There Must be More. . .

PC: Brian Masbaugh (slacklinemedia.com)

I want the world to be different. . .

I want to respond in kindness every time. To have enough of God's love in me to always be ready to give to others. I want fear to evaporate. For old-fashioned values to be held by everyone. And I want to not get hung on one side of a dichotomy or the other. I want to see this life and this world bigger. To see possibilities. To know how to walk the balance of hope in the face of despair, or that of love in the proper tension of the truth.

My sister told me recently that I wanted to have my cake and eat it, too—like keeping a beautifully arranged dinner and yet cleaning the plate in enjoying all of its flavours. I do. I want it to be true that Good wins in my lifetime. I want the shadow to be small and passing, and for it to pass away right now. For the high Beauty to swoop in and save the day—and the nighttime, too. I long to live in the not yet, because the now is so broken. I long for perfect relationships without underlying currents of tension, annoyance, hurt, or frustration. I long for the fully redeemed Heaven and Earth, and confess that I kick against the breakage in which we still live.

I have been given hope and permission to dream more richly, to see God as bigger than the false dichotomies we are so often handed. . . And then comes the thud—the fact that not everyone else has been handed that gift, or that they have not received it yet, anyway. When I ask for answers and have the problem reiterated, it doesn't help. When I say, "There has to be more than just this—God is bigger than these two bad choices," I get blank silence.

When I've been told that God is bigger than my small vision, but I'm not expected—or even allowed—to see more, I get frustrated. I feel like I'm constantly on the outside and the majority is convinced that there is only one key to get in. But I am not convinced. I don't believe that my life is on hold until I get married or move or have a different job. Yet so many others believe those very things that I begin to live like I believe it, too. But I don't. I don't believe that a circumstance change is what will let me in. 

When it comes to relationships with fellow humans, surely I don't have to be relegated to being friends with only women—and mainly single ones at that. God made us whole humans. He made us to need others—male and female, single and married—in whatever state we are. What I don't know is how to practise the truth that God's vision, His world, His Kingdom is here and now. 

How do I maintain healthy relationships with my long-distance married friends? How do I have rich and healthy friendships with the men in my life? How do I love my single friends well? What is the best way to connect with my local married friends? Confessedly, I'm tired of getting shut out of various friendships because I'm not married. What changed with that ring? Don't we still have some of the same loves in common? Can't we still encourage one another in our most holy faith? Does my friend having a husband suddenly make all of that disappear? If so, it's no wonder that I've looked on marriage with a dubious eye in years past.

If what I've been told is true—that I belong to the Body of Christ, throughout time and space—then why don't I feel like I belong once my friends get married? Why do I feel like I'm a second class human as a single person? My admission ticket to the Body of Christ is not a gold band. It is being sacramentally connected to Jesus, the Head. It is receiving the very same Body and Blood that every other Christ-follower receives. 

I don't have to only have friends like me—that would keep my vision and theirs too narrow. I need people of various ages in different stages of life: single, married, with children, with grandchildren, in various vocations and with a variety of interests and talents. I need people who have different perspectives to help me enlarge my view of God and His world—of His universe. And I need to help enlarge the vision of others. . . Like those who see that there is a problem and think there are only two ways to deal with it. But God doesn't call us to impale ourselves on one stake or the other of these dichotomies. He calls us to the much harder task of another way, of balance and counterbalance—of a slackline walk. And that over a canyon. The stakes are high if we fall, but the stakes are sharp and deathly wounding if we jump to one side or the other, too. We must constantly keep our eyes fixed on Jesus to keep our balance on the slackline. To look to the right or to the left is to lose the view of our Anchoring Point—the Fixed Point in a world of turning. To look to one side or the other is to fall.

I don't want to pendulum swing, I want to walk the straight and narrow. I don't need people to paint the problem, I need help to find the answers. I don't want to see the world as small—it is not. I want eyes, heart, and mind to see how long and how wide and how high is the love and the glory of God. I want the now to step into the not yet. For time and eternity to meet. For chronos to cross into kairos. For all manner of things to be made well. For the shadow to pass and for the stars to shine through to us, to draw us near to them and yet to leave us alive. . . so much more alive than we've ever been before. The glory of God is writ large, but we need His perspective to be able to see it whole, not in pieces. We need to set our eyes on Jesus—the Author and Finisher of our faith—to keep us balanced on the slackline, rather than teetering over the brink, swaying left or right. 

The world is bigger than we've been led to believe. There are more than two options for how life can work. We know about what is past. We live in the now. . . and we long for the not yet to arrive and make all things new. We long for redemption to be fulfilled. We've been told the world is different than we've believed for so long. . . Now we get to learn to live that difference, to dream bigger, to see more than we could before—to not get stuck on the outside, but to finally get in.

Time and Eternity Have Kissed

Christmas is not an event within history, but is rather the invasion of time by eternity.

~ Hans Urs von Balthasar (Light of the World)

There are things in the scientific and supernatural realm that overlap—or perhaps dove-tail—and pique my interest immensely. Two in particular are light and time. We are told that both move at a constant rate in the same direction—I have my doubts about this, however. Perhaps this is because I am seeing light and time from the other side, the ontological side. 

Scientists see time as Chronos—constant, linear, measurable; unable to grasp Kairos time—the time that stands still or races by without being noticed, the time of being, the time of eternity—immeasurable. I have noticed that my friends in the hard sciences like to measure things, to have precise definitions or parameters, to place things and persons into neat boxes. From kingdoms and classes, to preferences and personality types. Yet persons are dynamic, able to deviate from a habit or routine, to say or do the unexpected. 

When it comes to Kairos—and maybe even Chronos—I think time is dynamic rather than constant. I cannot break it down further, perhaps because I would be trying to dissect a mystery, to grapple with the immaterial. In the midst of our chaos, the mystery of Kairos steps quietly at first, then loudly announced, into Chronos. The Eternal God Himself entered time. No, as von Balthasar says, "invades" Chronos. He invades more personally still, letting us know that He has "put Eternity in" our very hearts, and it searches out Eternity Himself.

The very first Christmas was the collision of Chronos and Kairos—the invasion of time by Eternity. It is both a reality and a mystery, a sacred moment changing all of history. Let us be still, in awe of God Himself becoming man, of time being entered by Eternity.

The Word Made Flesh...

"Nails, spear shall pierce Him through
The Cross be borne for me, for you
Hail, hail the Word made flesh
The Babe the Son of Mary"

—What Child is This?

"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory..." So says Saint John's opening chapter. The Word was made flesh...The Eternal Word was spoken into time, was made into finite man, frail flesh. What did the Son of God gain by this? Insults, rejection, and threats of stoning. Nails, thorns, and a spear thrust into His side. He who was Light and Life was dealt a death-blow. Yet the darkness cannot overcome the light. Death is swallowed up in life. The Word sounding and resounding in time and space does not come back void. That Word is robust, full of Truth and grace.

Many times it seems that "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth goodwill to men." That God's promises and gifts are puny next to the prince of the power of the air. However, when Paul says that death is swallowed up in life—and John truthfully proclaims that the darkness is expelled by the Light, unable to overcome it—we see that God's gifts are rich and vibrant next to shadowy, gnarled phantoms. We still live like a people sitting in darkness, trapped into thinking there is a monster in the shade...But the Light is dawning—more full of life, rich hues, and Truth than the paltry darkness that seeks to blind our seeing eyes. The Light is real. The promises are solid. The Hope of our souls was made flesh and He tabernacles among us. Now—and forevermore.

Hail, hail the Word made flesh!