Love in Ancient Times

A friend texted me a lengthy text today. I have been contemplating it since then. I hope these perusing words will make you pause and take a step back. Especially in the grand scheme of it all.

Ernest Becker, an atheist author, in his book The Denial of Death, writes that in ancient times romantic love was seldom the basis for marriage. Becker says that modern people don't want to admit to what degree they are making up for the lack of inner spiritual fullness by looking out there for their one true love. He puts it this way,

"We still need to feel that our life matters in the scheme of things. We still want to merge our selves with some higher self-absorbing meaning in trust and in gratitude. But if we no longer have God, how are we to do this? One of the first ways that occurred to the modern person, as Otto Rank saw, was the romantic solution. The self-glorification that we need in our innermost being, we now look for in the love partner. What is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to this position? We want to be rid of our faults. We want to be rid of our feeling of nothingness. We want to be justified. We want to know that our existence hasn't been in vain. We want redemption, nothing less…Needless to say, human beings can't give you that."
In other words, the reason why so many marriages fail and relationships end in heartbreak is because we demand too much from them. We idealize and idolize our partner, looking to them to complete us, only to discover that they have faults just like we do, and lack the power to fill our inner emptiness or satisfy our hunger for love. Only God can give to us and be for us what our hearts truly long for. The gospel is that Jesus Christ came and lived for us, died for us and rose for us in order to give us the justification and redemption that our hearts so desperately long for. He alone makes our lives matter.

grief

This excerpt went viral, and just thinking about the losses I've had in my life so far; I found this to be the most beautiful thing I've read:

I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not.
I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents...
I wish I could say you get used to people dying. But I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. 

Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.

As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.
Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. 

If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

a good day

Today seasons of uncertainties come to an end again. My worries have been overcome by peace, slowly, steadily. I cannot ignore how much things have fallen into place for me. I have a fever, but my heart is smiling.

asean night

I had to start a blog for class so here is a link to that. But I may just post everything to this blog once that is done.

I started the year prepping for ASEAN night! It was a lot of work and performances put together by a great team. All the dedication and hard work paid off at the end of the day, unfortunately, we overlooked the recording aspect of the event. However, here is a video created, compiled and written by a new friend, Luke Hall:

OU's first ever ASEAN Night from Luke Hall on Vimeo.

Till then!