When Chaos Is King

Every time I sit down to reflect and write about the thoughts and feelings and experiences that I’ve had over the last 6 months, I become terribly overwhelmed. It seems impossible to communicate how eventful, sorrowful, joyful, lonely, frustrating, inspiring, hopeful and eye opening these last six months have been. There was a time when I was lonelier than I’ve ever been. There has also been a time when I had never been so discouraged and powerless to take on the responsibilities in front of me. There have been times when I have felt terribly let down by others. Times when I have let myself down. There have been times of financial and academic foolishness. Looking back, I think I may have had more feelings and emotions than I’ve ever had. But during this time, I can’t say that I’ve shed a single literal tear. I can’t remember the last time that I physically wept. My heart has mourned deeply, but for some reason my body has not. I don’t know what to take from this. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Is this growth, or is it an emotional stunting?

Either way, it has been a physical, spiritual and emotional maelstrom. Moving to New York has felt like being tossed into the storming chaotic swells of the deep blue. Unpredictable ups and downs. Long stretches of darkness with brief and faint glimpses of light and hope. Waves of conflict, some larger and more daunting than others. But as I twist and turn in every which way, fighting and squirming and wrestling for complete control of my life by my own means, against an ocean whose power can’t be measured, an ancient song resurfaces in my memory. It goes like this:

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

leave to your God to order and provide; in every change God faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: your best, your heavenly friend through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: your God will undertake to guide the future, as in ages past.

Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake; all now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know the Christ who ruled them while he dwelt below.

However, while what seems like chaos has been king of my life, there have also been times of extreme joy and community. I’ve loved people and I’ve been loved by people. There have been times of great success and accomplishments! I’ve learned many lessons that I’ll never forget. God has opened so many doors in so many areas of my life. I have felt more passionate about some things than I’ve ever felt before. I’ve become more self-motivated instead of being purely motivated by others. God has given me wonderful friends. He has given me a job. He has given me a church. He has given me parents. He has given me a school and a city. God has provided. Seriously Caz, BE STILL.

-Casimer

Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted among the earth. The LORD almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.

Keep Your Head Up, Caz.

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!”

–Rudyard Kipling

At Rest, But Thirsty Is My Soul.

I’m alone in the night gazing at the sky as a thick cloud, which somewhat resembles a wadded up feather comforter, adorns the sky while flashes of brilliantly colored lightning occasionally burst out of it, illuminating the scene. The storm is too distant for the thunder to be heard, but a pounding takes place, nonetheless, within my soul.

I’m alone in the sand, and my ears are lullabied by the constant crashing of waves into the beach. The sound of a swell nearing the sand, amplifying as it approaches until, finally, the wave crashes with the continent. Silence. And then it begins again. Black is the sea. White is the rippling moon upon it. Soft is the sand beneath my body. At rest, but thirsty is my soul.

I’m alone on a swing: back and forth, up and down. I gaze afar where a green appalachian meets the bluest of skies. An endless array of untamed white fluffy forms pass by overhead. My mind wonders, here and there. I let it go where it pleases. But it returns, without fail, to one unavoidable, yet restful thought.

I’m alone, underwater, gazing upward at the undulating sky through my neon green mask. Up goes a bubble. Another one, and another one. Big ones, small ones. My body is weightless, and my heart. A fish pecks at my toe. The grass rubs against my back. The colors abound. Timelessness.

I’m alone in a forest, following a meandering mountain stream. Water trickles down, dancing among the rocks while its partner, light, matches every step. The trees creak and sway, the leaves flutter, a breeze glides through: A Dance like no other.

-Casimer

A Work In Progress:

One thing that absolutely sends my mind and heart into a flurry of thoughts and feelings is the subtle, hidden beauty of the world around us. We rarely look upon something and instantly recognize its innate beauty. We simply dismiss it as another everyday object that has no aesthetic value. What a lie! What an act of our fallen human nature, to suppress the beauty in the things around us! “All those things can’t be beautiful,” we subconsciously tell ourselves. “They just exist. They’re not ugly and they’re not beautiful.” We HAVE to tell ourselves that in order to have everything figured out, in order to destroy all possibility of the existence of any aesthetic mystery in the world. If all these things are beautiful, if beauty even exists, then there is something in this world that we do not understand. However, that is something we just can’t accept. Sadly, our post-enlightenment rationalism has tamed us into thinking that anything inexplicable by the methods of scientific reasoning doesn’t exist. Oh naivete! If only it were that simple, to separate everything around us into black or white. If its gray, it doesn’t exist. Therefore beauty, according to the post-enlightenment rationalist simply doesn’t exist because we cannot explain it by reason alone. Questions such as these will forever go unanswered: What makes something beautiful and why do certain things jab life into our very souls? Use the faculty of your reason to answer that!

For a brief moment, let’s change up a couple of our presuppositions. Instead of automatically presupposing that beauty doesn’t exist, lets say that it does. And instead of presuming that all truth can be acquired via scientific reasoning, lets assume that there might be a little more to life than what meets the eye of our cute little intellects. As Pascal stated, “The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.” And to further help you adopt these presuppositions, I’m gonna give you a brief quote by one of my favorite people ever: Bono.

“So there I’d be, standing on Dollymount Strand, staring at the sea, watching the waves, looking at a storm on the horizon, and wondering who chose the color of the sky? Who makes the earth turn at this speed? Who invented gravity and who invented girls’ laughter? Is it all cold science? Cosmic accident or creation? Is it love or survival of the fittest?”

Consider this for a moment. Now that you have, for my sake, accepted that beauty may exist, think of the most beautiful thing you have ever witnessed. What is your Dollymount Strand? Got it? It may take you a bit longer than you think, so take your time…. Ok, now that you have this aesthetic experience in your memory, explain it. Tell me exactly how you felt and why you felt that way. Good luck…..

To be continued.

-Casimer

Filling Shoes.

When will you know?

When will you see?

When will I grow?

When will I be

who you want me to be? 

Who you need me to be?

Who I’m supposed to be?

When will I know who I’m supposed to be?

When will you see who I’m trying to be, who I’m able to be?

What will I say that will open your eyes?

What will I do?

What must I say to open your eyes?

What must I do?

I’m here. I’ve been here. For a long time, I’ve been here.

 

 

grow me. love me. break me. shape me. move me. win me. hold me. show me.

 

Make me who I’m meant to be. Sharpen my sword that I may fight for thee.

Secure my path that I may lead for thee. Break my heart that I may love for thee.

Open my ears that I may sing for thee. Sing for thee. Sing for thee!

Bless my work that I may give for thee. Kill me that I may LIVE for thee.

Make me who I’m meant to be. Who I’m MEANT to be.

Make me who I’m meant to be!

 

-Casimer

Petty Path Predictors

So this morning I experienced a very very terrible feeling. Its the feeling of dread and hopelessness about the goodness of my upcoming day that can only be truly felt when I realize that I have poured my hot coffee and added the perfect amount of sugar only to discover that the cream is  nowhere to be found. Its kinda like that feeling you get when you’ve got your taste buds set on a certain treat, just to have that treat ripped out from under your nose right as your about to indulge in that fist bite. It truly was a dishearteningly frustrating moment that I feared was only a foreshadow of the way today’s events would unfold. But things quickly looked up. Out of nowhere, there came hope; Out of nowhere, I found the cream.

All of a sudden, life really wasn’t so bad.

Its amazing how we let such petty things decide the state of our happiness, or whether its gonna be a good day or a bad day.

No, its a shame.

Cheer up, World. And have a great day!

 

-Casimer

Treading On True Colors (This probably doesn’t make much sense)- revised.

I hope you can see past the  lies.

Past the unwanted fog inevitably pasted upon a transparent window.

Transparency is what I aim for. 

Is that such a bad thing, transparency?

Is it so unacceptable to live in a way that shows your true colors? 

In a way that lets people in? 

Well, transparency is what I aim for. 

I will remove this mail and cut open my chest for all to see my heart, my dreams, my feelings.

Do what you want with them. Accept them or deny them. Grow them or stifle them. Malign them or praise them.

I’m giving you that option, that control.

I wont give you eye-catching stained glass; distractingly appealing windows that hide the substance behind them.

I’ll aim for transparency.

Please don’t tread. But if you must, tread softly.

These are genuine pearls, so don’t be swine.

And Don’t tread on me.

 

 

-Casimer

May The Fool Become Wise; The Sinner, A Saint.

Wow. So I must say that lately I have been experiencing a whole array of mixed feelings and thoughts. Weighed down by my own insecurity, and confused by these conflicting feelings, I feel like I have been living about thirteen different lives. I can only imagine what kind of frustration this must be causing my friends and family and all those who truly care about me- those who are trying to read me, and understand me and love me. In the last few weeks, I have acted upon a silly whim, and in doing so, have neglected a true love and feeling that has been a significant part of my life for years now. I have lashed out on a close friend who has a young and gentle heart. I have not spent enough time with my family, as I get ready to move a trillion miles away for a significant amount of time. I have mistaken shallow friends for the true and deep ones. And I have mistaken true and deep friends for the shallow ones. Dirty and left out is how I feel. Undeserving and fake. If they really knew me, if they saw the nastiness that I hide from them everyday. The rust, mold and decay that is beneath the surface. Who knows? Who knows how they would respond? Who knows? If you want to know about the real me, ask. And oh, I will tell you… your stomach will turn. You thought you knew me!

 

Wash away all my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Trust me, I know my failures and my lies. I don’t deny them and suppress them. They follow me. They haunt me. Together, lets throw them onto the table, lets scrub them clean. I want nothing to do with them anymore. Someone get the iodine, get the alcohol, get the fire. Lets purge this infection, so that I may be done with it once and for all. I will eat this bread and I will drink this cup. Yes, I will drink this cup. I will taste and see that God is good. Taste and see his unconditional, refining and purifying love for sinners and scoundrels. 

 

-Casimer

The Things I Would Do:

I would throw away all my money.

I would walk on hot coals.

I would brave class five rapids. Alone.

I would swim with Great Whites.

I would fight a hungry Grizzly Bear.

I would never read again.

I would abandon music.

I would vote for Obama.

I would leave my home.

I would eat whole wheat products for the rest of my life.

I would cancel college.

I would stand before a gun.

I would sleep in the snow.

I would move to the desert.

I would ride a wild bull….

 

Heck,

“I would ride through worse than that, if…”

 

 

 

If I…

If only I could…

“If I could just hea…”

Ahh… Forget about it.

 

-Casimer

“Five THOUSAND Fundamentals” -from my thesis “Achtung Baby; Bringing To Attention The Deficiencies Of The Church With Respect To Pop Culture”

 

Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, speaks in a Rolling Stone interview of how he believes in a God, but is quick and adamant to insist that he not be associated with those “crazy American fundamentalists”.  In They Like Jesus But Not The Church, Dan Kimball addresses fundamentalism as one of the main stereotypes of Christianity among non-believers. “It is important to address this topic,” he says, “because repeatedly, people who like Jesus but are outside the church say that fundamentalists give Christianity a bad name” (They Like Jesus But Not The Church, pg. 187)

But what exactly are fundamentalists and why are they so disliked among secular culture? Originally, a Christian fundamentalist was someone who firmly held to a few fundamental beliefs. In the early 1900’s, the Protestant Church was facing a lot of criticism particularly from Darwinian evolutionists and liberal theology. Many church leaders were afraid that Christians were surrendering the fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith. Those fundamentals were “the sinful nature of man, his inability to be saved apart from God’s grace, the centrality of Jesus’ death for the regeneration of the individual and the renewal of society, and the authoritative revelation of the Bible” (Church History In Plain English, pg. 433) These fundamental beliefs were reinforced among protestant churches, and people who held to these fundamentals began referring to themselves as fundamentalists. Most honest Christians today hold to these fundamental beliefs and have additional fundamental beliefs of their own. In that sense, they are fundamentalists. However, the impression that fundamentalists are simply Christians who hold to a core set of beliefs is not the impression that pop culture has.

The original fundamentalist movement was quite harmless to Christianity in the sense that it was actually very beneficial to Christians who needed to be reminded of the essentials of Christianity that should not be surrendered during the rise of Darwinism. It isn’t wrong in any way to have core, objective fundamental beliefs. However, Christians began adding to the list things that are not essential to Christianity. The original fundamentals said nothing about methods of baptism, hairstyles, clothing trends, rock ’n’ roll, politics or cigars, and neither does Scripture. So based on what authority can Christians claim that such petty, subjective traits be mandatory and essential to the Christian lifestyle? Nonetheless, to many, Christianity became a list of do’s and don’ts, a set of outward regulations and behavior. Over time, Fundamentalists began to informally adopt a nasty legalism.

There are many different ways that people use the term legalism. To avoid stepping on the wrong toes, a clarification of definitions is in order. All legalism has something to do with works, or obeying the law. But where people differ is in how much emphasis or credit they give to such works. Some people are legalists in the sense that they believe that performing certain works or abiding by certain guidelines can merit or contribute to our regeneration. Anyone who doesn’t do these works or abide by these guidelines, they conclude, must not be a Christian. This type of legalism is certainly not Biblical. Our good works are the result of being regenerate, not a means of becoming regenerate. “For by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no man can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). However, there is another form of legalism that occurs when Christians place more emphasis on man’s works in the life of the Christian than Christ did. They create mandatory rules and regulations for Christians to abide by, and in doing so, they replace the commandments of God for the tradition of men (Mark 7:1-13).  

So often, Christians are exposed to the abuse of physical pleasures and the pain and suffering that result in such abuses. Out of fear for themselves and for each other, they respond by self-righteously abstaining from just about any pleasurable thing that can be easily abused, and mark any practice of such things as sinful. This legalistic approach manifests itself clearly in fundamentalists when they add abstinence from things like rock n’ roll, long hair, tobacco, dancing and alcohol to their list of “Christian fundamentals.” They think that this abstinence keeps them from being distracted and allows them to grow closer to Christ. Legalists seek and long for that which is above at the expense of that which is below. An example of this legalism can be found at a local Christian college where the consumption of any alcohol or tobacco, dancing, attending bars, clubs and raves, and gambling are entirely prohibited under the misconception that such things have no place in bringing Christians closer to Christ.

In sharp contrast to the legalistic approach is the pagan licentious approach. Instead of strict abstinence from earthly pleasures, pagans pursue strict practice of earthly pleasure (i.e. hedonism). “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die” is a common creed for those who practice this earthly over-indulgence. Pagans seek lasting satisfaction in things like sex and drugs and alcohol, not realizing that such true satisfaction will never be attained in these temporal things. Interestingly, we see two extreme opposites in the way that earthly pleasures can be approached. Must we, as Christians, really give up all pleasures around us in order to truly follow Christ and be exemplary Christians? Is the only way for us to enjoy earthly pleasures by abandoning Christ and becoming pagans?

Fortunately there is yet one final approach to the earthly pleasures around us. When confronted with the realization that, as humans, we all have an innate yearning for true lasting satisfaction, we can’t help but wonder where that satisfaction can be found. This unquenchable longing for something transcendent of space and time is what C.S. Lewis refers to as sehnsucht in his Argument From Desire. Sehnsucht is the German word for a longing or a yearning. It is used, not to describe a simple, natural desire for food or wealth, but a spiritual and psychological yearning for something perfect and untainted- something that satisfies wholly. 

We desire a lover, but such desire spawns from our yearning (sehnsucht) for the perfect Lover. We desire comfort and security, but such desires spawn from our yearning for Home. We want beautiful things that stimulate a sense of wonder and awe, but we yearn for the Source of that beauty, Beauty itself. As Augustine stated, in The Confessions, “…You made us for yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you” (The Confessions, Pg 1). It is not wrong to desire these earthly things, but we must acknowledge that these earthly things do not satisfy- they merely point to what does satisfy. For example, sex is not true joy, but it is a particular, finite and tainted manifestation of true joy that points us to true joy. We can either take the pagan route by continuing to seek true joy in sex (and all other earthly pleasures), we can take the legalistic route by abstaining from sex altogether, or we can take the Christian route by letting sex point us to the source of true joy itself, Jesus Christ.

In the Christian approach, we are challenged to pursue a healthy medium between the pagan approach and the legalistic approach. We know that we cannot practice a hedonistic indulgence in the things of earth for Christ requires us to be good stewards of our bodies. But at the same time, we also know that these pleasures are part of God’s creation, all of which He called good. As Christians, we have the freedom to practice all things pleasurable to the glory of God, but to also remain responsible in the way we practice them for the stewardship of our bodies. At times, the two options seem contradictory- mutually exclusive, but we must seek that healthy tension between them, the constructive duality. Briefly, this idea of constructive duality coined by Bruce Kirby is the idea that under God’s sovereignty, there are no true dichotomies between opposites. Instead, both opposites are true. So, instead of taking the paganist extreme, or its opposite, the legalistic extreme, one can and should find the constructive duality of earthly pleasures, and man’s God-given responsibility, acknowledging that both are good (Kirby).  We must take part in the responsible practice of material pleasures, acknowledging their inability to fully satisfy but allowing them to point us in the direction of what does fully satisfy, towards our Father in heaven.

As a result of the lack of constructive duality in the fundamentalist approach to physical pleasures, fundamentalists took the legalistic extreme. However, this legalism was not only used to enforce a “higher” moral lifestyle among Christians, but it also demanded that Christians not associate with anyone who did not pursue that lifestyle as well. A common fundamentalist creed was, “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t chew, and don’t hang out with girls who do.” Such is the fundamentalism that gave Christianity such a negative, intolerant stereotype among pop culture.

This legalism, which clearly manifested itself in American fundamentalism clashed very severely with the British Invasion, spearheaded by the Beatles. “Fundamentalist Christians were already uneasy about the Beatles’ influence. The view that rock ‘n’ roll encouraged ‘base animal passions’, first developed in the wake of Elvis’ success, was still strong. The difference was that Elvis also recorded hymns and considered himself a Christian, whereas the Beatles admitted to not being believers… The fact that they also drank, smoke, danced, wore their hair long and went on un-chaperoned holidays with their girlfriends didn’t endear them to the faithful. “ (The Gospel According To The Beatle, pg. 23) 

 

-Casimer