Throw yourself into the wave

"He gave me no assurance. No Fixed Lands. Always one must throw oneself into the wave." -King Tor of Perelandra

C.S. Lewis, in Perelandra, sets forth the notion that Venus (called Perelandra) has human life on it, a new proverbial Eden, pre-fall. The two (green-skinned) humans are given the same opportunity of Adam and Eve, but with a new challenge. You see, Perelandra is a watery planet, with islands that float on top of the waves. A still photograph of the islands would reveal landscapes similar to our own, however this landscape is constantly in flux, in motion, such that any point of land could at one moment be the top of a hill and the next the pit of a valley. Their "forbidden fruit", as it were, was an island that had roots beneath the water, a fixed land. Stability, a place to make a home in and return to, to own and control and find consistency. They were not allowed to sleep overnight on the fixed land.

The story is fascinating, and as this is no book report, I will leave it to you to enjoy the story of your own decision, but I was enamored with the outlook of King Tor, of always throwing yourself into whatever position you happen to find yourself. Whatever God sends your way, to take it on full force.

In "Surprised by Joy", Lewis (I am currently reading a lot of Lewis in hopes of finishing my goal of completing his collected bibliography) says, "Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears. Take in what is there and give no thought to what might have been there or what is somewhere else."

Later he tells how a friend had shown him how to appreciate equally beauty and sorrow, to, in effect, take fully whatever came. "I learned from him that we should attempt a total surrender to whatever atmosphere was offering itself at the moment; in a squalid town to seek out those very places where its squalor rose to grimness and almost grandeur, on a dismal day to find the most dismal and dripping wood, on a windy day to seek the windiest ridge. There was no Betjemmanic irony about it; only a serious, yet gleeful, determination to rub one's nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being (so magnificently) what it was."

How often do I get dissatisfied with how things are (and even consider that noble!) and not simply ignore the present joys but refuse them. The inhabitants of Perelandra considered (whether by habit or because they knew nothing else) each piece of fruit the best piece of fruit simply becuase it was the only one being eaten at the present. It could not be compared to fruit from yesterday nor to what fruit that might have been.

I think this is, for me, one of the ways that I would like to 'start living'. To live in such communion that I have no need of assurance or a fixed land, but need only the present and eternal Joy.

To throw myself into each wave.

so unlike Fear...

One of the conferences we do every year is called Big Break. For four weeks during Spring Break campuses from all over the eastern half of the US come to Panama City Beach to share their faith with other Spring Breakers. Today I had an interesting conversation with our tech director, Ben Warren.

He would say, of the act of sharing or proselytizing, that he (and virtually the collective student body amassed here as well) is "scared shitless" to go out on the beach. That term is far from inaccurate in my own experience as well.

What is it about evangelism (especially of the type we call 'approach evangelism') that generates so much fear in the heart of a man? Yet it is so unlike Fear, so much greater than Fear. Would I (or anyone else in my shoes) be so afraid of selling vacuum cleaners or even peddling something so practically useful as sunblock?

Is it Doubt at the heart of our timidity? Are we (and I switch between the first person singular and plural flippantly because i find that my experience is not isolated) so Insecure about our own Faith that we shrink back and hide from sharing it with others? What conflicing intention drives us away from the beach? We live and die on our hills of "green" and "social justice" and fear not rejection in these battles, perhaps from a sense of intellectual superiority over our antagonists, perhaps merely conviction over what we feel to be true or right. We can share our Politik or Policy sure enough, but Heaven forbid we offend someone (or ourselves) by speaking of Love Himself, of Redemption, of the Greatest Injustice.

Instead, we concoct the grandest of exceptions of why we shouldn't share the Faith, or why we don't need to, or simply for why we don't. What could possibly be at the root of such evasion? Where else in life does fear exist to this exent? Can it be overcome? Should it?

[Incidentally, I would love to write a tale someday that features a character who is so arrested by fear that he recognizes it not as fear but something larger. No good ideas about that yet.]

nevermind our planmaking

embarrassingly its march 2nd and i just read two posts from january that i had never seen before on this blog. that means i am a bad contributor. scratch that, it means i am not contributing. my bad. reading that most recent post was good for my heart though. i long for a lot of things in life, but i think mostly i long to start living. i live as one who is afraid i think. just earlier today i was thinking about myself (naturally) and remembering when i was just a boy. i can remember the first rollercoaster that i ever was really able to enjoy that was worth anything as a rollercoaster. see i was terrified. the thought of flying off that coaster was so controlling my mind that enjoyment was not a possibility, i only waited until the ride was over to breathe a sigh of relief that i had not in fact died. what happened was i had this sort of epiphany, i cognitively realized that if people flew off these rollercoasters, they would not be allowed to use them, if they were unsafe they couldnt make any money, so they had to make them safe. now of course i couldnt truly know that they were safe until i experienced them, but i did have to believe that they were. so i decided that day that i would not be afraid anymore, that i would go on the rides and trust that i would not die. that day i started to like rollercoasters. it was freeing and awesome.

i think im the same way with God, intellectually i kinda know that things will be best if i really just completely give myself to him and his mission, but there is just still so much of me that is afraid of things. i mean what will people think? will i still be able to have lots of friends and be cool? will i still be able to hang out with people that arent christians? will i still ever be able to have fun? will i get to do so many of the things that i want to do? i cant know the answers to these questions, i just cant, but i think i at least intellectually have to make that jump. to decide that jesus gets all of me. not just the easy parts to give. and trust what i say i already believe, trust that the plans that God has for me are really the best plans for my life.

see im sick of being halfway, its just no way to live. i mean sure i gave jesus my heart, and ultimately God is my boss, but a lot of me wants to be able to control what people think of me. not to have to trust Jesus that it will be ok even if they think im weird. im so sick of this, im so sick of dreaming about what God is gonna do in the world but not doing anything myself. i think i wanna be done with that... so i propose that we nevermind our plan making and lets start living...