Time

Time is a funny thing, isn't it? It's the one thing we all have in common.

Think about it. As different peoples, we sort of choose what is important to us. How we will communicate. How we will live. The way we will respond to each other and to our natural surroundings. Even everyone who speaks English doesn't speak the same English. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of languages and tongues all around the world, each with their own vernacular, their own vocabularies, their own characters. Some are written; some never are.

There are people who build homes on top of mountains while others build homes in mountains. Some that live by the ocean; others that live in the ocean, raising their homes on stilts. Some who live in homes like we know. Some who live in cardboard boxes. Some who have just a shaky set of a couple of walls to divide their domicile from another. Some who have no home at all but rather the entirety of space.

There are cultures that place high value on individual achievement. There are some that are more tuned to communal cohesion.

We have different value systems, both morally and monetarily. In the States, we pay in dollars. In Britain, in pounds. Euros. Rupees. Yen. Goat's milk. 

All these decisions, millions of them, that we make about who we are and how we will live as a people...and no one has more than 24 hours in a day. Nobody. For those peoples who tell time, it's 24 hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds. It's one system. Worldwide. Across all peoples.

Have you ever really thought about this?

Even in those cultures that do not track time, men still number their days. They know they have only from sunrise to sunrise, one full mark of time. One day. They know the number of days of their lives; they celebrate birthdays, or what passes for them. They know who is the eldest, who is the youngest.

Time is the thread that ties us all together. None of us has more of it than anyone else. A day is a day, an hour is an hour, a minute is a minute. A second is a second.

We cannot change time in our story by changing the way we talk about it. We cannot change time in our story by changing the way we live in it. We cannot change time in our story by changing the emphasis we place on it. We cannot change time in our story by changing the value we associate with it. Time...is beyond us.

Which is maybe why it's so easy to worry about such a thing as time. It's the one thing we have but can never really have. It is given to us, but it is never ours. We can touch it, but we can never hold it. Time is fleeting. Just as the seconds tick by, we feel it ticking away and we always wonder if we're going to have enough. Time is the one place where we are forced to rely on something greater than ourselves. It's why we worry about it, but it's also why we agree on it. We have no input; time is what it is regardless of man.

Time is what it is in reverence of God. It is He who created the sun and the moon, the earth on its axis, the rate of its rotation. It is God who declared how long it would take the earth to both rotate and revolve, the measure of a day and the measure of a year. It is God who has numbered our years, God who counts our days. It is God who controls time, although ironically, He doesn't need to.

For it is God who has eternity. And eternity is not counted in seconds or minutes or hours. Eternity is counted in moments, in breaths.

Time presses in on us. It's the one thing we can all seem to agree on. But even though time is greater than us, there is something greater than time: eternity. Eternity is given us for the glory of God.

Let us count our years in moments. Let us number our days in breaths. 

Grace Hole

You've no doubt heard about the wormhole - a completely hypothetical warp in the time-space continuum which, if ever actually found, creates a shortcut across space and time.

I'm not a physicist (although I do watch The Big Bang Theory), so I can't speak to all that time-space stuff in the scientific sense. But I can tell you without a doubt that there is a ripple in the universe.

It's called grace.

Grace always comes unexpected. It has to, or it can't be grace. Grace is that moment when you get the thing you least deserve, that thing you would never dare hope for. It's different than mercy, which says you do not get what's coming to you. But it's also different than a reward for faithfulness. You would never hope for God's grace. You couldn't even know what to hope for. Then it shows up, and you're like...whoa. 

I've had a lot of grace moments in my life, particularly as of late. And the thing about grace that I've noticed is this - it is a profound disruption of the time-space continuum. It's an aberration from the way the world works.

The world says this life is labor, that I have to work my way toward anything my heart could ever desire. There's fault in that, simply in that what my heart needs, it may never comprehend enough to desire. That is, I can't even know what to desire, and that's where grace comes in. I could work my way toward the greatest things in the universe, toward the most intimate places of Creation, inch my way toward eternity...and never get close enough to even vaguely understand such things. But by grace, I am sucked in. I am drawn right toward these things by a powerful force. My movement is accelerated. 

I'm getting there.

The world says there's a linear progression to everything, that things move along in a straight line. First yesterday, then today, and eventually tomorrow. First there, then here, then way beyond here. The past, then the present, then the future. First the beginning, then the middle, and then the end.

But grace says, "In the beginning..." In the beginning, He created the end. In the beginning, He ordained the middle. In the beginning was the first and the last. As grace draws us into that, it takes us back to the original Creation and into the promised Paradise at the same time. Grace pulls us from the middle and takes us to both the beginning and the end. 

You can't do that without a grace hole somewhere in this universe. 

No man has ever seen a wormhole. No one's discovered one, at least not that we know of. (In theory, I suppose, since it's all theory anyway, a man who discovered a wormhole could be sucked into it and disappear into the time-space continuum and thus, never be able to tell us about his wormhole.) No man knows whether this ripple in the universe actually exists or whether it's just fun to think about.

But I know about grace. It's absolutely real. And I know where the grace hole is, the place where all of this both begins and ends, the place where powerful forces begin to swirl, the place that takes us from here to there and covers the distance of space and time in an instant. Yes, I know where the grace hole is.

There are three of them: one in His right hand, one in His left, and one in His feet.

Something New

Yesterday, I told you the transformation of our hearts and minds has to start with new wine. Today, I'll tell you why.

There are two basic theories on change. The first is that as you change, you will seek better things to surround you. The second is that as things change, you will seek a better self to be worthy.

Most of us, when we make changes in ourselves, make them in the negative. That is, we decide we're not going to do something any more or we're not going to be a certain way. That's...almost worse than whatever broken thing you're doing. Why? Because there are a whole lot of things you could besides lie, but they wouldn't necessarily be better things. You could sulk. That's not lying. You could get angry. That's not lying either. You could stay silent. Still, not lying. When we decide to change our lives in the negative, we start seeking out anything that's not the thing. So we're not necessarily making our lives better; we're just changing them.

What's the point? It's such a waste.

But even if you do this nobly, you're setting yourself up for failure. Because you've added an extra step. You can change yourself all you want, but it's not until you get into circumstances that your new self is revealed...or not. You can decide you're going to do x, y, and z but when the opportunity comes along, you either become a person who does x, y, and z or you don't. In essence, you're setting yourself up to make the decision twice and as new it is it, it's really hard to do that. You first have to sit within yourself and decide, "I am a person who..." doesn't lie, let's say. That's well and good to decide that, but you don't truly decide that until you are in a position to lie and still choose not to. See? You decide, but you have to decide again when it matters.

A measure of this is always true, of course. In any significant season of change in my life, whether working from the inside out or the outside in, I have a period in which I am entirely different in the privacy of my den than I am in the public of...anywhere. Even so much as venturing outside to talk to a neighbor, and I realize I am not the woman I thought five minutes ago that I was finally becoming. Change takes time.

When we take our new wine first, though, it's a little easier. For no other reason than that it gives us something to work toward. No longer are we arbitrarily looking to make a change. No longer is it abstract that we want to be doing something different or better in our lives. Now, we have an idea. We want to live a life in harmony with the new stuff that's happening. The very good, very exciting new stuff that's going on all around us. We want to make changes in our life that matches the new wine.

I think ladies understand this in a beauty sense. Ladies - we go and get a new haircut, for no other reason than that we're sick of the old one. The stylist works her magic, and we look in the mirror and see a new woman staring back at us. All of a sudden, we want to live the kind of life that rocks that hair!

Men may have a similar experience when, say, they get a new man cave. They've finally talked their wife into giving up that corner of the basement, and now...it's awesome. All of a sudden, he becomes a man who values the camaraderie of other men, who seeks out opportunities to throw a good game party.

Any change is hard work. But changing from the inside-out is harder. Because it comes from something deep inside of you that is not yet connected to the outside world. It is decision after decision after decision in the right direction; it is discipline. I wish we all had such noble intentions and strength of character, but that's not the world in which we live. It's not the world in which I live. That's for sure.

Start with the new wine, and change is joy. It's inspiring. It's encouraging. You look around and see all of the things you want to live up to, and settling back into the way things used to be feels like such a waste. You're inspired to be better. You yearn to be better. You smile because you see that things are getting better, and when you look in the mirror...perhaps you are, too.

The Wineskin Principle

It's tough when things change. Most of us understand this. What we don't bargain for is how difficult it is when things get better.

What's up with that?

When things start looking up, we start looking around. We take our eyes off what we've been looking toward and set them on the new life developing all around us. There's so much to look at, so much to take in. A new splash of color over here. A new opportunity over there. Bright skies and sunny days that make the shadows seem to dance on what once was just a yard.

Sounds like heaven, right? Who wouldn't want something to look around at?

The problem is that inevitably when we start looking around, we come across a mirror. Eye-to-eye, we see that while things may change, we haven't. I am still I, you are still you. We are still who we were, just in a prettier picture. Crap.

We have the same depravity in our hearts. The same worries, the same fears. We have the same insecurities. For all the beauty developing around us, there's something still powerfully plain about who we are.

That's hard. We like to think that as things change, so do we. We like to think that if we surround ourselves with beauty, we will be beautiful. If we make all things new, we shall be new. But that's where we've missed what's really at work. Because it's true - we make all things new. When things start looking up, it's usually because we've invested in them. We're working to make new things happen. We've changed something that allows us to see something new or do something new or have something new.

In the same way, we have to invest in ourselves if we hope to be new. We'll never change by changing the things around us; we can only change by doing the work in our own hearts.

Most of us are dissatisfied when things change for the better, and it is for this very reason. It is because the shadows are dancing in the light of a bright new world and then one day, we realize we are the shadows. Everything is new except us. Everything is changing except us.

I call it the Wineskin Principle, based, of course, on the Biblical caution that you can't put new wine into old wineskins; both are sure to break.

And indeed, that's what happens. We surround ourselves with new, only to find that we are old. This necessarily breaks us. It sends us deeper into our selves, looking for that thing that's holding us back. It drives us harder toward God, longing for resolution to the ache. This thing, this "new," we hoped would answer us has only exposed us and all the broken things we have in our hearts comes pouring out because we simply cannot hold it in any longer.

And all that new? If we're not careful, we can start to resent it. We can start to see it for what it is - just a pretty picture. Just a false hope.

It doesn't have to be this way, of course. New is such a blessed thing; it is the evidence that our Creator is still creating. It reminds us of who God is, whether it is He who has orchestrated the new or we who have initiated it. We were made in the image of the Creator to create, as well. New is so blessed. 

We just have to be aware of the dangers and be disciplined about it. We have to take our new wine and let it inspire us to grow new skin, a new wineskin. We have to look at the new for what it is - blessed and good - and let it encourage us to be blessed and good, as well. Let it make us want to be new.

Because we want to make the shadows dance, too.

It doesn't have to be this way, but it has to be this way. The transformation of our lives and our hearts has to start with new wine. I'll tell you why tomorrow.

Persons of Interest

I find that I'm not that unlike Jesus. I have no patience for people, but endless tenderness with persons. I would much rather speak to the heart of a man than speak to the culture of men. It's simply a more worthwhile exercise.

As an undergraduate, I began my studies in psychology (which is oh so close and yet, so far, from the actual call on my life) but when life turned a new direction and I landed at a new school to finish up my Bachelor's, I didn't hesitate to turn my back on psychology altogether and go into a new field. Why? Because at the new school, a quick perusal of course descriptions revealed that all of their psychology courses were theory-based. I would spend my time learning Jung and Maslow and Freud instead of James, Maggie, and Fred. I don't have any patience for it. 

Theory never does a man any good. There's no practical use for it.

I have been on both the giving and the receiving end of intimate moments, powerful personal encounters that have the ability to touch the raw places in a man's heart. And it's never crossed my mind as a giver in these moments that so-and-so perfectly fits Freud's theory of ego or that she's falling in this frame of Maslow's hierarchy. I could, I suppose, go back and construct a rationale for believing such a thing after the fact, but in the moment...what use is that? People don't want to be boiled down to theories.

And as a receiver? It would never bring an ounce of comfort to learn that someone in a laboratory once drew up an idea concerning my life, a life they had never lived and never known and couldn't possibly know, and that I am perfectly "normal" according to some theory or belief.

When it comes to people, theory is a waste; there is only the moment, and we have to be ready to speak into it.

That's what strikes me about so many among us. They say, "I don't know what to say to a person. I don't understand how the mind works." But life is not about the mind; it's about the heart. You have one, don't you? Then use it. The human heart is not a matter best left to the "professionals," those with training in the theory and the practice. It is best left to the "personals," those who are willing to come into a sacred space and be present.

I love this about chaplaincy. It's a deeply personal work. It's showing up in space after space, taking a hand, touching a heart, being real with someone. I don't have any grand theories when I walk into a room. I don't let the broader context take over when a story starts to unfold. Why? Because the story is not the broader context. It's always intimate. It's always personal.

So must I be. So must we all be.

There are persons among us who thrive on the people. Who do good work for the broader culture. Who look at the big picture and see the grand things and set themselves to work on those things. We might still call them politicians, though this does not necessarily mean they must work in politics. There are some pastors I know who are great at this. They can create a culture in the church that... they are just really good at this.

I'm not one of those persons. And I don't want to be. It is not who God created in me.

I say all of this for a few reasons. First, to encourage those of you who feel like you don't know what to do with people. What to do for people. Sometimes, we get stuck in thinking whatever we do for God, we have to do for His people. All of them. But Jesus, and perhaps my personal reflection in some way, show us that it's not always about what we do for people, but what we do for a person. You can do something for a person, right? Any person at all! Do it. It is holy work.

Second, to thank those of you who are the politicians, who are the people persons among us. You create a culture in which we can be people of God. You create a place for the people of God and a way for all of us persons to be people. That's incredible, invaluable work. Thank you for giving your talents.

And third, and perhaps most importantly, I want to issue a reminder to all of us not to get lost in what seem like the bigger things. Not to put labels on everything or throw things into groups. Life, experience, these are highly personal; they were meant to be. Most of what you encounter in your world isn't going to fit a mold. That's okay. The mold is a myth. You are one of a kind, an original. Embrace it. Tell your story.

We are a people made of persons. It is in telling our stories, and telling them together, and holding them sacred that we are the people of God.