Godric and Sunset Rum

 A whiff of the scent of sunset rum wove in and out of my nostrils as Brent and I breathed deep of the slow Friday afternoon. It was good. It seemed a long time coming. We talked of things that matter and things that don’t. 

Life can be hard. Sometimes those brief moments of peace, when the pace of the world seems to slow on its axis, bring a fresh draught of water to a weary soul and steady the mind that feels lost amidst the crashing waves and darkness of the storm of the week before.

At least that’s how I felt.

Frederick Buechner writes of two men in ages past perched on the roof of their church watching rain raise the level of the River Wear, bringing it nearer and nearer to where they sat. That moment lends to this observation:

“Time is a storm. Times past and times to come, they heave and flow and leap their bounds like Wear. Hours are clouds that change their shapes before your eyes. A dragon fades into a maiden’s scarf. A monkey’s grin becomes an angry fist. But beyond time’s storm and clouds there’s timelessness. Godric, the Lord of Heaven changes not, and even when our view’s almost dark, he’s there above us fair and golden as the sun.”

In the midst of my own storms past and those to come, I was granted a brief look through the dark clouded heaven. I was graced with a moment of peace and nourishment and a brother who shared in it.

August Mornings

I have tried to write about why I like this picture, but every time I begin I realize that my words are not capturing my internal response. So, I'm not going to write about the jumbled description on the mug. I am not going to mention that it lacks any manner of coherence. That all that can be gathered is that the subject is love. Once you feel as though you begin to get a grasp of what is written the mug, the thought changes. This happens in every line, which as you read you begin to notice that the mug is used. It is not new, but has stains of dripping coffee running down the text.

As One Who Having Wandered All Night Long

As one who having wondered all night long
In a perplexed forest, comes at length
In the first hours, about the matin song,
And when the sun uprises in his strength,
To the fringe margin of the wood, and sees,
Gazing afar before him, many a mile
Of falling country, many fields and trees,
And cities and bright streams and far-off Ocean's smile:

I, O Melampus, halting, stand at gaze:
I, liberated, look abroad on life,
Love, and distress, and dusty traveling ways,
The steersman's helm, the surgeon's helpful knife,
On the lone ploughman's earth-upturning share,
The revelry of cities and the sound
Of seas, and mountain-tops aloof in air,
And of the circling earth the unsupported round:
I, looking, wonder: I, intent, adore;

And, O Melampus, reaching forth my hands
In adoration, cry aloud and soar
In spirit, high above the supine lands
And the low caves of mortal things, and flee
To the last fields of the universe untrod,
Where is no man, nor any earth, nor sea,
And the contended soul is all alone with God.

 -Robert Louis Stevenson

Barbaric Faith

Friday morning as I walked around my empty home in Dallas looking for things to do, I began the long overdue process of washing the portable mountain of clothes that i've collected over the past couple weeks, I saw a small book nestled among a pile of books under the edge of my brother's bed that he intends to read. I myself had been wanting to read "The Barbarian Way" for some time now and finally had the chance to begin it. So far, the book has called for a re-evaluation to our response to Jesus. McManus says our lives should not lose the raw, energetic emotion that many of us thrived on as new believers, when our devotion to Jesus was in its infancy. He says the Christian culture has tamed our excitement for the work of Christ. This description of the person McManus wants to look like, a rugged, hungry-looking, spontaneous rookie with a heart that is ready to take on all comers, took me straight to the personification of Faith as a virtue by Prudentius. Prudentius, who lived in the early years of the catholic church and is known for his vivid allegorical depiction of war between the virtues and vices, wrote:

  "Faith first takes the field to face the doubtful chances of battle, her rough dress disordered, her shoulders bare, her hair untrimmed, her arms exposed; for the sudden glow of ambition, burning to enter fresh contests, takes no thought to gird on arms or armor, but trusting in a stout heart and unprotected limbs challenges the hazards of furious warfare, meaning to break them down." 

McManus isn't the first to talk about how we should not lose the edginess of the new believer in our faithfulness to Jesus. Beneath what ever doctrine or theology confessed should always be the willingness to drop all we have for His glory to be made known. Nothing about our theology matters if this complete devotion to the Christ is not its source.

Part IV of Not-Studying, Effectively

Wednesday the 20th…Again, I'm

confronted with the status of my priorities. My roommate and I have been talking about watching the movie Paradise Now for months now. Neither of us have had the time, or at least had time at the same time. Wednesday night though, we were both sitting on the couch trying not to do homework with it in front of us.
I was working on Arabic, one of my four classes on Tuesday/Thursday. Paradise Now follows the events of two Palestinians after they decide to become suicide bombers, claimed martyrs, in Tel-Aviv, Israel. In line with the precedent I had set recently, I voted for the movie over hw. Nathan seconded that motion.
It was a heavy movie, not one that is conducive to interruptions…which is exactly what we had through the whole thing. Another roommate and friends were filming a short movie and our house was the main location. Inevitably, they were coming through the living room clanging equipment or discussing the last scene they shot as Nathan and I strained to hear the bomber’s taped confession of faith.
We realized that to finish our movie, they had to finish filming theirs. So, when they asked us to help, we were more than happy to oblige.
It was a cool scene and they did well. We got to finish our movie, and I am excited to see the final product of the one we helped finish.

Part III Not-Studying Effectively

Tuesday April 19, I again had a “to study or not to study” decision to make. Mondays are characteristically long, tough nights, since I go to four classes (usually all requiring hw) after work. This particular Monday was no exception.
Come two o’clock though, I began to see it differently. I got a text from a friend saying that their intramural softball team was down a few players and needed a hand. In that moment I realized for the umpteenth time that life is a series of smart and dumb decisions, and most of the dumb ones can be remedied by hard work.
I texted the guy back saying I’d be there, knowing that I was gunna have to stay up an hour or so later. I decided that if you aren’t developing relationships, you have no one to share your smart decisions with. I made a pre-emptive dumb decision…maybe that’s a stretch.
The game was close for the first few innings, but we pulled away in the last two winning by five or six.
I finished my homework that night, and life went on…plus our team made the playoffs!

Part II of Not Studying Effectively

Saturday April 16 was the annual Presidential Concert that Baylor University choirs put present in honor of the current president of the university. I knew that I had to go to that concert for credit in Music Appreciation, which meant I had to get the rest of my homework done early that afternoon. I woke up at 11 am to a text message from a friend asking if I wanted to play soccer at two. Not really a question. Soccer is way more enjoyable than reading for Brit. Lit! …not to insult Joseph Conrad or anything, but its just not really a contest.
I show up at the BSB fields to find out my friend had cancelled, and only four people showed up. Not only that, but the ROTC was hosting a state-wide ROTC event on the BSB fields…all of them.
Not willing to give up just yet we decide to move to “Edge Field” where the band practices and call two other people. So we play three on three on a small field for

a while, then the ROTC moves over to the field we were on! We just could catch a break.
Their event on “Edge Field” was just running in a simulated track … i.e. chalk lines on grass. That being the case we kept playing in the infield of their track.
That was alotta fun. Much more fun than trying to read Heart of Darkness on such a beautiful, sunshiny day!

4 Ways Not to Study

I swam across the Brazos and back this Saturday.

This weekend I had grand illusions of spending all Saturday preparing for a test on Monday, leaving Sunday to prepare for my Tuesday classes. I began the morning eating a hearty Rudy’s breakfast of steak, egg, cheese, and refried beans with a few friends, a meal heavy enough to begin a days worth of serious study.

After breakfast and a quick look at the King James Bible exhibit in the Mayborn Museum, I went to Cameron Park to study in the beautiful sunshine. Sadly, even though glorious spring days should not be spent inside, studying should never be done inside.

After about thirty…fifteen minutes of serious studying, the call of the water was too loud to ignore. Three friends and I could no longer deny the challenge of the opposing shore. We swam across the river. It was rough. We came back, and I lay out on the side of the shore. I lay there for 45 minutes trying to recuperate from my first long swim this spring.

Over all I spent four hours in Cameron Park, and maybe a total of thirty minutes studying. Beautiful spring days are not meant for studying.

Carroll Fountain

The dark veil of the night sky mirrored the limitation of my mind and the sound of water falling into water drowned out the conversation across the square as I returned the knight to the chessboard. After a long week of unrelentless work, B. Watson and I unwound to a relaxing game of chess and conversation in the chairs next to the new fountain by Carroll Science (aka Baylor’s English building). I vote we call it Carroll Fountain.

The chessboard is only an excuse to get together, a mildly diverting activity while we talk about whatever comes to mind… especially since we both know I’ll get my tail handed to me in chess every time.

Sitting at Carroll Fountain, dabbling in chess, and unwinding with a good friend reminded me of the galvanizing effects of rest amongst the company of a like spirit. Carroll Fountain evokes a pleasant, peaceful atmosphere that overflowing from the SUB plaza joined with the new fountain drowns out the rest of campus and the weight of life.

Essentially, we live in too fast a society. I enjoy the rare occasions I can sit and talk about things that matter without worrying about the next event or the distractions of normal Baylor life.

Misperceptions?

I first heard of Common Grounds while I was still in high school. My older brother, Rodney, had gone to visit a friend of his at Baylor. When they got back all I heard about was this “hippie-coffee shop” right off of campus where his friend went to talk philosophy with other people.

You can imagine the image that evoked…a dimly lit, smoke filled, cramped space where college students came to smoke marijuana over the open pages of The Communist Manifesto.

Imagine my surprise freshman year, when I first went to check things out, and found a constant influx of sorority girls and the regular Truett Seminary student. Future ministers and girls from Plano? This can’t be Common Grounds. I guess I was still learning that “older brother” was not synonymous with “perfect.”

I go to Common Grounds quite a bit now, to do homework or to find an out of the house place to catch up with a friend. They have good coffee and a laid back atmosphere that acomidates the people studying and the people relaxing.

            I’m not going to say I have never heard the name Karl Marx in Common Grounds, but to my knowledge there has yet to be any marijuana or LSD…and the only tie dye is worn by sororities.

"I Just Need You Now"

This morning at work, we were listening to a local Waco radio station, 106.1 Doc fm. As I walked past the steel worktables that lead to the office in the back of the metalworks shop, I was mentally transported to the soft, laid back little bakery/coffee shop with the pervasive aroma of rising dough and the sweet scent of freshly baked pastries, This vision remains cemented in my memory by the Lady Antebellum song “Need You Now” that was playing in the background. I could not for the life of me figure out why this bakery in Tiberias, Israel was playing a country song, specifically this song, which at the time, I’d hardly heard before! It was so funny to me that any Jew or Arab would be at all interested in American country music.

Since that June day in Tiberias, I have heard that song over and over on the radio, and every time I wonder and kinda laugh at the seemingly random thought of this being the only English song I remember hearing on the trip at all. What was it that made this song appealing to the people living in Israel?

The song speaks of two people who are hurting. Every man alive can associate with pain, especially the people living in Israel, Jew or Arab, Israeli or Palestinian. Every culture knows the pain of losing someone you love or the pain of severing a relationship. It appeals to people all across the board of ethnicities and religions.

We here in the ‘States are not too different from either Israeli or Palestinian. We have the same emotions that leave our chests heaving. So let us not forget the problems of our human brothers just because they are so distantly removed from us. Just because they aren’t next door does not mean that we do not influence each other. We in American must give ear to the plights and problems of the rest of the world, the world we are a part of. And not just by way of our politicians and the government, but the ear of individual man who can feel as they do. The rest of the world needs us now.

Light on a Dark Street

Wednesday night about 9 p.m., I jumped on the opportunity to leave what is affectionately referred to as the “Baylor bubble.” An old friend of my older brother, and therefore, my adopted-brother (I’ll call him my ‘BIG’ if that helps you greeks to catch my drift), lives south of downtown Waco.  As I turned onto the dark street to look for the address he had given me over the phone fifteen minutes before, I remembered how different life looks from the west side of I-35. Here, people aren’t struggling to meet a deadline for a paper or booking it studying for an engineering test the night before the exam. This is life after education, full of bills and raising kids, where a lot of times the right direction and decision remains as opaque as the dark street I was driving down. With my window rolled down, I heard my name called from a rocking chair on a lightless porch on my right. I’d know Chuck’s voice anywhere. Kevin Georgas, aka Chuck, has been both a source of wisdom and inspiration to me ever since he started becoming good friends my older brother, Rodney, around the time they graduated from high school. About 5 foot 5 inches tall, he played varsity football, which I looked up to since I also have yet to reach 5’6”. Not to mention, he took a trip to Europe by himself for 3 months, right after graduating high school. That’s just awesome!

            The ability to sit down and talk through life with some one I respect and trust, is an opportunity that I will always treasure. So many of my friends are going through life struggling with rough, past decisions and a dark, confusing future. With our unexplained disinclination toward talking with mom and dad, a lot of people my age do not have a place and person who can help them evaluate what is going on in life in a comfortable, but challenging way.

            I will always place a weight and worth on what Chuck says. He is one of a few people who I consider close enough, and wise enough to warrant my attention. I know there will be times when life gets confusing and the right direction seems veiled by some crazy circumstance, but having someone who I respect to bounce ideas off of or just to hear solid advice from will be something I’ll always seek out.