I would like to always post something insightful, or encouraging as I normally do. But life will, at times, be cold, unforgiving, and relentless (as I am sure you all have discovered); life has become such to me recently. Don’t fret–this is NOT a suicide note; I think too highly of myself for that.

For the first time since my conversion, I admitted I don’t know, Not the answer to a question, but to life. It hit me at the end of the semester last month, but not until these three and half weeks of break has the terrible reality reared its abominable head. My finances have always been low and shaky. This semester (my final one, Thank the Lord),  they are actually depressing, and defeating . I have discovered some deeply troubling information about someone very close to me. I am already disagreeing, starkly, with my soon to be mother-in-law. I am taking 21 credit hours this next semester, working 25, and serve as a youth pastor, and chaplain for two on campus organizations, and as a Spiritual Life Group leader. There are also some serious issues I and my fiance must work out.

I am truly deject for the first time in my life. I am nearly defeated. I balance, unsettled, on a precipice overlooking that abyss of doubt, anxiety, and exasperation. As I stare into the chasm of inexplicable dismay, only one fact keeps me going. I must keep going.

I am so immovably resolved in my faith that I defy the misery of my circumstances in sight of the future. Not that my faith is strong–on the contrary. My faith right now is such a pathetic ember that I fear a kitten’s sneeze might extinguish it. But I don’t need faith like a mighty fire, I only need a flicker. And that’s what I have–a flicker. And undying, unyielding, obstinate spit of light that sends comforting whispers echoing across the fortress of my sorrow. And in the dark pit that my spirit lies in the minuscule  flare whispers, “Not yet”.

Not yet. My financial security is gone, but I’m not gone yet. Those close to me are afflicted and broken,but broken things are mend-able. I may be filled with hate, remorse, sorrow, and bitterness, but my humanity and human circumstances are passing and conquerable! I will not give obeisance to futility. I will not bend to the hurricane of destitution. I will not!

After posting this, I will not feel better. All will not be well. But that incorrigible flame is there. I know all will resolve in peace. Whether I know it will or not.

Nothing but knowing God will do that. Nothing.

A good friend of mine recently posted a picture on Facebook with the caption, “You are what you love, not who loves you.” I immediately pulled up a second tab and searched this quip to give the author props. I ended up going on a rabbit trail of songs. There is a song by Fallout Boy (I like them) with those lyrics; however, they also appear in a song by Rilo Kelley, Jenny Lewis, and in the movie “Adaptation”. I actually had trouble finding the source of this quote. The oldest I found was the mid 1700s–anonymous, of course.

Maybe it was nigh impossible to find the source because of how deeply fundamental the saying is. It is said that there is nothing new under the sun; if so, the most basic truths, and most important, are the oldest. We need to let this quote define our lives.

In America especially, we are wrapped up in what people think of us. Our entire cultural is grounded in cliques, social status, and brands. The core of this groundwork is the “need” to have the right people like you. Since when has that mattered? Are you running for a political office? If the answer to that question was no, then focus on you, not them. “I’m not sure who I am apart from boyfriend.” “I am a Republican, but my party has seen so many losses recently.” “I am middle-class, but these bills and economy are dropping me further down the socio-economic ladder.” “I thought I was a Christian, but I no longer relate to these people that also claim Christ.” These are some common ones I hear daily. Let’s take them one at a time, and see if we can’t validate our quip.

I am what my significant other has defined me as. Then end it now honey! Do you love them? Then you will be the best you, you can be by developing or perhaps refining your person. Do they love you? They will work to build up your “you-ness”.

My Political Party isn’t in power. Why are you a Republican? You like guns? You like babies? You like the government to leave you alone. Then you are Pro-life, pro-armament, and pro-privatization regardless of who is in office. Why are you a Democrat? You feel for the poor? You love biospheres? You want to make health care affordable for everyone? Then you are a hippie. jk. Then you are concerned for the poor, care for the earth, and want to get everyone what they need. You are this regardless of who is in office.

Class. This is not you, or anyone for that matter. This is what category you fall under because of external circumstances. There are virtuous people in poverty and scalawags in extravagance and vice versa. You are you, without the economic title.

Religion. What are your core values? Do they line up with your religion? If not, change religions! Are people in your religion not reflecting what their religion teaches? Then they are not what they think they are! Do not let other people’s hate for your true religious conviction redefine who you are or your view toward your religion!

So what’s the common denominator? I am (me not hypothetical anymore) a musician. Not because I fit in with musicians, but because I think music, I breathe music, I live music. I am a Christian because I love Christ and His Word. I live for Him; I’d die for Him. What are you? What do you love? What of you, by you, and from you is so inseparable from your being that its very absence would make you stop being you? That is who you are. And it is only through discovering what you love–that inmost core, hardwired into the recesses of your soul– that you find you. Other people’s care or concern for you is irrelevant. People will love you for you. Anyone who seeks a different you is looking for a reflection of themselves to love and not you. Don’t become a copy or clay in their hands, be the original work of art.

“You are what you love, not who loves you.”

This is not going to be anything profound, or deeply insightful; I just wanted to share an awkward, but touching spirit that I experienced this Christmas season.

I was at a Chinese buffet with my fiance. She left the table to use the restroom and get another plate. She was probably gone for eight minutes or so. During this time, a lady at a table near us, whom must not have seen us come in, at about the 7:30 minutes mark came over to the table. She said, “I noticed you were dining alone, and no one should be alone on Christmas, so I wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

I felt very awkward as I pointed at the buffet line and chuckled, “Well thank you, but my fiance was in the restroom and is now getting more food.” She looked over at my fiance and chuckled awkwardly, “Well, Merry Christmas all the same, and tell her also.”

Though it was awkward, the sentiment was touching. If I had been alone, that might have made my day. 

Just today, I was getting my car inspected for tag renewal. There was a gentleman there who looked a bit sad, perhaps lonely (if you pay attention, you’ll notice those people everywhere). In the spirit of the event from the night before, I struck up conversation with him. We must have chatted for 20 minutes or more. His face lit up as I genuinely engaged in the conversation we had started. It is amazing; simply acknowledging someone and caring, without any prerequisite conditions, can make someone’s day.

That ought to be the objective whatever time of year.

I was returning home tonight with my brother from the campus of KU after dropping off our youngest brother. As we left the dormitories I looked up an saw a harvest moon. I wrote a couple of haikus, as is my standard practice when awe-struck by nature, but the moon quickly lost its orange glow for its conventional tone. On the car ride back, down the drawl K-10 highway, I kept staring at the moon. It seemed larger than normal, and brighter. I was transfixed. Its vivid vestige imprisoned my thoughts as I drank in the luminous aura. I longed to exit the car and feel the touch of its soft light; this volition caused me to pause and consider.

The moon, lofty, grand, and majestic as it is, permits me no pleasure of touch. With the sun, you can feel her embrace, the fire’s hearth holds you close, and the candle’s flicker caresses the cheek–the moon’s light is capable only of visual illumination, not sensory stimulation. Its reflection, however, enlightens the dark, and brings forth perception in the night. Its powerful beams reigned in the darkness.

In this moment of intoxicating rapture, we rounded a bend to see Olathe and Overland Park resting in the gentle rolls of the terrain. I frowned as their twinkling lights distracted from the moon’s authority over the cold night. These were impostors, austere apparitions appraising man’s auspicious attitude, not authentic–like the moon. Then I smiled at the lights’ twinkling humor. They seemed jovial and awed by the night- -not the awe of the night. They seemed almost childlike and innocent nestled in Kansas’ placid landscape. They filled me with a pulse of glee, not erratic, but docile. They made me cheerful and full of hope.

Although lights are effigies of candles, and no where near the might of the moon, they cast out the darkness. The moon can remove some of night’s shadow, but even in its power, it does not dispel it. Lights, or a candle, though small on their own, cast away the dark around them. When gathered in community, they are enough to dispel the night itself. Perhaps the moon is the distracting of the two.

It is not the high, or mighty, or powerful that dispel the dark in this world; they merely reflect a real light, and serve as a symbol. The dark is only dispelled by real light, even if it small.

Do not think your light is insignificant, do not deem your flicker worthless in combating the night–it is enough. And if you join with other lights around you, your brilliance will pierce through the dark and inspire hope to those living in the darkness around you still under the ephemeral rule of the moon’s “light”.

You have heard it said that “the eyes are the windows of the soul”. This is to say that by looking into someone’s eyes enables you to see their heart, motives, intentions, feelings, etc. My experience though, is that they are so much more. The eyes are also the mouth of the soul at times, the ears of the soul, and often the hands and feet of the soul.

The eyes are not a one way mirror. We must not gaze at people’s eyes only to read what they think, but to fully understand a myriad of emotion and thought with just a glance. A friend of mine has problems expressing deep opinions and concepts of life without ample time to prepare his thoughts. Sometimes, things are so deep that he cannot at all express his mind, heart, and soul. One such time was today. We had gone out for coffee so that he could convey to me the divine, clarifying moment he had that answered his confusion over a relational issue. He was so blown away, taught, humbled, and guided by this moment that he could not begin to wrap it into a neat package to place in my lap. The entire time he struggled to voice this overwhelming revelation, I watched his eyes. He was looking down at the table as his eyes darted back and forth; the universal psychological sign of attempting to recall or formulate. That was the “windows of the soul” moment. His eyes indicated, upon first glance, anxiety, tension, and frustration. I began to formulate in my mind what he was searching to state; my first thoughts were negative things and unfortunate. Then I glanced deeper.

I wasn’t just peering through the windows of his soul as a passive observer unable to hear or interact with the soul I was viewing, I was there. There was no longer a need for him to properly postulate his provision, I was there in his soul. Through his eyes, I was able to see the intent, but also the form and substance. I could hear the emotion in what would have been his words. I suddenly realized that what I first mistook as anxiety and frustration was actually unbearable peace, paradoxical as that sentiment may be. I sensed undeniable relief and clarity on a deep issue that plagued his psyche for quite some time now. God had truly intervened, it was a straight up prophetical epiphany for my friend. I could hear all this and engage as if I were in his psychosis aiding the search for words.I told him there was no need to speak, his eyes literally conveyed it all. Even more than words could have.

We need to look people in the eye when we talk to them. I don’t mean in the cliche respectful way, but a genuine, engaging way. If we looked people in the eye when we conversed with them, we would drastically diminish the misunderstandings that pervade our culture. Part of this is because we have become so individualistic and isolated we are afraid to learn ourselves and other, thus we simply talk without communicating. We gain knowledge of people and subjects without understanding of them. The other part, is the fear to experience such deep revelation: true communication–truly learning and feeling someone. The even scarier part is in turn, it allows us to learn ourselves. This is true commitment to friendship, companionship, and “human-ship”. We should heed the soul’s ambassador outside each other-the eyes.