Like a Ghost (White on White)

Thank ye, thank ye

 

Well, it’s come and gone, Thanksgiving has. Quickly, perhaps too quickly, I think. 

(I step out the front door like a ghost into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white . . . )

 

I’ve been home since Friday the 21 and have accomplished nothing. I have a paper due Tuesday but I have most of it done, so I’m not at all worried or anything. And it’s just a paper, anyway.

 

Thanksgiving is weird because, it seems to me, that we eat a lot and just are lazy and watch football. I have been so lazy this week. All I’ve done is play video games and watch TV, eat and sleep. I gave thanks at the dinner table, but not really any other time. I thanked God for the Counting Crows, and it’s not a joke I love the Counting Crows and would be in trouble without them. Now what?

 

I need to get back into the swing of things in Iowa. I miss my coffee shop and Drew the Barista who mixes the espresso in my iced vanilla latte ($4.08) for me. I miss the three or four books I was reading and having time to be productive with my laziness.

 

I feel fat, lazy, and worthless. Well, not worthless, but worthless to other people. In that I haven’t dispensed any grace to anybody in a while. I feel angst-ridden and cooped up. Trapped in a Thanksgiving birdcage or something.

 

A self-imposed forest of rusting iron.

 

But thanks be to God for the Spirit, who is guiding me to the lines on His face. 

Green Apple Sea

Today I had my first scuffle with (adamant) anti-creationists. How silly it all is. We were in rhetoric class, reading an article from the editorial Nature, which was talking about radical environmentalists and how they rely heavily on passion. Emotion, as the book says. The article compared the radical environmentalists to creationists in that they both (according to the article) rely on emotion rather than the ever-glorious “Scientific Method.” As I read the article, I noted how very pretentious it is, putting words in people’s mouths and beliefs in people’s hearts.

 

So, a really nice kid named (well, let’s just call him) Toby says, “I like how the author associates them with creationists, because they both rely on an emotional belief.”

 

Bob (again, not his real name), the most annoying kid in the class (and a McCain-Palin supporter I’d just like to throw in there) says, “Yeah, all of those have some deep-rooted belief in them.”

 

I say, “Well, since the Scientific Method relies on repeatable, observable experiments, isn’t the Big Bang or evolution just as much about faith as creationism?”

 

Bob says, “Well it’s about inductive reasoning.”

 

I say, “But that’s still not something you can experiment, observe, and repeat . . .”

 

Class ends. How silly!

Africa Revisited

Journal entries:

 

June 3rd: “Dear Lord, Please give me a foundation of wisdom and love as I mentally and emotionally prepare for Nigeria. I will be changed—I know that much.”

 

June 3rd: “I haven’t slept in a bed in three days, and plane sleep doesn’t really do the trick. This trip will be extremely tiring but I could be changed so much.

Dear Lord, thank you for getting me here, and the wonderful opportunity to serve others for You. I pray that You would change me. Amen.”

 

June 4th: “The air is crisp this morning, promising a day of renewal and change: rebirth in the breaking humility of brotherly human spirit, separated by eons of ocean and time before the fall . . . my whole life has culminated to this trip: to this journey into oblivion, it is here I will realize the power of God. Lord please change me for a lifetime and prepare/enlighten Your will for me . . . Amen.”

 

June 4th: “When people talk about Africa they talk about the jungles and lions and stuff. And the weird thing is that there actually are really sweet jungles and forests—etc . . . On our drive to Jos from Abuja we saw locals growing a certain kind of plant into a fence. There are lots of colors here, but I think I have only seen the reds—the blood of lost human life manifested in the conquest of the evil Europeans, who robbed the Africans of their culture forever.”

 

June 4th: “—visited land for women’s home—Gidan Bege, “House of Hope”—Blind Town, girl with open sores.”

 

June 4th: “Women’s home—that was the first thing we did the first morning. The poverty is simply amazing. Baba drove us along this ridiculously horrid rode to a plot of land that’s gonna be a home for women. We were standing around and a man in an orange shirt came up to us and asked us for money. He actually got on his knees when he was introducing himself. We prayed over the land and then we left.”

 

June 4th: “Wheel chair ministry—we drove straight from the women’s land to the wheel chair thing. Basically it was a group of men who built tricycles for disabled people and gave them out for free. The thing is that the ministry is run by a man who is disabled himself. He was strong, with a deep voice, he had weathered skin and bore a smile adorned with hardship, pain, and experience. His eyes seemed sad—his being was totally in service. It amazes me that in a country of such destitution people can give their full being into service and live. Live. To serve others.”

 

June 4th: “Gidan Bege—“House of Hope”—it’s a place for orphans, or actually street kids, and widows. We sat around in a circle and they (a few of the boys) gave us their testimonies. I sat in between Livinus (left) and Cilas (right). It was really sad. The boys who gave their testimonies were Moses, Samson, and Chinu? It was amazing. Moses’ story: his father was a drunk. His father came home every day and beat Moses and his mom every day. Then Moses’ mother got sick. And Moses’ father still beat her . . . then she died. Moses’ grandmother eventually got him to Gidan Bege. (—they love having their picture taken) Blind Town—Blind Town is basically the poorest are in Jos. Which is saying a lot considering how poor the city is. We (the men) got to meet the chief of the lepers and his wife. They had rooms the size of walk-in closets and they had stubs for hands and feet. Martha laughs after everything she says—good. Night.”

 

June 5th: At this point, my heart couldn’t feel, and my head couldn’t think. I couldn’t even write in my journals. At the end of each day I would scribble down what I did. I remember much of it, and my older blog entries (from July I believe) have much of what I experienced, but I will re-interpret my scribbles, now that it has almost been a year. “Things we did today:—drove from Jos to Makurdi (5 hrs)—knocked down a wall so the orphans don’t have to walk around the compound for water—went to the Makurdi Marketplace to get food, a sledgehammer, sodas—went to a Bad Boyz scrimmage.”

 

June 5th: The drive: It felt odd. Marque drove myself, Bumper, and Papa with Monday to Makurdi. We were the only three white people there—we arrived at the Makurdi Gidan Bege and were introduced to David, who ran the place, with his wife. There were 22 boys at the Makurdi Gidan Bege. David also had a soccer team: Bad Boyz. He did so much. We walked around the place and America seemed to vanish from my head. There were two parts of the orphanage: in one half lived David and his wife, in the other lived the boys and Sebastian, who was basically the house dad. He had five kids and his wife lived there, too. So: 22 Gidan Bege boys + 5 Sebastian’s children + 2 Sebastian and wife = 29 people. A wall separated the two halves, and the well (the only source for water) was on David’s side. So: 3 David, wife, their baby, had the water. And: 29 on the other side had to walk on the outside of the complex, around the outer wall, and into David’s side with a 5-gallon bucket and get water (and then they have to walk back with the full bucket). Then we went to the market place: as we drover the van through the jam-packed marketplace a Nigerian man said, “White man . . . (5 second pause as the van was stopped and the man looked at me through the open van window) . . . how are you?” After the marketplace we went to see the Bad Boyz  play a scrimmage, and that was a unique experience in Africa even. The players were amazing—better than anything I had ever seen. When they were done we got to meet them, and we took like 40 pictures. Felt like the red carpet. It didn’t feel right—they seemingly worshiped us for nothing. What had we done? Done: we lived spoiled American lives and came to their country with a Bible. I know spreading the gospel is good and all, but the interaction with the players was extremely wrong. Why were we worthy? They smiled and shook our hands and took pictures with their cell phones. Why?

 

June 6th: painting the church building with Bad Boyz players. Film at night—

 

June 7th: Dwight said: “It’s a tactic I like to call . . . diversion.”

 

June 8th: The last journal entry that wasn’t a list of things done: “The courtyard defined squalid. No longer was that word associated with photographs—reality has rudely intruded into the realm of meaning: a stray flip-flop, a skinny dog with right ear gnawed to the raw flesh, a pile of dirt and sand three feet high (laying inches from the well), and a gazebo screaming with the moans of a generator returning to Jos with us. The stillness of the air spelled an evil stagnancy, as the people lay robbed of their rights.”

 

June 9th: Luke said, of Obama, “He swore on the Quran to enter the Senate, does that not scare you?” For the record: no. not at all. In the morning we had to go to the immigration office, because something had happened when the three men were in Makurdi, so we went to the immigration office. Dwight was so scared. We answered questions from the immigration officer: who was on a huge power trip. He liked that the white people in front of him were at his mercy, literally. After that we went to EMS, a school for kids whose parents were missionaries (these were Nigerian kids whose Nigerian parents did local missions stuff.) I my journal I say, “EMS=joy (room w/ drum and dancing). Colors: I’m seeing colors besides red.” We went to a small room where the joyful children put on a small drama for us, song us songs, and danced. I also have written down, “Monday—now I feel.” In that room, the dancing room, I actually had feelings. No other part of the trip gave me feelings. Home and slept—

 

June 10th: “Hospital tour, lunch @ Ardill’s—soccer match @ Geiro (we lost 2-1) I broke my toe at the soccer match.

 

June 11th: “Spent 3 hours drawing shit in the morning—Gidan Bege for the last time—(Simon, Samson, Musa)—Bad Boyz (not the soccer team, but the poor area of town where all people do is drink)—went to pubs and handed out tracts to drunks: we need prayer, follow-up, and discipleship.” I could explain Bad Boyz, but I can’t. there is another entry on it. I am tired now this has made me tired

 

goodbye, hunter

 

ps, from june 19th, three days after being home from Nigeria: “reality: what’s real and what isn’t? reality: what matters and what doesn’t?”

 

 

War

I realize that I’m only 19 years old, and sometimes it probably seems ridiculous that I make some of the statements that I do, because how could I possibly have the knowledge or experience of one to talk about politics, spirituality, truth, or life? If your stance on my blog, in the past, has been one of skepticism or doubt, criticism or judgment, you might want to pass on reading this one, or perhaps you would like to pick a fight with me, I don’t know. But I am going to talk about war. Yeah, war.

 

First of all, I will say that I strongly believe God hates war. People often point to the Old Testament in saying what a just war is, in the manner that God used war, the amount of times He used war to accomplish His will, and such claims. Now, I think most of you might agree with this, that God hates war, and I think most of you will agree that war is an evil thing, and is only necessary because of the fall.

 

(I pause, briefly, because I realize we are in a battle against Satan, “Against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” We are, as Paul says in Ephesians, in a war against Satan and his spiritual allies. Now, let us notice that we are not in a war against “flesh and blood,” as Paul states prior to the listing of what we actually are at war with.)

 

In Hosea, a beautiful book and story, God’s anger and love for Israel swings back and forth between punishment and redemption. In chapter 2, as God explains how He will restore Israel, He says, “I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and will make them lie down in safety.” God’s plan for restoration does not, at all, include war. I think you know this, dear reader.

 

One: I do not agree with the so-called “War on Terror” we are waging in Iraq. (I think most of us have (hopefully) reached this point.) What are we fighting?

 

Two: I do not agree with the war in Afghanistan. After convincing from my smart friend in DC, I have come to oppose this war also, a war which many people still support/like, or whatever. I think that the search for bin Laden is just provoking our enemies in the Middle East and simply multiplying the problem. Here is an article that talks about the surge of al-Qaeda related groups: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11173538 (It’s from NPR which rocks.)

 

Three: I am terrified, and would strongly oppose a war with or in Pakistan.

 

Four: I am flirting with pacifism.

 

Here are a few quotes from Letters from Abu Ghraib, by Josh Casteel:

 

“Freedom is not made by pipelines being bought in Afghanistan, nor by the major private corporations handling construction and oil distributions (Enron, Halliburton) who profit incredibly by the joint military venture/tax breaks set forth by the Bush Administration. Freedom is nor made behind closed doors with Saudi regimes (who espouse the very same Wahabist Sunni ideas as the terrorists) because we fear losing their input in the American economy (which is over 7%). My contention with George Bush is not one of believing him malevolent, but rather believing him unwise and guilty of maligning God’s freedom with mere political rhetoric.”

 

“Capital Hill has replaced the Vatican, and hospitals and political parties have replaced the Church as “new salvation,” granting “life” and “freedom” to those who follow their teaching. We don’t need the Eucharist, we have medicine. Democracy is now forced upon peoples like Christianity was during the Holy Roman Empire, in the “Christianizing” of civilization—now, we’re “Democratizing,” and instead of the Pope or an Emperor, we have the American President.”

 

“You can’t call [President Bush] “Pro-Life” . . . Campaigning in the name of Life and Family in circumstances such as these, to my mind, is simply unconscionable. And if I could sit down with the commander in chief right now, and talk things through, I too would simply say “shame on you, Mr. Bush.” How dare you take up the sword Peter was told to lay down, and use it in the name of a freedom which cannot be won by force . . . Where’s al-Qaeda? Where’s bin Laden? Where is the investigation into the nation from which all of the 9-11 hijackers were natural-born citizens (Saudi Arabia)?”

 

Point being: I am learning, and forming my opinions, and right now I strongly oppose every war we are in. I hate war. If you have ever been to a war-torn country, you hate war too. If you haven’t, go.

I was at Prairie Lights just a few nights ago and was hearing a guy read from his book, which is set in the Cold War and is basically a James bond knock-off. A host asked him questions, and at least four or five times he mentioned how cool it was to invent different ways of killing people. How cool it was. To invent ways of killing. This man, reading from his book, is a fully-grown man living in Iowa; he has an M.D. and is a fulltime doctor. I leaned back in my chair, searching for eyes as horrified as mine, but none came. Rather, instead of sickened eyes, I saw smiles, smirks and hungry grins. How cool, they thought. How cool.

What is with our obsession of violence? 

I Don't Want No Damn Religion

Jesus, this is why I love Jesus. Well, at least three quick ones.

 

ONE: Jesus is an environmentalist. Something bothers me about Republicans: for the most part, they seem like war-mongering oil tycoons who love rich people and don’t mind if the poor get stepped on like a worn, cobbled path. I know that’s probably not true but it’s the vibe I get. In Genesis 1:28, God charges man with a responsibility, “Fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds in the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

 

It feels really good to us that God tells us to “subdue” the earth, because somehow we (being the egotistical bastards we are) take this and add it tour our damn power-trip selves. We think that, somehow, subduing the earth means destroying forests and brutally killing animals and raising chickens in little rectangular cages and cutting their beaks off and dipping baby pigs in boiling oil to get their hair off. Somehow we take it to mean dumping waste into the Gulf like you would dump bubble bath into your kid’s bathtub, or drilling for oil across the world—tearing the earth apart and literally tearing areas of the world apart because we drink oil like Michael Jordan drinks Gatorade.

 

As I read that charge in Genesis, I thought about what the word “rule” means exactly. And, clearly, it has monarchical implications. God rules over us; He is our Lord. Christ is the King—that sorta thing. So, when I hear God tell me to rule over the earth, it makes me think about how He rules over us—with love, gentleness, sacrifice, diligence, faithfulness, and humility. God’s ruling over us is so opposite of the ruling we have been doing over nature. Though Bush did create one of the biggest ocean reservations ever, so many areas of gotten worse: rivers have become more polluted, he backed out of the Kyoto Protocol, which is an initiative to prevent Global Warming. (And, no matter where you stand on the issue of Global Warming, I think we can agree that dumping a bunch of gases into the atmosphere isn’t a good thing.) He backed out of the Kyoto Protocol AFTER promising to reduce CO[-2] gases . . .so . . . that’s sorta backward, coming from a man claiming to know and love Christ.

 

When I hear God tell us to rule the earth, I would like to think we would rule it as He would rule it Himself. I love Jesus because He cares about the earth He created, and no matter how much we [EXPLITAVE] the earth up, He will come back and clean things up for us. Go green, Jesus did.

 

TWO: Jesus loves the poor. I have a big heart for the poor, and for homeless people. I think it’s because I went to Africa and God changed my heart there. But caring for the poor is something the church, as a whole, does a pretty poor job of doing. Say hi to my friend Joel Osteen in Houston, Texas. His church is gigantic and mega and like a world of its own, a world I, thank God, am not a part of. His world, Lakewood Church, meets in a stadium where the Houston Rockets used to meet. Each week there are about 40,000 people showing up because Joel says that it’s God’s will for you to be rich. It’s like the American Dream mixed with God: bad, bad, horrible, disgusting, appalling idea. It’s bullshit, really. He makes so much money at church and even more money from his ridiculously absurd “books.”

 

I read an article about Osteen and his humble family in People magazine a few months ago. It showed Osteen’s house (not absurdly huge, but bigger than 99% of people’s houses in the world) with a cream-colored Escalade out front. It was shiny. His church brings in about 1 million dollars a week, and even more from online donations. Over the course of the year Lakewood Church rakes in about 70 million dollars. Yeah, my mouth hung open a little too.

 

With all this money in the hands of someone who claims to love God you might expect better stewardship. But no, he hasn’t really started a homeless shelter or anything too grand. Just Escalades, trips to Colorado, flights with his wife pushing flight attendants, and Barbie houses.

 

Jesus, when He was in Nazareth, said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.” Jesus literally came here for the poor, but the great part is it wasn’t only for the physically poor, but the poor in spirit.

 

Jesus loved the poor: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

 

THREE: Not only does Jesus love the poor, but he loves the rich as well. Yes, he gets angry with them a lot, because they say one thing and do another, but the extraordinary thing is how anchored his anger is, how focused it is on love. He is angry because he loves these people but they just. don’t. get. it.

 

This is something that bothers me about Democrats (and myself): they, and I, complain about the rich-loving Republicans so much, how they don’t love the poor. The hypocritical thing is: it’s so hard, near impossible, for the Democrats to find love for the Republicans. They claim to love the poor so much, giving to them and slating the economy in their favor, but then they can’t bring themselves to love the Republicans. It’s sad, really. Because it creates a cycle of hate and ungrace.

 

Somehow Jesus found a way to love the poor and the rich, the hippies and the CEOs, the Democrats and the Republicans. Jesus doesn’t care where you were born, what color your skin is, how you vote, as long as you seek Him first.

 

Jesus wants us to be one, like He and the Father are one. But we are so split because we are split inside, in our hearts. That’s why this life sucks so badly sometimes. Because of the fall. We are so disenfranchised and fragmented. Jaded—

 

I really, really, am tired of religion. All of them. I just want Jesus. The church isn’t a building or a group of building, it’s a group of people who all love the same dude: Jesus Christ the Environmentalist who loves rich people and poor people and blue people and Republicans and Democrats, all of whom can’t love each other. God is love.

 

I want Jesus. I want Revelation 21:1-7.

 

All in good time. 

I Sold My Piano

Prayer is a funny thing. God is a funny thing, or being I guess. Whatever. I remember the good ol days of 722, I mean way back in the beginnings, and we discussed prayer, its effectiveness (or lack thereof). It was actually a night where people took different sides. If, as some did and do, someone believed in man’s complete lack of free will his or her view of prayer seemed to be diminished quite a bit. If God know everything that will happen, and man’s path is paved without choices, then why pray? It’s sorta useless. And some people who are 5-point Calvinists can try to argue their way around it but I haven’t heard anything too dreadfully convincing. The interplay between God’s sovereignty and our free will is something we certainly can’t wrap our minds around, and that might seem like a cop-out answer to some of you but I don’t really care what you think.

 

Having said this, if you’ve read my last few posts you’ve discovered I’m having trouble finding like-mindedness. People who think and breath like me—with the same passions and such. So I prayed a lot. About this. And while I was praying the thought occurred to me, Prayer, funny thing, is this helping? So with that thought in mind I perused the Bible. (Yes, I was questioning the practical effectiveness of prayer, though I have never really struggled with the value of prayer. If Jesus prayed to Daddy, it must be important.) But, as I was perusing, I stumbled upon a verse in James, a passage really, about prayer. And the funny thing is it’s one I’ve read quite a bit. It’s marked red with ink in my Bible. So I read it again, and God slapped me with revelation (like a jealous lover her boyfriend as he checks out a girl in a green dress not too far off):

 

“Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.” –James 5:17

 

Are you kidding me? Why had nobody ever shown me that verse? It seems like this is one of those things that puts out an argument faster than a fire brigade can put out a candle. The sentence before answers the question, “Does prayer really do anything?”

 

“The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” –James 5:16b

 

Hello? Is anyone hearing this? Pray you dummies. It seems obvious that prayer is something not only valuable to God, but something effective in mankind’s efforts against the Evil One. Golly, it’s like someone was hiding that from me or something. I wish I could go yell it out.

 

But anyway, I prayed to God that He would give me people I love to be around. And, ideally, people who I love to be around and who love Jesus, too. So the past couple of days I have met some really cool people. Some who are Christians, some who aren’t, some who I’d like to get to know better and might not get the chance to, and some who I will get to know better as the year rolls by. Here are a few:

 

Vauhini is really great. She is from Seattle and went to Stanford. So, as you can already guess, she is brilliant. She is in the fiction department in the Writer’s Workshop and writes really well. Characters are people you know or at least can believe. Vauhini isn’t Christian but has been really respectful of my faith and has asked a lot of questions. Jesus would love to have Vauhini follow Him. She would do wonders for His name. Vauhini, after she went to Stanford, spent four years working as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in San Francisco. Not only is she terribly brilliant, but she is great with people, too. She has a soft and gracious heart that is the kind of heart the Church needs.

 

There is also Josh, and since there is already a Josh the Quarterback I will call this one Josh the Playwright. Josh the Playwright wrote a book, non-fiction, that is just great. I will probably blog about it later in the week if I think about it. But here’s what it is: think Donald Miller meets St. Paul meets the “War on Terror” (Yes, that bloody mess). It is awesome. If you want to read it ask me about it. But anyway, I am getting coffee with Josh on Wednesday and I am really excited about it because he loves Jesus and he doesn’t like the fragmented nature of our political system. He is a really honest guy in his book, like Adam Duritz in his lyrics, and I connected with his words a great deal. In fact, it has probably been the closest book to my heart in the past few months. Read it! If you want to know the title, ask me! Hopefully me and Josh the Playwright connect well.

 

Andrew the Poet is the last one I will blog about I think. Hopefully me and Andrew can hang out soon, because he is really great, and we have a few automatic connections: he is from Alabama, which means he is awesome already because even though Texas is different from ‘Bama, it’s still a South thang. Also, something which I learned today, Andrew the Poet is a Christian, which is rare in Iowa City and even rarer for a student in the Iowa Workshop. I walked into the coffee shop today and he was reading Job. That’s cool.

 

So, that is what prayer did. It brought these (and a few more) people close to me and hopefully closer in the future, so you can pray for that. Also, pray for Vauhini, Andrew, and Josh, that they would either come to know the Lord (in Vauhini’s case) or that they would continue in their integrity and faith (in Josh’s case and Andrew’s case). I will even give u a checklist:

 

1.     1) Pray for Vauhini, that she would continue to ask great questions and, Lord willing, come to know Christ. (Because I can feel how much Christ loves her it wrenches at my ventricles.)

2.     2) Pray for Josh the Playwright, that God would comfort him and give him peace and fellowship.

3.     3)Pray for Andrew the Poet, that God would encourage him and allow him to find a church that will nourish his Southern spirit.

4.     4) Pray for me, that God would bring one of these people (or more, obviously) close to me so I can have true, beautiful fellowship with other believers.

5.     5) If you want to read Josh the Playwright’s amazing book, ask me.

Come Around. Come Around. Again!

Betrayed . . .

Like Christ . . . scorched from an inner heart burned a flame of life and love . . . 

Not I only . . . but you too . . . my beautiful and loyal blood

My blood . . . 

My blood . . . stabbed

Hello Judas! 

Hello Brutus!

Shed not mine but both . . .

No matter:

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

We will come around, baby.I'm comin' around. Now. 

 

Two Hearts Beat as One

I don’t like Pita Pit. I had it once, not too long ago, and I think I almost threw up. I really hated it. But I don’t hate the people there; they are cool. They are like hippies and people who have trees tattooed to their wrists or something. They are environmentalists who vote Democrat and like free-range chicken or are all the way vegan.

I’m at the coffee shop right now. And on my walk here I passed the Pita Pit. I first thought, when I saw the sign: Geez, I hate that place. I continued to walk and my mouth twisted and contorted like Paul Hamm from gymnastics in the Olympics. Adam sang “Recovering the Satellites” in my ear and my elephant-skin cowboy boots marched along the wet cement. Pita Pit’s obnoxious red sign screamed and I looked through the window: I saw a dude, you know, a college dude. He had a gray, Iowa hoody with a black Northface pulled over it so the hood sticks out the back and looks cool. His blue eyes focused on absolutely nothing, but they stared directly in front of him. The pita sat lonely on the table, with hands resting on either side. With his jaw slightly open, the dude looked at me. Oh shit, look away Hunter. I looked at my boots, turned the corner, and walked up the blue-carpeted stairs to my beloved coffee shop.

I love that dude. Here is my point, people: the world thirsts for Christ. It longs for Him. It needs him and everybody is looking for Him, I’m convinced. G.K. Chesterton said, “When a man knocks on the door of a brothel, he is looking for God.” Dude is looking for God. The man next to me, reading the newspaper, is looking for God. The business execs walking in their expensive suits are looking for God. It drives me crazy! I wish we could be better dispensers of grace.

I did laundry this morning. I like doing laundry, mainly because I get to lay down for a few minutes while my clothes wash and dry, but I still like doing laundry. While my clothes were drying I decided to burn 15 minutes reading articles on MSN. I scrolled the home page and looked for something interesting. Embarrassingly enough, the tagline for the article I chose was: “Aniston lashes out at Jolie.” I know, I know, I’m more mainstream than I’d like to think, but I learned something cool from the article and it prompted me to write this entry. The thing was about Aniston getting mad at Jolie for some things Jolie said about the filming of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, apparently the sparkplug for the Jolie-Pitt domination of celebrity love.

Anyways, as I read the article I came to a quote that made me really sad. Aniston is talking about marriage and says, “Whoever said everything has to be forever, that's setting your hopes too high. It's too much pressure. And I think if you put that pressure on yourself, fairy tale! It has to be the right one! That’s unattainable.” I don’t even want to read it again now because it will make me sad again. When I walked past dude I thought about this quote. Sometimes people are so hopeless and desperate, like my friend Jennifer Aniston, because they have been tossed like ragdolls through life’s tempests.

Whether they/we realize it or not, the one thing we look for is Jesus. He is hope. He is comfort. He is love. He is good. He is intimacy. He is forever. He takes away the pressure. He puts your yoke on His back.

Read Revelation 21:1-7.

Hope. Let’s dispense it. 

Have You Seen Me Lately?

"To quarrel with God is to pay God the supreme compliment: it is to take God seriously. It is to say that God matters enough to be worth some anger. To be indifferent to God is to pay God the supreme insult. It is to say that nothing of consequence is at stake."

—Elie Wiesel

 

Brief Wiki on Wiesel: Elie Wiesel (born Eliezer Wiesel on September 30, 1928) is a Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, the best known of which is Night, a memoir that describes his experiences during the Holocaust and his imprisonment in several concentration camps. Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind", noting that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps," as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace," "Wiesel has delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity.

        

It might be self-justification. It might be truth. But it’s probably both self-justification and truth.

I’ve been quarreling with God, not in a dangerous way, but in a way that is a conquerable mountain, an obstacle in front of a strong warrior. It seems silly, well in fact it is silly, to quarrel with God, but perhaps not fruitless.

I’m mad at God for a few reasons. Reasons, I might add, that are quite trivial when I read Revelation 21. When I think about the big plan, God’s end game, the New Jerusalem, the established kingdom where we will sup with our dear Lord Christ Jesus and feel the light and warmth of God’s grandeur. Small things, but they hurt nonetheless.

The first might make you laugh. As a guy, I want a girl. (Well I know that all guys don’t want a girl, but I do.) Most college guys want a girl’s body. I hate to be arrogant, but I think it’s quite obvious that I’m in the upper echelon of maturity and spiritual development. I don’t really like to go on dates, and it might be kind of unfair to girls. Because this is what I normally do: I am friends with a girl, and I get close to her and decide if she is the type I would like to marry, and if she isn’t then I sort of stop being close to her. I’m an asshole; I realize this, so please forgive me. It’s selfish. But it’s true. I want a girl. Like-minded, Christ-loving, beautiful. Proverbs 31, really. And she has to have a heart for the poor. Although that would fall in the “like-minded category,” but you get the picture.

The second reason I’m quarreling with God is because I’m about two and a half months into college, and have not really found anyone my age who is really like-minded. Who has the same vision or thoughts as me. There is one in D.C. and a few in Dallas, but I haven’t found my Iowa City clique yet. Don’t get me wrong, there are wonderful and (a lot of) beautiful people here, but not so many me-kinda people. It’s fine. It will come. And I need to pray. And I need you to pray for me also. Or rather pray to God that he will slam me with people like me that can sharpen me.

The third reason is perhaps the most trivial but I feel it all the same. I wish I could hug Jesus. Ya know? Do you get that desire. I do. Here is a short excerpt from my novella that talks about what I mean:

"Problems diminish when there is someone to think about. Someone—not an abstract idea or a faceless name, but someone. Not a collection of stories with the same name reprinted, not even a great being or spirit missing some great body and warmth. Someone—to squeeze when towers drop and buses explode. Someone to smile with—smile at stupid, silly things nobody else understands. Someone with an unquenchable desire, an untold want, like your own. Someone who is honest—raw with problems. Honest with their disease—the one you have too. Someone whose skin bleeds."

Pray for me please. I’m doing really well up here, I promise. I adore Iowa City and my heart is throbbing more and more in tune with its problems. With its beat. I’m going to go talk to God if you don’t mind. Farewell. 

Jesus

I think that Jesus is attractive. What I mean by that is, if you see someone who is like Jesus, or has the same characteristics as Jesus, you will be attracted to that person. Unconsciously. Like you are drawn to people who are like Jesus. Not because you recognize in your mind that they are like Jesus, but because Jesus possesses all the qualities that are good. And perfect. And genuine. Attractive.

For example, tonight I was watching The Painted Veil with Ed Norton and Naomi Watts. It’s an awesome love story. It’s not even cheesy or anything. It just rocks. And, knowing the story, when I turned it on, I thought to myself, When Ed becomes more like Jesus she is more attracted to him, she falls in love with him because of what he does. Because of an affair, Ed and Naomi have a cold marriage, completely loveless. In fact full of spite. But as Naomi sees Ed serve, love, and give himself to the infected city, she falls in love with him. When he gives himself for something higher, she falls. When he literally sacrifices himself, she falls. Jesus is attractive.

Best part: if we truly see Jesus and his sacrifice, not only will we be attracted to him but we will be compelled to act. Duty, in a sense. Loyalty. First we will fall in love and then we will want to become more and more like Him.

Though there is a catch. There’s always a catch. You are the catch. I’m so selfish I don’t like to look at Jesus, and if I don’t look I won’t be attracted, and if I’m not attracted I won’t act. We are so damn selfish. We can’t get away from ourselves. So we have to break, or be broken. Over. And. Over. We’re stuck in ourselves. Jesus is literally the only hope. 

Words from the Prof . . .

Hey guys, I got an email from my Whitman professor this morning, who has influenced me and been a great person in my life this semester, I asked and he said I could share his words with you regarding the election:

Hey my old Whitman friends,

 

Indulge me for a moment at this pivotal point in history, when waking up today truly does, without hyperbole, mean waking up to a new America.  Our history trembled and shifted last night; it will never be the same.  I’m thankful I’ve lived to experience it.

 

One of the poems we didn’t have a chance to explore this term is a poem Whitman wrote in the late 1860s, called “Ethiopia Saluting the Colors.”  It’s always a troubling poem to confront.  Often read as betraying Whitman’s racism, the poem has nonetheless been revered by many African American writers over the past century.  Langston Hughes called it “the greatest poem in our language concerning a Negro subject,” and the great African American composer H. T. Burleigh set it to music; it was often sung at Harlem Renaissance gatherings.  It has always seemed that African American writers and critics see something in the poem that most white readers do not. 

 

Take a look at the poem.  Whitman writes it from the perspective of a Union soldier who is marching with Sherman into the Carolinas in 1864, a march that resulted in the liberation of many slaves, who often—to the irritation of the Northern army—tried to latch onto the soldiers for protection and guidance.  In Whitman’s poem, a hundred-plus-year-old slave woman, dismissively named “Ethiopia” by the soldier-narrator, comes out of her hovel and salutes the American flag, to the consternation of the white soldier, who wonders who this “dusky woman, so ancient hardly human” is, and why she should care about the American colors.  The old slave woman, who was torn from her parents in Africa by slavers a century before and has experienced the Atlantic crossing, the American Revolution, the founding of the country, and its development as a slave republic, is now experiencing something she could not have imagined: white soldiers liberating her and her people.  The white soldier can’t see it from her perspective and can only ask, dismissively, “Are the things so strange and marvelous you see or have seen?”  But, of course, the things she has seen ARE indeed strange and marvelous, none more so than what she is seeing at that moment, when the nation’s flag, for the first time, seemed suddenly to symbolize something positive and had begun to include this ancient and “fateful” woman. (One of my favorite stories of the end of the Civil War is when abolitionists came to Charleston harbor to raise the Union flag over Fort Sumter; in the harbor, a ship filled with celebrating African Americans—many with their children along—heard a white officer say, as the flag was raised, “Now for the first time it is the black man’s as well as the white man’s flag.”)

 

When my graduate seminar was discussing this poem a couple of weeks ago, it seemed oddly different to me, once Barak Obama had become the Democratic nominee for president.  During the 1960s and 1970s, the poem was almost unteachable because it seemed so clumsily insensitive in its understanding of racial attitudes.  But I’ve always been attracted to the poem, in part because Whitman’s very first published piece, in the New York Mirror in 1834 (when he was fifteen years old), was also about how “strange and marvelous” things could appear to an old black person who had witnessed American history from a vantage point that only an African American in this culture could obtain.  Whitman’s little article is called “The Olden Time,” and it starts by talking about how “vastly strange” it is to be told, that as “old” and “civilized” as New York City felt in 1830, there were still people alive who “conversed with men who once saw the present great metropolitan city as a little dorp or village.”  Whitman goes on to tell how, in 1758, a “Negro Harry,” “aged at least one hundred and twenty years,” had died on Long Island.  He had been a slave in the same family for a hundred years.  This “old oracle” carried the history of the community in a way no one else could, and he remembered New York when “there were but three houses in it.”  The young Whitman had talked to people who knew Negro Harry and heard his amazing tales.  I’ve often thought that Whitman carried with him this little bit of history he had picked up in his childhood and used it again thirty years later as he thought about what that hundred-plus-year-old slave woman might have seen in her century’s journey through America.

 

So you will understand last night, as Barak Obama stood before 250,000 people in Chicago’s Grant Park and spoke to us of our history and how we were now experiencing it do something, respond to something, that we could only barely begin to register, why I was struck when he evoked a hundred-plus-year-old black woman to guide us through the moment.  This woman, as you all heard, was 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper who cast her ballot yesterday in Atlanta.  It’s one of “many stories that will be told for generations” about this election, Obama said, and it’s the “one that’s on my mind tonight”: “She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons—because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.”  You’ll remember how Obama then took us through our history, from the “time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed,” to the “despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land,” to the bombs falling “on our harbor and tyranny threatening the world,” to “the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that ‘We Shall Overcome,’” to a man touching down on the moon, a wall coming down in Berlin, to a moment when Ann Nixon Cooper “touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.”  It was during that catalog of the past century’s history that Obama began to intone his campaign chant, but somberly now and with quiet conviction: “Yes we can.” 

 

He ended this amazing address by saying, just as Negro Harry and the old slave woman Ethiopia, “America, we have come so far.  We have seen so much.  But there is so much more to do.”  Another 100-plus-year-old black woman had looked at what America had become and was, like Whitman’s slave woman a hundred and fifty years earlier, shaking her head at what she had seen.  I’m sure many white Americans, like the befuddled Union soldier in Whitman’s poem, were wondering what was so “strange and marvelous” about what Ann Nixon Cooper had seen.  But I, for the first time, thought I understood what those Harlem Renaissance writers had seen in Whitman’s poem, had seen in that “fateful” ancient slave woman’s wonderment at what the American flag could come to mean, of how its shape-shifting symbolism actually can change, of how far we have come, and, because of that, of how far we can still go.  Those three black centenarians--all carrying the nation’s fate, living the three centuries of our history, from Negro Harry when New York was but three houses, to Ethiopia seeing white men liberating the slaves, to Ann Nixon Cooper voting for the first African American president—carry the stories of all of us, and I loved President-Elect Obama’s final evocation of the next black centenarian (maybe one of his daughters!), leaving us all to wonder what “strange and marvelous” things she will tell at the beginning of the twenty-second century.

 

Best,

Ed Folsom

She. Is. Just. Like. Mercury.

Perhaps the most frightening thing about a trip to Africa is the damage it will do to your soul. It will force, undoubtedly, you to question, prod, and dissect your previously held notions of what you believe is reality.

My junior year of high school I picked up a book from Starbucks, expecting a good read with a few things I didn’t know about. A few pages in I realized that the words of Ishmael Beah didn’t come from a distant planet, or even the musings of his mind, but they came from the experiences of his body, hardened by the horrors of war. I sped through the book like the Devil was on my back, and, when I finished, I loaned it (and bought more and more copies) to multiple friends. They read it, but nobody seemed to be as touched as myself, or, more accurately, disintegrated. It blew me apart.

I felt the lure of the forbidden continent. I felt its draw. After my senior year, and in large portion due to Ishmael Beah’s book, I took a trip to Nigeria, the most populated country in Africa, split by Christians and Muslims, and corrupted by wealthy government officials. While there, I learned truths I otherwise would be blind to, things to make one shudder in one’s sleep and wake from the solace of the night. Marque, for example, told me a story. Marque is a 37-year-old man, (who looks like he’s 22) who is the tech guy. He can fix anything: radio, TV, car engine, watch, you name it. If it’s electrical and it breaks, give it to Marque. Brilliant guy. More intelligent than most any American I have ever met. Sharp. World-weary, and loving. I spent less than two weeks with Marque, but I would put my life in his hands without a question.

I leaned in closer as Marque produced his tale: he was in the Northern parts of Nigeria, a stronghold of Muslims, and as a Christian preaching the gospel, Marque had plenty reason to fear for his life. Marque and several others were asleep in a house, having just proclaimed the gospel in a Muslim town. Suddenly a cinder block shattered the window in Marque’s room—he heard yells. Marque and his three companions crawled, as quietly as they could, to another window and they took a peak: several men wielding machetes, blood in their eyes, fire in their hearts. They crawled to a new window: more men, the house was surrounded. Adrenaline pumped through Marque’s veins—he had been in sticky situations before, but not like this. Through every window hungry, red eyes searched for movement like sharks in deep waters. Marque and his friends gathered and prayed. There wasn’t much else they could do. The yells continued, but through the drone a new voice arose, different and stronger. It stifled the yells of the machete-wielding warriors. The murmurs died down into nothingness and Marque heard a creak near the front door. The warriors had finally decided to stop the intimidation and start the brawl—but the voice, the stifling voice, told them the men with the machetes were gone. Marque and his friends, still huddled together, looked out the window—the men were gone. The man with the voice showed himself: a tall, barefoot impostor, clothed in a cream-colored tunic, worn red by the dirt. He told Marque he and his friends were free to go. The men were gone.

A desire for tea led to a trip to Starbucks, which in turn led to the purchase of a book, which followed with a trip to Nigeria, which culminated with soul-wrenching experiences, but the journey wasn’t over.

I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered what the school reading would be: A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. And I was even more joyous when I found out Ishmael himself, the one who sent me, would be coming to our campus to speak.

As I filed into the tightly packed church I reflected on how much this author had affected my life, unbeknownst to him. It forced a certain wonder through my brain: how could one man, whose experiences occurred during my first few years of life, affect another so much? As Ishmael took the podium I gawked. There he is, I thought. This is the guy, the guy! This is it!

Despite the complaints of numerous students around me, I listened to what Ishmael had to say. (It was quite disappointing that many of the students complained about being there, they whined that there TAs made them go. I felt like telling them they need to leave their own heads and experience someone else’s worldview.) His talk was shorter than I had hoped for, but he answered questions like a genius. He put Sarah Palin, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and John McCain to shame.

One thing stood out, above all else. It was small: when he said that he still only sleeps three hours a night. My heart did a loop (like a crazy roller coaster) in my chest. Holy shit, 3 hours. I thought about the students who were actually complaining about being there. I hope you heard that. (Only now do I realize I was being just as snobby and self-righteous as they were.) Ishmael still lives with all of the memories. Every war scene rides his brain like a horseman on a stallion.

After the talk there was a brief book signing. I didn’t have my book, but I wanted to meet the guy. With my new friend Barb the Artist I reached (finally) the table, which Ishmael sat at. My heart pounded, like a caveman on an animal-skinned drum. I shook his hand, and was quickly ushered out the door. Quick, but beautiful.

Every experience either Ishmael or I ever had converged into the meeting of our hands. Two completely different worldviews fusing and then breaking in a moment’s time.