God, Help Me

In pre-Christ history, faith is counted as righteousness. In post-Christ times, we believe salvation is through faith alone. Faith, and expressions of that faith, have always been and will always be important.

When I hear the expression, “God help me,” I do not usually think of faith--maybe of frustration or fear, but not faith. In fact, the God in this particular cry is less of an address for the next words and more of an expression of emphasis. Generally, people who say “God help me” do not want help from God; they do not want help from anyone. They want relief, which is something entirely different.

C.S. Lewis explores the power of “God help me” in my favorite work of his, The Great Divorce. For those of you who have read it, I am speaking of the character with the spiritually parasitic lizard who, with a great deal of persuasion, permits an angel to kill the lizard. Those of you who have not read it may find that situation rather odd, and you are not wrong to feel that way, but I strongly recommend reading the book anyway.

Back to the story: The character fears pain, and even death, but realizes it would be better to die than to go on living with the unwanted attachment. So, he allows the lizard to be killed. Interestingly, the lizard does not actually die, but is instead transformed into a beautiful, powerful horse. The ghost, now transformed into a clean, radiant Solid Person, sits atop the horse and takes off towards the mountains (which in this story symbolize heaven). So the ghost quickly learns he has nothing to fear, but in the moments leading up to his transformation, he has no idea what is coming. As the transformation begins, he quietly whimpers, “God help me.” He does not want relief, for there is nothing yet from which he would need relief. So what does he want? Perhaps he asked for it directly; ask and you shall receive.

This character’s story is the redemption arc of the whole work, which is interesting, for of all the characters in the story, this one seems the least redeemable. I do not think it is a coincidence that while all the other characters from the Grey Town are rather clear in appearance, this character possesses a certain darkness. He seems less like a see-through person and more like a ghost. When I first read this work (a long time ago), my inclination towards this ghost-like character was pity. He seemed the least likely candidate to make the journey to the mountains. And yet, even the narrator, who seemed to have the best chance of all at making the journey, never actually set out for the mountains. That is not to say that he would not have if the story had continued. But as it stands, the only character who actually moved away from the bus from the Grey Town and toward the mountains was the very character who seemed least likely to do so.

I wonder if this has anything to do with his utterance of “God help me.” It seems every other see-through character either demands the help of his or her respective Solid Person, or else desperately tries to help his or her self. The Solid People are always reminding their respective see-through people to seek help from the only true source of help, and the only true source of any and all other things. This ghost, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to look anywhere else for help. When he finally comes to terms with the fact that he needs help, he immediately invokes the help of God. In turn, his sin is destroyed and made into something new and useful, and he himself is made into something beautiful.

This is not the posture with which I feel naturally compelled to approach anything in life. We live in a world that encourages self-confidence and self-love. This ghost was only able to be made new when he began to practice self-denial. So, even though this ghost is not the ghost with which I most identified, he is the ghost who made me feel most convicted. I should not fight the feelings of inadequacy and awareness of my own shortcomings which I often see as plagues in my life. If I really want to choose the mountains, I have to approach with the heart, mind, and soul in a posture resembling the whimper of “God help me.”

I found in this work that there were many characters who I silently (and in some cases, noisily) rooted for. Many of the characters seemed to be on the verge of persuasion to head to the mountains. Some even came to the high country looking for the mountains. But their reasons were wrong. They wanted to come to the mountains to see lost loved ones, or to feel important, or to fulfill desires of various other kinds. This ghost with the lizard, on the other hand, did not seem intent on reaching the mountains. He didn’t seem to desire anything strongly at all. I wonder if this had anything to do with the fact that he was able to choose the mountains. The narrator’s Solid Person put it best when he said, “Brass is mistaken for gold more easily than clay is.” Was the ghost more likely to choose heaven because he was given clay instead of brass? Perhaps. Was this fair? Perhaps not. But then, everyone was still given an equal opportunity to choose. Wherein lies the balance between what we can and cannot control, and wherein lies the balance of God’s mercy and his justice? That, I do not know.

In the real, far less Lewis-inspired world, brass and clay do not come in either/or packages. The world we live in is full of both brass and clay, and most people have a fairly good balance of the two. Therefore, it does not do to dwell on whether we were dealt a fair proportion of brass to clay or clay to brass (depending on which we think we need). Instead, reasonable application of Lewis’s wisdom to our brass and clay inventory is to readily give both away: to stand at the foot of the cross, brass and clay laid before us, in a posture of ultimate repentance and humility. There, with full sincerity and supernatural, God-given faith, we say, “God, help me.” And there, God has already come down in Christ to take the brass and clay alike and to replace it with the fullness and righteousness of himself. Like the ghost, unclean and unworthy though we were, we make off towards the High Country, having been made completely new.

"For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him." -Psalm 22:24

Silent Harmony

The following post is one that has been in the works for a long time. I have never been sure how to express certain things, and then I have been told that some things are better left unexpressed. I still think this is true, but I also think there might be some value in me sharing this aspect of my life with you. It is with that aim in mind that I proceed.

Those of you who do not know me may not know that I have a condition called Unilateral Hearing Loss (UHL). More specifically, I have profound sensorineural hearing loss in my right ear. My left ear is about as good as can be expected, only suffering the slight wear of a girl who listens to her music too loud and occasionally works with power tools. So, unlike somebody with profound loss in both ears, if you were to walk up to me and start talking, I would hear you (as long as you were somewhat on my left). But unlike somebody with normal hearing in both ears, there are certain things I struggle to do or am unable to do the standard way.

I am not writing this piece as an informative piece on what I can and cannot do--just know that I strongly resonate with I. King Jordan’s quote, “Deaf people can do anything hearing people can do, except hear.” There are some things that are physically impossible for me to do the way other people do them, but that has never stopped me from learning to do things a different way in order to achieve the same, if not better results (except, if I am being totally honest, learning to ride a bike). This attitude probably stems in part from the attitude my pediatric otolaryngologist had when he found out about my deafness. (Note: I was born before hospitals started screening hearing in infants, so my family and I did not discover my deafness until I was three years old.) At that time, the trend in healthcare was to encourage hearing families who had children with hearing loss to take whatever means necessary to make their children’s lives as “normal” as possible. Cochlear implants had been developed hugely during that time, so children with severe enough hearing loss were getting those. Other children were getting hearing aids and speech therapy. If there was any chance at all at giving a child access to a mainstreamed hearing education, that was what the doctors recommended. My family and I participated happily in this process, and I grew up living life as if I could hear as well as everybody else when possible. When it was not possible, I would compensate in other ways. I was late to talk and late to walk, but I was quick to sing and quick to dance. I struggled with certain speech sounds, so I learned a lot of words in an effort to avoid needing to use words that contained those difficult sounds. My balance was affected, so I took ballet and gymnastics to try to correct this problem, and when I turned out unable to correct it, I mastered the art of slapstick comedy. I took every opportunity to make sure as few people as possible would know about or be able to recognize my hearing struggle and everything that went with it.

My first real encounter with American Sign Language happened when I was in junior high. I was walking through the food court at the mall one Thursday night, and I saw a large group of people who had pushed tables together. They were making a lot of noise, but it wasn’t talking, and upon closer inspection I realized they were signing. Just like every other group of people conversing in the room, they would all occasionally erupt in laughter or shouts of dismay, and if one person had the floor too long, side conversations would start among people who weren’t near the action. It all seemed so natural to me, except that they were not using a language I had much familiarity with. But as I stood back watching that conversation unfold, I felt something inside me shift, and I suddenly knew I wanted to know everything I could about the language.

I have come a long way since that day. I have developed a deep, passionate love for American Sign Language. It is the most beautiful language in the world. In my endeavors to learn it, I have met some of the most incredible people I know. I have developed a broad understanding of Deaf culture, and I have actively participated in it in many ways. The day I got my sign name was probably one of the best days of my life. Aside from my relationship with Christ and the community I have found centered around that faith, it is the only other community of any kind in which I have ever felt truly at home. When I am Deaf with a capital D, I don’t think about any of the things I can’t do. I feel as though I really can do anything.

When I introduce myself to anyone who signs and they ask me if I am hearing, I proudly respond that I am “hard of hearing.” To me, that sign means something special. (If you don’t already know the sign for hard of hearing, you should look it up so you know what I am talking about.) When I take my h handshape, shift it to the right and reemphasize it, I see myself saying, “there are two sides of me.” I do not refer literally to my right and left--I mean that at the same time, I am Deaf and I am hearing. I am confident that I can do anything, because to an extent I can hear. But I am also confident that I can do anything, because to an extent I cannot hear. This is the power of hearing culture, and this is the power of Deaf culture.

I realize that I took a long time to explain that, especially considering the fact that I did not write this as an informative piece about myself. Instead, I want to address a problem I can see from my perspective.

There is an enormous rift between hearing and Deaf cultures. On both sides, I think, there is a lack of understanding so deep it cannot be fixed by even the most eloquent, masterfully crafted blog post (which takes the pressure off of me, since this certainly is not that). Sometimes, Deaf people feel as though hearing people are too lazy or too prideful to understand them and their culture. Hearing people, on the other hand, sometimes have no access to the information they need in order to understand Deaf culture. I could go on, but I do not think I need to. The problem is undeniable.

So how do we solve it? Wouldn’t it be nice if you had read all of this so I could give you the answer? Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer. I do know, however, that it is going to take some compromise.

To the Deaf community I say this: there are so many hearing people who want to learn more about your language and culture. When you find those people, I implore you to let them in. I cannot even imagine what my life would look like if you had not done so for me.

To the hearing community I say this: there is a whole world around you that deserves to be seen and acknowledged. Just close your ears and listen. Start by learning a few signs, and you'll fall in love. Open your eyes and your mind, and you will be tremendously blessed, as I know I have been.

Hopefully those two statements cover all of you reading this post, but lastly I want to address one very small group of you who may feel as though you are caught in the middle--not just of the Deaf/hearing divide. To any of you who see a gap in human understanding of any kind and don’t know which side of the gap you belong on, I say this: you don’t belong on either side. Nobody does. At the end of the day, we are all human beings. There are so many more important things to focus on than the ways in which we are different. Throw a little dirt in the rift and dust off your hands. I truly believe that if you do, the rest of the world will fall in line.

"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." -Colossians 3:12-14

A Grief Observed, Though Not Understood

Many of you who know me know that this semester I am taking perhaps the greatest class in the history of classes: a class devoted entirely to the thoughts and works of C.S. Lewis. Even if you do not know me but have happened upon this blog before, the evidence of C.S. Lewis’ impact on my life is probably evident in most thoughts I have and therefore most posts I write.

One of the themes we keep addressing in the class is the idea of human suffering: Why does it happen? What is God’s role in it? How should we respond to it? Lewis contemplates these questions a great deal in a deeply personal way in his book A Grief Observed, which we read and have been discussing in class. In response to the reading and discussion, my professor asked each of us in our class to write a short reflection in the form of a letter to a hypothetical person wrestling these questions.

I did not originally intend to share this reflection with anyone but my professor, but it has been in the back of my mind since I wrote it that, although I am by no means qualified to answer these questions either by wisdom or experience, I should still attempt it. We all should. In the town I left behind, there is a great deal of suffering going on. Many individuals are hurting, and because we love them, we hurt as a community. This hurt did not pass me by because I am not present. But I also realize this hurt is in no way limited to people I know and love. We all suffer. We all hurt. We all have unanswered and unanswerable questions. I cannot and will not pretend to have any more complete answers than you, my beloved readers, but I lay before you the fragments of answers I do have in the hope that maybe together, we can make some sense of them.

“To whom it may concern:

Please know first and foremost that I cannot and do not presume to know the depth or breadth or longevity or extremity of your pain; only that I can see you are experiencing pain and it saddens me beyond expression.

If you are like me, and I imagine you are at least in the sense which I am about to address, I know that in the midst of your suffering there lie many questions about why this has happened to you, and perhaps why it has happened at all. If you want answers, I am not the person to question, but I can say that I know deeply and personally the one you ought to question, and it is from his word and from others’ understanding of his character that I draw out these words for you now, which, though I know will not suffice in eliminating your doubts, I hope will at least cause those doubts to subside their crashing on your soul and sit still again. I find they are far more manageable in this state.

Our God is still good, and he still loves us. That is the beginning and the end--the only certainty I have in the midst of my own suffering and the only hope I can offer you in the midst of yours. How do I know with absolute certainty? I don’t. But any alternatives I can come up with are so improbable and so easily brought down that I can hardly consider them. I am as certain as one can possibly be. If God is good but does not love us, it does not matter to us that he is good: we are none of his concern. If God loves us but is not good, it does not matter to us that he loves us: love, like fire, is a tool when it is good and a weapon when it is bad. If God is not good and does not love us, neither matters: if this is the case, nothing matters at all.

In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis spends a great deal of time discussing the goodness of God (and on that note, I recommend this book to you as Lewis is far wiser than I). One question I find myself asking frequently is, “If God loves me, why does he let me hurt so badly?” Similarly, when I see devastation around the world, and when I see people in pain who I know have fewer resources than I do to combat it, I ask, “If God loves at all, why does he allow this?” Lewis has the closest thing I know to an answer: “The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the world ‘love,’ and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre.” I know this may not feel particularly comforting to consider at this time, but it is always worth considering: there are things, or at least a Thing, that is bigger and more significant than us. We believe that he loves us, and sometimes it is hard to reconcile the pain and suffering we experience with that belief, but in those instances I think it is not my God or my circumstances that should change, but rather my perception and expectations of both--not to say that my suffering is any less real or horrible or that my God is any less complicated, but that my suffering, though horrible, is necessary, and that my God, though complicated, is good.

Ultimately, there are true and false beliefs about God, but at the present time, there is no way to completely, beyond all doubts, separate the two. So for this time, the decision-maker is you. Weigh what you believe to be true against what others believe. Weigh it against what you can see. Weigh it against what you feel. Weigh it against all you think you know and realize how little you truly know, and strive not to know more, but to “misunderstand a little less completely.” In A Grief Observed, Lewis refers to his false hopes and understandings as a house of cards, which easily falls. When your house of cards falls, he suggests, don’t go to work immediately replacing it with new cards. Replace it with a solid foundation, that it may never fall again, and that even if it does fall again, you will not feel like you are reduced to nothing, as we do when we settle for anything less than a continually growing understanding.

The picture I want to leave you with is one found in the book of Lamentations: a broken man looking out over a broken world and taking in the vast, seemingly insurmountable suffering that small part of the world has seen. After spilling out a continuous stream of grief, the man experiences a moment of clarity: “For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.” This too shall pass, and restoration is coming. How do I know with absolute certainty? I don’t. But if the pattern continues as it has throughout the history of man, I can trust without absolutes that our God will bring ultimate healing and restoration. I trust without absolutes that you will soon be able to do the same.”

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” -Lamentations 3:21-23

Free-Falling

“You don’t need a parachute to go skydiving…

You need a parachute to go skydiving twice.”

This joke is an archetypal “dad joke,” and one of my dad’s personal favorites. I never appreciated it very much, but it has come to mind often the past few weeks--starting college seems in many ways strikingly similar to the comical yet terrifying premise of this joke: skydiving without a parachute.

With no other context, I suppose that portrays the beginning of college as a primarily, if not fully negative experience, so let me elaborate. The past two weeks have housed some of the most incredible experiences I have had in life so far. I have fallen in love with my classes, made a home in my residential community, and met some of the smartest, funniest, most unique and incredible people I have yet had the pleasure of knowing. All the things I previously imagined would take a lifetime to accomplish have been drawn nearly to completion in just a couple of weeks.

I am writing this post sitting in the hallway just outside my room, and as I type I can hear over the clicking of keys the joyful conversation of a healthy community between people who have known each other, in some cases, as little as a few days. Already all of us (speaking of the new freshmen in this community) have been intentionally sought out by leaders in our halls and classes and made to feel welcome and important.

This has all happened so fast. Every experience I have had in these weeks has flown by far faster than I could have imagined heretofore. The sensation is (in my imagination) not unlike the sensation of falling at hundreds of miles per hour through seemingly endless sky, and for awhile I found myself searching frantically for a safe place to land, but I have learned a lesson through this freefall.

The experience happening in my hall is just one of countless examples I have seen in my short time here at college that has given me hope that it is exactly where I want to be, and the interesting thing is that this place I find myself in is not solid ground. It is not a safe place to land. Instead, everyone around me is free-falling with me. Many jumped first and many will jump after. Of all of us who have just jumped, we each fall at a different speed. But we are all falling.

At first I found this notion terrifying. Certainly I would feel far more comfortable not falling at all. But I have now realized that to avoid falling, I would have had to avoid jumping altogether, and if I never jumped, I would never find a safe place to land. I am no longer certain any of us ever really land while we live in this world. To land in this life is to cease to learn, and to cease to learn is to cease to truly live.

If life is truly a free-fall we only get to do once, then let me fall with all those around me, and let me do so fearlessly and enjoying the view.

"The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand." -Psalm 37:23-24

Dependence Day

“Long, too long America,

Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn’d from joys and prosperity only,

But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not,

And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,

For who except myself has yet conceiv’d what your children en-masse really are?”

-Walt Whitman

I hope no one finds my selection of this particular poem offensive, either because it is from Whitman or because it speaks boldly and brashly to Americans en-masse of what we have become.

I hope anyone I may have offended will find comfort in the knowledge that I think Whitman was wrong in believing Americans have become anything inherently bad. In order to become inherently bad, we would have had to begin as something other than that--but we didn’t. I chose to share Whitman’s poem here because it reflects a popular opinion in and of Americans, which is that we started out as a joyous, prosperous, glorious nation, and that we have now fallen from the glorious state of our past into a state of utter depravity.

People of all values and backgrounds have images of how we can improve the country we live in and somehow restore it to its former self, but we choose to ignore the fact that the former self we see America as having been is an idealized version, which never truly existed in the perfection we perceive. Either because a perfect America is not attainable or because we have not even approached something close, people respond to our present shortcomings across a spectrum with two dangerous ends: idolatry and undermining.

To one end, many people place an idealized image of America on a pedestal and practically worship it. This is common in culturally Christian places, which makes it even more detrimental. In all our “God bless America”s and “in God we trust”s, we confound religion and nationalism. To people on this end of the spectrum, I want to offer both encouragement and admonishment. In all circumstances, the best thing we can do for our country is pray for it, in times of both trouble and prosperity. Furthermore, we should be thankful to God for placing us in a country with so much liberty and opportunity, because it gives us freedom to worship him and seek to glorify him in all we do, with no fear of interference from the place we call home. This truly is a blessing and truly can only be attributed to the provision and blessings of our Father. To that end, we should also acknowledge how countless those blessings are. For instance, we should always be thankful to the men and women who make sacrifices to protect our home, both inside and outside its borders. It is in no way wrong to celebrate our armed forces and public servants, and to acknowledge that the place they protect is worth protecting. However, it is also important to understand that in the Bible when God speaks to and of his “people,” he is not speaking to or of Americans; the United States were not operating when Adam first walked the earth, when Jesus died on the cross, or even in the years following when Paul traveled the known world on mission for Christ. God’s people are simply that: God’s people. The church. The people he called to himself, the people he prepared a place for, the people who will spend eternity with him in heaven are not exclusively American, they are exclusively Christian. There is certainly a difference between the two, contrary to some of our song lyrics and currency.

On the other end of the spectrum, where I have probably chased some of you with the previous paragraph, we have apathy toward our home: God did not mention America in his word, and Americans are not God’s chosen people; therefore, God does not care about America, and neither should we. To people on this end of the spectrum, I again have both encouragement and admonishment. It is certainly true that America is not God’s kingdom, and we know from the Bible that God’s kingdom is the only thing that is truly forever. Everything else is temporary, so we should not put our hope in it or give it any value beyond what it is ultimately worth. Empires rise and fall; America is not immune to the ceaseless cycle of human history. It had its rise, and it will have its fall. However, with the mentality that everything temporary should have no value to us, we will value nothing in this world. We should not look to things of this world for satisfaction or hope, but that does not mean there is nothing beautiful or important in this world. God created it and saw it was good, and filled it with beauty out of excess of himself. He did not do this by accident, and as the part of his creation made in his image, we were designed to see this beauty, understand from whence it came, and give glory back to the creator of it. This applies to the physical creation we see around us, and also to the creation of circumstances. If we believe our God is omnipotent and omnipresent, we believe he puts us in specific times and places for specific purposes, and in the same sense that we should be thankful to him for the physical beauty around us, we should be thankful to him for his provision and sovereignty in our lives, including (but not limited to) his placement of us in America. He gave us a home where we would not have to worry about protecting our liberty to live the lives he called us to, and this deserves, at the very least, our thanks. Furthermore, it deserves our honor and good use of the gift. Therefore, we should not be apathetic toward America; instead, we should constantly remember we are blessed to live here, and we should constantly be reminded to thank God for that opportunity.

There are many other positions on the spectrum, and I did not write this post in order to suggest where on the spectrum I think anyone should be. I only hope this post will allow you, fellow Americans, to consider where you find yourself on the spectrum, and consider if it is the right place for you to be. Ultimately, how you view your home country does not matter. Your view of God, however, does. In all you do and think, consider first what you know to be true of God, and secondly how it does and should affect your actions and perception of everything else. Having these thoughts first in priority will rightly shape everything else you see, think, say, and do: everything depends on it, even on Independence Day.

"Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." -Hebrews 12:28-29

To the Woman Behind the Boy Who Lived

“He couldn’t know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: ‘To Harry Potter-- the boy who lived!’” -Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Well, the people certainly are not meeting in secret anymore, but today people all over the world are raising their glasses to Ms. J.K. Rowling and her universally beloved character. The boy who lived has lived in literature accessible to the public for twenty years, and there can be no argument he has made a significant impact on the world, both in fiction and in reality.

Many of you who know me have heard my endless commentary on how much I love Rowling’s wizarding world. For one thing, some critical points and characters in the Harry Potter story gave me new perspective regarding myself. Moreover, the books are thickly interwoven with the message of the gospel, with countless instances of sacrificial love, life from death, and redemption.

But the thing I love most about Harry Potter is not any of these qualities--though I do find all of them valuable and they increase my love of the works exponentially. The thing I love most about Harry Potter is Rowling herself: how she dreamed it all up in the most ordinary moment, how she subtly and quietly used her art to convey what mattered to her, and how she has humbly watched as people have attempted to pick apart her work from every direction, fully assured in the fact that her art is beautiful, that it is profound, and that it matters.

Rowling’s art does matter. All art matters. Literature, visual art, film, and music are just a few small but powerful ways of expressing ideas and themes that could not otherwise be expressed. Sometimes, simple words fail. Sometimes, pictures make all the difference in understanding. Sometimes, a song comes on the radio, and just a few short minutes later the listener is a different person than they were before. Art changes people, and good art changes people for the better.

So today, while we celebrate the triumph of Harry Potter, let’s also celebrate the triumph of J.K. Rowling: who would stop at nothing to make good art, and who, as a result, has changed millions of people for the better.

Ms. Rowling, if I never experience a fraction of the success you have known, I hope I can still be just like you someday in that I can stand proudly behind the art I have made and know that someone somewhere is better, happier, and overall changed because of it.

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” -Colossians 3:17

Look and Live

I recently graduated high school, and I was honored to deliver the valedictory address. I thought and prayed for a long time about what I wanted to say to my fellow classmates and to everyone else in the audience that night, and I felt led to say everything I said that night. One point has particularly resonated with me even post graduation, and I wanted to share it with all of you. The following is an excerpt from my speech:


“The point I am trying to make here is that we as a class have experienced some incredible moments. In the musical “Into the Woods,” a character experiences a great moment and then, in a moment of reflection, says something incredible. “Oh, if life were made of moments, even now and then a bad one… but if life were made of moments, then you’d never know you’d had one.” To de-rhyme and dig deeper into Sondheim’s lyrical brilliance, think for a moment about what this character is saying. If all we ever experience is a peak, it will start to feel more like a plateau, and we may stop appreciating those precious times when everything works out better than you dreamed it could and you walk away feeling like you really were, for only a moment, on top of the world. Life is not, nor can it be, made of these moments. Instead, these moments are made of life. So, I propose that we have not experienced great moments, but we are experiencing great life. And if that is the case, it does not end after high school. In fact, the end of high school is where the rest of this great life begins.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.” It is my interpretation that he meant this quote on two levels. First, Lewis was making the same point Sondheim was making, in a sense. Life is not a series of great moments with a few bad ones interspersed. Life is a constant journey, and every journey has a destination. Some people say, “Not all who wander are lost,” and maybe that has some truth in it. But in reality, people who wander usually are not looking ahead; they are usually looking at the ground directly in front of them. So, here’s some of that life-changing advice: Look up. Look up at the world you’re passing by and see the beauty in it. Look up and see the past, remember it, learn from it, but don’t dwell in it. Look up and see the future, more bright and promising than we can even imagine. And finally, look up and see what Lewis really meant. The Things ahead with a capital T. See, Lewis experienced his share of hardship. He saw war, death, and heartbreak many times in his life. So when he wrote this quote, he did not necessarily mean he expected life to improve immediately. The things ahead Lewis is referring to are not things of this world. Lewis believed that at the end of his life journey, he had one final destination: the kingdom of heaven. Some of you do not believe this is your destination or anyone’s destination, and I do not stand before you to tell you to change that. But if you take nothing else from what I have said to you tonight, take this: that whether we gather to celebrate life’s great moments or to mourn life’s heartbreaking twists and turns, I have found no joy that is greater and no hope that is stronger than that joy and hope which is found in Christ. As we take the plunge into the rest of our lives, I want to encourage you all to remember that and to hold onto it in good times and bad.”


These points seemed important for me to make because culture sends such mixed messages about how we should live our lives. We are told we should live life to the fullest because it is short, and we have extreme limits on the time we have to find the meaning of it. At the same time, we are told to guard ourselves and protect ourselves, because life is too short to live it in pain. In my speech, in this post, and in general, I disagree with both of these life perspectives. Life is short because we should not need that much time to find the meaning in it: God has revealed of himself all we could possibly need to be drawn to him, to know him, and to experience his overwhelming sufficiency. Life is painful because too many people are so busy trying to find meaning they hurt others and themselves in the process. Life is short, and we fear it because what happens next is unfamiliar and we cannot fully understand it. Life is painful, and we fear it because we focus more on the fear of pain than the joy that lies just on the other side. Life is short. Life is painful. And in the time it takes to comprehend the balance between the lack of time and the surplus of suffering, life passes by.

I shared the points from my speech with my fellow classmates and with you now because, though I know my published contemplations cannot possibly answer your questions and erase your fears, I hope they can encourage you to set those questions and fears aside, and simply live. Go out and experience the things that scare you. Do it with no fear of failure; failure is an inevitable step on the path to success. Do it without looking back; why look where you cannot go? Look instead at where you are going. Fix your eyes on God and on all that he has set before you, from your next breath to your last breath, and every moment after. If you seek purpose, seek His. If you seek protection from pain, seek His. Never seek elsewhere, and never stop seeking.

Life truly is short. So acknowledge the time constraints, know your purpose, and live fully in that purpose.

Life truly is painful, but in the words of The Lumineers, “It’s better to feel pain than nothing at all. The opposite of love is indifference.” Our God’s love is deep and can heal any amount of hurt, so do not be afraid to love deeply, and to be hurt in the process.

And in all of that courageous, non-hesitant living, never forget to look up.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." --Hebrews 12:1-2