Hemingway and Coffee and God and Cured Restlessness

The coffee is a sort of gray-brown and is warm in right hand, and A Farewell To Arms is folded open to page 178 in my left hand, at the time when Frederic has been sent back to the front, back to Gorizia and back to the fighting, back to the blood and the ambulance he drives; he just left Milan, and Catherine, and it was very sad. A few months ago I thought it would be intellectual to read A Farewell To Arms, and so I picked it up and began to read it—very casually—and I finished it just last weekend. I liked it so much that I wanted to read another Hemingway novel, which I did (To Have and Have Not­—finished it in three days), but then I kept thinking about Catherine and how much my reading of Hemingway did not meet my expectations. To be honest, I thought that reading A Farewell To Arms would make me—like I mentioned above—very intellectual or something, and before that I had never been in love with Hemingway, but after To Have and Have Not I felt empty, so I picked up A Farewell to Arms again, starting it again yesterday, and now I am more than half-way through it. And now I am in love with Hemingway. I wrote a sentence about it yesterday, because it is a true sentence about how I feel about A Farewell To Arms, and it plays with the frustration/infatuation I have with the word “read”—how it can be both past and present tense:

 

I read it, and I read it again, and I was always reading it, and always am reading it, and always will read it, on a plane or at home or in between classes or with a cup of coffee or smoking a cigarette, and when I read it I felt and feel very disillusioned—very sure about things and very unsure about things at the same time—and all the time when I was reading it, and am reading it, even though I felt and feel disillusioned, the real things in life became and become very real and the small things in life became and become very small, and that is the way things ought to be in life and that is the way things were and are when I am reading A Farewell to Arms.

 

It is true that A Farewell To Arms is becoming my favorite book, more so than The Great Gatsby ever was, and it is also true that, when reading A Farewell To Arms, I feel more in-tune with life. It is a very good thing. It is a very good book. If you have not read it, you should read it.

 

School is almost over and I am feeling restless, and I know I am about to meet the band this weekend and hopefully that will work out, but I am still feeling very restless and wanting to fly to Africa or something. I also know that I have been pretty busy—which I think is a lie that Americans tell themselves so they feel good about the things they haven’t done—so I guess I haven’t been busy but I have been not reading God’s word for a few days. And it’s only been like three days since I’ve poured myself into his word, and I have still been writing in my prayer journal every day, but I can totally feel the difference. I am very restless, and it is not my favorite feeling; I just end up drinking enormous amounts of coffee and occasionally playing basketball to burn off some energy, which actually is very helpful. You should read A Farewell To Arms, and don’t miss the horrors in the book by passing by his beautifully understated language. You should read it, all right. Please read it. I sent a short story to the New Yorker today via email. I am writing a collection of short stories based in Galveston, Texas, where I spent a lot of time as a kid. They are good short stories, I think. Hopefully they will be published some day. If you want to read one now just let me know. I am generous in my letting people read stuff. I only have two done right now, and they are rough drafts but they are at least done and I think they have good endings, and I have another one that I am planning out and it will be interesting and I think it will be very good, too, like the other ones, and if they are all published as a short story collection it will be called “The Gulf Tales” I think, which sounds simple but is good because they are just simple tales with larger implications if you read into the characters like you should.

 

If you love Jesus, you might check out Revelation 21:1-7, because it is very beautiful and very comforting and it eases my restlessness like NyQuil eases un-sleepiness.

 

Hemingway and Narrative

As a writer, as a human being, over the past few months, I have been retrogressing from a preoccupation with complication—images, foreshadowing, symbols, hidden themes in my writing—to a primarily narrative-concerned state of things. When I read a book, or when I write one, why can’t a red car just be a red car? What I mean is, we inject far too much into things; not that deep meanings or thematic notions aren’t there, but that so often we lose the bigger picture, and in my mind, the thing that matters only: relationships. I’ve noticed this change just quite recently; firstly, a friend noted a difference in music taste that I’ve been going through—from Counting Crows (who, don’t get me wrong, I still practically worship) to other bands, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, U2, to name a few. The more recent development, however, has been my taste in literature. I’ve discovered Hemingway.

 

All that matters is loving God, loving people, and being loved; syntactically, I see this simple truth most manifested in the simple prose of Hemingway, not the depth and complexities of Joyce’s or—I hate to say it—Faulkner’s writing. Though I do relish in the ability of a writer to manipulate the words on a page, I see what matters most (relationships, in my mind) more easily in simple forms of art, in the Hemingway novels and story songs. 

Donning Love

At once people confront this life with fear and audacity, with reluctance—great hesitation—and zealousness—an unquenchable fervor. At once I fear pain and embrace vulnerability; at once I curse and praise, hate and love, dispense grace and stifle it, sin and serve, speak and am silent, mourn and rejoice, celebrate and grieve; at once I am dark and light, holy and imperfect, saved and disobedient.

 

All these I feel or am. Walt Whitman said that, in “Song of Myself,” and it was a beautiful thing to say, and—for me and those words above—it is a true thing to say. All these I feel or am. We are walking paradoxes, beautiful catastrophes; we are searchers, wanderers; we are seekers and rarely finders; we are lovers; we are loved; we are human beings.

 

Through this confusion, the eternal paradox of the human being, in all of her complexities, in her lying and honesty, love and hate, sin and service, through this chaotic darkness there comes a great Light—a Light who is the Truth in the form of a human, who is the Son of God and the Son of Man, who is Alpha and Omega. This Truth brings me hope and light. It spurs me to cast away my sin and don purity—holiness for His name’s sake.

Today, above all days, believers of Jesus Christ and His Father YHWH, believers of the Holy Spirit and the cross, believers of the Trinity and of flawless grace, today, above all days, we should focus on the love of God; more than ever, we should focus on the fact that, truly, God Himself is love. God is love.

 

A problem I have with the church is this: more often we focus on the cross and not the resurrection; more often we dwell on the sin and not the grace; more often we fester in the guilt and not the freedom; more often we think of what we did wrong and not what He has done right. If you are not a Christian, and you are reading this (which, I hope to all hope that there, indeed, are non-believers reading this entry), I apologize on behalf of the church for not always projecting the correct message: life is love—nothing more, nothing less. Life is Jesus Christ—love incarnate. Life is love.

 

Today, Jesus Christ is risen. With that truth, let us rejoice; let us love.

Love

My friend Josh the Writer is full of grace. There aren't very many people full of grace in this world. But he is one of them.

Josh helped me realize this:

The only thing that matters is loving God, loving people, and being loved.

That Night (Lights Are Shining)

I have never been one of those people who really believed in a defining moment. I have never been the person who thinks that someone could actually change from a single moment in time. I have always thought—had always thought—that change was something that solely occurs over a given period of time, a period of time usually being more than weeks or months. I suppose that was always my belief because that was always my experience. Never before had I been changed by a single moment, a moment of surrender. Never before, had a single night drastically changed my life.

 

Granted, when one puts their faith in Christ, that is obviously a life-changing moment, so don’t hear me wrong or anything. That happened a long while ago, and even in considering that I have learned that faith in Christ just gets harder after you accept Him.

 

But then something happened.

 

As I have shared with you before, my biggest struggle, the scariest thing that stood in the way of my relationship with Christ was my inability to forgive myself. I couldn’t do it. I could not bring myself to forgive myself of my own sin. I used to semi-hate myself. And that was selfish. It was all about me. All the time. It was all about whether I was happy or sad or depressed or if I had a crush on a girl or where I was going to school or what I was going to do with my life. Everything was about me, for so very long.

 

One night—March 22nd, 2009—I decided it was time.

 

Here’s what I want to do:

1.    I want to describe what spurred me on to make the decision.

2.    I want to describe the actual moment, that night.

3.    I want to describe the two weeks since then.

 

I.

There is the movie—American History X—that you need to see. In it, someone (several people, actually) goes through a transformation. And there is this one part, at the very end of the movie, that is on my mind often. I’m going to paraphrase it because I don’t remember the exact lines, but a character—one of the changed ones, says, “Life is too short to be pissed off all the time. Life is too short to carry so much baggage.”

 

I thought about that line; I thought about Matthew 11:28-30, where Jesus tells us that He wants to carry our shit; I thought about change and surrender; and then I decided that life is too short to be pissed off all the time, that life is too short to hate myself, that life is to short to not accept Christ’s sacrifice.

 

Simply put, I just decided I had to get my shit together. I had a problem that was easily fixed, and I had read the invitation (Matthew 11:28-30) hundreds of times. All of the pieces were there, but never—before that night—had I decided to do it.

 

So I did.

 

II.

It was a Sunday. And I had been thinking about several things: the movie Watchmen, a close friend, and American History X. I have blogged about Watchmen before, so I won’t say anything except that it was giving me dark thoughts about humanity, about the world and where it was headed, about myself. I was talking to my friend about—complaining, actually, I was complaining and being whiny about humanity—and she said something that made me think about American History X.

 

Life is too short to be pissed off all the time.

 

It was about 10:00 p.m. and those three things were in my head, and then I decided to go take a walk and forgive myself, to defeat my biggest problem, or—rather—to let Christ defeat my biggest problem.

 

I brought my Bible, and the keys to my dorm room.

 

I walked out into the dark night, the wind blowing softly but consistently. From the time I stepped out of my door I knew where I was headed; I knew that any literarily beautiful rebirth takes place by water. So I walked to the river, along the river, by the river and over the river, until I found a bench. There was a lampstand by the bench:

Before I sit down I look out onto the water, lights from the city shining, flickering, reflecting on the water’s surface, soft ebbs rising and falling on the river’s banks, the wind gliding over the river’s surface, under the bridge and over it; not a person in sight, only the grass and the river and the reflecting lights, I sit down on the bench.

 

Before I peel open the Bible with me, I sing softly, softly but roughly, my out-of-tune voice having no audience except an audience of One, a tripled Being. Light of the world, you stepped down into darkness, opened my eyes let me see. I sing it, and I sing it again; in the darkness of the night and the light of the lamp, I sing it.

 

I close my eyes and see a white staircase, leading directly to a throne. On either side there are angels in white robes with gold edges, some singing loudly with strong and beautiful voices, some blowing silver trumpets, some simply smiling, their eyes turned to mine, their souls touching mine, connecting. The path to the throne is wide, all stairs leading upward; if not for the angels there would be no end to the stairs. The angels form an end to the eternity of the stairs, leading me to the throne. I start to walk up the stairs, toward the throne, encouraged by angles.

 

When I focus my eyes on the throne above, when I strain to see what—who—sits upon the throne, when I look closer, as I step up and up and up the stairs, glancing neither left nor right, as I approach it, when I get nearer, I can see only a smile—

 

I open my eyes and there is the river; the lights are dancing.

 

The lights are dancing.

 

I open the Bible, the Word of the Lord, and read—over and over—Matthew 11:28-30. Take my yoke, He says. He says, I want to carry it. My yoke is easy and my burden is light, He says.

 

Take it, I say. Life is too short to be pissed off all the time. I forgive myself. I accept Your love.

 

Finally, He says. I have been here the whole time, dude.

 

I know, I say. It’s my bad—obviously.

 

No problem, He says. I love you, dude.

 

I love You too, I say.

 

III.

Even though I had doubts about that night (when reflecting on it the next day), even though I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, even though, never in my life, I was never one to believe in a moment of change, even in the midst of all my previous doubting and pessimism and depression, even then I knew, the moment after I said “I love you too,” even then I knew something was drastically different. I am a new person.

 

Since that night, I have not struggled with depression at all. Isn’t that beautiful? I have not even felt an inkling of it. Now, don’t consider me naïve, I do not think it’s gone for good, but I have learned several things about. One, my depression is easily controlled. Two, my depression is not mine anymore; it is Christ’s depression now. I gave it to Him that night.

 

I have grown closer to Christ in the past two weeks than in any two weeks of my entire life. For example, the other day I had a revelation. A mini revelation. A minirev.  My minirev was simple but beautiful and it was this: I can glorify God by receiving love—receiving it from Him, from others, and from myself. If I love myself, I am loving His handiwork; I am loving His creation. That night, when I forgave myself, only then I was I able to love God to the fullest. Only when I accepted the cross was I able to love God and be loved by God.

 

Things have changed; they are different since that night. Now it is all about God. Never in my life has God been so firmly the foundation to my everything. To my relationships, He is the love upon which all love is founded. To my schoolwork, He is the diligence from which all diligence derives. To my writing, He is the creativity from which all art flows. He is the foundation, my foundation, my refuge, my home. He is my home. God is my home. The God who created everything is my home. The God who is love is my home.

 

I see the beauty in people rather than the ugly. I see the good in the world rather than the evil. I see the God in people rather than the sin. I see beauty everywhere in everything.

 

Everything is different.

 

Jesus changed me.

 

All it took was surrender.

 

I feel like all my life I have been told: love God.

 

I have never been told: be loved by God.

 

I think that being loved by God is a prerequisite to loving God, and, consequently, I think it is more important to realize that God loves you. If we don’t know we are loved, what then? If we don’t feel and see and realize God’s love for us, what then? When we truly see God’s love for us, only then can we truly love others, only then can we truly love God.

 

Be loved.

 

You are loved. God loves you. When you see this, you will love him back. Also, there is another beautiful thing about this. If it is more important that we realize God’s love, which I believe it is, than the emphasis, the focus is put on God’s love rather than yours or mine. And that is how it should be. God loves you. Be loved. You are loved.

 

That is the most important thing in the world.

 

 

 

Artists See

It troubles me that the church, in general, is not more involved with art, with artists, because—at least from my perspective—it seems that there is a disconnect with the church in America and society in America; something, or someone perhaps, a group of people need to bridge the (growing) gap between the evangelical church and secular culture.

 

Here’s the great difficulty in America: because we are capitalist, and everything is something to be bought—(notice that we even speak in economic terms when we speak of relationships; we invest in people; we spend time with them; they are worth a lot to us; their friendship is valuable; now, I’m not saying it’s altogether wrong, even Paul talks like this sometimes [1st Corinthians 6:20], but I definitely think that the economic jargon is overdone and, if I may say it, sickening)—and because of this, the fact that (literally) everything is something to be bought, the gospel has been transformed into something to be bought as well. And that is wrong—but here’s the problem: in America, almost all we understand is commodity, price, so then how do we effective share the gospel, spread the gospel, if not by selling it because our society only understands things that are sold?

 

I saw Donald Miller the other day with my friend Tori, and he is honestly brilliant. He was on this panel of Christian authors and it was great and all, but I have to admit, the whole “Christian Book Expo” thing was—well, it was sickening. It literally made me sick to my stomach. Everywhere there were banners that said, “Be Transformed!” And I know that’s wrong, but if God is so intimate and powerful, then why do we have to advertise him like a new toothbrush? They handed out these brochures that were worse, in terms of advertising density, than fashion magazines or telephone poles in New York. Everything was, Buy This!—You Need This!—You Aren’t A Good Christian Unless You Have This!—and that is all bullshit.

 

The Truth is not a what but a who.

 

Why do we take something so beautiful (the very gospel of Christ, the good news, grace incarnate!) and make it something—tangible. God and his mercy should be alien; the gospel should be something we never understand, because the gospel is God’s love for his people, and who here would claim they understand God and his love? Certainly not me.

 

Instead of selling the gospel, like a toothbrush, instead of asking our neighbors to church every third week of every second month, instead of turning the gospel into another product, instead of making something beautiful something ugly, why don’t we mimic the Lord’s grace in our homes, our neighborhoods and cities and states, our country; why don’t we open our homes to strangers, to people who curse God’s word, to the filthy and the rich, to the intellectuals and the uneducated, to the Republicans and the Democrats, to the black and white, to people of all nations? What if we took grace seriously and did simple things like invite the neighbors we’ve never talked to over for dinner, or bake cookies for the old couple next door, or order flowers for the widow across the street, or make sack lunches for the homeless? Wouldn’t that be beautiful? It would most certainly be beautiful.

 

 Let’s just love people. There’s no reason to make the gospel an advertising campaign, into something complex and nitpicky that we can fully understand; let’s keep the gospel simple (it is love and grace) and mysterious (we will never understand God, never).

 

In the first paragraph I mentioned that the church has lost (or never claimed) its connection with artists; and that is a wretched thing. Artists can see things that no-one else can; not pastors, not priests, not intellectuals, not counselors, not businessmen or businesswomen, not PhDs or scholars.

 

Though it is bold thing to say, I think that artists—often, but not always—see clearest the depth of man’s fall and, consequently, if they know Christ, they best perceive the grandeur of God’s love. We need this love in America; artists should be helping churches the way CEOs run businesses.

 

Artists capture best God’s creativity.

 

Artists see.

 

I think Jesus is an artist.

 

Artists can make anything beautiful; they can translate things the way nobody else can; they can connect people’s minds with their emotions.

 

Jesus is an artist. Jesus made death beautiful. Jesus connects us to God.

 

Is there a more beautiful piece of art—in the world, the galaxy or universe—than the gospel?

 

Thank you for being an artist, Jesus:

 

Psalm 19:1—The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.