Being seen by God

I get kind of scared when I think about God always watching me, always seeing me even down to the depths of my heart and the hidden places inside me. I mean, He is good and holy and just, and there is so much in me that is bad, and so much in addition that is just weak and useless and cluttering. Sigh. I don't know why He would want to see down into those places! Doesn't it disgust Him, to see what lies inside my heart? Does He ever regret redeeming me and adopting me into His family, when the price was so high and I am so worthless even after all He has done for me and in me?

But look at how Nicholas of Cusa writes about it:
"... Thou never ceasest most lovingly to behold me, yea, even the secret places of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life; 'tis unceasingly to impart sweetest love of Thee; 'tis to inflame me to love of Thee by love's imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle my yearnings, and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure." - The Vision of God

How do I change my way of thinking so that it is more like his? How do I consistently cause myself to perceive God as loving, regarding me with care rather than in judgment? How do I find joy and gladness in the knowledge that He beholds me? Sometimes I do have that gladness in the assurance of His love, but other times I just get scared or afraid or feel like a failure, falling short of what He desires from me. So what distinguishes those two times? In the first, I am choosing to trust Him, to lean upon Him, to look on Him in faith; in the second, I don't trust Him, I want to be perfect in my own power, and I am focused on myself and my shortcomings rather than on Him in His glory and goodness. So I should spend more time in the first mindset, if I want to spend more time in that incredible joy which comes from feeling the presence and love of our Lord! Even when it is emotionally hard for me, I should do my best to cultivate faith and practice trust in the God whose love is far greater than I can comprehend.

Enter into suffering

"Pray without ceasing" - 1 Thessalonians 5:17

"...praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints" - Ephesians 6:18

"I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" - Colossians 1:24

"...that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death" - Philippians 3:10

When I watch movies, I like them to be an escape from the world around me - I like them to be fun, lighthearted, a distraction from the pain and wickedness I see or hear about every day. A lot of the books I read are the same way. It is too much of a burden for me to always have my mind involved in those things. Yes, they are problems, yes, there might be something I could do about it, yes, I could pray for these people - but no, no, no, it hurts too much, it is too much to carry, I am too weak

But I am not any weaker than a lot of people who are directly suffering evil things. At the very least I am not weaker than the children who are abused or who watch their siblings being abused and are powerless to do anything about it. Can I set aside my life of comfort on their behalf? Can I bear at least some small grain of their suffering, that they might have a moment of happiness and peace? Can I enter into their sorrow, that through me they might come to joy and rest? That is what Jesus did for me; can I do the same for my brothers and sisters, my fellow sojourners through this life? If I am too timid or ignorant or insecure to know how to directly enter their lives and avert an evil, let me not be too weak or lazy or selfish to pray on their behalf. If I may never be a mighty warrior for the gospel on the front lines of the kingdom, doing great things like preaching the word, changing hearts, relieving oppression, and righting wrongs, Lord, at least help me to be a humble servant whose struggles are unseen, who intercedes for those in need at the foot of Your throne. Please let me seek their good rather than my glory - the hidden but unceasing vigil of the spirit rather than the bold and dramatic action that wins acclaim and admiration.

The Kingdom comes

I am filled with sadness over the way the world goes, and where it goes, and how it hastens toward evil in the name of good. It's hard to write when there seems to be so little hope.

The problem doesn't lie in a single law, or even in the multiplicity of laws and policies that have accumulated through the years. At one moment the government is regulating adoption in a way that has caused several faith-based agencies to close down rather than go against their consciences; at another they are mandating "free" contraception (including morning-after pills) in a way that will similarly affect those Christian hospitals that desire to serve and provide health-care in accordance with their moral standards. The root of the problem is not in those policies, but rather in the worldview that birthed them, in the ideas and beliefs held by so many people in our nation. Those ideas - that children are an inconvenience rather than a gift; that marriage is a convenient manmade institution rather than a sacrament designed by God; that personal pleasure and convenience are higher goals than self-sacrifice, submission, humility, and love - those ideas have consequences, and we are beginning to see and understand what those consequences will be.

So what ought we to do? Well, first of all, we pray. We pray without ceasing for the hearts and minds and souls of the people of our nation, our city, and our community. More mundanely, we continue to pay the taxes that are required of us, because we are to render to Caesar what is Caesar's, even if those taxes are used for something we disagree with. No one supports the use of their taxes 100% (one could argue that this was particularly true for the people to whom Jesus was speaking). And finally, because we are in a country where we can lift our voices to try to change things, we should not be silent, and because we have a free will and a conscience we ought to make the choice to do what we believe is right, no matter the cost. Just as someone could be a conscientious objector to a war, so we can object on conscience to abortion and contraception. If we are mocked and misunderstood, so be it. Many through history have suffered ridicule and mistreatment for causes far less worthy.

On those issues and on others which have come up before and will arise again, it so often seems that there is nothing that can be done but quietly resist, and suffer in the resistance for the sake of Christ, if God so deems us worthy. It may not seem like things will ever change, or that the world will ever get better. But still we can endure because we know that the victory is already won, hidden though it may be by the fogs and black mists of this world of sin. We cannot often see clearly here, but we can trust with a faith that goes beyond sight. In that faith lies the hope that we will need to cling to when all seems dark and desperate.

In the words of an old children's book, Tales of the Kingdom (as best as I can remember them):

"How goes the world?"

"The world goes not well. But the Kingdom comes!"

Beauty

Two Italian PhD students are visiting and working in our lab for a month, so on Friday they introduced themselves to the lab. What I found most interesting - what seemed to me to be the most different thing between what they said about the opportunity to be here and what the average full-time student says about the opportunity to be here - was that they both said this was a beautiful place. They implied that our lab was beautiful, that our building was beautiful, that even this whole unwieldy desert campus was beautiful. In contrast, most of the students I know on campus comment frequently about how drab and ugly our campus and most of the buildings on it are, and how they wish they could be studying in some more picturesque place. I have often done so myself, to be honest with you! (This is probably why I noticed their use of the word "beautiful" - because it is not at all how I normally think of ASU).

It convicted me.

How often, when I walk about campus, do I actually see all the beauty surrounding me? How often do I notice the broad expanse of blue sky streaked with the glory of the clouds in the sunlight, or the intricate delicacy of the yellow flowers burdening the palo verdes, or the smooth and elegant contours of the trunk and branches of those same trees? How often do I see and appreciate the rich texture of the bark of the mesquite tree, or the deep shiny green of the leaves of the orange trees, or the soft interplay of sun and shadow on the grass (or even the pavement)? And how often do I give thanks to God for creating all this beauty and letting me live in such a marvelous place? Not often enough, I think.

Instead of assuming that things are drab or dreary, dull or ugly, I think we should see it as a challenge (and maybe even an exercise in Christian faith and joy) to look for the beauty that is hidden everywhere in plain sight. It might lift up our eyes and our hearts to heaven, in gratitude and joy, and give us a bit of freedom from the burdens of weariness and sorrow we carry here on earth.

Weary ears in a multiplicity of words

"If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than a thing, it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God.
Lord, teach me to listen. The times are noisy and my ears are weary with the thousand raucous sounds which continuously assault them. Give me the spirit of the boy Samuel when he said to Thee, "Speak, for thy servant heareth." Let me hear Thee speaking in my heart. Let me get used to the sound of Thy Voice, that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the music of Thy speaking Voice. Amen." - A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

My ears are weary indeed.

There are so many words constantly flying towards them - the words spoken by friends and family, the words read in books and articles, the deep and thought-provoking words of great authors and the light-hearted everyday words on Facebook and cooking blogs. They all demand my attention, attracting me in diverse ways, calling to my mind. And somewhere in the midst of all those words, all those myriad voices clamoring for my listening ear, the Voice of God is lost. It is hard enough to still my mind enough to focus on any of the other, lighter, easier voices for a significant amount of time, let alone to devote my mind and heart to listening to the most significant, life-changing, earth-shattering Voice of all. That requires a lot of concentration! And my ears are too weary to set themselves to so great and difficult a work.

Will I listen to Him speaking? Will I set my heart and my mind and my soul to the task of being still before Him and hearing His Words? Only He can fill the emptiness of my heart and relieve the bitter anxious sorrow of my soul; why then do I give up on listening to Him before I even fully begin? Dear Lord, please open my ears to hear You, that Your words may sink to the depths of my heart and take root there, that I may know You in Your glory and grace. Amen.

The fixed points of human life

A very old but very insightful thought:

"I could fill this book with examples of the universal, unconscious assumption that life and sex must live by the laws of 'business' or industrialism, and not vice versa [...] a man writes to say that the spread of destitution will never be stopped until we have educated the lower classes in the methods by which the upper classes prevent procreation. The man had the horrible playfulness to sign his letter "Hopeful." [...] the hopeful one concludes by saying, 'When people have large families and small wages, not only is there a high infantile death-rate, but often those who do live to grow up are stunted and weakened by having had to share the family income for a time with those who died early. There would be less unhappiness if there were no unwanted children." You will observe that he tacitly takes it for granted that the small wages and the income, desperately shared, are the fixed points, like day and night, the conditions of human life. Compared with them marriage and maternity are luxuries, things to be modified to suit the wage-market. [...] Motherhood, they feel [they being men like the hopeful man], and a full childhood, and the beauty of brothers and sisters, are good things in their way, but not so good as a bad wage. About the mutilation of womanhood, and the massacre of men unborn, he signs himself 'Hopeful.' He is hopeful of female indignity, hopeful of human annihilation. But about improving the small bad wage he signs himself 'Hopeless.'" - G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils

At Chesterton's time, abortion was just beginning to be more widely advocated, so he could see the philosophical and social problems that gave it a foothold: how the laws of business and industry (which at the time involved a few business men becoming quite rich on the backs of many others who were quite poor), being elevated above the good that is marriage and family, became a justification for the evil of abortion. The elite, not wanting to change their way of life, came up with a solution that allowed them to believe they were improving the lives of the poor, and cared not that it was abominable. Abortion may make people more well-off financially, but it makes them morally poorer and robs them of the riches of loving that unborn child.

Aborted from the mind

I recently read a NYT article about elective twin-reduction abortions (first through the Mere Comments blog, and then through the recommendation of a friend). It is so sad :( Basically, these women discover they're having twins and decide that they can't handle it - they don't have the time, or money, or emotional capacity, etc. So they have one of the twins aborted, and carry the other one as a single pregnancy. Can you imagine what that surviving kid would think and feel if they ever found out?

Honestly, to me this sounds like the same old argument for abortion. Why should we make a pregnant, unmarried teen carry her baby when she doesn't have the money to raise him, or the time to care for him and still make it through school or find a job, or the maturity and life experience to know what to do? So we feel sympathy for her (which is right and good) and allow her to have an abortion (which is not right or good).

The degree to which we as a society approve of abortion goes up as we feel pity for the mother's plight and goes down as we lose that pity. This was noticeable in the NYT's comments on the article above. Those who felt that raising twins was horribly difficult and not worth the fatigue and labor and inconvenience it brought to the mother's life were much more in favor of twin-reduction abortions (and they tried to make it sound morally acceptable by talking about how much more love and attention the mother would be able to give to the remaining child, as if love came in fixed quantities - oops, I gave my first child 100% of my mother-love, so now if I have a second one I'll have to love the first one less! - which is false). Others, who noticed that most mothers opting for this procedure were on the wealthy side, felt that the choice was purely selfish and unnecessary, and thus had far less pity and far less approval.

But none of the commenters (at least none of the many I read) judged it by an objective moral standard. It seemed to come down to whether or not they could justify it somehow, and "feel comfortable" with the procedure. None of them clearly said that the other twin - the one who was killed - was just as much a person as the second. The only difference was that the mother only wanted one child, not two. She had a picture in her mind of a single beautiful baby, and the presence of a second one overwhelmed her and clashed with her desires. Patrick Henry Reardon had it right when he said that "children are now being aborted in the flesh, because they have already been, in large measure, aborted from the mind" - that our culture "has largely stopped thinking of children as gifts from God."

If children are gifts from God, then we have no right to kill them. If they are our own creation, intended to satisfy our own desires, merely "potential" human beings as long as they are still dependent in the womb, then there should be no problem. Why it is any more or less morally reprehensible to abort a single pregnancy than to abort one of twins?

A dangerous worldview

I read an article today about Michele Bachmann, from the New Yorker (hat tip Mere Comments); it was interesting. I don't really know what I think about Bachmann as a political candidate, but that article really made me think. The author was quite obviously not impressed with Bachmann, or rather, quite obviously hoping she wouldn't win and doing everything in his power to give her a negative slant while appearing open and unbiased. Anyway, I think my favorite aspect of the article was the way in which he alternately tried to make her appear laughable or dangerous for having a Christian worldview rather than a merely religious and personal Christianity. So many people who claim to be Christian are only so in a very private way, and act like everybody else on the outside - even when we don't agree with things like abortion, same-sex marriage, pornography, evolution, government welfare, the anti-family bias of schools and society, no-fault divorce, and so on (whatever we think the Bible disapproves of), we try to stay quiet about it so that we aren't laughed at or so that we don't offend those who have no problem with these things. Even when we feel very strongly about the importance and value of things like the family, the home, the Bible, church, truth, global missions, adoption, and even when we think there are better and more Biblically sound (and thus more true to reality) ways of dealing with poverty and broken lives, we stay quiet about it because it is uncomfortable to be vocal for our beliefs when people have already decided they're wrong or foolish. I personally am very prone to this kind of timidity...

Bachmann, apparently, is not so very timid. It seems that in every area of life, both personally and in the public political realm, she has formulated her views based on her faith. Honestly I think that is how it should be. What one believes about the world - about the nature of man, the existence and nature of God, and so on - should fundamentally affect the way one thinks about all the issues that come up in life. If you believe that there is a God, who designed men and women physically and emotionally for each other in the institution of marriage, for example, then you're going to be against homosexual relationships, especially when they're given the name of marriage. (If you also believe that we are all sinners before God and that you are just as much in need of grace as anyone else, the way you express that opposition will be very different than if you are self-righteous and proud.) Similarly, if you believe that there is no God and that moral standards should be created and dictated by society, holding fast to such concepts as autonomy, solidarity, and beneficence, you won't see homosexuality as an issue at all, but rather as something to fight for, so that these people can fulfill their desires just as easily as you can fulfill your desires. Obviously there's way more to say on both sides of that issue; I'm just using it as an example of how one's worldview does and ought to influence their position on current issues.

In addition, if you have one worldview, and someone else has another, it is very likely indeed that you will perceive them as dangerous and threatening, and attempt to discredit them in some way so that their worldview will be discredited by association. This was in large part behind the birth certificate controversy of Obama's presidency, I think - people felt threatened by this man whose worldview was so very different from theirs, and who did not pretend that he wasn't going to make choices based on that worldview, so they tried to discredit him. The author of the New Yorker article is attempting to do the same thing to Bachmann. I wonder if she counts it as an honor, to be mocked because she is considered a threat on behalf of her belief in Christ. It is an honor I think I would like to have... it's this timidity in my personality that keeps getting in the way.

Apologies and a small thought :)

I'm sorry I haven't posted as much this week! Paul and I are in the process of moving, and work has been hectic as well, so I haven't had much time to think or write. But I am so glad we finally have our own little place to settle in to :) We've put some stuff into place as we brought it to the apartment but in general it is still boxed and chaotic, so I'm definitely looking forward to unpacking this weekend. Paul (being in the National Guard) has drill this weekend, so it will be just me, and while I'll miss him, I'm kind of looking forward to being able to get everything set up just the way I like it, all by myself. It will be so nice to have a clean, organized, beautiful place of our own! The problem will then become keeping it that way... but I am going to be committed to keeping it nice because I know it will help our home be more peaceful and welcoming for ourselves and for friends who might want to visit.

On that note, I suppose I have been thinking about the importance of the home this week. I've noticed that when the home is cluttered or dirty (for me, clutter is worse), it becomes a less restful and inviting place, and I'm more likely to want to be somewhere else. When things are kept in their proper place, and the whole place is clean, it draws me in and makes me want to be there sharing life with others. On top of just order and cleanliness, when the house is made beautiful in little ordinary ways (like uses of color, and candles, and pictures, for example), it becomes even more enjoyable to be in. Finally, I've decided that this task of keeping the home ordered and beautiful is far more suited to women (in general) than to men. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know. But I believe that the wife is better equipped to make a home worth living in than the husband is, although he may be quite good at aspects of it and should be quite good at extending his assistance, just as - in general again - I believe the husband is better equipped to go out into the world and wrestle with it to provide for and protect his home and family. The woman is the center, the heart; she nurtures the family and makes the home a place for growth and love. Complementary to this, the man is the shield and the shelter; he provides for the family and protects his home from the outside world. Together, they are ideally equipped to create and sustain a home in which children (for children are the natural end of marriage) can grow, learn, and flourish in love and assurance. We don't have children yet, but I'm thinking that this time now is the best time to learn how to make a home! I'm not the greatest at learning two major things at once, after all, so I should start on the one I can do now instead of trying to figure it out at the same time I'm learning how to be a mom :P Here's hoping I won't be discouraged when I start to fail, and will get up and keep trying!

Turning up the volume

This morning, stopped at a red light on the way to work, I had my windows down to enjoy the weather (honestly, even in Arizona it's nice at 6:30!) and the classical radio station turned up, when suddenly another competing musical genre intruded upon my ears. The driver of a car two lanes over was likewise enjoying his music at an elevated volume :) Not to be overpowered - I was really liking my music, here - I turned up the volume of my radio even further. It was wonderful.

Usually, I turn my music down at lights, so I don't bother the other drivers around me. But this morning I was completely unashamed of my music, and was fine with people hearing it and identifying me with it. And it got me thinking.

Do I do this with my life? When I come into contact with other people, whose ideas and worldviews and beliefs are blaring loudly through their words or actions, do I respond by turning up the volume of my witness, or by turning it down so as not to offend or annoy? Obviously I don't want to be verbally accosting people with the gospel every minute of every day - there is a lot to be said for tact! - but I tend to err on the side of timidity and caution, and so now I am challenged to turn up the volume, so to speak, when opposition arises. When I am talking about politics and religion with others in my lab (which happens occasionally, though not frequently), instead of downplaying our differences and trying to agree with everyone, I ought to speak the truth boldly. When I interact with those of my coworkers that irritate me, or when I'm frustrated with a difficult situation, I ought to strive even harder to show love, to be at peace, and to have patience. When life gets hard, in short, I ought to be turning up the volume of my faith.

The progress of temptation

"For first cometh to the mind the simple suggest, then the strong imagination, afterwards pleasure, evil affection, assent. And so little by little the enemy entereth in altogether, because he was not resisted at the beginning." - Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ.

At the root of a lot (if not all) of my emotional struggles is pride and a love of self. I don't want to fail, I want people to admire and respect me, and I want to receive praise and approval. I want to be perfect before men and God so that I don't have to worry about losing their love or esteem. So when I make a mistake at work, or say something out of turn, or unintentionally offend someone, it is a really big deal to me - not because it isn't glorifying to God, but because it reflects badly on me. The focus is all on myself. Because of this, I become angry, frustrated, sad, discouraged, and even despairing far too easily. Those emotions aren't necessarily sinful in and of themselves, but they are in this context the sinful fruit of pride and self-love and the choice to believe in a lie rather than in God's revealed truth.

So often, when I feel those emotions beginning to stir within me, I give in to them. I'm simultaneously terrified and intrigued by the depths of darkness to which they can take me, and so the sin doesn't long remain a simple suggestion - it almost immediately becomes a strong imagination, difficult to cast out of my mind, and in a perverse way I even find myself taking pleasure in the darkness. It becomes familiar and comfortable, even as it is hateful to me, and the simple knowledge of how different life would be without that darkness makes me nervous about trying to entirely leave it behind me (it's like the attachment of the ghost in C.S. Lewis's Great Divorce to the lizard on his shoulder that makes him miserable - even as he wants to be free, he can hardly stand to make the choice to irrevocably lose the odious creature). I like knowing I can retreat there, to my refuge of pain and pride, when I need to. But God is a far better refuge, and the joy He offers is far greater and richer.

Imperishable riches

"She spoke, too, of the imperishable riches which are so easy to amass each day, and of the folly of trampling them under foot when one has but to stoop and gather them." - St. Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul

It is a powerful motivation to do good - to make the little sacrifices and perform the little services that the selfish will rebels against - to realize that those small and seemingly insignificant actions are treasures, so comparatively easy to gather up as I go through my day. Thoughtlessly absorbed in my own affairs, I could run past them and over them in my haste to accomplish my own goals and tasks; with just the smallest bit of extra care and time, however, I could make those riches, which are stored up in heaven and will not perish or fade, my own. Even more, in nurturing the habit of seeking and gathering those riches through little actions, I will be preparing my heart for greater services and sacrifices, and teaching it to walk in a way that is pleasing to God.

Contraception and abortion

I've been reading several very interesting articles (and books) lately that discuss, either tangentially or as the main argument, the specific moral dilemmas that revolve around family and marriage. They're especially interesting to me since those issues have become much more personally relevant in the past two months than they were before! Anyway, as I write about them, I'll try not to come across as preachy or obnoxious, because I realize that people have a lot of disagreement about some of these things, and I don't want to make anyone upset, especially if I'm spouting off some half-thought-through idea that is heading the wrong direction :) I will be honest about what I think and where I am now, though, so hopefully it won't come across as if I'm attacking anyone who thinks differently than I do.

The first issue that caught my attention, less than a month after our marriage, was the potential for birth control pills (hormonal contraceptives in general, as well as IUDs) to cause early abortions by preventing implantation of the embryo. Ideally, the pill prevents ovulation, so there is no egg to be fertilized and no embryo to worry about. As a back-up, it thickens the cervical mucous, making it more difficult for sperm to swim up to meet an egg that might be there if ovulation did occur (it is unknown exactly how often ovulation occurs in women taking contraceptives, because it is somewhat difficult to track, but the undeniable fact that women taking oral contraceptives will sometimes still become pregnant is proof that ovulation can occur, and that sperm can make it through the inhospitable mucous to reach that waiting egg). I knew those things before I started taking the pill, and I was fine with them. I was only thinking about how convenient it would be! However, the third function of the pill (publicly labeled as such, so I really had no excuse for my ignorance) is to prevent the uterus from preparing for a pregnancy - the lining is kept thin, with the network of glands and ducts unprepared for implantation - so that if ovulation occurs and an egg is fertilized, that embryo will not be able to implant and no pregnancy will take place. The embryo will die.

A common response to this dilemma is to protest that many such early abortions take place naturally - it is thought that about half of all embryos fail to implant, and a significant percentage of those that do miscarry very early on in the pregnancy, often before the woman even realizes she is pregnant - so why should we worry about the very rare case that an embryo is created while taking the pill and fails to implant? It may not have implanted anyway, after all. The difference, however, is that while taking the pill you (or I) are actively doing something to prevent pregnancy, knowing that it could entail the death of the early embryo. That's more ethically problematic than if it is happening without your knowledge, desire, or interfering action. By your action in the situation, you become morally responsible for the result.

For these reasons (as well as some less coherent issues that I'll try to discuss in Part 2 of this series), I stopped taking the pill a month ago. I do miss some of the benefits that come with taking it, but I think it's worth it to deal with some inconvenience in the pursuit of doing what is right and pleasing to God. As a disclaimer, I do want to say that there are reasons to take the pill besides birth control - I have heard it can help regulate certain conditions such as PCOS and can be especially helpful for women who have significant pain associated with their menstrual cycle - and for women who have these other reasons, the choice of whether or not to take the pill will not be so straightforward as it was for me. All I know is that my conscience was uneasy, and so it was the better choice, in my desire to honor God, to no longer use oral contraceptives.

If you want to read a very good post/article about the topic (which is well-written with sensitivity and from a very personal perspective), check out this post by my friend Diana: Thoughts on the Pill. Her post was actually one of the first things I read that led me to wonder if something was wrong and I should stop taking the pill, but it is written in a very non-confrontational way so it is a good introduction to the topic, and she has some good and interesting thoughts.