tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62630940092507761212024-03-14T04:28:12.599-07:00.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-60741280602911693862009-12-02T06:30:00.000-08:002009-12-02T06:45:22.433-08:00An ExcerptOh, hello again. Being planted in the midst of my busiest semester ever, I've been prevented from making blogging contributions over the past few months. In the meantime, I've become engaged to the beautiful Ashley Marie (more on that to come)! To the half a person that actually reads my blog on a regular basis, I thought that I would tide you over with an excerpt from a short story that I've been working on for a couple of years currently called "The Results of an Aging Mind":<br /><br />"Lucy stroked the smooth glass plating that guarded the photograph, which hung in the family room. The photograph was amidst many other beautifully framed pictures hanging neatly and balanced forming, what Lucy thought to be, the most perfect photogenic community. The pictures were so peopled and composed of bright eyes and long smiles that it gave off a vibrant energy and the feeling that they would all start conversing with one another at any moment. The truth was that Lucy could spend an afternoon with each and every one of these photographs, but there was something special about the one she caressed compared to the others. It meant more to her than any of them, and she didn’t know quite why. <br /><br />It was a simple image, a color photograph of her family dressed in their fine church clothes taken over a decade ago. Her family had the picture done as a gift for her and William. The people on this large print, the tiny but intricate eyes were all too much at times. It all seemed so surreal and so wonderful. Memories suddenly appeared in Lucy’s mind like bubbles on the top of boiling water. They became faster, warmer, some larger than others spilling over into buckets filled with thousands of stories. Each story seemed to lead to another one, another beautiful moment. They weave together like a mysterious maze with doorways in every pocket. Those bubbles were popping now, however. They were going away in tiny explosions, and it was harder to get them back. They were gone in a million tiny fragments of water. Lucy had read that it was the result of an aging mind. She did not like to think that way. And none of that really mattered for today was an extraordinary day. They were all making their way over.<br /><br />She mounted the delicately framed photograph back in its place on the wall. Lucy suddenly thought that there was something she had to do before they arrived, but this had presently escaped her. She would have gone into the kitchen to check her notes that she often made these days, but the window to the backyard was on the way. She stopped, overcome by images of serene Friday afternoons finger painting out on the patio. She touched their tiny, brightly colored fingers with her own as she scooped paint for her own paper. She remembered the paint being so smoothed, thick, and pleasant. If it wasn’t for that strange yet wonderful smell, it might taste like chocolate or something delicious.<br /><br />Suddenly, some hideous, irritating object plopped itself down in front of that window like a rhinoceros in the middle of Africa. That wonderful afternoon scene was immediately obstructed as if a giant finger had applied its own thick streak of dark paint across Lucy’s eyes. Another bubble had popped, and the life that was out there was now shattered in a million different irretrievable pieces."Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-157225466939155632009-08-10T10:53:00.001-07:002009-08-10T10:53:44.454-07:00<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lkwh4ZaxHIA&color1=0x6699&color2=0x54abd6&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lkwh4ZaxHIA&color1=0x6699&color2=0x54abd6&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-3390015603546037892009-07-30T16:59:00.000-07:002009-08-06T09:24:38.398-07:00The First Thing I'd Say...We live in an amazing age. Signals carrying visual and audio information can be broadcast and released from almost everywhere, even your local church. This has changed the way the Church and more specifically believers receive information not only about the news and events, but also the teachings of teachers and the preaching of preachers all around the country and the world. <br /><br />There's the Podcast. More and more churches are giving others glimpses into what their preachers, teachers, and visionaries are communicating. I have a hunch that the podcast is becoming one of the most popular devotional tools for many people. Many people who either cannot read or simply don't like reading can hear and even be entertained by the speaking of dynamic preachers and teachers. There's Youtube. This epic compiling of almost every video on the internet gives us, in addition to the messages we hear, visual presentations that we see of these preachers and teachers. Not to mention, a new site called videoteaching.com, which has concise and well-edited entire teachings.<br /><br />So there you go. Now, I have not written this to recommend or advertise things that you, for the most part, already know about. But I have written these things to provide an introduction for a point that is rather important, if not slightly liberating to me. <br /><br />There are two things that you should know about me. The first thing is that I am called to, among other things, be a preacher and a teacher. I am not only called to this, but the Good Lord has blessed me with a passion for it. The second thing that you should know about me is that I am a dynamic learner, which means that I value individual creative expression. I am the kind of guy who really enjoys listening or seeing the artistic expression of others, be it paintings or music... I like reading album reviews in magazines, for instance, not to find out if the reviewer thought it was good or not, but rather to investigate what the band or artist is up to artistically. I can spend far too much time on the above-mentioned Youtube listening to music and watching films, enjoying the diverse creativity. As I study theology, this tendency has wandered over into the realm of theologians and likewise those preachers and teachers who teach and preach these things and things having to do with these things. I enjoy listening and watching sermons online and seeing how certain pastors communicate things. The beauty of this is that I can celebrate all of the diverse gifts God has placed inside of people. On a negative side, this gives me a tendency to compare people and compare myself with others, and this brings me very close to my point. Knowing this about myself, I wonder if this would be helpful to anyone but me. I want to make my point in two contexts. <br /><br />The first context. I remember Dr. Seamands, one class period, frowning at the notion of pastors listening to podcast sermons and plagiarizing them and essentially copying for instance, the latest Rob Bell or Rick Warren sermon. This was in the context of, I believe, a discussion about preaching from your heart and to your own faith community. I remember that this surprised me, I had never heard anyone do this before, copy a sermon that is. But as I think about how easy it is to subscribe to a podcast, click onto Youtube, and to simply have an instant and exhaustive reservoir of interesting and exciting teaching at their disposal, it seems that this might be a legitimate temptation for many pastors. Also, I think that there may be a tendency for many pastors listening to those podcasts and videos to get wrapped up and even sort of fall in love with, not only the message, but the style, imagination, and cleverness of these preachers and teachers. From this may develop a desire to be more like those that they listen to, to emulate these preachers and teachers.<br /><br />The second context. Personally, as mentioned above, I have the tendency to compare people. As I have had more and more opportunities to see and hear different teachers and preachers online and in person, I continue to struggle against this tendency. What can start with harmless intentions of wanting to, among other things, learn more about the diversity of ways to practice this fantastic thing called preaching can turn into a harmful and prideful and arrogant measuring that ends in fearful insecurity. While I am certainly finding increasing victory in this area of my life, I believe that it is a legitimate danger. And this too ends with the conclusion that I need to be more like these preachers and teachers in my style and method. <br /><br />Considering both these contexts, if I had the opportunity by some far off chance to speak and teach about preaching to other preachers and teachers, I do believe that the first thing I'd say would be, "Be you...Be who you are...be who God has created you to be." I know this seems a little simple, but I want to say it. Amidst all the charisma, talent, and abilities of many of these widely-listened-to preachers and teachers, the world would be lacking if it was void of the unique characteristics divinely sealed inside of you. The world does not need another John Piper, Francis Chan, Rob Bell, Charles Stanley, Craig Groeschel, Rick Warren, Irwin McManus or insert the name of any other preacher you are fond of. The world needs what God is doing through one of them, not more than one. And the world needs what God is going to do through one of you and your own beautiful, different, and wonderfully odd personality. <br /><br />Psalm 139 is a passage that heavily implies a great amount of intentionality with which God formed and made each of us. Why do we need to change the things that God has placed intrinsically within us. Don't you think that God meant you to be you, even when he has called you to preach and teach. Or take the gospels for example. Each gospel is a different shade, a different color, a different hue. Each is inspired and called to emphasize something differently about Jesus. Each make critical brushstrokes to the portrait of Jesus. Likewise, when you have set a part Jesus as Lord and are rooted in the Truth, your unique self adds a critical brushstroke to what God is doing in the Church and the world today. And I am certainly not trying to build up your pride or puff you up, but to affirm you and encourage you in who you are, along with myself, and everyone else called to this amazing, creative, artistic, fantastic, terrifying gift of preaching and teaching. And this can be said of everyone desiring to use the gifts that God has given them.<br /><br />I think that we can admire and desire to grow in the passion and even skill that we see in many of these podcast preachers and teachers, but not at the cost of our own unique personalities.<br /><br />Be You.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-39067771033806370242009-06-23T14:00:00.001-07:002009-06-23T20:13:44.501-07:00The Most Delicious Strawberry...The problem for me has never been finding time to spend personally with the Lord. The problem for me has usually been making the most of the time that I do carve out to be alone with the Lord. When my mind is like a factory churning out ideas, memories, agendas, and ponderings, finding quiet is near impossible. It might be the serenest of wooded areas, the most pleasantly scented candle, or the most perfectly ambient music, but it still never seems to tame the wild lynx that is my mind.<br /><br />One thing that has recently helped me in this area is meditating on a story that Brennan Manning gives in a spiritual retreat guide of his:<br /><br />"Imagine you are being pursued by a ferocious tiger. you run as fast as you can but come to the edge of a cliff. Glancing back, you see the tiger about to spring. Fortunately, you also notice a rope hanging over the edge of the cliff. You grab it and scramble down, out of reach of the tiger. A close escape! <br /><br />But now you look down. Five hundred feet below you see jagged rocks. So you look up. you see the tiger, crouched and waiting...and also two hungry mice, already gnawing on the rope.<br /><br />What to do?<br /><br />Nearby, on the face of the cliff, you notice a strawberry. Carefully, you reach out, pluck it, and eat it whole. 'Yum!' you exclaim. 'That's the most delicious strawberry I ever tasted in my whole life!'"<br /><br />So, I have been quite literally meditating on a strawberry to center me with the Lord and seize the moment. It has helped me see that no matter how those other things in my life seem like crouching tigers and jagged rocks, they can wait. As rediculous as that sounds to the world around me, they can wait. I never thought that meditating on a delicious strawberry would be so... fruitful. It's really helped me. Another helpful thing that I've been doing is opening my time quietly repeating to myself something along the lines of, "There's no where else that I need to be, but right here. There is nothing more significant that I need to be doing than what I am doing right now. There is nothing else that I need to be doing right now but being here." Quiet is out there. You just have to look for it.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-76903131108335359612009-06-19T13:42:00.000-07:002009-06-19T13:48:01.755-07:00Three Trees<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiorDvg8JRNTui4qF-CM0zjltpVLlDwCrojL03p9vGeY9PKDcH5Xyyd9Gvn8SvNLvpDATVoSgjD5JxoFe5_0i8xwx7n1UWJobNRbsTUvy3w6lE4ZO_LDvFycepw73wBSHhUQ3tJ3M0SpC8U/s1600-h/Three+Trees.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiorDvg8JRNTui4qF-CM0zjltpVLlDwCrojL03p9vGeY9PKDcH5Xyyd9Gvn8SvNLvpDATVoSgjD5JxoFe5_0i8xwx7n1UWJobNRbsTUvy3w6lE4ZO_LDvFycepw73wBSHhUQ3tJ3M0SpC8U/s320/Three+Trees.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349142111632321810" /></a><br /><br />Although the weather is getting warmer and summer is here, I cannot help but be preoccupied with an image from last winter. Now, I do not consider myself a particularly cold and biting person who frequently delights in thinking about the colder, darker part of the year in order to somehow obnoxiously rain on someone’s springtime parade. This would especially be annoying considering that we are just starting to see the rays of summer sneak under the exit door of an already lively spring. Nor am I a person who lives in some sort of inward perpetual winter and sulks and writhes about like a fish trapped on a rock advertising to everyone that I am out of my element. But I do feel the need to share that it is an image from a very cold and rather harsh January that I cannot shed from my mind three weeks into June.<br /><br />Towards the end of January, I was driving down Man O’ War Boulevard towards Todd’s Road. The great and ravaging ice storm had just hit the city of Lexington making the landscape look less like the Bluegrass State and more like the cold and icy planet of some far off galaxy. It was on my right. An image that I had seen numerous times in the last week, but a stoplight allowed me time to pause and truly see. The image was a row of trees, three of them, lining the street. These three trees once stood elegant, green, and strong. But now a violent messenger of winter had made them white and unrecognizable. Their limbs were encased with a layer of seemingly impenetrable ice that cut off any sign of life. But the part of the image that struck me was their distorted shape. They were so bent, so weighed upon, so oppressed. Three trees that normally stood so tall and straight now looked so broken and in pain, quite frankly. <br /><br />Now, in order to understand the force of this image upon me it is helpful to understand that over the past few years, enhanced by various experiences, I have been increasingly awakened to the dazzling extraordinariness of living creatures in the natural world. I have been awakened to the scope and complexity of the created order, in part yes. But more importantly I have been awakened to the innocence and preservation of these living things. I have been absolutely swept away by the idea that the horse that I fed and petted the other night has not been tainted by the poison of sin and that all its galloping and chewing is exactly how God intended it to be. The movement of a sparrow’s head mesmerizes me. It does not move smoothly and slowly, but rapidly like stop-motion. The movement of a cat…I must ask if you have ever taken the time to watch a cat move – the way its muscles contract, speed up, and slow down. This is something so fierce and pure. One can notice this in even the most annoying of little creatures such as that particular day when Ashley saw a mosquito sucking blood from her arm, paused, composed herself, and remarked to the little fellow that he was merely doing what he was made to do. I love the naturalness, inevitability, and yet focused intensity with which a dog pants. A human being, of course, has the same sort of natural characteristic when breathing, but the human can also joke about it. He can hold his breath for fun and may indeed get some sort of strange exhilarating feeling by going against this natural process. A dog possesses no such ability giving it a powerful innocence. There is a serenity and at the same time a terrifying glory in these things. When I take a moment and stop thinking about how utterly far away Eden is, I suddenly come to recognize that in many ways it is quite close. When I see a tree rustling in the breeze, a flower blossoming, a woodpecker pecking, an ant slowly and determinedly carrying a piece of food twice its size, or if I get the rare opportunity to see a deer gliding into wooded areas lining the highway, I am seeing worship and looking in on a pristine and shimmering type of being from the first days of creation.<br /><br />With a teaspoon of tenderness, I say that those three trees out on Man O’ War were once only worshipping God, doing what they were supposed to be doing, lifting up their own hands. Yet, they were broken by the storm, ravaged by it, brought to suffering by it. I, of course, do not know for sure how a tree suffers, but I do know that those three trees simply did not look the same in January 2009. They were hindered from achieving the height with which they were created. They lost branches under the excruciating weight of thick ice. There is a large part of me that simply wants to say to those three trees, “you did not deserve this.”<br /><br />I’ve also been thinking about Matthew 2, which tells of the great welcoming of Jesus to the earth. How do we welcome the King of Kings to our world? Well, obviously we need the greatest trumpeters, the greatest singers, the most delicious food, the pomp and circumstance of every festival that has ever been celebrated…but that was not what Jesus got. Sure, there were the singing angels and the sincere gifts of the Magi. But this beautiful and innocent boy who was our loving God wrapped in flesh, who would teach us and rescue us, got the opposite in many ways. The result of the collision of the Prince of Peace with our world included horrendous infanticide. This Anointed One spent no time on some delicately jeweled red carpet fit for someone with an inkling of his majesty, but he did find himself spending time on a dusty road to Egypt while fleeing a raging king. Welcome to our world, pure King Jesus. We live in the same world.<br /><br />Here’s what I am thinking, and I could always be wrong. What seems to be speaking to me here and in the three trees on Man O’ War is something that you may have very well known for quite some time. It is the sober reality that there are times in life when one cannot escape the icy grip of winter no matter how close you look to the heavenly creature you were created to be. Ice storms seem to come even when our lives are overflowing with succulent fruit and even in those wonderful seasons when we come upon a humble certainty that our worship, actions, and thoughts are pleasing to the Lord. I suppose that we could say that Jesus experienced the storm of hardship and suffering, because we were sure to experience the same things. But this is no cause for fear. Because the beautiful thing about being a people of hope is that we cannot help but know that spring is just around the corner and that God’s faithful fingers teem with the sparkle of redemption. Perhaps, it has been my distance away from winter that has helped me see it more clearly – both its intimidating truth and its redemptive foreshadowing. As Chesterton said, “the next best thing to be really inside [something] is to be outside of it.” But it is another image that pronounces these ideas for me much more clearly. As a matter of fact it is an image of three trees as well. It is an image of a lonely hillside just outside of a great and famous city where the purest, noblest, and sinless was not excused from torture and death. But this image also tells me of a place where the sentence of all darkness began to be written with darkness’ own pen and where the guards of the deepest and darkest dungeons were each forced to light a candle that would not cease burning until the Great Rescuer found it.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-75199822766614192272009-04-23T21:18:00.000-07:002009-04-23T21:24:43.430-07:00The Man Who Stood in the Way<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-gZ24F-MOnSZsU9UqfVL32dLSG9XeC1myieqZ62xhrHLokK2VaBA5luhZDirbpuiKQOhjbyxlkMj5QeJhxbbQKota2hPgFuEOYsZammyd6mQznyvwD1BROTX9GaVxhQcz-oh3vQvngzq_/s1600-h/stathanasius-creed.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 205px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-gZ24F-MOnSZsU9UqfVL32dLSG9XeC1myieqZ62xhrHLokK2VaBA5luhZDirbpuiKQOhjbyxlkMj5QeJhxbbQKota2hPgFuEOYsZammyd6mQznyvwD1BROTX9GaVxhQcz-oh3vQvngzq_/s320/stathanasius-creed.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328108767856883890" /></a><br />One particular day, in the year 335 A.D., a powerful Roman emperor named Constantine was riding his horse into the city of Constantinople. Suddenly, a man of very small stature jumped in front of him on the road, grabbed the bridle of his horse, and refused to let him pass until he was granted a hearing. The great emperor did not recognize the man by appearance, but upon seeing his strong, dignified, and sturdy determination a momentary impression was made on the emperor, and he agreed to give a hearing to this man who stood in the way. This man, whom his enemies called ‘the Black Dwarf’ because of his short height and darkly colored skin, would in some sense live his life standing in the way with the same determination with which he stood before Constantine. He more than any other stood in the way of subtle nuances and heretical ideas in pivotal times that threatened to forever distort the Truth that the Church was built upon. He stood in the way of emperors and powerful civic figures when no one else would, enduring persecution. He stood in the way of needless division within the Church and provided the necessary effort for reconciliation when it could be realized. All of this grounded in his important writings that the Church’s doctrines echo to this day. Because of the particular time he lived in, the important theology he defined, and his tireless effort to stand in the way of one of the greatest heresies the Church has ever known, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, has had the greatest influence on the Church of any Christian leader of any century outside of the bible.<br /> <br />The first point of influence was the Christ-centered theology and Christology of Athanasius. Athanasius was born at the tail end of the third century, a time when defining who precisely Christ was and his relationship with the Father were the issues of the day. Being taught by Alexander of Alexandria from an early age, Athanasius immersed himself in study. He soon came to believe that there was no question that Christ was at the center of the Christian faith and the center of human history. In his epic works, Against the Gentiles and On the Incarnation of the Word Athanasius argues that the Father originally created everything through the eternal Word and likewise re-creates humanity through the Word made flesh. Christ is the framework in which creation is understood, originated, and saved. While Iranaeus made a similar argument about the centrality of the incarnation in history nearly two centuries previous, Athanasius’ theology emerged in an important time in which it was most needed. On the subject of Christology, he argued that Jesus was both God and man in one being, because the man Jesus revealed himself as the eternal Son of God in the scriptures. There was no separation between Jesus being eternal as God and Jesus’ eating, sleeping, or suffering as a man. This point by Athanasius has forever helped the Church make sense of all that Jesus said and did in the New Testament. It also is the basis for the Church’s Christology to this day. Athanasius’ Christ-centered theology is the definitive foundation for the worship and doctrine of the Church today regarding the 2nd person of the Trinity.<br /><br />The second point of influence was Athanasius’ theological defense against Arianism. Athanasius lived in that time when the Church was in a very vulnerable and tender state. The Church was wrestling with the philosophical tensions and paradoxes of the faith and was trying to figure out what precisely it believed. This gave rise to many heresies, one of the greatest of which was Arianism, to which Athanasius came to spend his whole life refuting. No heresy found itself so close to taking over the Church. Arianism proposed that Jesus Christ was a creature, an intermediary so much higher than earthly creatures yet infinitely lower than God. This was based on the very Greek belief that God was inaccessible and could not connect in any way with creatures. And to say that Jesus was eternal would damage God’s oneness and completeness according to Arianism. What was at stake here for Athanasius and the entire Church was not only the divinity of Christ, but it was an understanding of the very character of God. Christ was not an intermediary creature of an unknowable God for Athanasius. Christ was God incarnate sent by a Father who involved himself in history. This was a God who wanted to be in communion with his creation. In his Orations Against the Arians, Athanasius argues that believing in the incarnation was the hope and power of the Church. To believe anything less than this was not Christianity. In this important moment in the Church’s history, Athanasius’ uncompromising adherence to the Truth kept the Church from veering off in dangerous directions. Furthermore, he founded his arguments mainly on the scriptures at a time when Church leaders were more heavily dependent on Greek philosophy. The mere fact, for example, that God is referred to as Father in scripture denotes, for Athanasius, that God is eternally Father who eternally has a Son. Athanasius’ defense against Arianism not only solidified the doctrine of Christ’s divinity, but it also rescued the Church from drowning in Hellenistic abstraction over against being grounded in the scriptures.<br /><br />A third point of influence was Athanasius’ defense against Arianism with his life and character. In 325 A.D., Athanasius went into the Council of Nicea as the secretary of the famous bishop of Alexandria, but he came out as the great and famous defender of orthodoxy. How exactly the young theologian contributed to the important council is uncertain, but it was the defining moment of his life making him both the 4th Century shepherd of the Church and the marked enemy of Arianism. A couple of years after the council Athanasius became Bishop of Alexandria one of the epicenters of the East. Although Nicea condemned Arianism, it raised its head again as the Arians began to find favor with Constantine. Athanasius saw a number of emperors throughout his life who were loyal to Arianism and began to persecute those bishops who upheld Nicene orthodoxy. Athanasius was particularly singled out and attacked. He was put into exile a total of five times throughout his life. Exile was a painful form of persecution for Athanasius and bishops like him. It separated him from the flock he so dearly loved in Alexandria. During the third exile of Athanasius, two stalwarts of orthodoxy, Bishop Hosius and Liberius, were persecuted into signing an Arian creed. Yet in these times of exile Athanasius did not give in and continued to alone stand in the way of Arianism and the Roman emperors. As much as his keen theological mind, Athanasius defended the Truth with the integrity and sanctity of his life. He was loved by those who held to the truth of the Gospel, celebrated greatly by his people as he returned from his exiles. Bishops and other Church leaders confided in him. He was constantly writing and corresponding as he experienced exile. Athanasius also had a strong inclination towards asceticism. More than one of his exiles found him escaping to the deserts to live simply. Some have called him the Father of the Monastic Movement. Athanasius possessed a unique combination of staunch stance and gentle pastoral love. Athanasius’ cause against Arianism was not based simply on curiosity and contemplation of his mind, but on his unstoppable love for Christ, the Church to which he was bishop of, and the hope that Christ was for it.<br /> <br />The great theologian Basil called Athanasius “the summit” of the Church, the foremost of the Church. He led the Church in its most pivotal time regarding what it believed. Not only did he stand in the way of heresies, but he also stood in a way leading us to confidently acknowledge the incarnate Son in our doctrine, unabashedly praise the risen savior in our worship, and imitate the Word made Flesh in our lives.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-83043660453859407842009-03-13T01:34:00.000-07:002009-03-13T14:38:25.738-07:00Shimmering Gems and Sparkling DiamondsLast night in the dim light of the fellowship hall after the guests had gone to sleep, I had one of those candid, beautiful, vulnerable, honest, and at times painful conversations with a man named Johnny, a man who was returning to involvement with the church he desperately loves after years of being rejected by that very same church. The phrase he used: 'churches eat their wounded.' He presented a kaleidoscope of stories. As I listened, I had the overwhelming sense that he was pouring out a pile of shimmering gems and sparkling diamonds just for me onto the table between us. Having talked about the precious gift embedded in a story just that afternoon in my ministry of teaching class, it felt like Christmas morning. To be in the presence of this man was to be anointed by an entire jar of perfume, to have my feet washed by a king. "I don't deserve such grace," I thought, "I don't deserve this." This is kingdom treasure.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-91122993607430438502009-01-31T19:37:00.000-08:002009-02-02T19:26:41.506-08:00Front Yard MagicI walked out into a warm winter day a week and a half ago, which at that point was nearly fifty. While walking across the street I heard noise around the tall 10 foot bushes blocking our driveway from the next door neighbor's house. Looking over I saw a young girl wearing a pink sweatshirt. I noticed that she carried a two-foot stick in her hand. She was thrusting the stick at a branch about twice as long on the ground in front of her. It appeared as if the stick was serving as some sort of magic wand, and she was directing the magic to the longer branch below. I called out a hello to her, and she cheerfully said hello back. Before I could even ask her what exactly she was doing she told me that she was trying to make the branch disappear. I asked her how that was coming. She scrunched up her face, wrinkled her nose, faintly smiled, and held the sapling wand to her body with both arms as if she was suddenly embarrassed. "Half of it?" I asked her. Then she shook her head, held up her hand, and made parallel her thumb and index finger indicating that she had made just a little bit of the branch disappear. I wished her luck with the rest of it. As I drove down the street in front of her, I waved good bye. She just kept hugging the stick with her body and scrunching her face, making that embarrassed look again. I wonder if she was embarrassed that she was trying to make the stick disappear in the first place or that she had made just a small portion of it disappear. I very much hope that it was the latter. Imagine.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-66898692763660948122009-01-19T10:46:00.000-08:002009-01-19T10:58:44.132-08:00MLK DayProphetic words from Martin Luther King, Jr. in his extraordinary 'Letter from Birmingham Jail.'<br /><br />"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens' Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection...'Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-51016316498966122592009-01-16T20:13:00.001-08:002009-01-16T20:42:44.139-08:00NoticeA week and a half ago, I was trudging up the steps, dragging my feet to the third floor of McPheeters at 7:45 in the morning. Taking deep breaths, I was hoping that the expansion of my lungs my start to wake me up a bit. I have often considered myself a morning person, someone who enjoyed being up before the sun. And I still do. But this morning, I would be the first to admit that I was thinking of my matress on the floor, or the comfortable, blanket-laden couch in the living room. However, as I ascended the last set of stairs, my heavy head slightly tilted down, I noticed a dark silhouette of a man facing the window. He was a tall slender man with a large brimmed hat on, that I may have more quickly noted to be Dr. Mulholland if it had been later in the day or not that particular day. He was looking out the window holding his cell phone to the glass. He had a content and curious look on his face, a look that I often see on his face. But it did not take long for me to venture my eyes through the window and see something huge and glorious that I had somehow missed. The sky was filled with soft red and purple clouds, like the cover of 'The Sound and the Fury.' It was like an ocean in the sky, an upside down ocean, filled with soft billowy waves rolling on and on into a distant solar light. It was the kind of picture that instantly made you think of the eternal, the holy, the awesome. I had somehow missed it. I normally consider myself someone who notices, but I clearly didn't that morning. I suddenly had a tremendous gratitude for Dr. Mulholland and those like him who are able to notice and disciplined enough to notice when I cannot. <br /><br />On another note, I hope you notice the new banner I put up. I've made effort to get it up numerous times, but I have finally succeeded.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-70048938838612063862008-07-15T13:45:00.000-07:002008-07-15T13:46:14.696-07:00The Defeat of Josh HamiltonI’ve never been one to post about sports. This is certainly not for lack of ability to be a sports fan. Many do not know that I thoroughly enjoy listening to sports radio and am very fond of ESPN Sportscenter when I have the cable to watch it. I think that many would be surprised at the breadth of needless and pointless sports knowledge I do possess. Despite the fact that I am a closet sports junkie in many ways, it is something that I do not connect to spiritual matters much. I usually leave these to people like my good friend Aaron Tiger who is a master at sports analogies. However, last night’s home run derby event provided a rare circumstance, an atmosphere that I found so significant that it was worth writing about.<br /><br />Given that this is a post connected to sports in the middle of July, in the middle of what many might call the dreadfully boring and insurmountably long major league baseball season makes this writing all the more surprising. What is even more surprising to me is my enjoyment of baseball this season. Although I do not have a team I am particularly fond of in major league baseball, an interest has blossomed in me this season for reasons really unknown to me.<br /><br />Last night was the annual home run derby that by chance I decided to watch. By “watch” I mean that I flipped back to every now and then between other television shows. It began like any other derby. Each contestant blasted about 3 to 6 balls into the stands of Yankee Stadium. I can’t explain it, but there is something about a homerun that is captivating to watch. It is such a picture of brute power and strength. The first round was no different than any other derby until the last contestant. This was a young player named Josh Hamilton from the Texas Rangers.<br /><br />The first thing you would notice about Hamilton is the heavy tattooing that covered his fore arms. The visible mark, the scarlet letter, which serves as a chilling reminder of a turbulent and recent past with drug addiction. This was an addiction that took him out of baseball for three years into all the darkness and evil that cocaine addiction brings, after being picked first in the draft and labeled one of the most talent players in recent history. He now wishes he could take off his tattoos. He became a follower of Jesus, and the Lord brought him life again. Now, he is free in Christ, not to mention one of the great hitters in the game now leading the league in RBI’s. Hamilton is noted as one of the great sports stories of our time.<br /><br />This added electricity and a special feeling to the derby. But no one could have foreseen the event that would soon occur as he took his place at the plate. From his first swing, Hamilton demonstrated his natural, God-given talent by catapulting one home run after another. Slowly, the crowd at Yankee stadium began to sense something special taking place and began to cheer in a way that surprised everyone. At one point, he had hit 13 home runs in a row. By the end of the round, Hamilton had hit 28 home runs, the most ever hit in a round. The stadium including spectators, players, and commentators were glazed over and amazed.<br /><br />He was interviewed afterwards where he humbly thanked God and revealed that he had had a dream in which he was in the home run derby adding more to the aura of what he had just done. He had captured the night and really the heart of everyone watching and all this merely after the first round. Everyone knew that Hamilton would win this home run derby.<br /><br />But what was more interesting to me was that Hamilton actually lost the home run derby. Hamilton obviously made it into the final round where he went head to head with a good player named Justin Morneau from the Minnesota Twins. Rather than including the contestants previous totals, they both started from scratch in the final round in order to make it more competitive. Morneau was first hitting 5 home runs. I think that he along with everyone else believed that this was not enough to beat the talented Hamilton to whom this night seemed to belong. Hamilton took the plate and intitially hit a couple of home runs. But then he began to ground the ball, hit pop flies, and his out total began to pile up. When he was on his last out, he had three home runs – 2 short of Morneau. There was suddenly the dawning of a sober reality that Hamilton might actually lose. One got the sense that everyone wanted him to win; I most definitely wanted to him to win. It seemed right for him to win. It seemed appropriate for him to win. Maybe he had some magic left in him. Maybe he could squeeze in three more right now. That would add even more amazement to the night. It would be the perfect story. But his final hit was not a homerun; it was a grounder to left side of the field. Disappointment was obviously the dominant feeling in the stadium. It seems that Hamilton had just grown tired and did not have it in him. Hamilton smiled as he left the plate and congratulated Morneau. <br /><br />Afterwards, Hamilton was interviewed where he humbly accepted defeat. In a final question of which I do not quite remember, he paused for a moment looking into the distance as if wondering if this was the right time to say what he was about to say on national television. Then he thanked his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the opportunity to be here. It seems to me that it was not out of shame or embarrassment that he hesitated in saying this. It seems to me that he wanted it to be seen with his life rather than his words but decided that it couldn’t hurt. <br /><br />This is certainly not the first time that we have heard someone thank God or even thank Jesus Christ on television or a large public setting. We hear this quite often at the Grammy’s and occasionally at the Academy Awards. But it suddenly came to me last night that we normally do not hear this in defeat. Yet, it seems fitting that Hamilton cried Jesus in defeat, particularly when just an hour or so before victory seemed so securely in his grasp. It is times like this that help us realize that just because we follow Jesus doesn’t mean that we win the homerun derby or become champions of anything. In fact, it appears that Jesus came to teach us not how to win, but how to lose. He came to teach us the way of losing in order that others may be loved and may be saved. Much like the monumental display of 28 homeruns of Josh Hamilton, Jesus did some amazing and beautiful things in the first round of his life that made the outcome of the final round in his life all the more disappointing and hard to understand. Jesus lost, he willingly grounded into a double play for all of us (pardon the cheap analogy). But it is one of the beautiful ironies of our faith that through defeat comes victory. Familiar with the way these things go, I would guess that Hamilton had to be defeated spiritually in order for God to burn the evil and addiction out of him. But through this defeat came to him a cup of life that makes a derby victory pale in comparison. That is what I saw last night. For those who see it, for those who have ears to hear, the defeat of Josh Hamilton last night was the most victorious thing.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-35865309361284801502008-06-28T17:17:00.001-07:002008-06-28T17:18:34.615-07:00Something Scandalous and UncomfortableA little less than a week ago, I was teaching a group of high school and middle school students about Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus in John chapter 3. But if we call this Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus we might miss something about, what I would argue to be, one of the most significant points of Jesus’ teaching here. The vital teaching that Jesus gives is that Nicodemus cannot really ‘encounter’ Jesus, unless Jesus encounters him first. The new birth is something we have to let God do to us. It is something passive. To illustrate I used the story of Eustace, the unpleasant boy who turned into a dragon in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. One of the strangest yet somewhat magical lines in that book is the Lion’s advice to Eustace just before he is changed back into a boy: “you’ll have to let me undress you.”<br /><br />When I said those words to these students I suddenly discovered that there was an imprisoned giggle all over the room. Grins and open teeth began instantly forming. I felt that I needed to break the ice so I said it was okay to laugh. Immediately, students began to laugh aloud, look at their friends, and express to each other how strange this story was. Even more laughter exploded when I began to go on with the story and describe how Eustace laid down and let the Lion actually undress him. I’ll admit, the words are a bit scandalous. Our entertainment culture would have fun with a line like that. I can see a sly joke forming in Jimmy Kimmel’s mind already. The words may have been a bit less scandalous to Lewis when he wrote them, and most likely to the children he was targeting with them. But, considering what I have written below, this might be one of the crucial reasons Jesus tells us to be like little children in our faith.<br /><br />It began to occur to me later on, that those words that the lion spoke were perfectly suited to describe the new birth, which is one of the most intimate things that can ever happen to anyone. The new birth is quite a scandalous thing. It is here that you have to let God make new the ugly and dark parts of your life. But before you can let God do that, you have to give those things to God. But before you can do that, you have to touch and look at it like the underbelly of a large rock. That’s something scandalous and uncomfortable if I’ve ever heard it. Perhaps, this is why we see Nicodemus outraged by Jesus’ response that in order to see the Kingdom of Heaven you have to be born from above. The new birth, in some sense, is never easy for anyone.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-65953534641834936952008-05-09T10:15:00.000-07:002008-05-09T10:37:53.157-07:00The Art of StartingAs summer approaches I am drawn to think about what sort of reading material will occupy my bedside table and house couch given that the summer months bring a new sense of freedom to my bookshelf. But in the midst of this I came to the painful and uncomfortable realization that there have been written way too many books that I would be interested in reading, and there is no possible amount of time in my life to read them. Perhaps this is a personal and unusual fight with pessimism, that forces me to think that the possibility of reading them all is simply an illusion when it is not. Reading lists are like blank canvases in many ways - filled with the most intense contradiction of wonderful possibility and stone-still intimidation. Perhaps I can apply what I've learned from painting, writing, and obedience to God to the summer reading list: the art of starting. I've just got to dig in and go after it.<br /><br />While there are too many books to mention, I will say that my doctrine class has made me interested in the writings of Emile Brunner. Perhaps I will make a stop by the library.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-62284898232840640522008-03-31T18:03:00.001-07:002008-03-31T18:03:48.369-07:00The Last ChapterMr. Reynolds viewed the delivery with confusion the first time after she passed. The white, Styrofoam was strangely unfamiliar to him. His brow furrowed, and his eyebrows cocked as he tried to understand and comprehend. It was something sharp and untouchable. I know this because Mr. Reynolds did not even attempt to grasp it, did not even attempt to receive it or clutch it. I’ve heard that death does this to the world in which we live. The routine becomes alien. The routine delivery nailed spikes into wooden boxes…she’s gone now. He beckoned that I take the delivery into his house and set it down for him. I walked in to the dim living room that smelled like thick carpet and gently laid the delivery onto the table. I felt the need to go, to get out, and so I did. I said goodbye, and Mr. Reynolds gently smiled. As I closed the heavy door, I watched him look down at that strange familiarity laying on his coffee table. Mr. Reynolds seemed as if to be learning how to live again. And it was rather uncomfortable to watch. It was there in which it suddenly occurred to me that life is the turbulent stormy sky above the serene and silent ocean.<br /><br />Mr. Reynolds viewed the delivery with less confusion the second time after she passed. This time in light blue, he slowly reached for the delivery. There was hesitancy. It was always a viable option to ask me to bring it and set it on the table. But after a moment, he reached for it. Mr. Reynolds’ poor vision caused him to lay his shaken and sandy hands far from the Styrofoam delivery. I helped him find it. He smiled and shut the door. He would put it on the table this time.<br /><br />Mr. Reynolds wore his Yankee cap the third time after she passed. There was a smile in Mr. Reynolds’ eyes and less in his mouth. He did not hesitate to place his hands out far from the delivery. Once again, I helped him find it. He began to walk back into his house, and I shut the heavy door for him. As I walked back to my car, it suddenly occurred to me that Mr. Reynolds affected me this time. I suddenly caught a strange sense about something. I smiled and drove out of the driveway. I thanked God that, even in the last chapter of our lives, he is still recreating and growing new in us.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-36487199242407858862008-01-21T08:49:00.001-08:002008-01-21T08:50:46.177-08:00Now is the TimeOne of the greatest works I have ever read is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail. It challenges me and makes me uncomfortable. Here are some of my favorite lines:<br /><br />"I had hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: 'All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry, It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teaching of Christ take time to come to earth.' Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangley irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity."Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-66768280923746643172007-11-27T21:37:00.001-08:002007-11-27T21:37:45.332-08:00Mistaking the Ocean for a Pool: A Surrender to Critical RationalismI was thinking the other day…<br /><br />When I was a boy and I went to the pool, I would find myself participating in what could be considered an unusual practice. I do not know if anyone else has done this, did this, or still does. My family or those who may have witnessed me in my young age have never asked me about this and probably never noticed. This probably shouldn’t be too surprising, as it was not a practice of a highly flamboyant nature. It might be that I was fulfilling some sub-conscious male role as hunter/explorer in my prepubescent years. It may be that I was simply a loner and did not care to play another rousing game of Marco polo. Perhaps it was some strange form of obsessive compulsiveness. Questions aside, I would find myself mysteriously drawn to the middle of the pool like a moth hovering towards a cabin light, wading there for a bit. As I waded I would look around to all sides and all corners, gauging the layout and population of what surrounded me within the confines of the pool. I would then suddenly get the urge to swim to all corners, wanting to search all points of the pool - every nook. Of particular enjoyment was going to those areas in the deep end that were unoccupied. Once I had successfully swam to these unexplored areas I simply waded for a bit, splashed around, hovered. Once my mission was accomplished and I had thoroughly been to all areas of the pool, I would be free to play and do what I wanted. In retrospect this whole ritual seems entirely odd. I suppose that a sufficient explanation of this was a need to conquer the great water-filled concrete dune. But what I want whoever is reading this to notice is not so much the peculiar nature of this practice, but the geography of the practice. In a defined pool, with clear markers of depth, I was able to explore every part of the pool. I was able to go as deep as the pool went, as wide as the pool went.<br /><br />When I was a boy, I also went to the ocean two or three times. But it never crossed my mind to perform this ritual in the ocean. It would be quite ludicrous to attempt it. The ocean is enormous, almost infinite to a young lad. There are depths that no human has ever been able to achieve. There are caves holding creatures that no human has ever laid eyes on. There are no smooth concrete floors; no paved stairways leading out of it, no neatly defined measurements. The ocean is wild and untamed, full of ferocity and beauty.<br /><br />The climax of my thought is this: I have often mistaken oceanic truth for pool truth. By truth I mean Truth: faith truth, Christianity truth, God truth, life truth, universe truth, reality truth – however you want to refer to it. I have the tendency to want to know all of truth, particularly what is revealed in scripture. I want to swim into all of its nooks and corners. I want to know it, to memorize it, to package it neatly and creatively, and teach it. But the more I study, the more I discover that the truth of my faith is not like the pool. There are certainly places I can swim to quite contently and confidently, but there are other places to which I cannot. The truth of my faith is fierce and wild. It is rowdy and stormy. It cannot be fully contained or grasped, and will never be.<br /><br />So what is the moral of this aquatic lesson for me? Quite clearly, the moral is to be humble about what I can know and what I can master and to be aware of my need for God’s infinite grace. I’m constantly a student of the great mysterious God of Israel and will never be an expert. But there is a comforting, almost warm thought in this intellectual surrender. It seems quite a bit more appealing to base my life on oceanic truth rather than some chlorine-filled YMCA truth. It seems quite appropriate that the truth surrounding the God of the Universe is wild, unbounded, rowdy, and…holy. This is the type of truth I could never tire of swimming in.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-2768045266726336562007-10-18T21:26:00.001-07:002007-10-18T21:30:36.552-07:00some poemsThe Hitch-Hiker<br /><br />I see you<br />Do i know that you see me?<br />You stand, for me, at a gap<br />Two things rage against one another<br />One tells me you're Jesus<br />My hand holds tightly, the steering wheel<br />Another says have the wisdom of a serpant<br />I don't understand<br />My eyes roam elsewhere<br />But you beckon and call me<br /><br />7/30/07<br /><br />Rolling silently<br />Filled-a liquid sky<br />Undistinguished between the streaked<br />Sky and the painted waters<br />Red against blue<br />Orange against lavender<br />The waters declare<br />The glory of the heavens<br />"Ye lights of evening find a voice"<br />Your kingdom is here<br />The seaweed sways to the rhythm of<br />Your waters - It's alive!<br />It waits for You<br />Your winds move the waters<br />Even nowChris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-19278899782528665392007-09-14T09:29:00.000-07:002007-09-14T09:30:38.886-07:00A Remnant from the GardenThe other day I was driving through Illinois when one of those dazzling moments occurred. This was the type of moment that should be put to film or be the inspiration for a thousand songs, the type of moment in which reality pauses and indulges in something sweet. Left alone from any sort of traffic, the smooth asphalt highway was mine alone and consequently so were the beautiful Illinois wheat fields sprawled out from the highway for miles like great feathery wings shuffling from the slight breeze. Ahead of me on the right I was approaching a forested area with trees that lined the highway. And then, in a fleeting glimpse, a sudden instance, I saw two of the most exquisite creatures I have ever seen. With a delicate and quiet agility that only these two animals could possibly attain, the two creatures suddenly appeared in wondrous motion on the road ahead of me. In fact, they were nearly off the road and galloping into the forest before I set my eyes upon them. But as suggested before these exceptional moments tend to be extremely generous and even have the power to inflect time and even stop it. This afforded my eyes the opportunity to gaze at these creatures. I was able to see the fine and beautiful way that they were constructed and built. Their smooth muscles were fitting for their staunch but slender legs. The bob tails were bouncing up and down as they galloped. These creatures seemed so fragile yet so complete. There long necks were just strong enough to support their rapidly jittering heads. I was even able to glance at their eyes from a distance deep and wild, taking in vast amounts of information. The hooves that met the highway, although silent from my vantage, seemed to generate some gorgeous melody anyway. I heard this melody as I watched the escaping leaves, rustled away from the trees, gently descending in flutter as the two creatures’ beautiful light brown coats allowed them to disappear into the forest and continue on in magnificent wildness…<br /><br />So exclusive and blazing with significance was this picture I was invited to see that I felt almost unworthy. The word that came to my mind… “Perfection.”<br /><br />What I witnessed that September afternoon was so completely serene, so completely natural that I felt immediately transported to the garden. It was as if I caught a glimpse of that splendid garden in the east, where all creation is new and man and wild beast lived in unusual harmony. Not yet tainted by fall, creation was so pure that God walked among it, completing it with every lingering moment.<br /><br />It suddenly occurs to me why I have such a strong fascination with watching animals and touring trees. Somehow, their complete complexity and intricacy along with the simplicity of their untamed nature humbles my heart in many ways. It moves me to watch a horse run. It moves me to watch a falcon soar. It moves me to watch a spider spin a silver web. It moves me to watch a cat bathe itself with its small rose tongue. It moves me to watch a dog gently rest at the foot of its master. It moves me to watch a butterfly flutter around in tiny flashes. It moves me to watch a tree stand against the mighty wind and cling to the earth. It moves me to watch a tree lift its seeping branches into the air. It is because these things are holy, created to be beautiful … created to be. God Himself declared them good. In some strange way on some different sort of plane of knowledge, it seems that these creatures understand things much better than humans. <br /><br />In a book called That Hideous Strength, Lewis writes about a large pet bear named Mr. Bultitude and in an altogether accurate way describes the mind of the bear:<br /><br />“Mr. Bultitude’s mind was as furry and as unhuman in shape as his body…He did not know that he loved and trusted [his owners] now. He did not know that they were people, nor that he was a bear. Indeed, he did not know that he existed at all: everything that is represented by the words “I” and “Me” and “Thou” was absent from his mind.”<br /><br />But then Lewis goes deeper:<br /><br />“The appetencies which a human might disdain as cupboard loves were for him quivering and ecstatic aspirations which absorbed his whole being, infinite yearnings, stabbed with the threat of tragedy and shot through with the colors of Paradise. One of our race, if plunged back for a moment in the warm, trembling, iridescent pool of that pre-Adamite consciousness, would have emerged believing that he had grasped the absolute: for the states below reason and the states above it have, by their common contrast to the life we know, a certain superficial resemblance. Sometimes there returns to us from infancy the memory of a nameless delight or terror, unattached to any delightful or dreadful thing, a potent adjective floating in a nounless void, a pure quality. At such moments we have experience of the shallows of that pool. But fathoms deeper than any memory can take us, right down in the central warmth and dimness, the bear lived all its life” (p. 306).<br /><br /><br />Perhaps, I merely dipped my toe in that lustrous pool on that warm afternoon as I watched two creatures that were fully immersed in it. For it is not this remnant of the garden that is tied down by the often-times vociferous naming and explaining of experience that can sometimes keep the beautiful but fallen human mind and heart from liberation. The remnant has discovered the delightful secret of living experience rather than trying to be a master over it.<br /><br />Do you ever feel distance from the Creator? Friends, I adjure you to go outside and experience the fierce reality of creation. Do not merely go outside to read or draw or paint. Do not merely use creation as a vehicle for your own agenda. But go outside and look at it. Go and see it. Enjoy it for its own created sake. I would suggest conversing with it. St. Francis did this often. Allow God to renew your mind in the visions of His creation. Discover why the Pslamist wrote that His glory fills the earth. What does that mean? Then, perhaps, we will discover more of our holy Creator.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-4682778939213526722007-08-04T11:31:00.001-07:002007-08-04T11:31:43.954-07:00The FingerI must say that I use the term ‘offensive’ uncomfortably and with a great deal of hesitation. For some strange reason, it is difficult to say that something offends me. On the one hand, an offense implies that I have been attacked, that I have been rendered vulnerable. Vulnerability is an extremely humbling sort of thing, and a vulnerability that immediately goes away does not exist. Connected to this is the idea that offense seems to imply that I have been sheltered. It is hard for a man to admit that he has been sheltered. I suppose it means that he has been tamed or held in captivity from another world of experience that he has not yet mastered or understood. To communicate that something was offensive to you is to imply that others might not find it near as offensive, that others have mastered a particular realm while you have not. On the other hand, as a follower of the God/man Jesus, I am to be no stranger to offense – Christ was quite clear about that. In fact he taught that I am to be someone who rejoices and is glad to be insulted and persecuted – offended. So for me to write that something offended me seems kind of weak and after-the-fact. So in humility and for the sake of releasing some God-given creative energy I confess that I was driving home from a class I was taking at the Seminary recently when one of the strangest, oddest, and most offensive encounters I have ever had occurred.<br /><br />As I study to be a pastor I am living in this very small town in the middle of Kentucky. As I understand it in the past, this town has been dubbed “the Holy City” on account of the two large evangelical (that’s “evangelical” in a good way) institutions that lie at its center. It has the reputation of being surrounded by a bubble through which none of Screwtape’s best tempters can seem to penetrate. Of course much of this reputation is in jest, and anyone who lives in the town knows that it is like any other town with its fair share of dark and light, hope with struggle. Yet this particular encounter in this particular town still surprised me.<br /><br />I had stopped at the blinking red lights at about 5:15 in the afternoon. To the right of the three way stop was the street I lived on in the southern most tip of town. At the same moment I stopped, a small black datsun truck had also stopped across from me on the other side of the intersection with a few other cars coming in behind it. I saw the face of the man driving the datsun, a man in a mesh hat with no facial hair who was looking at me. The man looked a bit dazed as if he had just had a long day, but I distinctly remember him casually looking at me. After an initial pause on both our parts and wanting to be polite, I raised my hand and made a sweeping motion with it indicating that he could go ahead of me for I observed that he too had his turning signal on and was wanting to turn onto the same street. And then suddenly, the man made his own gesture at me: left middle finger extended towards the sky, slightly tilted, with the back of his hand facing me. The man gave me the finger, he gave me the bird, he flipped me off, whatever you want to call it. I remember that this gesture did not appear slowly, but it appeared suddenly. It almost seemed reactionary and so uncalculated. But what was possibly more startling in this instance was the man’s face. From what I could see there was no change of expression. He just kept looking at me with those same dazed eyes, that same-tilted head, middle finger extended. There was coldness there, the kind of coldness you would find in a character from a Flannery O’Connor story. It seemed like nothing to him to make this gesture at me.<br /><br />That was it. This was the encounter, the encounter I found so offensive Now at this point I would like to say that there may be some reading this (although that in itself may be held in question) that are laughing at me. I don’t blame them. How could such a simple encounter garner such attention and such a lengthy discourse? You may call me soft and weak. Again, I admit these feelings humbly as I continue. For an instant, I was stunned. It was so unexpected. I was emotionless and expressionless. In my confusion, I simply shrugged and said to myself, “Okaaaaaay?” I turned onto the street. Then I saw the man turn onto the same street behind me, and I remembered his turn signal. As I drove down my long street, I contemplated many things. I wondered if he would follow me to my house. I almost wanted him to. I wanted to know what I had done wrong. I wanted to know if I had offended him in some way, if he had misinterpreted my hand gesture. I wanted to make things right between us. But about seven or so houses before my own he turned onto a driveway. As I write this I wish that I would have gone back there and asked him why he gave me the finger, why he felt compelled to do that. A flood of emotions raged inside of me spurred by that finger. I was angry, frightened, confused. Soon those emotions gave way to something deeper. I realized that I was hurt. My soul felt murdered, torn, shredded, lacerated. I felt extremely low. I was knocked in the gut. The weakness was strong and lingered. I remember that I was leading a bible study that night, but I suddenly felt unequipped for it because of that finger. In laymen’s terms, that slender finger had ruined my day.<br /><br />Now, I certainly do not mean to suggest that I am the first person who has ever been given the finger, and I do not mean to make something out of nothing. I’m only describing what carried within me after that moment, and when I feel my soul affected like that I pay attention. <br /><br />It’s amazing isn’t it? A simple gesture, a simple shape of hand can create so much hurt, so much offense down to the very soul. How could something so simply physical, not to mention very culturally defined, hurt my soul so much? It’s almost silly. If the dualists, neo-Platonists, and Gnostics are correct and the spiritual realm is so separated from and superior to the physical, then how come that man’s physical gesture had such a potent power over my spirit on that afternoon?<br /><br />But it occurs to me that in the eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans [enter my standard transition to the bible] a picture is painted of this earth, this creation that we touch and in which we move and breathe, being mysteriously held in bondage by the falleness of this world. Among other things, this can be seen in humanity’s tremendous impact on the environment for the worse. A physical world that was originally good was subject to suffering through our sins, those same sins that are rooted in the spirit as Jesus showed us. The spiritual deeply affecting the physical. Furthermore, it seems to suggest that creation will actually experience the same liberation that children of God will experience one day. <br /><br />What does this have to do with the finger? The point is that, from my studies, it appears that the scriptures are clear that the spiritual has a powerful impact on the physical. Now take the Rabbi, Jesus. I think that the Apostle Paul in Romans 8 was agreeing with the teachings of his Rabbi and could see it all over creation. The area between the physical world and the spiritual world is blurred and intricately bridged. I’ve been having coffee with the thought that Jesus not only came to redeem the fleshly, the physical, the material, showing us that creation is good. But he also came to show us the great degree to which the spiritual and the physical are entwined. He taught that the dispositions and tone of our spirits directly affect what happens in the world around us, in our relationships, in our physical environment. Clean the inside, and the outside will be clean. He said that those who love God would be known by the fruit that they produce. This is not fruit attached to vines wrapped around your heart that no one can see, but it is fruit that is open and tangible. He taught that what makes a man unclean is what comes out of him not what goes into him. The state of one’s heart is not merely determined by what dwells in your heart, the particular color of your heart. It is also determined by that phrase, “comes out,” the way in which what is in your heart manifests itself into the light of day, the world around you. The cleanliness of your heart is determined by how its produce goes out and interacts with the world. I’m arguing that the spirit of a person has a tightly bound relationship with the tangible and seen world around it. If this is the case then it seems that the physical can equally affect the spiritual just as the spiritual has tremendous impact on the physical. We are deeply and equally spiritual and physical beings, walking filters taking in and giving out. Therefore, we as people with such potent spirits have tremendous responsibility for what our hearts release out into this beautiful world. Will our hearts sing melodies that harmonize with the earth in which we move and breathe and act promoting such things as peace between warring nations, feeding the poor, freeing the captive, proclaiming Jesus as Lord, and being at peace with the natural world around us? Or will our hearts bellow harsh and unnatural sounds that create disharmony, idolatry, and the failure to love? As someone who has made both kinds of sounds, I will take the former.<br /><br />I will ask a third time, “What does this have to do with that silly finger?” The answer is a whole lot in the way that I see it. That finger that I was given by the man in the datsun truck was not simply a finger. It was the vomit of his heart, the physical manifestation of his inner being. Our spirits, meant to love and be at harmony with one another, met instead on the tip of that rebellious appendage. My soul wasn’t the only thing affected. I could feel the air differently. It changed things; it changed the way that I saw things. Suddenly, the beautiful trees that lined the street were no longer beautiful, but strangely distorted. I could no longer enjoy the painted sky and the setting sun. <br /><br />I think that every follower of Christ goes through different stages of understanding in how to live faith. As a young boy, loving God primarily meant ‘being nice’: not cussing, not hitting your sister, saying kind things, doing what you are told to do, not having sex outside of marriage, going to church, and praying before you eat. It interests me that almost all of the new believers in Jesus that I talk to always seem to be very aware of the language that they use, and they often name it as their primary sin struggle. But as you grow in faith you soon discover that there is a whole lot more to loving God and loving your neighbor than ‘being nice.’ In fact, much of the time in the gospels I wouldn’t necessarily call Jesus ‘nice.’ True love can often seem harsh and rather not nice to those around us. In an effort to grow deeper in this true love, I have had a tendency to neglect ‘being nice’ and to write off as useless in many ways. But as I have reflected on the finger I’ve come to realize that there is something deeply significant about ‘being nice.’ A smile here, a hello there, a thank you, being polite to your waitress, and opening the door for someone are all cultural gestures that have the same degree of effectiveness as that finger. I think that it delights God when we are nice, of course, never at the expense of real love, truth, and honesty. But it is important to understand the gestures and polite manners of the particular culture in which you live and to utilize them. Jesus even went a step further. We should pay very close attention to which Jesus had meals with, what he did on Sabbath days, and how he treated children. Jesus took the cultural gestures of his time and he redeemed them. When the Pharisees lost the love on which the Law was founded they refused to eat with the sinner, they refused to help dying men on the Sabbath, they shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces, and tied up heavy loads on them without lifting a finger to move these loads themselves. In all their effort to keep themselves ‘clean’ and ‘superior,’ it seems that they simply developed new ways to offend, new ways to give the finger. But Jesus changed all that. He invited the sinner to come and eat with him. He attended to suffering people on the Sabbath. He opened the kingdom of heaven to everyone. He did not come to condemn; he came to liberate and to say, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The beautiful things that Jesus did on earth were nothing more and nothing less than the Spirit of God interacting through him with the world around him. In the same way, it seems natural for those who follow Jesus to take the cultural symbols today and to redeem them to promote the newness of life that only Jesus can bring, to bring some kingdom on this earth. Instead of using our middle finger to hurt, let’s use our middle finger to heal and to bandage wounds and to hold hands in unity. Instead of using our middle finger to offend others, let’s use it to read the scriptures and allow the scriptures to transform our hearts so that the Spirit of God can impact our world. <br /><br />As uncomfortable as I was, I prayed for the man in the datsun truck as I finished the drive down my long street. When I arrived home, I told my friend what had happened at the blinking red lights. I asked him, “Aaron, what would compel someone to do something like that? Think about the anger and the bitterness that are inside of that man that would even allow the expression of such an offensive reaction in such a harmless situation.” My friend encouraged and sympathized as he reflected on his own share of experiences with the bitter anger and cruelty of others.<br /><br />There is one part of the Gospels, to my knowledge, where Jesus’ finger is specifically mentioned. He was in the temple courts when a woman caught in adultery was suddenly brought forward by the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. And they asked Jesus if she should be stoned to death as the Law of Moses commanded. Instead of answering their question, he does something peculiar. He slowly bends down and begins writing something on the ground with his finger. I am fascinated and mystified by this action, as I have no idea what he was writing, and the Gospel does not tell us either. But somehow out of that writing came the most magnificent reply: “If anyone is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then he continued to write on the ground. Those who came to condemn the woman were dumbfounded, dropped their stones and left the woman there alone. Afterwards, Jesus straightens up and asks if anyone has condemned her. She replies that no one has. Jesus says that neither does he then and tells her to go and leave her life of sin. If I could offer any sort of explanation I would say that the man in the datsun truck was stoned somewhere along the way. He was condemned by some gesture, by some manifestation of cruelty experienced in this world. There was no finger to write in the ground, no finger to declare that there is in fact no condemnation in Christ Jesus.<br /><br />[I have the overwhelming sense that what I have written here is a little naïve. Particularly in the wake of such tragedies and dangers as the recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis and the large number of Korean Christians being held captive by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Two of which have already been murdered. I am, after all, someone has a lot more to experience. I suppose I wonder if I even know what a true offense is. So please understand this as if you have cared to read this writing.]Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-28201660663437652852007-07-27T14:22:00.000-07:002007-07-27T14:27:12.299-07:00HomesickAlone I climb up this hill again<br />I've skinned my knees and I've broke my hands<br />I dined with pigs and I soiled my clothes<br />I played with toys that I did not own<br />Now I'm singin'...<br />I all but turned my back on you<br />Oh wait just a second, I did do that too<br />I felt so entitled wanted to rip you a part<br />Take all my riches and run somewhere far<br /><br />Now I sing<br />Father, I want to come home now<br />Father, I want to go home now<br /><br />I want to be a child again<br />To curl up inside you, hold on to your hand<br />Innocence dangled and fell from my tree<br />I watched it roll down and sink into the sea<br />Licked the world like a lollipop on an indulgant stick<br />Its diet of refuse and trash made me sick<br />These words must seem hollow as I crawl back to you<br />But I'll be your hired hand before I swim against your truth<br /><br />Now I sing <br />Father, I want to come home now<br />Father, I want to go home now<br /><br />Grace is hard for a thinking man's head<br />You can't understand it 'till you've tasted death<br />So I'll kneel in awe as you cover me with robe<br />Put a ring on my finger and welcome me home<br /><br />Now I sinng<br />Father, I'm coming home now<br />Father, I'm going home nowChris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-33082831434509868482007-06-20T12:43:00.000-07:002007-06-20T12:44:07.628-07:00DelaysI once watched a film that told me that whenever I get all crumby about the world I should go to an airport. It’s apparently there that I can see through reunions and various displays of affection that “love actually is all around.” Now, I love the hope and spirit of optimism that surrounds this observation, but in all honesty I must disagree with the prime minister. A couple of weeks ago I sat in the Oklahoma City airport for about nine hours to test this theory. Okay, not really. I sat in the Oklahoma City airport because my flight was delayed, but I can testify that I was there for nine hours. <br /><br />Rather than seeing tearful smiles, deep gazes, and reunions that would make your heart flutter away; I was confronted with rolling eyes, under-breath cussing, cranky phone calls, and people whose god was their schedules. To a certain extent, I could understand their frustration. After being in the airport for about 7 hours, I began to turn a little restless myself. And I do realize that a fallen world will produce frustrations such as these and pretty nasty reaction to them.<br /><br />But suddenly, without any particular reason or source, a small breeze of peace began to gently blow into my heart. I began to look around at everyone, at tired people waiting for information at the desk, at a woman sitting by a child as he was eating some ice cream, at a man holding a small chihauhau in his coat pocket, at the front desk as airport people frantically typed in information often with two fingers. It was at this moment that I was suddenly reminded of a conversation I had with a friend of mine. He made the simple observation that the weather was inescapably uncontrollable and unpredictable. Even in Oklahoma, where I am from and where I am told the ‘weather experts’ are, the weather is still unpredictable and uncontrollable there.<br /><br />You see, friends, the reason why my flight was delayed was for the simple reason that a rather large thunderstorm decided to plant itself right on top of the Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport, which was the place of my connecting flight. The airport was apparently shut down for about three hours delaying flights across the country. As I reflected on this and the many upset people at that airport that Tuesday I began to think about all of the technology that we have created for ourselves. We have built huge flying machines that can turn fourteen-hour trips into two-hour trips. We have built intricate computer systems that allow thousands of these machines to lift off everyday without running into each other. We have built elaborate airports with restaurants, televisions, and comfortable chairs in order to make our stay in airports as comfortable and as similar to home as possible. Yet, when a simple storm, something we have all seen before and are quite familiar with, decides to plant itself in just the right place, all of our plans, our schedules and our technology are useless. And we are inevitably delayed.<br /><br />But as I sat there with that breeze of peace still blowing on my heart and a crying baby next to me, I couldn’t help but be thankful that we are not in control. I am thankful that we do not always get what we want and that delays come. It is a good thing. I repeat: IT IS A VERY GOOD THING that we are ultimately not in control. It is a good thing that we cannot control and predict the weather; it’s a good thing that we can’t control and predict God.<br /><br />Delays mean waiting, and waiting is something we have all experienced. I read a book recently that said, “We often equate waiting with God’s inactivity.” But when you read the scriptures, something is happening when we wait. Isaiah 30:15,18 says:<br /><br />“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it…Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!’”<br /><br />This seems to suggest to me that salvation happens when we are waiting. Changing and God’s favor happens when we wait. God is actually doing something in the midst of this waiting, and those who wait are actually becoming something. In the waiting there is a growing in relationship with God. How do you view waiting? Is it a time of looking forward to something in the future or is it a time to focus on the now, on the significant change that is happening now? I wrote a short meditative song not long ago on this theme of waiting:<br /><br />I will wait on you Lord<br />I will wait on you Lord<br />I will wait on you Lord<br />I will wait on you Lord<br /><br />It’s in the waiting that you are changing<br />It’s in the waiting that you’re rearranging<br />It’s in the waiting that you’re preparing<br />It’s in the waiting that you are saving…<br /><br />Delays are a significant part of the rhythm of life, the sounds of dissonance before the beautiful resolution in a symphony. Delays remind us that we are not in control, that there is One who knows better. Thank God for thunderstorms. Thank God for delays.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-76663853556687179412007-06-18T15:54:00.000-07:002007-07-09T17:26:45.860-07:00A Bowl of Beans“Why don’t ya go get you some of them beans, boy,” Saunders asked me as I had just finished eating a delicious cheeseburger prepared for me. I sat on an old but very comfortable couch while Saunders sat in a large, dark-blue recliner in the corner adjacent to me, his usual place. We were in a living room at the bottom of an awkward five-story house with rooms stacked on top of each other. The first time I had entered and toured up into the house I couldn’t help but think that I was ascending the steps of some swaying and unbalanced tower of Pisa considering that one careless step might send the whole thing toppling over.<br />“Were they good, man?” I asked him, stuffed and pretty content with my cheeseburger and fried potatoes.<br />“Yeah, boy. Go in there and get you some,” Saunders persisted with his eyes remaining fixed on the television watching Steve McQueen escape from prison in Mexico. This had been my third time to hang out with Saunders, each time we would sit and watch television together. Saunders was a very tall man maybe in his late fifties or early sixties who I rarely saw leave his recliner chair. Saunders found a strange sort of freedom in that chair with the television in front of him, and he did not like to be bothered one bit. I remember in our first time together, when he quite frankly wanted nothing to do with me, we were (with his eyes still firmly gazing at the television) making small talk during the commercial break of an intense re-run of “Law and Order.” When the commercial break ended and I was in the middle of a sentence, he slowly raised his hand and quietly said, “Okay, okay, I’m done witchya.” I understood. I wasn’t offended. The man wanted to watch his show, and it wasn’t my place at that time to interfere.<br />“They were really good beans, huh?” I asked again still quite content with the hearty cheeseburger I had just eaten. To be honest, I didn’t want any beans. On the one hand, a bowl of beans didn’t sound good to me at this time. In fact, it kind of sounded gross. I was full and the last thing I wanted to do was to eat some beans. On the other hand, I was content with just remaining on the couch, watching “Papillion,” and making small talk during the commercial breaks.<br />“They’re right in there. Go in there and get you some. There’s bowls in there,” he said a third time.<br />It was at this point that something stirred inside of me. Something began to tell me that this was no ordinary exchange. There was no bright light in the sky and no mighty voice from heaven, but I soon felt a tremendous urging to answer Saunders’ request and make myself a bowl of beans. Suddenly I knew that this would not be just any bowl of beans. This was not simply a recommendation like urging someone to try your favorite dish at your favorite Italian restaurant. Saunders was offering me much more than beans. He was offering an opportunity, a gift. Saunders knew that we came from very different places with different experiences. Perhaps Saunders also knew that I was there to build a relationship with him. He would be right. I was there asking God to cultivate a relationship between me, him, and the other men living in that house praying that the truth of Christ might penetrate their hearts through our fellowship together. No, this was no ordinary bowl of beans. This was a piece of Saunders himself, a part of his life from his side of the tracks. Saunders was asking me to eat what he eats, to join him in his life, which was very different from mine. I was in the mission field and that bowl of beans was like an exotic and uncomfortable food placed in front of me. I had to eat. I recalled Jesus’ table ministry in that moment and the importance He placed on eating what was offered by those who hosted Him. The Lord was offering me an opportunity to sacrifice my individual desire this moment so that He would have an avenue by which He might begin to harvest a relationship between Saunders and I.<br />I silently and with a great deal of new-found urgency went into the other room, got myself a bowl of white beans, came back in and sat down on the couch next to Saunders still gazing at the television screen. Nothing incredibly powerful happened after that that I could see. But I could sense a change in our relationship. Suddenly, as our conversation began to open up more I realized that we had moved farther from casual conversation to the realm of friends. Another brick in the bridge had been laid by a not so ordinary bowl of beans, which by the way actually turned out to be quite tasty.<br />“These are good beans,” I turned and said to Saunders.<br />“Yeah, boy. Them beans is real good,” he quietly said with his eyes still rigidly fixed on Steve McQueen.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6263094009250776121.post-43294574441957022862007-06-06T13:33:00.000-07:002007-06-06T13:41:57.300-07:00Frisbee DogI have learned a lot over recent years. I have learned very significant and important things. I’ve learned about various cultures, religions, and histories. I’ve learned of complex theories and of complex problems. But, without a doubt, one of the most important things I’ve learned, one of the most considerable things I have gained knowledge of is…that one-day…<br /><br />I want to own a Frisbee Dog.<br /><br />That’s right. I want to own a Frisbee dog. I want a dog to which I can go outside and toss a Frisbee thirty yards out into the air, and the dog will run and catch it gracefully in mid-air. We would do that all Saturday afternoon and it would be terrific. There’s something amazing about these dogs to me. Maybe it was from watching ‘Flight of the Navigator’ too much as a kid. <br /><br />The context of this motivation lies in an experience I had one day while going to a park. There is a park that I go to nearby from time to time to read, play guitar, think, and reflect. While enjoying a fantastic book one day, I began to notice a beautiful black Labrador off in the distance. The Lab was very excited about something, and I soon figured out why. The owner was nearby and he started to pull out a Frisbee. This dog became so incredibly excited. The owner proceeded to launch the Frisbee out into the air. I watched in amazement, as this dog would chase this Frisbee nearly thirty yards out. This dog would effortlessly jump into the air and catch the Frisbee. I could hear the chomp cut through the air like it was a few feet away. Once the dog caught the Frisbee, he would bring it back to the owner, stand very still, and anxiously wait with intense attention knowing that at any moment the Frisbee would fly again. The owner would proceed to throw the Frisbee into the air, and the same would happen.<br /><br />But as I sat there watching this activity, I could not help but notice the sheer joy on the dog’s face. The dog was in utter joy at this simple disc. The dog was passionate about this activity, as if this was his single, most important purpose in the world. He looked like he was smiling as he sailed through the air and his stiff ears were forced to shake in the wind. It was as if this was what he was created for. As I stood there just watching, I came to this conclusion:<br /><br />I want to be God’s Frisbee Dog.<br /><br />I know it sounds weird. But I want to be God’s Frisbee dog. I want to chase after the plans and the will that God sends flying over my head for me. I want to chase after God’s Frisbee with the passion and joy of the Labrador I saw that day at the park. And then, I want to bring my Frisbee back to God for his glory; otherwise, my Frisbee won’t fly. I am a firm believer that God has a unique and special Frisbee for everyone. This is a Frisbee of passion, gifts, and plans. This Frisbee is what ignites our souls. This Frisbee is the way God has laid out each of us to worship him. I have discovered that a piece of my Frisbee is the call to ordained ministry. God has set a passion for teaching, leading, shepherding, and encouraging inside of me.<br /><br />But my Frisbee is just one in a plethora of Frisbees designed for God’s people. It is my belief that we still serve a powerful God who does great things in this world today. I believe that the power of the Gospel is just as impacting as it was 2000 years ago. I want to be a part of God’s movement in this world. I want to help people find their Frisbees.Chris Symeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12790829401272417517noreply@blogger.com0