Darkness & Dreams

A friend of mine posted a lovely meditation on December and darkness,  On Advent and the like. I commented appreciatively that "For darkness is the realm of dreams." Every so often I feel as if I hit a note right, like a string on a guitar. It just vibrates in a shimmering expansive way.

When I was in the midst of Ph.D. studies and working full-time, I unwisely consumed a lot of coffee after work so I could stick to my six-day work-out schedule and be alert in the evening for my wife. Long story short, I just didn't burn the candle and both ends, I microwaved the f@cker into a molten pool. I was stressed and exhausted all of the time and then used beer to try and douse the psychological flames on the weekends. Really unwise.

I was never in danger of being an alcoholic or anything, it was just the caffeine and alcohol duo was just the wrong remedy. Sleep was not restful, I skimmed on the top of sleep like a smooth stone on the surface of a stream. I was clocking the hours but the hours were not restorative. I never or rarely dreamed. My R.E.M. had been disabled. I paid a price and it has taken four years to settle the debts and close that chapter of my life.  

I now have a saying that I "Drink coffee with the sun's rising and beer with the sun's setting."  Hard to do during football season as we all have been conditioned to drink beer during football.

One of the results of this wisdom is that I now dream a lot. It is almost like a field of flowers growing after fire has burned down the forest. The trees are growing back too but I think it will take a while until I find shade under them again. I sacrificed so much to earn a Ph.D. and writing a book. It pains me to see the costs and the scars are deep. I will show you my dreams, I will show you my scars.

When the troubles hit, I felt betrayed by God who I thought had my back. Instead, I got a bunch of arrows.

In untangling all of the mess, which has been painstaking, I came to see that I had presumed a lot. I saw God as having to accept my goals--and what I wanted was help with the means. I didn't question my goals as I should have. Faith does not give us the right to presume anything beyond what the Scriptures state that it does: Salvation. The Bible is clear about this.

Preacher Tim Keller who I usually agree with wholeheartedly tweeted recently that you "Don't marry the person who is but the person who will be." Or something to that effect. I responded that, "No you don't. You marry the person who is. Otherwise it is presumption." How many marriages suffer because one or the other person didn't change as expected? What gave us that right to expect this? Presumption, pure and simple.

Many Christians have unwittingly idealized marriage, sex, and kids. When the troubles hit like a tsunami they feel like they have been lied to...and guess what, many of them have been. Our vision of marriage is more "Leave it to Beaver" than anything, some idol buried deep in middle-class of 1950's media.

Everything in life is in play and I mean everything besides salvation. Including, disease, destruction, and even death. Otherwise, we are quite prone to put our trust in this wayward world. We want to believe that this world is not wayward and that itself is an incorrect premise. It is abnormal and that is normal.

God has His timing but it is not our clock and under our control. The hands of time can bend and break us. I know that this metaphor has limited applicability in an digital age. Yet, we can trust that despite our failings, God will restore us. Christ didn't die for nothing and His merit settles the debt.

 Dante wrote “to see the stars again” And to dream.