Saturday, April 29, 2006

I'm a mad man!!!

"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits!" ~G.K. Chesterton "Orthodoxy"

You know, sometimes I'll read a book and feel like the author specifically wrote that book for me! It is a very odd feeling at first, and yet it turns out to be a feeling of relief in the end. It is this mental freedom of reading something that you yourself could not put into words. A confirmation of what you had previously pondered yet apprehensive to tell others, afraid that you may look like a fool.
Logic and rationality are so deceptively alluring. And wonderfully so...but too much logic and one will go insane! Salvation through the perfect mans death, a death btw considered to be one of the most heinous forms of punishment, is anything but logical. Not only was this man perfect but He was God incarnate! Attempting to put that story inside my head as a certain sequence or mathematical equation only boxes up that which has confounded the most brilliant men in history. (Disclaimer: when I say that it boxes up salvation I mean it strictly confined to myself. I do not degrade salvation; merely I have blinded myself to it due to pride.) Frantically I insist on making a list of as many quick answer arguments so that (whether intentionally or not) I do not have to dwell on or think about my beliefs. Thereby making it much easier to contain inside this carnal mind.

No I do not think that reason is what makes Christianity real....or even why I have chosen it. I have been on this high of fairy tales lately. So much so that Christianity has never seemed more real. Nursery rhymes and stories have not appealed to me more than they do now. They talk of the normal mundane things of life (or so they are viewed) with wonder and mystery. It looks at stars not as a big ball of gas but as if the sky is bewitched somehow. They look at mountains (in the words of George Macdonald) "as portions of the heart of the earth that have escaped from the dungeon down below, and rushed up and out. For the heart of the earth is a great wallowing mass, not of blood, as in the hearts of men and animals, but of gloshing hot, melted metals and stones. And as our hearts keep us alive, so that great lump of heat keeps the earth alive: it is a huge power of buried sunlight-that is what it is." (He goes on and on...far too much for me to put here.) C.S. Lewis or J.R.R Tolkien said (I do not remember who), that the story of Christ is "the myth that became fact." And rightly so! For what god, even in Greek mythology, would in their right mind crucify himself for the sake of humans?

I wonder sometimes if it isn't fairy tales that make Christianity reasonable...if it isn't what gives reason its rhyme? Science has greatly taken away from this aspect of life and has now led us into a world of dissecting which only leads to stagnation. We dissect everything to find out how it works and what it is made of only to become bored and move on to something else. I by no means mean to bash science because it has done a great many things....(such as indoor plumbing!! :~) it seems though that we have veered to far off the track of enchantment that it is now considered childish to turn back.
Creativity is at an all time low....just look at the movies Hollywood is making!! They are either sequels or older movies being redone (ultimately another sequel!). I can't help but wonder if this can be due to the rising religion of relativism...beauty is no longer objective, the word "absolute" is an offense, and subjectivity is the rave! There is no standard by which we hold things. Our standards have turned into personal perspectives which only turn out to be evil and very uncreative!!!

I wish for a land where animals can talk and colors are colorful of their own initiative, not because the government says that your grass must be green and your house this color. A place where the sun shines, not because of some law of nature, but because it is bewitched. I long for Christianity to be real not because the cosmological argument says so, but because the mythical story of a Savior actually took place thereby making it true. If we can conceive a realm outside of ourselves, then why do we ignore it? Is it a sense of fear that we might actually be insignificant and that our over indulgence of self-esteem has turned out to be a lie?

Obviously there is a fine line where both science and fairytales must be kept in balance and over indulgence to either side is unhealthy. But to hyper focus on one and completely snuff the other is completely "illogical"!! I will now end this exhaustive rambling from a slightly prejudiced and ignorant teenager with a quote from G.K. Chesterton (who was not quite so ignorant!!), "It is not earth that judges heaven, but heaven that judges earth; so for me at least it was not earth that criticized elf land, but elf land that criticized the earth. I knew the magic beanstalk before I had tasted beans; I was sure of the Man in the Moon before I was certain of the moon."

Monday, April 24, 2006


Here is my brother and I in wales visiting the college where my Dad did a student exchange progam 25 years ago. It started to rain pretty hard and some of us got pretty thirsty. :~)

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Song of the Month

Alright this month's song has to be.........Doyle Dykes, "While my Guitar Gently Weeps". My reasoning is simple.. I just like the song! Along with Doyle Dykes!! :~)

Saturday, April 22, 2006

On a vacation

Yes I have returned!!! However, I do not like to think of it as a return home but a return to temporary residence (aka. vacation). England was fabulous and Scotland even more so! Wales was an interesting place....it was a place that reminded me of the grey town in C.S. Lewis's, "The Great Divorce". But I did not let that taint any of the other experiences I had! We saw 3 castles (4 if walking around the out side of Cardiff castle counts), Edinburgh castle, Warwick (pronounced=Warick) castle, and the Tower of London where the crown jewels are held. Each as breath taking as the last!

We landed in Heathrow, London on a Wednesday morning. The flight was approximately 9 hours, and let me tell ya...flying loses its magic after about the 3rd hour! It was weird to literally be flying into the future. We left at about 10:30am our time and landed in London right at dawn! The sunrise from the plane was incredible! A friend and I put it a little poetically by titling the journey "In to the dawn." When I first stepped out of the plane and into the London air I was initially hit with the briskness of the air! It felt wonderfully refreshing and was definitely a step in the right direction for the rest of the trip.

From there we caught three different trains in order to get to Oxford....ah the name of that place brings about a wonderful feeling!!! Oxford was by far the most enchanting....The colleges were gorgeous, especially Christ Church, and the garden of St. Johns College. I got to actually step into the courtyard of Jesus College where Sheldon Vanauken studied during he and Davy's time there! One could literally feel the history in that place! Christ church however, had to be the high light of the Oxford trip. It is a church and college all rolled into one. The garden and the meadow were beautiful while the inside of the buildings are artistically enthralling. We spent a whole day in Oxford meandering around checking out different colleges and shops....One shop that was most excellent and that I will be returning to someday in the future was Ben's Cookies!!! I have never tasted a cookie quite like that before!

Another highlight was eating at The Eagle and Child pub where C.S. Lewis met once a week with J.R.R Tolkien for their Inklings club. It was so cool to think that it was there that Narnia and The Lord of the Rings were actually conceived.
There was so much more that we experienced and saw....far too much for me to put down in blog form. I will say in passing that Scotland was more than I expected whilst Oxford met all of my expectations. Which is better I cannot say, but both were thoroughly enjoyed! I think I will end with a poem that I conjured up while on the trip sort of recapping what we did. Let me forewarn you that I am no poet and am not sure how the whole stanza and pulse thing works but I decided I would give it a shot anyways!

We've experienced sunshine rain and snow
and visited history up front and personal

The rolling hills protrude with color
making ones heart beat for no other

England has been a trip of return
a land full of beauty for its sake alone
a plethora of colors with every turn
However fleeting are the chances to
gaze and behold as I am prone

Expectations mounting
fantasies embellished are surmounting
Arriving at the spot where fairytales were conjured
and manuscripts gone asunder

My head is splitting attempting
to turn it all to logic
Suffering from a headache that has become quite chronic

Stepping onto the campus stepping in to the pub
I realized something unexpected...
All is not above, all is not bellow,
All is not myth and all was not unforetold
My expectations were dashed and my ideas absurd
Yet not for loss (for I am better for it) because reality
has become what it once was, what it now is, and what it will be.

Where my journey will lead next I cannot tell
But inkling I have and that is well.