly what we think is really important. The physical world is a place for worship. God gives time and God gives energy. Leading back to life's end, may my thoughts and actions spill out with my time and energy to what is really important.

¹ John Piper, Amazing Grace in the Life of William Wilberforce, Crossway Books, 2006

The weight of glory: the problem and solution of delight

Aaron Radke — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 14:53:42 +0000

The problem and solution of delight

Lewis, in The weight of glory ¹, spills out a massive thought:

I can imagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of heaven as a place where we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behind that dislike. In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised.
...
To please God ... to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness ... to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son-it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But it is so. ²

I have a hard time thinking that God would actually take delight in me. In fact, I have a sense if he took delight in me it would cheapen his value. I come with a perspective that I am a problem and continuing problem and God needed to provide a solution. This situation is true, yet only half the truth. A half truth can be as dangerous as a lie. I need to bask in some deeper truths.

It is awesome my problem is solved by the sacrifice of God's son, but wiping my slate clean is only half the problem. For several weeks I have been struggling and wrestling with the ability and value for God to take delight. My Dad takes delight in me beyond merely pity or duty. Envisioning this delight and fatherly care in God towards me is a position hard to sustain on my own. There is a heavy weight to feel not merely pitied but an object of delight.

I am beginning to see the solution to this portion of the problem is an extremely significant and utterly necessary portion for a life of wonder in the redemptive work of God. The problem of delight is solved by the perfect life of God's Son. God looks on me and sees his good Son! It awesomely solves the problem of delight. I am adopted into his family, I am a son ( 1jn3:1, 1 pt2:24) and I can now call him Daddy ( Rm8:15, Gal4:6)! My negatives are imputed to Christ solving one problem ( 1Jn4:10, 1 Cor15:3) and Christ's positives are imputed to me solving the second problem ( Rm4:6, Rm4:11, Phl3:9). This solution simultaneously displays God's holy goodness in both righteous wrath and abounding mercy. The second portion is the wonderful mix of divine delight. It is incredibly freeing and incredibly humbling. It is a foundational anchor to be part of a real ingredient in the divine happiness. "In Christ" carries massive weight to much to sustain.

Without this second component, I will begin to anxiously and pridefully depend on my self for the measure of right standing before God. With it, I can have gutsy courage to take otherwise risky radical steps getting close to scalpel sin.

What great confidence, what freeing joy to feel the weight of my guilt and then springboard to see the worth of what God has done. Without seeing this worth, I miss seeing the glory in the cross. For along time, I have been wanting to feel and savor the the cross in deeper ways. A truth I want to sing. It is not just past grace to even the score, but continued grace to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . Oh God, please heighten my joy in this truth the rest of my life and have it dig deep in my heart and drive me from sin.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in him, is mine;
alive in him, my living Head,
and clothed in righteousness divine,
bold I approach th' eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ my own. ³

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. ( 1jn3:1)

No mere mortals

People are valuable because they have the capacity to know and worship God. This weight is an awesome transforming thought that opens flood gates of affection.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden. ⁴

¹ C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory", Theology, http://www.doxaweb.com/assets/doxa.pdf , November, 1941
² Ibid.
³ Charles Wesley, "And Can It Be that I Should Gain", Hymn, 1739
⁴ C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory", Theology, http://www.doxaweb.com/assets/doxa.pdf , November, 1941

The Analytic gone cynic longing for love

Aaron Radke — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:52:44 +0000

Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love? ¹

Chesterton, in Orthodoxy ², is saving my life. He is helping me from going mad. I have a far to strong bent to the analytic. I would emphasize with Chesterton that logic is not bad it is just that it has the potential to lead to madness.

"The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits." ³

I return; God help me be more like a poet. Here is the pivotal paragraph:

"Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. Artistic paternity is as wholesome as physical paternity. Moreover, it is worthy of remark that when a poet really was morbid it was commonly because he had some weak spot of rationality on his brain. Poe, for instance, really was morbid; not because he was poetical, but because he was specially analytical. Even chess was too poetical for him; he disliked chess because it was full of knights and castles, like a poem. He avowedly preferred the black discs of draughts, because they were more like the mere black dots on a diagram. Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not the disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health." ⁴

Ravi Zacharias often quotes a wonderfully freeing portion of a William Blake poem:

This life's dim windows of the soul,
distorts the heavens from pole to pole,
and goads you to believe a lie,
when you see with and not through the eye. ⁵

¹ Eugene O'Neill, The Great God Brown, Greenwich Village Theatre, 1926
² G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/orthodoxy.html , Dodd, Mead & Co, New York, 1908
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ The everlasting gospel William Blake, Selected Poetry, Oxford University Press, 1998

What makes love holy?

Aaron Radke — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 16:09:07 +0000

Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters. ¹

My discomfort and unease with Robinson's quote is revealing much of my view of grace and love. Many questions are contained in this short sentence and thrust together into a simple summarizing statement. What is love? What is holiness? What is grace? What is worthiness?

Pondering the essence of love has kept philosophers occupied for countless centuries. Care is needed, because I know little about giving and receiving both love and grace. I also realize there are many different manifestations and facets of love ². Another cause of caution is the audacity to think I can reduce a massively deep and complex part of life into a little box. Big issues are often big because of complexity even if complexity arises out of simplicity. Under these cautions, this defense of my discomfort with this quote is meant to explore a fascinating facet of love.

Robinson's quote is encouraging for primarily two reasons. First, it captures our feeling when we daily receive unmerited grace from a benevolent and loving Father. If love requires worth how could God ever love us? Second, it spurs us on to love others without merit. Holding back care until you find merit in others has a sinister flair.

Despite these encouraging aspects, I have some serious concerns about a quote that removes a connection between love and worthiness. The concern comes from a subtle path that diminishes the worth of a big God. What about God's love for his son? The mercy and justification we receive is dependent on the worthiness of this object. What about God's love for himself? The pleasure God has in his own worthy perfection is the visible foundation that his promises will be upheld ³. Furthermore, is it possible to love someone while simultaneously thinking they are worthless?

At first it appears there may be different types of love at work. Maybe one is an amorous worthiness love and another is a merciful unconditional love. One is associated with worthiness and the other is not. Although effects takes on various forms from different perspectives, I think both the amorous and mercy love we receive are rooted in the same dependence: worthiness of God Himself displayed in his Son.

There may be a few major arguments against a view of necessary worthiness. I think these arguments are rooted in the two, previously mentioned, encouraging aspects: grace from God and grace to others without merit.

For the first argument, the defense needs to answer the question: "If love requires worth, how could God love us?". The answer reveals love vehemently requires worth. Jesus, the perfect worthy sacrifice, died for us.

If it is true that worthiness is required for love, then what holy love and energy actively moves to bridge the great gap between absolute perfection and considerable imperfection? I propose even this movement of love lies in the worthiness of an object. By making this awesome move of loving redemption, and relying on the worth of His Son, God loves to display the worth of His own name. It is all about the worth of God whether it be worth of God the Son, worth of God the Father or worth of God the Spirit.

In the second argument, although love by worthiness may be true of God, what about the unconditional love men should have for each other? It seems understandable, created as rational beings, we should follow God's rational for love also. If God loves people by the worth of His own name, then men should love people by the worth of His name. When we love others we love them by seeing the worth of God in them, and incredible weight of glory ⁴. This understanding is awesome, freeing and a source of great affection.

There is a great example of love I have witnessed. It came observing a man on the top of a hill. The man brought a child with a disfigured face up the hill with her hand in his. He sat on a rock and she stood eye level. In the slight breeze and beaming sunlight, she reflected back a beaming, confident smile into the camera he pointed at her. She laughed and cocked her head in different positions as he clicked away. It was awesome. He loved her and, by no means, had to climb over worthlessness. Instead he was displaying worthiness in what really mattered. This child has a heart and a mind with a capacity to be filled with the Spirit of God. Displaying the worth of God, glorifying God, is awesome.

Is it possible to love someone while simultaneously thinking they are worthless? Love appears to be quite opposite. Instead love seems to be an expression of worthiness. ⁵ The minute you think someone is worthless you cease loving them. ⁶ What appears to be a simple encouraging quote could be a dangerous view that distorts love itself and accordingly the very essence of God. Instead, Love is holy because God is love. Love is a display and overflow of this worth, supremely in God!

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.( 1jn4:7-21)

¹ Marilynne Robinson, Giliad: A Novel, Reprint, Picador, January, 2006
² C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Geoffrey Bless, London, 1958
³ John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God's delgiht in being God, Multnomah, March, 2000
⁴ C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory", Theology, http://www.doxaweb.com/assets/doxa.pdf , November, 1941
⁵ In this respect love is a big part of worship: a display of what you think is really important. What you love is what you worship. It is a demonstration of your end.
⁶ Simply glimpsing a return from lost affection finds joy in a spot of special worth.

A quirky tale of intergalactic proportions

Aaron Radke — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 18:51:27 +0000

In the early 1900's Edwin Hubble noticed a distant object in space that was rushing away from the earth at incredible speeds. He found others and then slowly realized every object, star and galaxy was rushing away from the earth! ¹ There seemed to be something unique and strange about our planet. However, Copernicus (1543) already showed the earth is not the center of the universe ². Hubble's experimental data verified Einstein's mind and space bending general theory of relativity ³. Einstein's theory showed every object in space is rushing away from every other object. This truth, stranger than fiction, shows reality is much deeper and incredible than imaginable. The surface is not at all what holds reality.

At a young age, I remember thinking I had a few strange friends. At an earlier, pre-contemplative age, the quirkiness was part of life and never questioned. Later, I began to realize each and every relationship carried a strange dynamic. If there is a strange element to every relationship then it is probable I am the one that makes it that way! Following the path further, if everyone feels every relationship is quirky then it says something much deeper about the frayed fabric of life than just a few individuals.

It is amazing how a little observation or quirk can turn the world in on yourself and then the whole world on itself.

¹ Edwin Hubble, "A Relation between Distance and Radial Velocity among Extra-Galactic Nebulae", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1929
² Nicholas Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Nuremberg, Nuremberg, 1543
³ Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, Reprint edition, Three Rivers Press, July, 1995

The Quest: A Journey Through Biblical Masculinity

Aaron Radke — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 04:41:50 +0000

It was a great opportunity to attend The Quest, a men's conference orchestrated by Sovereign Grace Ministries. Numerous times I just looked around and thought, "I am blessed to be here." It is also a great opportunity to stop and reflect over a few major areas of influence.

Humble mentor men

One pervading theme is the servant-hood shaping many of these men. Witnessing the married men, fathers and organizational leadership opened my eyes to the stark contrast of my life. The past ten years of study have caused my focus to be on a small sphere: two inches around my head. My conference room mates, away from their responsibilities, were expressing the strange feeling to worry only about themselves. This rare experience is how I live! It was humbling to be in the midst of sixteen hundred men including fathers and sons with the goal to be humbled servants before God.

I thank God for these examples. I aspire to be like these men. I want to be under these men, exhorted and encouraged.

Invigorating mortification motivated by God's glory

A highly recommended book from the conference was John Owen's Sin and Temptation ¹. A summarizing quote with a goal on God's glory is:

Sin untunes and unframes the heart itself, by entangling its affections. It diverts the heart from the spiritual frame that is required for vigorous communion with God. ²

Joshua Harris passionately pled,

"Men, what has sin ever done for us!"

Sin weakens our awe of God. The conference was a helpful call to see this weight. I want to build my awe for God. This weight is the heavy anchor or blazing center that keeps the planets in proper orbit ³. An entity extraordinarily big that makes the lesser fade away or seen for what they are.

Theology in living color

As a first time Sovereign Grace conference attendee, one of my primary goals was to experience, investigate and learn about the leadership structure and vision.

It is clear they desire a strong theological rooting as substantial grounding for the mind and correctly engaged hearts. The desire is hearts rooted in truth.

Real men read, yet meditatively apply:

But two things are very specially to be regarded on this topic [reading], which are these: First, that more depends on the quality of what we read, than on the quantity. Secondly, more depends on the use, which, by reflection, conversation, and composition, we have made of what we read, than upon both the former. ⁴

Physical form was put onto the rich Sovereign Grace terms such as "humble orthodoxy", and "humility as true greatness". Confessed sin is manhood. I witnessed some of it. I look up to these men.

The requirement to fight passivity and procrastination:

Although procrastination was not a major conference theme, the following quote did strike in a big way:

Attacking your hardest task of the day without delay will build your resistance to passivity. Waiting until the end of the day only reinforces your sinful tendencies toward passivity.
...
From term papers to tax filing, the man who is cultivating biblical masculinity will not allow these things to rule him. He will exercise dominion over them by doing them in a timely manner. ⁵

¹ Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor, John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation: Three Classic Works by John Owen, Crossway Books: Good News Publishers, 2006
² Ibid.
³ John Piper, The Blazing Center: The Soul Satisfying Supremacy of God in All Things, Desiring God, 2005
⁴ Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry, New Impression edition, Banner of Truth, 1980
⁵ Albert Mohler, "Show yourself a man", The tie: Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 73, 3, Winter, 2005

Predictable originality and endowed style

Aaron Radke — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 00:54:38 +0000

Thinking my thoughts were my own while driving down a winding snow covered road, my sister called from the passenger seat, "I bet I know what you are going to do when you get home." At that instant, I thought I was scheming an original activity for the evening. Indeed it was original. The thought had never before occurred to me, yet she was able to predict it.

This example is just one instance of the daily occurrence of her psychic abilities. It is a pleasurable privilege to live with my sister for over 20 years. By experience she can observe my posture or tone in my voice and seemingly read my mind. I am sure many married folk find this over time and find it a source of conflict when the predictor under the name of "assumption" is flawed.

After this predictable experience, a few questions consumed my thoughts for the evening. What makes many of my thoughts so predictable? If aspects are so predictable, is my creativity original?

Artists fall into style. Artists can pass style onto pupils. Without ever seeing a painting before, by style it is possible to guess who painted it. If we imagine a scene, we can imagine the style that a particular artist may bring the scene to life. My sister knows my style.

Style seems to carry some heightened dose of originality. The style itself is magnitudes of originality higher than the manifestations of it. Who is the determiner of style? I suppose that many artists themselves experience wonder in their own unique style; a wonder that comes from outside themselves and spills out as they express everything that they see.

If worship is life's end and each creature expresses life through its unique style, both the creature's creativity and the style endowed to the creature bring glory to the creator.

The Writing Life

Aaron Radke — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 03:46:29 +0000

WHEN YOU WRITE, you lay out a line of words... You make the path boldly and follow it fearfully. You go where the path leads. ¹

I have little experience with writing sentences, but I do have some experience writing mathematical symbols and carefully constructed algorithms. In Annie Dillard's wonder in seeking beauty and mystery by following the path of words, I found parallels for the beauty and mystery that I find in the path of mathematics and algorithms. Few others have ever described this feeling that I have found as an outsider riding along a path of wonder. There is only a faint idea where it is headed and how you may get there. The process is full of wonder and you follow along for the ride.

There is one uncomfortable aspect of the ideas in this book. There seems to be a wonder in following a path wherever it goes, even if it is purposeless. What gives guidance to forks in the road? What about the narrow path? This is the same concern that I had in her essay on Living like Weasels ². On one hand, I love the rare encouragement of finding what you do well and doing it with all of your might. Yet in the midst of it, there comes this notion that we should grab on tight no matter what it may be.

There were a number of impacting sections. Here she is encouraging me to write:

Writing sentences is difficult whatever their subject. It is no less difficult to write sentences in a recipe than sentences in Moby-Dick. So you might as well write Moby-Dick. ³

Here she perfectly paints the joy that I have seen in reading:

We are reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking. We should amass half dressed in long lines like tribesmen and shake gourds at each other, to wake up; instead we watch television and miss the show. ⁴

Here is a quote expressing the feeling of an idea as a short and momentary flash of lighting:

Einstein likened the generation of a new idea to a chicken's laying an egg: "Kieks--auf einmal ist es da." Cheep--and all at once there it is. ⁵

Here she is admonishing me to not hoard ideas:

Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now... Something more will arise for later, something better... Anything that you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes. ⁶

¹ Annie Dillard, The Writing Life, Harper Perennial, September, 1990
² Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters, Harper Perennial, September, 1988
³ Annie Dillard, The Writing Life, Harper Perennial, September, 1990
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid.

Enjoyment of the created

Aaron Radke — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:56:50 +0000

If you were created for something, you enjoy it. Life seems to have this fearfully awesome general principle.

My first trip sailing, I learned the happiness of the created performing its duty. The wind finally caught the sail and transformed the flapping chatter into a billowing peace. We were thrust through the water. With smooth wind in our smiling faces, we each looked with awe at the sail and carried the unsaid thought, "There is no doubt the sail is happy."

It is awesome to me that there were singers that had a duty to sing in unison in 2chron5:13. It was their duty to be heard in unison and praise and thank. They were given the gift and it was their duty.

The obvious question is "what is our created role?" or "what is it that we enjoy?" That we were made for worship is the overwhelming transforming realization of my life. It is rooted in the principle that all is done for the glory of God. Yet,

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.( Romans9:22)

Some people, all of us at times, may enjoy folly! It is an extremely heavy weight of glory that should immediately humble us. "God will get his glory one way or another." (Lyrics to Destructor) We should often be on our face, longing God to make us to enjoy worship.

Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? ( Romans8:21)

Oh, God open our hearts and our minds so that we may enjoy to worship you. Make us worshipers that enjoy. Please keep our passions from being the following:

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator... For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. ( Romans1:25-26)

Till We have faces

Aaron Radke — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 01:22:31 +0000

As the gods would have it, I came away aware of my own sin and depravity after reading this Lewis book ¹. I was the bitter one. I was the one with the corrupted view that needed and continue to need correction. We see ourselves clearly in the presence of God. He answers all questions and humbles all without a word.

The god comes to judge Orual...
The air was growing brighter and brighter about us; as if something had set it on fire. Each breath I drew let into me new terror, joy, overpowering sweetness. I was pierced through and through with the arrows of it. I was being unmade. I was no one. But that is little to say; rather Psyche herself was, in a manner, no one. I loved her as I would once have thought it impossible to love, would have died any death for her. And yet, it was not, not now, she that really counted. Or if she counted (and oh, gloriously she did) it was for another's sake. The earth and stars and sun, all that was or will be, existed for his sake. And he was coming. The most dreadful, the most beautiful, the only dread and beauty there is, was coming.
...
I know now , Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words. ²

This is the experience of many of the characters within this book. They were locked in their own framework of thinking and could not see the profanity of their desires and rationales. They could not see, even though they longed for answers. They could not see until they felt the presence of the Divine. Then their questions were answered without a word.

This narrative causes me to be more and more aware that affections are the battlefield of life. The slightest lunge or movement can set in motion a wildly different course of action. Attention and thoughts that consume a mind is what it loves. It has given a heightened awareness that I have a great need to have God change my heart. We can question much and give all kinds of reasoning, but after God reveals himself ( gives you a face to see your sin) you can not see him. Give me a face.

Lewis's thoughts on his book

Though I had many thoughts and feelings throughout the book, I came away questioning what Lewis was trying to say. Many people conjecture, but the following are Lewis's own thoughts. It was comforting to find that the elements are intended to be straightforward.

An author doesn't necessarily understand the meaning of his own story better than anyone else, so I give my account of Till we have Faces simply for what it is worth. The 'levels' I am conscious of are these:
A work of (supposed) historical imagination. A guess of what it might have been like in a little barbarous state on the borders of the Hellenistic world of Greek culture, just beginning to affect it. Hence the change from the old priest (of a very normal fertility mother-goddess) to Arnom; Stoic allegorizations of the myths standing to the original cult rather as Modernism to Christianity (but this is a parallel, not an allegory). Much that you take as allegory was intended solely as realistic detail. The wagon men are nomads from the steppes. The children made mud pies not for symbolic purposes but because children do. The Pillar Room is simply a room. The Fox is such an educated Greek slave as you might find at a barbarous courts--and so on.
Psyche is an instance of the anima naturaliter Christiana making the best of the Pagan religion she is brought up in and thus being guided (but always 'under the cloud', always in terms of her own imaginations or that of her people) towards the true God. She is in some ways like Christ because every good man or woman is like Christ. What else could they be like? But of course my interest is primarily Orual.
Orual is (not a symbol) but an instance, a 'case' of human affection in its natural condition, true, tender, suffering, but in the long run tyrannically possessive and ready to turn to hatred when the beloved ceases to be its possession. What such love particularly cannot stand is to see the beloved passing into a sphere where it cannot follow. All this I hoped would stand as a mere story in its own right. But--
Of course I had always in mind its close parallel to what is probably happening at this moment in at least five families in your home town. Someone becomes a Christian, or in a family nominally Christian already, does something like becoming a missionary or entering a religious order. The others suffer a sense of outrage. What they love is being taken from them. The boy must be mad. And the conceit of him! Or: is there something in it after all? Let's hope it is only a phase! If only he had listened to his natural advisers. Oh come back, come back, be sensible, be the dear son we used to know! Now I, as a Christian, have a good deal of sympathy with those jealous, suffering, puzzled people (for they do suffer, and out of their suffering much of the bitterness against religion arises). I believe the thing is common. There is very nearly a touch of it in Luke II. 38, 'Son, why hast thou so dealt with us?' And is the reply easy for a loving heart to bear? ³

noteworthy reviews

A Great Gulf Fixed: The Problem of Obsessive Love in C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces by Amelia F. Franz
Inspiration, publication, and insight
Wikipedia

¹ C.S. Lewis, Till we have faces: a myth retold, http://www.trentu.ca/ahc/materials/lewis-bib.html#III , Geoffrey Bless, London, 1956
² Ibid.
³ C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1966

Experiencing life from the shadow man perspective

Aaron Radke — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 15:11:50 +0000

As I get older and increasingly reflective on life I can not shake from experiencing life from what I will call the shadow man perspective. It is the strange feeling of not being all there. It is as if you are watching someone else and just going through the motions. Major events in life seem to have this surreal nature. I am curious if everyone experiences life this way?

What is the relationship between experience and reflection? It is a puzzling problem. I whole heartedly agree with Plato's famous statement that "the unexamined life is not worth living." ¹ Yet, by constant examination, the pursuing shadow man causes me to wonder how much I am living? What does it mean to "just be" or "just live"?

A respected, contemplative friend once admonished me to jump in the game instead of sitting on the sidelines observing. The same friend shared the story of a poetry student who was commanded to go experience life before she could reflectively understand a particular poem. I want to understand the poem.

This problem should be approached with a both-and solution instead of an either-or solution. Just living and just reflecting both have obvious concerns.

Looking at the ratio of time spent in experience and reflection brings some insight. Reflection is looking back for an extended period of time. Expectation is looking forward for an extended period of time. Experience is an infinitesimally short instance of time. I never sense the shadow man when I am expecting or reflecting. Maybe I am the shadow man ?

Expectation and reflection seem to be connected with heart issues. Premeditated actions are considered with heavier weight in both acts of love and crime. It is true God is after our hearts in worship. From this viewpoint, the shadow is important and should not be shook off.

¹ Socrates, Plato Dialoges: The Apology, 400BC

Life's End

Riding on the tails of infinity

Riding on the Tails of Infinity

Rational Creatures of Worship

Rational Creatures of Worship

Neurons of Worship

Neurons of Worship

A physical battle for belief in order

A Physical Battle for Belief in Order

Neurons of Influence

Neurons of Influence

The weight of glory: the problem and solution of delight

The Weight of Glory: the Problem and Solution of Delight

The problem and solution of delight

No mere mortals

The Analytic gone cynic longing for love

The Analytic Gone Cynic Longing for Love

What makes love holy?

What Makes Love Holy?

A quirky tale of intergalactic proportions

A Quirky Tale of Intergalactic Proportions

The Quest: A Journey Through Biblical Masculinity

The Quest: a Journey Through Biblical Masculinity

Humble mentor men

Invigorating mortification motivated by God's glory

Theology in living color

The requirement to fight passivity and procrastination:

Predictable originality and endowed style

Predictable Originality and Endowed Style

The Writing Life

The Writing Life

Enjoyment of the created

Enjoyment of the Created

Till We have faces

Till We Have Faces

Lewis's thoughts on his book

noteworthy reviews

Experiencing life from the shadow man perspective

Experiencing Life from the Shadow Man Perspective