TODAY is the "Birds & the Bees"

I had a scary thought the other day. A question that rattled around in my mind. One that was, at first, only passing but then settled.

Is knowledge evil?

That’s a dangerous question. Especially for us living right here and now in the “Age of Information.” We are currently living in a time where knowledge couldn’t be more accessible. I’ll prove it:

If you don’t know how to start a camp fire, what do you do?

                                                ...Google it. 

If you’ve always wanted to read a Hemingway novel but never had the time? 

                                                 ...find the summary on Wikipedia. 

If you want to know the quickest route from here to New York City?

                                               ...ask a friend on Facebook. 

Knowledge is easy to come by these days.

And not only is it easy, but we have more of it now then we’ve ever had before. We now know, after thousands of years of being alive, that the earth is not flat but round, that matter is made up of microscopic atoms, and (recently) that pluto is not a planet but an orbiting rock. It’s amazing. We can never know less tomorrow than we know today. We are always learning, always growing, always collecting new information.

On the other hand, you may have also noticed that our morality as a human race is swiftly declining. We are becoming more selfish, more murderous, more violent, more deceptive than ever before. 

I had a recent conversation with a co-worker who shared memories from her childhood (it was a while ago), traipsing around the neighborhood unattended and alone. At seven years old, she would walk a mile to the local pool and be home before dark. Today’s parent wouldn’t dream of letting their seven year old do the same. Clearly, the times have changed.

So how is knowledge to blame? Why would you connect the moral decline of civilization to the rise of information and knowledge?

Think back to the beginning. It was the Tree of KNOWLEDGE that caused the downfall of mankind. The Fall came as a result of Adam and Eve’s pursuit, not of evil, but of knowledge.

So is knowledge sinful? Is it inherently evil? Did God create us to be dumb, blind, and mindless?

Absolutely not!

Knowledge is too beautiful a gift to not have come from God. We are designed to love God fully. Not just with our hearts, and our souls, and our strength, but with our minds as well (Luke 10:27). Knowledge is a part of his design!

I believe that it was always in God’s plan to let us in on what He knows. He created us for conversation. He created us with a desire to know. Even Aristotle writes, “All men by nature desire knowledge.”

But where Adam & Eve messed up is not that they desired knowledge, but that they went to the wrong place to get it. Adam & Eve stole knowledge, instead of gleaning it naturally and in due time from the Creator himself.

Think about it like this... Every one of us should have had “the talk” with our parents at some point in our lives. You know the one I’m talking about... The one about the birds and the bees? Yea... that one. 

And before this talk, we were totally naive to this part of life--just as it should be. 

Not that sex is bad. Sex is anything but bad. Sex is good, brilliant, beautiful! But we have to reach a certain point of maturity first before receiving this information. And we should have received it, if we were lucky enough, from a reliable source.

Unfortunately, most of us can probably say that the “birds and the bees” chat came too late or not at all. You may have learned about sex from a TV show, a song you heard on the radio, or the gross (and usually wildly inaccurate) accounts from our friends on the school bus.

So what happens when the source is not trustworthy? When the information, along with its distributor, is corrupt, broken, imperfect, and twisted? The result is a corrupt, broken, and twisted set of ideas in our minds.

That’s why God has to be the source.

Information is not bad in itself. Neither is the pursuit of information. But that pursuit should lead us to Christ. And when it does, we should pursue Him over everything else, gaining more of everything as we gain more of Him.

There are too many people in this world who pursue knowledge for all the wrong reasons. For power. For money. Even for self-worth and pride. But knowledge is essential. The last thing a Christian should do is fear knowledge, avoid it, or deem it sinful. It is a gift, and actually a very necessary part of our worship. 

In C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity he boldly claims that God is not a fan of intellectual slackers, and that engaging your intelligence is an essential part of Christianity! “Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian,” he says, “will soon find his intelligence being sharpened.” If I want to gain knowledge, I have to gain Christ.

So, I think of TODAY as an opportunity for knowledge. It’s a conversation about the “birds & the bees,” not with the naive and misinformed of this world, but with the perfect Creator of the universe--the One who knows it all.

TODAY is a dead celebrity.

So, we all know by now that Michael Jackson has passed away. It’s all over the news, the radio, facebook, MTV, EVERYTHING. When I first found out that he was in the hospital and was either dead or dying, I was admittedly amazed.I was thinking… How could Michael Jackson die?!

Well, this may come as a shocker, but… Michael Jackson IS a man. And men do die.

The same week that Michael died many other celebrities died as well. Farrah Fawcett before him, Billy Mays after. And everyone was asking the same question that I was. How could they die? They had all the money in the world. Everyone knew their names. They had doctors living WITH them. Money enough to cure cancer. They had everything!

We have this concept in our country that celebrities are immortal. We say it all the time. They’re saying it right now, even as I view the memorial for Michael Jackson. “Michael, you will always be with us.”

But he won’t.

In our society, we become emotionally attached to our celebrities, like the Greeks were attached to their gods. The people lived vicariously through them, made them like men except better. The gods could live a raucous lifestyle with no consequence, as it seems our celebrities do. These gods had the same trials, and the same boredoms, and the same joys as men, but never died. They were idols made of myths and racy stories spun like our trashy tabloids. There were idols before them, made of wood and stone. And now, ours are made of dust just as we are made of dust. But sooner or later, dust returns to dust.

No matter what we continue to form our idols from, they will always be perishable.

In Ecclesiastes, King Solomon wrote that, “All is vanity and grasping for the wind” (Ecc. 2:17b). Solomon was incredibly aware of his own mortality, even though he was the richest king in the Bible. He knew exactly what it meant to be rich and famous, to be a celebrity. And yet, he knew that there’s more to life than that. He knew that he too would die, just like every other man had died, and so he used his life to write the wisdom that God gave him. He made a legacy not only with his riches and his temple, but with the gift of God’s wisdom.

One thing that Michael Jackson’s death has taught me is that legacy really can live on beyond our own physical deaths. Though Michael may be dead himself, his music, what he dedicated his whole life to, will undoubtedly continue to thrive in people.

The biggest reason why I think we are taking these celebrity deaths to heart is because they remind us of our own mortality. If the men and women who we thought were immortal can die, then so will we.

The silver lining in these deaths, though, is the celebration of legacies. After I found out about Michael’s death, I went straight home and spent an hour watching the music videos I used to watch as a kid. Seeing Michael perform in hindsight makes you so much more aware of his talent. His songs are more valuable. Every memory of listening to his CDs in the car or covering my eyes watching “Thriller” all seem so much more important. Even throughout his memorial, people were singing the songs he sang, reading the words he spoke, and remembering the times they spent with him.

And I started to think… what will my legacy be? It would be difficult to leave a legacy as wide as Michael’s, but I hope mine goes as deep. And I hope that my legacy points to something beyond myself. After all, I am only made of dust. Instead, I want my life to point to something Everlasting and Real. Something… or really, someONE who is bigger than I could ever be. I hope that any words that I write, any songs that I sing, any memories I make with friends, and the life that I instill in my own children will all point to the imperishable God I know and love. If not, then isn’t it all just vanity and grasping for the wind? If our lives don’t point to something eternal, then aren’t we all just writing a perishable legacy?

TODAY is a promise.

The past couple of days haven’t been too great for me, and TODAY didn’t start out much different. To add to the list of things that have gone wrong (one of them being a minor hit-and-run incident which cracked the back bumper of my car), I had some pretty hurtful accusations hurled at me this morning. Although it was really just a misunderstanding, the accusations were stuck in my head, doing damage all the live-long day. To add to this personal and relational aggravation, my rent was raised (despite the fact that I’ve been getting less and less hours at work). Practically, emotionally, physically I felt affronted.

All day I tried to keep my mind off of the little things that were slowly converging and becoming one BIG gigantic mess. You know how it can be when one little thing after another little thing piles up so high that you can’t see above it, so high that you feel you might fall apart at the slightest suggestion of one more little bad thing.

It felt like a flood of “little things” and I was sinking.

As I was driving around Newport News, I remembered a promise in Romans 8:28. In that passage it says that all things work together for good to those who love God.

Although there are many little things that I haven’t seen “working together” for any kind of good yet, I felt some peace in that promise. It is a PROMISE after all. I kept thinking that over and over. It’s a promise, a promise, a PROMISE.

Later TODAY, I stepped outside and saw something amazing: a rainbow.

You’re probably thinking… LAME! Honestly, if I hadn’t been there, I might have thought the same thing too. But when you see a rainbow live and in person… I mean, it’s just breathtaking.

And it wasn’t even just the rainbow. The first things I noticed when I stepped out of my apartment, was the odd distribution of light. Before I even saw the rainbow, I noticed that half of the sky was almost completely dark and full of storm clouds, while the other was bright and sparsely dappled with full white clouds.

Then I saw the rainbow between the two.

It wasn’t until I got in my car and started to drive that I realized what was happening. The sun was projecting the rainbow onto the canvas of the dark clouds. If it weren’t for the storm and its clouds, you wouldn’t have been able to see the rainbow at all.

I kept driving, and eventually turned so all I saw was the side of the sky that was bright and beautiful. The storm was behind me.

And I thought about God’s promise.

One of the first promises ever made was God’s promise to Noah. God promised life instead of death, protection instead of destruction, mercy instead of punishment, peace instead of torment. And He gave the rainbow as His signed contract.

This might sound crazy, but I truly believe that rainbow was for me today. I felt God whisper in my ear. He was saying, I promise life instead of death. I promise that all things will work together for good. I promise I won’t let you drown in the flood of little things. I promise that the storm you see now will be the canvas for a masterpiece, a masterpiece that only I can create. I PROMISE.

TODAY is shifting sand.

Have you ever stood at the edge of the ocean right as the waves begin to recede? If you have, you know the odd phenomenon that takes place. For some reason, even though you are standing perfectly still, it feels as though you are moving farther and farther away from the water. Then, once the receding waves rejoin the rest of the ocean, you realize you haven’t moved at all. Usually you’re left standing in the sunken impressions of your own feet, proving that it was not you that moved but the waters around you.


Have you ever watched a movie (I know you have) where the main character suddenly falls into a pit of quick sand? For some reason, I always wanted to encounter quick sand like that as a kid. I felt so sure that if I was ever in Indiana Jones’ position, I’d know exactly what to do to pull myself up. But apparently it was never that easy. The harder Jones tried to pull himself out, the deeper he’d sink. The more he moved, the further he’d fall. And no matter how wary he may have been, he always seemed to find his foot stuck in some kind of natural trap—a foundation feigning sturdy security but offering nothing but sinking sand.

I’ve just come to realize that life is a whole lot like that.

I always thought that at some point, I would step out of the sinking sand and be able to walk on something concrete. I thought that once I hit a certain point of maturity, I’d know exactly who I was. And everyone I knew would know me for who I thought I was (if you can follow that logic). Decisions would be easy. Bank accounts would be sure. My future would be decided. If I wanted to pursue my own path, the ground would hold me up along the way. If I wanted to stand still, I wouldn’t budge.

But life is shifting sand.

Now that I’ve become an adult with a certain amount of influence and responsibility, I am realizing that my contemporaries are just as unsure as I am. I’m finding that no two people will ever fully agree on anything. No one way ever comes to the exact conclusion previously projected. My decisions will propel me toward a certain destination, yes, but I might not get there exactly how I imagined. Plans fall through. People change. I change. Even if I decided to never alter my actions or attitude, to never move, to always do what I am currently doing, there is no way to keep my circumstances from shifting right below my feet. Like standing on the edge of the ocean, my situation moves and I can’t help but feel the effects. And when I decide to change my circumstances, there’s no sure path without hidden sand traps along the way.

This is NOT a message of defeat or failure. It IS a message of adventure. A realization leading to relief, the realization that there’s no perfect plan without trials or mishaps. If you haven’t gotten the sand to stand firm beneath you, you’re in good company. You are not the only one feeling the tides changing around you! You are not the only one who has to take four steps back for every two you take forward. That’s life. That’s TODAY. It’s shifting sand, no matter how you look at it.

TODAY is a broken mirror.

Hypothetically, if my mirror was broken I’d have to rely on other people to tell me what I look like. Lately I’ve felt a little like that. Not about physical appearance though, but about who I am. What is my personality? How do I come off? What am I like?

I thought I knew… or was close to figuring it out.

But I can tell by the way that some people don’t get my jokes. Or by the look in their eyes when I say, “you know?” that tells me they don’t. Or by the things that they say in passing, words that were never meant to stick but do.

I think we might all come with “broken mirrors” or at least blind spots. We can’t see ourselves completely all around, so we are forced to rely on interaction with others to inform us of ourselves.

But the thing about mirrors is that they allow you to fix little mishaps before having to expose them to the world. For instance, if you see in the mirror that you’ve got a booger, you can pick it. A zit, you can pop it. A stray lick of hair, you can smooth it back into place. But without the mirror, you actually have to rely on people to tell you.

And it is painful when they do…

…especially when you’ve been told 10 times that you’ve got spinach in your teeth (ie. a thorn in your dag-on side) that needs to be taken out. By the time the random homeless guy walking down the street gets the chance to tell you, you wish you could rip it out but have no way of seeing how to get to it.

I want to rip out my selfishness, my timidity, my insecurity, my imperfection… but I can’t. I’m sorry. My mirror is broken and this is the way I rolled out of bed today. What I need are friends with really good eyes, good hearts, and surgical hands. What I need are friends I can trust. I’m glad I have a few of those.

(5/23/09) TODAY is a molding slice of cake.

The cake was baked and purchased a week ago for a graduation party. The party has come and gone and so have those friends for which the cake was made.

I remember when our friendship was new. Like the icing, it was enticing. We were just getting to know each other then, so every moment was precious. Every moment was sweet.
It was once moist too. Our friendship had been moist at one point. No one had hardened to anyone else. We were all vulnerable, open, ready to crumble. And willing. It was like we were each asking for someone to stick a fork into our individual lives, to divide it and figure out what each was filled with. What makes you you? What makes me me? How are we different? And what do I like about you?

There was a message on the cake that looked permanent. Written with frosting, the word “Congratulations.” Embroidering the edges, blue and green flowers. But they are broken into. Those images that took so long to create. The picture that intended to live on. The message appearing to be unchanging, until we each took a slice. To partake, the picture must be broken. The flower must be cut, the message disconnected. And time will make the edges harden.

It was excitement that made our hearts tender, and the anticipation of friendship. The romance of it. The freshness. And then we realize that people grow and change and make mistakes. And people will disappoint because people cannot be perfect. And we grow apart. This piece from that one. This other from that. Until we are separate pieces, hardening on the outside.

I wanted to enjoy a piece of this cake today, but I noticed that mold had been growing. A green circle I thought may have been a stray pedal turned out to be the beginnings of a bacterial outbreak. Nature is changing the cake. Nature is reminding me that we cannot stay the same, and that it’s better this way.

How absolutely unnatural is it for a cake to remain the same?! It’s like a Twinkie in its wrapper; how will you know when it’s fresh? Fake friendships are like this overly processed, chemically complicated Twinkie cake. It is unoriginal and predictable, unnaturally enhanced and not really all that good for you. But our friendship has been made from the finest stuff, from things that expire and change.

I’m glad I’m not the same today as yesterday. I’m glad you aren’t either. I’m glad that when I cut deeper, I saw how we were different. I’m glad to know that our time together in college was real. We did not smooth over fractures, sever off the hard parts. We realized that we can grow apart, go our separate ways, all the while remembering when we were one whole cake.

Yesterday's TODAYs.

(6/07) TODAY is a missing piece.
It's so frustrating when you are putting together a puzzle, and you’ve gotten to the last piece, but it’s missing. What’s even more frustrating is when you know you have all the pieces but can’t figure out how to make them fit together. You’ve tried every angle and every vacant spot but you just can’t complete the picture!

Today is a missing piece to my puzzle, a missing piece to my life. Today I’ve realized I don’t yet have all the pieces to who I am. It’s frustrating because all I want is to see the complete picture of my potential in order to measure up my progress. I just want my puzzle, the complexities of who I am to be solved right now. I want to know my purpose for living. What’s the purpose of this trait or that desire? How does it fit into the big picture of who God created me to be?

Today I sang a worship song. One of the lines says “All I am is Yours.”
I always thought of this line as a surrendering to God my “all.” I always pictured it as a sacrifice that I gave. I pictured myself kneeling at the feet of God and asking Him… giving Him permission to take my “all” and my everything…
As if I actually possessed and understood all that I am!

The truth of these words “All I am is Yours” resonated differently within me today, though. I saw a different perspective, a different picture. This is how I pictured it:
I saw myself kneeling at the feet of God, as before, but this time with an unfinished puzzle in my hand. The puzzle was me. I was coming to God because I’d been looking everywhere… in money, in relationships, in expectations, and recognition for the missing pieces of me.

I was like a little kid, looking in the couch cushions and in my pockets for any object that might pass as a piece to the puzzle. And, like any child without vision, foresight, or a keen ability to see the bigger picture, I got flustered and was just about ready to fling all the pieces against a wall.

But then I remembered… All that I am, all the pieces to my personality, is God’s. He owns and manufactures every bit of my being. And, if I ever need to find any missing pieces to who I am I will only find them in Him.

Though it may seem faster to try and jam the off-colored, oddly-shaped pieces of personality that I can find in the couch cushions of this world, my picture will never be completed with counterfeit.

But, if I am patient and come to God day by day, like a child to his father, looking for the missing piece to my puzzle, then patience will have its perfect work in me that I might be perfect and complete lacking nothing (James 1:4).

Today is a missing piece and I found it in God. In worship. In fellowship with my Father, the Creator, Manufacturer, and Author of my all and my everything.

***

(5/07) TODAY is a coloring book.

I am the pictures on the pages that have yet to be colored in. I am only an outline, a black and white drawing that lacks any character. I am blank and I am waiting.

You have seen my life from its beginning. You are the Author and Finisher of this book. You have created the outlines of me that I see on every page. You have authored it, You have published it, but You have yet to finish what You started.

You were gracious enough, patient enough, wise enough to give me numbers to color by. You know the exact hue, the exact shading, the exact texture of every contour of my shape and being. You see the colors before I do. You see the details that would best compliment the blank picture before me.

And I have been sitting here with the crayon in my hand. And I have been wondering. What do I do? Do I follow your pattern? Do I fill in the blanks with the colors that you suggest? Sometimes I do. But, there are colors and patterns that You suggest that seem to disagree with the vision of who I think I am. I know that this is an issue. I haven’t surrendered yet to the vision that you have for me. I keep filling in orange instead of green, purple instead of pink. And you have let me.

Today is a coloring book. There are pages of my life that are completed, pictures that are beautifully crafted because I have followed the instructions. Then, there are pages that I wish I could rip right out. Their colors do not compliment your plan and they clash with your design.

But today’s page is blank. It is brand new. Despite the pages of the past which I’ve filled sloppily or haphazardly, there is always a new page that You provide. Today’s page is so fresh. The cleanness of it reminded me of its purpose. To be filled. It is screaming to be filled. And it is filling up quickly. The red crayon is in my hand and I am drawing outside of the lines, like love overflowing. I can’t stop coloring my love for You in my life. I hope that the deeper, the longer, the more carefully I fill these blank pages, You will look at it with joy. When I complete this page and offer it to You like a little child would, I hope You, as my Father, will hang it on the refrigerator where all my other days have gone. Every day you do this. Despite my mistakes, my sloppy disregard for the numbers, you love and appreciate the days that I have given You.

***

(7/06) TODAY is hyperventilation.

I'm gasping, grabbing, frantically pulling everything into myself that I need to survive and getting too much of it, wishing I could slow down, take a deep breath and have a good cry.

I'm finding out that love­ (true, unconditional, best-friend kind of love) is poisonous. It's addictive and I can't keep myself from craving it. I'm getting too much of it all at once, right before it will be snatched away from me.

I'm leaving for college soon and all I have been doing lately is spending time with the people I love. When I can't have that time (when plans are cancelled, when I have to work, when a friend goes on vacation and leaves me behind) I panic.

It's never been this way before, but I feel as if every second of time has to be consumed with the feeling of friendship. Only recently have I begun to think, why not seclude myself? Instead of hyperventilation, why not deprivation, choking, drowning, cutting off all ties so you won't miss it as much?

That is where I find myself: either take it all in at once or let it all go.

Have you ever tried holding your breath for as long as you possibly can? Ever threaten to hold your breath until you got what you wanted or else you'll die for the lack of oxygen? If you have, you know it is impossible. Your body has a defense mechanism... Either you breathe willingly or you faint and your body will breathe for you.

Today, I held my breath... toyed with the idea of isolating myself from my friends until they realized they'll miss me just as much as I already miss them.

You see, it seems unfair to me that I am craving their attention, their time, and affection and all they do is move along. They look at me as if it won't be the last time. They laugh and instantly toss my jokes aside. They act as if my role as a friend won't be filled by another person when I'm gone. Or so it seemed.

But, God put me under today. He knocked me out in my own overwhelming self-pity and convinced me that I won't be forgotten. For such a time as this, I have such friends as these. And instead of frantically gasping for air or subtly withholding from it, He told me to breathe again.

So now I am resting... Eyes shut and unconsciously breathing.

Physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally God has given me a defense mechanism that causes me to breathe love even when I don't want to. For love is just as necessary as oxygen.

Steadily, I receive and give love. Not thinking about how the cadence will soon change... just doing it... breathing love and friendship...

In and Out... In and Out...

***

(6/06) TODAY is a tinted window.

In it I see a shallow reflection of the past four years of my life. I say "shallow" because I can only see in today the tangible, practical evidence my high school years have made. I know that there were people and there were situations that deeply altered who I am, but it is hard to see how deeply just yet.

It's like looking at my reflection in the mirror. I can't see my soul, but I know it's there. I can tell by the emotion in my face, the life in my eyes, the daily wear and tear of my skin. All of which are tangible... practical.

But, today is not a mirror. It's not just the past, but also the future that I see. College-life is distant and foreign. Obscured by inexperience, I can't picture it clearly. But I know it's there. I have my expectation and I have my hopes. I make out the dark shape in the corner to be what I hope it will be (sometimes, what I dread it will be).

It's like when I was younger and I pictured the chair in my bedroom to be a four-legged monster in the middle of the night. I see my future college roommate that way too. Not as a monster necessarily, but I do imagine the best- and worst-case scenarios.

But why do I even try to look through the dark glass of the present to make out the future?

It's because I know it's there. Everyday, I wake up and there it is... a faint reflection of yesterday and shadowed images that suggest tomorrow.

I think it will always be this way. The glass will never become clear and I will never resist the urge to remember, to hope, to imagine, to stare at the faded images that tend to present themselves as tangible evidence of past and future.