My Autobiography From Psalm 36

The first stanza of Psalm 36 is a brazen slap-in-the-face against the wicked. It dissects the mind and heart of a wicked man with surgical precision. It shows sin as the intimate friend of the transgressor, speaking counsel straight to the deep, unknown parts of his heart. The wicked does not fear God, he doesn't fear consequences, he sins without abandon. It is unflinching in its portrayal of the deceiver's arrogance. He thinks he can escape capture and consequence forever. He can't speak without black tar spilling out, he can't sleep without planning his evil. The psalmist knows the in's and out's of the sinner's labyrinthine mind, the rationalizing twists and turns that contort a good creation into a heinous abomination. It seems so personal and so well acquainted as it surveys much of the wicked heart in a glance.

And that's why I see it as the testimony of a saved sinner, the memoirs of a defected rebel. The cry of David as he reacts to his own sin. We know the proper object of hostility is ungodliness - especially our own. And so David utters an imprecation against his worst (and most natural) thoughts. He decries his own sinfulness.

And then, the psalmists cry of God's heaven-stretching mercy and righteousness as solid and immovable as a mountain takes on more force and beauty. David's rejoicing becomes the joy of known forgiveness, the praise of a son to his loving Father. When such monstrous sin is forgiven, the atrocious man becomes the adopted, the Father is made much of in His infinite mercy. It is a miracle.

I don't know why, much less how, a God whose judgments run deeper than the Mariana Trench and whose righteousness soars higher than Mt. Everest could possibly forgive such an offender like me. I can't fathom the mercy and pain it would take to slay His own Son for someone who hates Him as I did. I deserved torture without bounds, but Jesus bore the unspeakable torment of my sin's consequences. Torment matched only by the Father's abounding capacity to judge so severely the One He loved so infinitely.

I am in love with this Jesus.

On Second Meanings

Here's a fun quote from C.S. Lewis on a possible second meaning behind the aggressive imprecation of Psalm 137 -

From this point of view [reading second meanings into the text] I can use even the horrible passage in 137 about dashing the Babylonian babies against the stones. I know things in the inner world which are like babies; the infantile beginnings of small indulgences, small resentments, which may one day become dipsomania or settled hatred, but which woo us and wheedle us with special pleadings and seem so tiny, so helpless that in resisting them we feel we are being cruel to animals. They begin whimpering to us "I don't ask much, but", or "I had at least hoped", or "you owe yourself some consideration". Against all such pretty infants (the dears have such winning ways) the advice of the Psalm is the best. Knock the little bastards' brains out.

This Post Title Was Gonna Be "I'm Ataraxic...No, ATaraxic" But I'm Changing It To "Thank God For Brawny"

My sin of late has not been worry. I'm working on molding myself into a condition called ataraxia. It's a mindset where one is free from worry or occupation. I saw it in a movie.
Anyway, I'm not worrying. But I'm not sinless. The red-eyed imp (lust) and the black puffer-fish (pride) still fight each other for top spot on the sin list. But, hey, I'm not worrying.
Not worried about a job.
Not worried about a car.
Not worried about my sin.
Not worried about honoring God.

It's a strange place, one that can lead either to trusting God's promises or becoming apathetic to anything spiritual.


I just had a 2 1/2 inch cockroach crawl up my leg in the dark. It was slain by a very angry white male with extreme prejudice. It was the kind of meaty squish you can feel through double layers of thick paper towel. Brawny - the Cockroach Killer.
I no longer trust this apartment.



Anyway, Ephesians 4 says - "put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness."

So the old self, that's the old personality that worries. But it's also the well known antagonist who doesn't trust. So essentially, if I'm not trusting (which would be putting on the new self), then I'm still knocking back cold ones with the old self.

If I don the clothing of trust after casting off the rags of worry, then I can revel in the simple presence of the sovereign, wise, good, and loving God who will keep His promises and reward those who seek Him.
But if I simply cast off those anxious tatters and then do nothing, then I'll just sit naked, uncaring and apathetic about myself.

So that's it. I don't worry. And I'm worried about it.

For Pessimists

If God, who knows everything, thought that it was worth it to love humans, then it is safe to assume that it is worth it for us to love one another.

This Post Brought To You By...

narcissistic idolization of self, bad eschatology, and Cult Accessories Inc. (providing black cloaks and Kool-Aid discounts for mouth-breathing Satan worshipers since 1955).

I'm speaking, of course, about this article about the return of Jesus (pronounced hay-sous).

A few excerpts:

"These people belong to a new movement devoted to a man who calls himself the Second Coming of Jesus, and also claims the title of Antichrist, which to him is the next incarnation of Jesus on earth, not an evil being."
Really? So Christ and Antichrist are the same? That's a bit like saying Hitler and Churchill were the same; or Weird Al Yankovich and Coldplay. I'm pretty sure "anti" still means "opposite."


"This self-proclaimed Jesus does not believe in sin, hell, the devil or damnation of any kind."
That must mean that Jesus has seriously changes His views in the last 2,000 years. I'm pretty sure He wasn't talking about Neverland in Matthew 25:41, or Mark 9, or Luke 16, or any other of His 70 references to hell and sin and the devil, and well, all those things that de Jesus doesn't talk about.


This one is probably the saddest quote, and straight from the man himself:
"So you tell the millions of followers I have that … this guy is a liar. You know what are they going to say? Is that I prefer his lies than what religion gave me."
I can only say that this is probably true. And it is probably the result of a culture that has failed to teach such principles as delayed gratification or the sanctity of life. And it is probably the result of a church that has failed to express the joys of holy living or the benefits of obedience to a loving, wise, sovereign Father. It is the fault of sinful people who want religion without the law, a religion that does not require change, but neither does it provide any merit. It is the fault of other sinful people who don't love enough and don't preach to strangers enough and don't recognize the blessed or agonizing length of an eternity.
Those duped by de Jesus haven't been told about the pain and madness of the love of God. They haven't been told how much their sins required God to injure His Son. They haven't been shown the absolute insanity of the gospel.

They have not chosen to reject the insanity of de Jesus worship for the insanity of worshiping Someone True.

The Anthem Of All Us Former Zombie Rebels

The problem with being theologically trained is that you think you're smart. Another problem is that you evaluate when you should worship, critique when you should encourage, and grumble when you should praise.

I recently sang several songs containing the word Hosanna at a baptism. I felt wrong. I pictured the crowd that welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem with murder in their hearts. I hated that we sang with them. I hated their hypocrisy, and I hated that we were identifying with it. Jesus was killed by this angry mob full of traitors and cowards and band-wagoners.
And with utmost rage I thought that they were the ones who killed Jesus. But, the refreshing wind of the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to my own sin. It was a strange instance, in one moment, I felt the right rage that sin deserves, and the next, I felt that right repentance that sin should precipitate.

I was the traitor. I was the coward. I was the leering rebel who was called "friend" by his enemy. I was the walking dead, but made alive by the Life.

See, Hosanna comes form a Greek word, and that Greek word comes from a Hebrew word. The Greek word is ‘Ωσαννὰ, and all the English translators did was replace Greek letters with English ones. But this is also what the Greek translators did with the Hebrew word - hoshiya na.
It used to mean "Save us," as in Psalm 118:25. It is a cry to the Lord, but one which is immediately followed by a confident assertion that the Lord will save - "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!"

And so, gradually, the meaning moved down the fluid river of language as it shifted from a plea for salvation to an assurance that salvation has come.
So when all us taunting defectors and former zombies cry "Hosanna," we cry in jubilee "Salvation is here!" And when we sing "Hosanna in the highest" we call all the angels saying "Sing, sing of salvation that is coming. Rejoice, all you in the heavenlies for salvation is here."

Hosanna; Hosanna to the Son of David; Hosanna in the highest!

Copyright

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The Royal Proclamation Of The Anthill Monarch

The droning ticks of the clock are so constant, so precise, and so omnipresent that they naturally fall into the hollow places of the mind. The places occupied by the sounds so common we forget they are miraculous. The places filled with the chirps of birds and the rustling of the wind.
The places where the truly beautiful is pushed aside to make way for the painfully irrelevant.

In the relentless pursuit of what we think will make us happy, we fill calendars and schedule rat races to drown out the silence of inactivity; to push out the quiet meditations of the late nights where the tick tock of our watches ring as loud as church bells and remind us that our time is not ours.

Even calling it "our" time seems so natural. But it's a gift. Moreso a stewardship. We try to control the time like it is ours, like we own it. But the placid, deafening midnights and the six month diagnoses scream the same thing into ears accustomed to selective hearing - that all our best laid plans are illusions. They are the feeble attempts of deranged men who think they are kings. They are the puny efforts, made by men who rule mounds of dirt, to glorify themselves with time meant to glorify Another.

Time is a talent from a Wealthy Creator, every second is a chance for repentance. And so every second is beautiful. Every breath a reminder of grace. Every tick of the clock's hand a symphony of mercy.
Time is a gift. Bury it at your own peril.

People I Would Not Label "Righteous"

Lot - a cowering drunkard who offered his daughters as a rape-ransom to a mob of perverts.

Not your typical harp-strumming, Air One-humming Christian. Definitely not baby-sitter material.
And yet

"and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)"

He's called righteous, more times than even Noah in that same passage (2 Peter 2). And so the lesson, as a friend wiser than me put it, is that you don't have to be perfect to be righteous.

Inspires hope doesn't it?

P.S. One of the reasons for Lot's righteousness can probably be seen in those same verses. Another lesson to think on.

This Makes Me Want To Punch Something

Or at least disavow dating forever for the third time.

Update: for a better view of relationships, here's a link to something redemptive.

Oh, and if you want a visual reminder of this, here's a short film with a particularly good looking actor.

Duality Is Like My Crack

As I sit contemplating whether or not to change the name of this blog (which would involve completely redoing that neat graphic at the top which I spent so much time painstakingly telling my roommate how to do), I finally sit back, satisfied with "the Mad Heart."

With it's loose phonetic association with Lewis Carrol's eccentric hatmaker, its near-cliche poetic feel, and the duality in its biblical basis, it has overcome the fastidious censor of my mind which says all that I produce must be witty, provoking, embedded with symbolism and which decries the poor grammer and self-obsessed monologues of most of the internet's web logs.

In its simple form, the name arises from Ecclesiastes 9:3:
"This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead."

I've always liked Ecclesiastes as it mirrors my cynical constitution, while also confunding many and remaining God-centric. This verse, in particular, does much to explain the nature of man (if what most people do isn't supposed to make sense, then that makes sense of what most people do). But there is duality in the title (and I love duality) that gives a more comprehensive picture. Were man to be left in the gloom of his own heart, thinking himself substance while remaining a shadowy vapor, blind to his decrepit state, stumbling through darkened and dusty terrains seeking a water that would satisfy instead of the filthy cisterns filled with polluted scum-water, then hope would be a word left only for the self-decieved poets and the spiritually insane.

But man is not left in that shadow world. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ kicks down the door of the rebel's heart, cuts through the unholy blackness and breaks the chains that fetter the weary soul to its sin. The rescued heart can do nothing but fall in madly in love with such a Savior. And so, whoever you are, your heart is mad. It is either mad in its evil, or it is mad in its love with the Holy Liberator.

Narcissus' Opponent (Now In Curry Flavor)

To me, blogs are like Indian food.
I used to hate all of it, but with experimentation and introduction to various dishes, I have learned that I like certain types and certain flavors within Indian cuisine. My tongue, unfortunately, still despises most of it.
And so it is with the blogosphere. This unique virtual world is literally filled with drivel. Mounds and mounds of the boring personal details that fill people's lives and the useless opinions on those boring details. There are some redemptive blogs whose creative writers provoke deeper thinking, but most of it just gives me bad digestion.

I don't want to read your Tweet about your latest celebrity crush, your toothbrush collection, or the dog food you just bought. I don't care that your blog now has the list of your top 10 movies, or where you've come in 5 years, or hear all about your new yoga class. The seconds filled between your bathroom trips are meaningless to me.
And so I've never wanted to start a blog; I've never wanted to fan the flames of my own narcissism; nor dive in with the hoards of web-surfers with short attention spans and weakened reasoning. I've never wanted to limit my world to only the virtual one and shrink my understanding of greatness. I still don't.
The thing that I fear most about blogging is myself. I am Narcissus. If Narcissus ever got in a fight, it could only be with himself, for he is the center of his thoughts. And if I were to charge upstream against the current of modern muck, I would be fighting myself. I would be my greatest opponent.
So why start a blog?

I haven't wanted to. All the reasons above (along with a nasty non-conformist streak) have driven me from it. I don't want to add to all that garbage. And then it hit me.
This is the new medium. This is what people read. And this is filled with junk. If we Christians leave it to rot, we have no compassion. We have no love for a dying world if we sit and sneer at it's filth, not remembering that the same taint once darkened our hearts. We have no tenderness towards those blind and lost if we do not jump and scream and go crazy over the truth about God, the world, Jesus, and people. To continue to stand leering at the trash dump of the internet would be arrogant and hypocritical. To sit on my pedestal and do nothing would be to take the cowards way. The best way to redeem this medium is to back the dump truck of truth onto the garbage heap. The internet must be injected with an inoculation of Truth. Truth - absolute, unchanging, and beautiful. Thought provoking, reasonable, creative, serious, empowering truth. The truth that I love about my Savior Jesus Christ.

I will fill this blog with tributes to Him.

Grace and Peace.