The Struggle of Dust

My eye stood fixated upon a light background. As my pupils adjusted to the variance of light, I could see dust hairs floating in the open expanse of air. They floated round seeking a place to establish its residence.

This is the struggle of dust. It wanders the air longing for significance. But the only way for it to be significant is if it gathers on a foundation that holds.

Considering this, there is truth in the statement where God says in Genesis 3:19, "For dust you are and to dust you will return." How long has the struggle of humanity been characterized by a longing for significance? We want to see ourselves as something more than dust, but oddly, our significance comes in the stunning revelation that dust is all we are. 

But to acknowledge ourselves as dust is to acknowledge something greater than ourselves. For if all dust wants is to perch its weary, wandering head on a place where it can truly rest, than that place, that foundation, must be significantly greater than ourselves.

I, just one spec of dust, used to be a Film major. And while I was a Film major, I found that the way a shot in a movie is set up plays a role into how we are to interpret the scene. For instance, we are to interpret a shot of a person looking into a mirror as a person examining him or herself. Two people separated by some barrier in the shot is suppose to signify the struggle of their separation. But then I switched to a Philosophy and Religion major and I found the same concept echoed in my studies. What if our present reality is set up in such a way that it plays a role into how we are to interpret life?

But to consider this would mean that we have to acknowledge that life has meaning. This is where the struggle of dust is fed into by: the dust longs for significance because of a prevailing belief that life has no meaning so they have to establish meaning for themselves. Somewhere along the line, life has become devalued. 

In Part II I will talk about how life has become devalued.

Standing Upon A Grave Of Dirt: An Imperfect Recollection of a Perfect Rescue

The sun beamed down upon that hill of green. A warm wind brushed against me, moving the blades of grass in its path. They danced from side to side in a joyful jubilation that gave life to the hill. This hill had surely been given new life since I last stood upon it. And now, here I am, years later, standing again on this hill.

As I stood there, I started to think how I’ve regrettably taken the idea of standing for granted. For the last time I was on this hill, I was laid down. I was laid down in shame. The inability to stand ripped me of my humanity. Imagine having the knowledge that you could stand, but you were oppressed to the point where all you were capable of doing was lying down. The idea of being able to stand but not doing so deprived me of all my human nature claimed I was capable of. So naturally, I must have not been human.

And then, just when I thought my shame could not elevate anymore, I was placed below the ground. It is with great distaste that I say this, but I was placed within a coffin below the ground, left to die. I find it funny that my lowest point in life was that when I was lower than the ground I walk on. Yet there was nothing funny about the situation. At that one point in time, I was ripped of not only my humanity but also my state of being. The only way that I could have let that harm beat its swollen fists upon me was if I was dead, and did not exist at all.

My captors mocked me, scorned me, despised me, and beaten me. In their hatred they sought to snatch everything I had: my pride, my humanity, and my life. They made me dig my own grave that fateful night I was last on this hill. I grasped the shovel, the tool of my demise, with clenched fists curling in anger against them. But as I dug myself deeper in the dirt, I found that in my inability to be human, I could feel no anger against them. Instead, I placed myself below them, numb to the pain inflicted upon me.

The next thing I knew, I was in my wooden coffin, laid below layers of dirt. I had been buried “alive.” But was I really alive? For if four walls surround me, and I have no hope of anything outside these four walls, then surely I am dead. There below the dirt, there was no hope of breathing the fresh air again. There was no hope of feeling light beat upon my skin. There was no hope, period.

At first, I began to panic. With my limited breath, I screamed and yelled. But I found with my limited air supply that the more breath I used to yell, the more I was suffocating myself.

Then I began to beat against the lid of the coffin. But the sound was being soaked up in the layers of dirt. I was merely exhausting my energy in vain.

My mouth was painfully dry from all this useless work. The only sustenance I had was the sweat dripping off my forehead. Yet this sweat was dripping down to the base of the coffin. I tipped my head up for the sweat to flow to my mouth, but as I knocked my head against the lid, the sweat dripped back down to where it was useless.

At this point, I cried, not out of seeking another source of water, but out of utter hopelessness. As tears gushed down my face, I found the last thing that made me human escape me. The tears would soon dry up and I would be left a hopeless shell of a being.

It was then that I sought to grow familiar with my surroundings. The only family I had beneath the earth was the dirt that enveloped me. My brother was dirt, my sister was dirt, my mother was dirt, my father was dirt, and I was dirt.

Despair soon turned to a realization of the present situation. I had no hope of anything outside my coffin, so I was dead inside. Dead to any hope, which I was frantically trying to grasp while in my coffin, yet all of that was just a vain effort to feel human. I was not human. I was dirt.

But then, I heard a shuffle above. Could this be? Was someone walking above me? A shred of hope entered me, and with that I began to move. But it was a limited movement, for I was still confined within my coffin.

The shuffling above the dirt turned to what sounded to me like thunder banging upon the clouds. The dirt was now giving way to light, which crept through the crevices of my wooden coffin. I moved more, but my movement, my exerted effort, led to my destruction. My mind slipped away with my breath, and I was no more. Or so I thought.

The next sight I laid my eyes upon was a blurry figure shadowed by the blanket of night. He or she had filled my lungs full of air, so now I was able to breathe for myself. I held onto this air that wasn’t mine with hopes that it would rejuvenate my mind long enough to see the face of my rescuer. Yet I was unable to.

And that is all I remember of that incident. At first I tried to shut it out of my mind to be forever lost in an abyss where trauma establishes its residence. But then I sought to hold on to it. Why you might ask? Because it gave me a new revelation of this ground I walk on. I stand because Someone brought me out of where I was laid down. I breathe to live because Someone gave me breath to live. I am human because Someone revived my humanity when they saw me worthy enough to come out of the dirt.

The grave where I lied was no longer an evident monument. The mound of dirt was replaced with the life of grass teeming over it. As I stood witness to this sight, my bare feet dug into the dirt, almost as a means to establish myself back to that moment. The moment where I was no different than the dirt. But now I stand upon the glory that Someone saw me, or sees me, as different. And with that conviction, I walked away from that site. I walked away with my toes clasping the dirt and head held high towards the heavens. 

The Self-Centered God

Pictures of stars and galaxies afar made my imagination flare. Why would God create such wondrous beauties far beyond our grasp, but still allow them to take our breath away through a mediated image of them? Lets face it: if these stars and galaxies are just a string of cosmic reactions that are purely coincidence, then we probably would have been blown up by now. But if God made these to display His glory, now that is something that makes sense. 

God loves His glory, and He loves to display His glory. We see evidence of this in nature and life. They all reflect His glory. But what if I told you that God is for His own glory. He is centered upon His glory and is concerned about His glory being exalted. Well, that makes him a self-centered, kind of selfish God, right? I once had a friend told me that he was leaving community because he didn't want to believe that God was primarily for Himself. If we say that then we say we would rather have an idolatrous God because its idolatry to hold anything to His standard outside of Himself (Isaiah 42:8). 

Humanity has tainted the idea of self-centeredness to the point where the very God who made us is considered "selfish" for making us for His glory (Isaiah 43:7). But John Piper explains this in a great way saying: "He must be for Himself if He is to be for us." The glory emanating from His presence is the highest thing in all of existence, so if He wasn't for the exaltation of His glory then it would almost be as if He is giving way for evil to reign. We merely receive the blessing of Him working for His own glory.

Now the issue is how humanity views the idea of self-centeredness. This idea becomes renewed or transformed in God. To explain, God is centered on His glory and He is motivated by the exaltation of His glory and that spills out onto His people for His praise. Now to apply this idea to ourselves, we can be motivated by our own joy or happiness or love as long as it is also centered on the exaltation of God's glory.

As Christians we generally rebuke the idea of being "for ourself." This is considered selfish, especially in light of 1 Cor. 13:5 which says, "love is not self-seeking." We have denied the idea that we can be motivated by something that is self-gratifying. Yet we all are motivated by something that is self-gratifying. If we desire Heaven and to be with God, then aren't we ultimately being motivated by something we want for ourself? This is echoed a number of times in the New Testament by the disciples and especially by Paul!

I will take the idea of joy to prove my point. In Philippians 2:2, Paul says, "then make my joy complete . . ." Paul wants for himself for his joy to be complete. But his joy is not something he draws from solely for himself. His joy is in the Lord, and it is because of this joy that his joy becomes synonymous with the joy of others (1 Thess. 2:19-20, Phil. 4:1). And that is what happens when we draw from the joy of the Father! Its spills out in abundance for other people to also praise Him! It is only because His joy is centered on the exaltation of God's glory that his own joy becomes transformed in such a way that though it pleases himself, it is not in the least sense selfish. We see this in Matthew 13:44 also where the man who finds the treasure in the field is motivated by His joy to sell everything he has. We don't call this man selfish for finding satisfaction in his joy, we call him wise! Because his joy was for the exaltation of God's glory.
Then there is the example of Jesus. In Romans: 15:3 it speaks the truth that Christ did not please Himself. But we know that Christ came to die for our sins and that was the mission set forth by God. He was mainly centered on glorifying His Father in Heaven (John 17:4-5). But Jesus had joy in returning to His Father. This is seen in Hebrews 12:2 where it says: "who for the joy set before Him endured the cross." Jesus had a motivating joy, and while this joy would satisfy Him, it is for the benefit of us all that this joy would satisfy Him. The fulfillment of Jesus' joy means that He has completed His Father's task and that we have been reconciled with God. Him being motivated by His own joy to glorify God is not in the least sense selfish. If Jesus was mainly concerned for His own joy, He wouldn't have endured the cross. 
And thats how it is for a lot of us. It is for our benefit in the Kingdom of God that someone who is centered on God's glory is motivated and fulfilled in their joy of Him. We are built up by someone who is motivated by their own joy, but this joy has to be centered on the exaltation of His glory, because if it isn't, then it is a joy that is truly centered on them self for their own satisfaction.

Just like John Piper said: "He must be for Himself if He is to be for us." But in the same way, we must be for Him, if we are to be, in the right nature, for ourself.

"We who are strong ought to bear with

the failings of the weak and not to please

ourselves. Each of us should please His neighbor

for his good, to build him up.

For even Christ did not please Himself . . . "

-Romans 15:1-3

Radiance

In the winter of 2009, a snowstorm blanketed my hometown in a fresh white coat of snow. I opened the door and took in the cold stale air which felt like needles pricking my throat. I took a step and felt the crinkle and crackle of the ice on my heel. Everyone knows the feeling when you wake up in the morning to stand witness to a fresh blanket of snow untouched by the snow plows. It is the beauty of snow at its climax. I stood witness to this that morning in 2009. Yet as I was standing there, I had to squint at its beauty. You see, there is this crazy phenomenon that follows along with snow. Snow has an albedo of .8-.9 (with 1 meaning it is perfectly white) meaning when it is fresh and untouched, it reflects a lot of sunlight back into the atmosphere. 

I instantly had the picture of God washing away our sin and making our crimson sin as white as snow (Is. 1:18). Maybe thats why God created snow. So that when we can look at it, we can be reminded of how He makes us white as snow.

But there is a deeper issue that I chose to focus on here, and it lies in the fact of the snow's albedo. 
If God is the all powerful Being that we believe He is, then we must believe that whatever He does, He succeeds. There is no room for failing in Him. Whatever He pleases, He does and He succeeds (Ps. 135:6, Pr. 16:4). Well consider God's intention in creating us. He created us for His glory (Is. 43:7). If that was God's purpose and He willed it to be, then ultimately, we are all going to glorify the Lord whether its intentional or unintentional. Even the unbelieving will glorify the Lord through His justice in their condemnation (Ps. 76:10). 
What if we took the illustration of snow to mean that His chosen people who have been washed cleaned of their sin intentionally choose to reflect back His glory? I'm not saying that those chosen reflect more of the Lord's glory, but I want to focus on the literal choosing and decision to glorify the Lord. I mean, lets face it, even those who are unbelievers glorify Him, but it is unintentional. Charcoal- one of the darkest substances- has an albedo. It still reflects light, though it is very little.
And lets face another fact, those who have been washed clean can also not glorify the Lord to the extent that He calls for. Heck, we all fall short of His glory (Romans 3:23). While snow has a high albedo, it is not a perfect 1. We are all imperfect.
Just as snow reflects light, we all reflect the Lord's glory (2 Cor. 3:18). We were created in His image (Gen. 1:27) and in Hebrews 1:3-5 it says that He, Jesus, is the radiance of God's glory. While we were not created to be equals with Him, we were created to be like Him. Jesus is the fulfillment of what we were suppose to be in God (constantly reflecting His glory). But we failed. In his essay "The Weight of Glory," C.S. Lewis says, "We are far too easily pleased." We were far too easily pleased by pleasures other than His glory and therefore, we held it in contempt (Ps. 4:2). We instead exchanged His glory, because we were "satisfied" or too easily pleased in other things (Romans 1:25). So Jesus came and restored the light in us so that we may become children of light (Eph. 5:8) and that we may have His light shine His glory in our hearts (2 Cor. 4:6). Now we can be radiant just like Jesus by choosing to be transformed into His likeness through the reflection of His glory (2 Cor. 3:18). The only thing to highlight here is that we have to choose to be sanctified into His likeness. God will be glorified no matter what and He is not dependent on us choosing to glorify Him, but to be holy is to intentionally glorify Him, and being holy is what He deserves out of His creation. 
We are all but instruments in the grand orchestration of reflecting the radiance of His glory. The only question is, are you choosing to glorify Him? Are you choosing to be transformed into His likeness through the reflection of His glory? Are you choosing to be radiant in Him? 

"Those who look to Him are radiant;

their faces are never covered with shame."

-Psalm 34:5

Advent Pt. 3 - Origins

I sat bewildered at what had just happened. I couldn't believe that Facebook had changed again. It all too often caves into the waves of change allowing its users to sit and complain about it for a moment and then get used to its new form. Yet this new form of Facebook completely alters social networking. You can now trace a person's life on this timeline all the way back to their birth. 
It's a shame how a lot of people can't do that. A lot of people can't trace their origins. 
While this new moralism is still preaching a gospel of peace and love, it is a peace and love with no foundation. Unlike how the Israelites can looks back on how God led them out of Egypt to justify their faithfulness and how Christians can look back on Christ's death and resurrection to justify their new life, new moralists can't look back on everything. Rather this new moralism is a synthesis of beliefs from different religions. 
So where are its origins?
I don't believe that Jesus came up with the moral structure explained in the Sermon on the Mount out of nowhere. If He did, then the flaws of His structure would have caved in over time. Yet it still has a firm foundation in society today. New moralists partake in this structure because they are still preaching the same gospel of love and peace. The only difference is that they have secularized it. An example would be someone would love their neighbor because they are a fellow American and not a creation of God or cause Jesus said so. Therefore, a rationality was introduced to justify their means.
One of the greatest threats to our philosophical age is the justification that rationality provides. 
People who partake in this new moralism seek to be justified in their own rationality rather than by God in their actions. But in doing so, they effectively deny their roots. 
The ironic thing is how rationality has actually blurred our origin instead of make it clearer. 
This Advent season, as we love, as we give, as we toil, as we do anything and everything under God's grace, we need to realize that we are only doing that because of our origins. If God didn't send His Son, then we wouldn't be celebrating Christmas. If God didn't send His Son, then we would have no reason to love and to give this season. 
So there is a way to redeem the secularization of the Advent season and that is to reconnect the new moralism that has doused our culture to its origins in Jesus Christ. 

"Let them give thanks to the Lord

for His unfailing love

and His wonderful deeds for men."

-Psalm 107: 8, 15, 21, 31

Advent Pt. 2 - Morality

It's funny how we go about morality in a subjective manner. As humans, we are all moral beings given the idea that we have the power to discern right from wrong. But we have different definitions of what is right and what is wrong. A person who robs a bank could justify his actions by saying its morally right. This is because morality is defined through culture as to what culture believes is right and wrong. But beneath it all, if everyone has some different sense of what is moral then the culture's perspective of morality is permeable and manipulable, giving in to the law of the jungle stating that whoever is in power has a say of what is moral.

An example of this situation came to me just recently. Last week I took up a job buying back books from students on campus. My main intention in doing this job was to make people happy and serve them in a loving way. So I researched one of my books for class with the bookstore and found that they were buying back the book for a cheaper price than I offered. So I emailed my whole class and told them that I was offering a better price and that I would just sit outside the final and buy their books from them. Well one person, unaware that I was telling the wholesale price of the book at the bookstore and not the market price, sought to react to my email in a bad manner. He said that I was screwing people over. Now here are the two clashing moralities: I, wanting to help and serve people, and the other person, wanting to react to injustice. Both sides are serving an ultimate good, but one side goes about it in a malicious manner.

But if we doused this situation in the standard of morality that the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus presents, we find that they not only serve an ultimate good, but a beneficial good. We both could have gone about this situation in a more loving manner and build each other up rather than seek to tear others down.

There is a new moralism (as Pope Joseph Ratzinger calls it) that is taking precedence in culture today. This new moralism can be defined by belief in a greater good by the standards of culture and promoting ideals such as love, justice, peace, etc. etc. As this new moralism is taking precedence it is still man-made which allows it to be fallible enough to allow for the preaching of a gospel of hate rather than a gospel of peace and love. In the mentioned situation we were both trying to create a peace endowed with justice but in doing so preached this gospel of hate. 

How does culture's morality affect the Advent season?

Advent Pt. 1 - The Necessity of Christ

Advent is described as this season of waiting, longing, expectation, preparation, yearning for the arrival of Christ or for Christmas. In many ways I believe we have as a culture secularized this idea. And that's okay! There is a redemption to this idea that exists.
One day, the rain was beating hard against the pavement and was pounding on me relentlessly on my journey to the car. I would have reached my car sooner if I had ran, but I was going about my journey in an odd way. I was taking big and scattered steps. Why? I was trying to avoid all the worms that had been washed out onto the sidewalk. I saw them scrambling to get back into the dirt where they were "safe." While I was looking like an idiot trying to get to my car, I had enough pity on them not to step on them. 
The funny thing is, when God looks down on us, worms that just crave the dirt, He doesn't pity us but He loves us. 
Yet the worms knew no better than to go back to the dirt. In their eyes, if they see some giant figure looming over them, they are naturally going to run. They needed some other worm to guide them out on to the smooth surface of the sidewalk and let them know that they are going to be okay. 
We see many times in the Old Testament how a rain comes and washes worms onto this path of righteousness until they realized they are exposed before a holy God and try to hide in the dirt again. But then God, out of love, sends His Son down to die for us so that we can realize that we can permanently partake on this path of righteousness. 
The necessity of Christ permeates deep within our being. Yet in this secularization of the Advent the idea of being needy of salvation in Christ has become blurred by a new moralism. This new moralism isn't bad because in a tough world, it does the right thing, yet there is a way of connecting this new moralism to a greater truth. Further discussion on what this is in Part 2.