A Perfect World

Sometimes a perfect chemistry happens, making you want to reconsider your life situation--
First, the movie that builds up to the perfect grief,
that unheroic movie star that steals your heart almost for real, for the simple reason that you are attracted to him, across the fourth wall, exactly as you were attracted to someone who sat next to you with an invisible pull, so desperately strong you couldn't believe you stayed seated where you were, thoughts remaining thoughts, paining you.
The unheroic hero dies a stupid death.
It's not a b-rated movie, but I let it in; I bonded to the story.  And my feelings in response to the stupid ending are the same rage that the surviving protagonists displayed.

The evening is young when the movie is over; I prepare to start psyching myself up to attack an art project awaiting.  I spend a lot, a lot of mental energy psyching myself up for things I don't want to do, and I don't actually succeed very often, but the mental energy gets used, as one who dreams their way through a day at work only to be woken by their alarm to face a day of work.

Now I just lean my chair back and turn on some tunes.  Moody tunes.  Sulking that the unhero and a hotshot sniper just had to be in the same story, leading to an inevitable stupid shooting.

So I'm leaning back in my chair, and I find I have to look up the movie trivia.  If the story is based on a true one, I can accept it.

I see no indication that it was.

But I've calmed down.

Do I have to be creative?
Do I have to be productive?
I have so many books of piano music I'll never learn.
Art supplies, and the reputation that still brings the occasional request for a commission, which my inertia resists accomplishing.

No.  Tonight I am listening to music and appreciating it, drinking it, creative expressions which deeply resonate with feelings I would struggle to express if they weren't already so eloquently laid out by others.

Do I have to study languages night after night, getting nowhere, tearing my brain to pieces to make a mosaic of my own design?  Oh, I'm sick of it.  Tonight, a break from the grind and work and striving.

Sweet music.  "They drank up the wine, and they got to talking...they now had more important things to say."  Thank you, Fastball.  What a lyrical song.

through north windows the blue sky echoes into the room.

Every pane wide open and the keys resound for the stranger.

the songs for a lost generation, a dreamer of dreams, a believer.

(Down the street, a hand presses to lips with a cigarette, distant eyes.)

Money? But this is breathing. This is sighing. Thinking out loud.

It's fingertips kissing through a window. Don't price that.

There's no replication, no recreation of this tonally-wrestled resolution.

What a language, rarely found.

Electricity burnishes the notes;

More clearly than eyes, speak the resonant chords.

but the system remembers the noise.

The veil of song is heavy.

How can I say such simple things like

'I care about you'

when we've lost our frames of reference for undemanding sentiment?

Who would know that's exactly what I mean and nothing more?

The frame of reference was the village.

The language of familiarity.

Unspoken rules had meaning when formed by generational experience.

Care is such a fright--

and assuring nods unsure.

Because habits of understatement

make sincere words sinister;

they call repetition pretension.

Now each person is an island

No way to know if the next Galapagos has evolved as far.

Skies are shared, but who knows what a white flag means

when everyone is their own country.

(if that diamond ring turns brass,

Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass)

We fought off our limits, talked away authority but

forgot to complete the liberty for all with unlimited amnesty.

So it's safer by far to stay home

speaking the language of pretty tones.

In subjectivity is not so much freedom

but a blurry judicial safety.

Teaching little E.T.'s fiction

"Why aren't you friends with any Earthtones?" I asked her.

"I can't talk to them."

"Not even Tanner?"

She looked scared. "No."

"But he talks to you."

"I know. And he's nice. But I can't go talk to him."

"Do you know why not?"

"Pthalo's always there."

"Pthalo?" I laughed. "I don't think he's interested in her."

"And Navy."

I laughed again.

"My dear... there's something you must understand about nice Earthtones. Imagine for a moment, a desert island on which live some nice, unassuming Earthtones. Put on that island some nice, unassuming Waterhues. In a perfect world, those nice Earthtones will go about their lives, and find a nice Waterhue to share life with. Now let's tweak that island... Let's have the exact same scenario, but let's add some Waterhues to the scene who are not unassuming. By that I mean, these are Waterhues who think they are more likely to be 'chosen' if they ingratiate themselves to the Earthtones. That is our world. The most respectable of Earthtones will often have a Waterhue or two at his side wanting the rest of the world thinking they are his special Waterhue. Part of his niceness is treating those Waterhue with the same respect he would treat the unassuming Waterhue.

However, unlike the unsavory Earthtone in his circumstances, this one forms no particular connection with those willing Waterhues. But, as I said, such Waterhues wouldn't mind others thinking so. That brings me to my point: remember, my dear: for every nice Earthtone worth talking to, there will be Waterhues near him trying to warn you off what they think to be their property. Don't be too hard on them, nor let them cause you to disrespect the Earthtone to whom they cling. They are doing their best to show off their prowess at being Complements. Pthalo and Navy may really like Tanner. But you cannot let their unrequited possessiveness hinder you from a good old-fashioned friendship."

The Counselor

What do my dreams mean?

Time goes much slower in dream world.  So on a work morning, one five-minute snooze is like half an hour of dreams.  It always seems like a worthy investment to sleep another minute.

While I consciously consider running home to be with my family, I find myself dreaming a powerful urge to take a trip across the world.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had access to reliable, certain answers to the meaning of our dreams?

But ultimately that would lead to as much trouble as having reliable access to knowledge of the future, I suspect.  Very problematic.

So I trust the Lord's silence.  Sometimes the questions raised in our minds are better life-answers than answers.

Evening

Mmmm...
basking.
Long work days, flying by.  Tearing around, until relaxing becomes an accomplishment.
My sisters are watching the second Anne of Green Gables movie, and the scenery is golden and familiar-feeling.

"groaning creation"

Today at work I happened upon a snake.  Then its head caught my eye.  Huge and bulbous?  But no. It was a snake eating a small bullfrog.  Of course I learned in science class --yea, witnessed a python eating a rat-- how snakes can eat things so much bigger by unhinging their jaws.  Still, this was quite an ambitious stretch!

I showed it to other people.

Later it seemed not to have progressed all that much.  Nearing halfway, perhaps.  We were all grossed out but curious and left it be.  The grossest part was that the frog was alive--being eaten feet first.

Not to go into further detail.  The snake actually gave up on the frog--next time I walked by the snake was gone and the frog was lying there, looking rather normal, but dead.

Suddenly a memory unlocked with photographic clarity, seeing a snake eat a frog when I was four or five. My big brother had a garter snake, I think, and had caught a small frog for it.  Everyone treated it like a science project, or maybe a movie since we didn't get to watch many of those--we crowded around the terrarium in horrified fascination.  I too stared for some time before I'd had enough of the horror.

What I saw in the behavior of the snake and the frog led me to understand a horrific, sinister possibility about conflict:

The bad guy might not be cackling with glee, but in fact completely serious about his evil deed, even inconvenienced greatly by it.
The victim might bear the pain and totally accept the conscious slide toward death.

"It's nature...."

In seventh grade my teacher fed a rat to his boa constrictor.  He had a little clasping tool that held the rat by its tail, and lectured us for a couple minutes while the rat dangled there.  The rat clasped struggled and begged, clasping its hands together, most actively begging it seemed, to be freed.  In the cage, the deal was over quickly--the boa grabbed it and slammed it into the water dish or something brutal but swift.  But at any rate, this particular educational moment was gross, but not of a stomach-churning horror of a creature accepting its sacrifice.

But today, I saw again that slow motion killing of a frog, and it took me back.
Sick.
Sick that one should submit to such an evil.
Sick that I watched it as a little kid. (Just because things happen in nature doesn't mean they should be watched.)
I'm sure the frog is actually paralyzed, but still the appearance of compliance is so sick.

It made it a little bit worse even that the snake had chosen a prey too large to eat, but still killed it: in the process, my imagination accused, of trying to prove the amazing stories of how large of prey snakes can eat.


So then do I judge people who've been victimized as weak or compliant, because they don't "get away" or "say no"?
Shame on me if so.  What business have I.
If I ever see such a thing again, I don't care what "nature" says.  If the frog is still alive, I will fight to free it from that snake that dared to follow its natural course in front of a compassionate set of eyes.

Confused relationship idolatry

Since when has desire for a mate, even a passionate, weak-kneed desire, been renamed idolatry? The years of singleness stretch on as earnest young Christians, upon approaching matrimonial feelings, freeze in their tracks. 'They think all the time about this person!' 'They want this person!' 'Aaaa! Idolatry!'

Now, since when is thinking of, wanting, desiring, pursuing a specific, compatible person, idolatry? Idolatry is the building of false, lifeless icons that represent the Living God. Desiring a mate for earthly matrimony (though I will discuss its all important similarity to Christ and the Church) is not even in the same ball field as building a lifeless icon to receive the acclaim of Almightiness!

On the other hand, the Living God often relates to us in terms of--what do you know? The marriage relationship. He spends plenty of Scripture building this analogy. See Song of Solomon. If the Song is an analogy for relationship to God, don't forget an analogy can speak to both sides of the analogy. In other words, for those more familiar with the God-church side of the equation (Note, God-church, not God-individual relationship), they might do well to look at the man/woman side.

Now, for those thinking this elevates man to God-like status, think again. Thinking one's man is omnipotent, omnipresent, the Redeemer of mankind, that would be elevating man to godlike status, and it probably should be classified as idolatry. I don't know one single Christian woman who thinks that of men.

One problem: people equating marriage with the God~individual person relationship. That would immediately give men a wrongfully elevated status, but the God~individual relationship is represented as Father-child!

Regarding God~Church, look at the romance in Scripture! God takes care of Israel, He loves her, He woos her, He gets angry when she cheats on Him, He forgives her even after it's gone so far they had to be separated! And then it is written, "Men, love your wives even as Christ loved the church."

...Do you think this can't be what it's saying because it's license for a spouse to cheat? think again (it's Scripture, for those fervently submitting their love lives to The Word). Rather than a license to cheat, it's a call to reconcile. And to seek each other, serve each other, love each other so passionately they would die to be with each other!

"But I'm not God!"

"Well, nor am I the Church!"

...remember in that sense we both happen to be members of the church, like a lung and a kidney! Both halves of the analogy need brought into earthly terms. Both members of the earthly picture have to acknowledge their humanity, while leaning on Christ to go beyond their natural strength for each other!

It's an analogy. Of course the man doesn't have God's omni powers. Just as importantly and overlooked, of course the woman doesn't have all the church's powers and abilities!

Another way to see it is this. Would a devoted Christian man dare say, "I am the fulness of God?" No. In fact it's become a common complaint, from men, taking one terrified look at romantic commitment and sprinting the other way, saying "Aaaa! I'm not God! I'm not your savior!"

Well, duh. We women know that.

On the other hand, women tend to suffer in silence the expectation that, while man fails to be God, they are expected to be the church in their relationship to a husband. But women would be just a much in their rights to take one terrified look at commitment, and what is expected of them, sprint the other way, and scream "Help! I'm not your church! I don't have the sum of the abilities of the church to dedicate to you! I don't have the sum of the wisdom, the stability, or the strength to serve you like the church serves God!"

But bring both sides of the analogy to earth, and in the marriage picture is the closest to a license, or even command, to "worship" one other than God. (I heard a line once, "with this ring I thee worship," and the problem there was that, while shamelessly mocking his call to honor God in faithfully loving her, he still expected her to be the church.)

Only God is worthy of being called God. Only the Church can fulfill her duties and roles of the as the Church. But when did this rather obvious truth confuse mankind into thinking passionately loving and desiring to enter that similar (not identical) relationship, was idolatry?

(I think it was when people started looking at the God-to-individual relationship as a romance, which it is only as far as a Father-child relationship has an element of romance. Romance-romance in Biblical religion is Christ loving the Church.)

If men, running from commitment, think women see them as The Redeemer, they are simply blinded by their arrogance, failing entirely to know her heart and all the things she graciously overlooks in him (which he thinks he has hidden? lol. Meanwhile she also lets him see her flaws, and he assumes those flaws to be just the tip of the iceberg!). She graciously overlooks the ways he fails at the personal-protector side of the relationship, because it's in her nurturing nature to do so, to fill in the gaps in relationship.

Men need to stop decrying the protector role on the basis of not being The Almighty Protector. It's one thing to admit, "I think only God can do this particular thing, but perhaps in His strength I can..." compared to, "Expect nothing of me!! I'm not God!" Men need to give women a chance to accompany them in that role. And if men won't listen to (and seek out and pursue madly unto death!) women's heart-thoughts, they'll continue to run around thinking a woman's church-like, nurturing behavior is proof that she elevates him to the status of God!

And what about women who seem not to exhibit so much 'churchish' nurturing behavior anymore? They are of practicality being their own interim earthly protector. ...And that is not defemanization, it's exactly what women adapt to, have always done, naturally, when they are the pastor/head of their house. Let someone become the unto-death pastor/head of her house, and she will make a lower-case c 'church' for him. This is not idolatry of a spouse, it's the irreducibly complex center of community, created by God, for His own glory and worship.

P.S. Of course, passionate ambition towards marriage does not warrant irresponsible actions under the delusion of future commitment. But getting to know people and moving closer to each other isn't an irresponsible action. Also, as the family of Christ, there's every reason to cherish one's close friends whether marriage is in sight or not. So what if it doesn't lead to marriage, and so what if it does? To think, "I am not ready to be married," is quite right and natural if you're not in a relationship that has developed to readiness! The question is, are you ready to spend one more day learning one more thing you didn't know about your friend? Are you ready to be lit up by Christ and to encourage each other to glow brighter with His truth?