Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Pain of Goodbye

Let me start by saying I would like to punch almost every goodbye in the face. I say almost, only because there are some times I am very ready to see people gone. Other than that select group of people I am going to self righteously declare deserving of my wrath, I generally want people to not leave. Separation is painful. Whether it's divorce or a physical wound, when things that were meant to be together are forced apart, it hurts.

Because my fiancée lives several hundred miles away, I regularly have to say goodbye to her. On one such occurrence when I was in a particularly poetic mood, I penned (or rather "typed on my phone") this line:
I'm convinced that the curse of human existence exists most complete in the pain of goodbyes.
I stand by that. I do believe a general survey of your friends, or coworkers will reveal that the most painful times in their lives were at the loss of a lover, loved one, or friend.

Relationships are a messy business, mostly because when your life rubs up against someone else's for more than a moment, your soul reacts like a scoop of ice cream: you can still separate with your core intact, but you inextricably leave some of yourself behind. The separation is only made more impossible and painful the longer you are together--like two scoops of ice cream slowly melting into homogeneity.

I think this pain at separation is what makes redemption so beautiful. If division is the greatest human pain, then redemption, resolution should be the greatest human joy. It's why movies with reunified families or nations or friends or lovers may not get the highest critical acclaim, but they warm your heart better than a mug of hot chocolate.

People don't often appreciate redemption in this life because, in one sense, it isn't realistic. We live in a world where redemption is not commonplace among humanity. Depravity leads us more often to disunion. But that is God's greatest gift, that when the shadows of this life are over, we'll be welcomed with into the one place that has been torn most fully from our being by the Fall--the arms of our Creator.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Opposite of Apathy

I have a question: What is the opposite of apathy when not talking about people? When it comes to a person, the opposite of apathy is empathy, sympathy, compassion, or love. But when talking about not being apathetic about, say, schoolwork, what word is there to use?

Discipline, or maybe motivation? Could be, but that is a little wordy. I can't really feel compassion for my schoolwork. Maybe "being driven?" I ask for such a word because whatever that word is, I need. I have said I lack discipline, which I do, and motivation, which I need as well, but I think what I really need is just some sort of empathetic impetus.

When it comes to schoolwork, ministry, relationships, writing (including this blog), I have no "care" to do them much of the time. I am sure that many people, maybe even you, dear reader, struggle with this, but I am also sure I am the only one who it affects. This apathy proves incredibly paralytic in my daily life, all but eliminating any constructive activities I would complete on any given day.

Apathy represents such a formidable foe not only because of the effects it has if left unbridled, but also because it is nigh impossible to begin to fight. How do you fight apathy? Do I just need to try to care more? Isn't that exactly what I am struggling with? It seems the only way to combat apathy is to combat it. It is an incredibly redundant conundrum.

I do not have a solution or moral imperative for this issue, as I normally conclude blog posts with, so you'll have to figure this one out on your own without my incredible insight. And if you do, let me know.

Whatever the opposite of apathy is, I need it.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

It's My 22nd Birthday

It is not everyday that you turn 22. It is even fewer days that this age has much of a palpable impact on your life. Today, both of these rarities are happening to me.

The thing about my birthday is, there is little to no reason you should care that I successfully exited my mom 22 years ago at a hospital in Orlando, FL. Truthfully, neither should I. Some people I hope will take this opportunity to declare what they've always thought, but never had the forthright decency to say: "T.J., I don't give a rip about you." I would like to say thank you to these people.

However, I am not saying that you not care about me, or that I am alive (although I welcome such a sentiment if you are so inclined), but rather that you should not change how much you care on my birthday.

I used to place great significance on my birthday, gathering expectations doomed to be left unfulfilled. Birthday after birthday I was disappointed when ----- didn't come to my party, or when I didn't get ----- as a gift, or that ----- didn't call me. It is a very exhausting way to live: constantly being disappointed.

You might find it surprising that I found it surprising when January 19th rolled around, people still cared that I existed. Maybe they didn't come to my party, give me that gift, or call me, but they certainly seemed glad that I hadn't perished since the last time I saw them. This, I can only assume, is because they love me.

It seems, then, that real love is not a hit-and-run. Jesus doesn't come to save you and then say "Peace out, see ya when ya die!" He's there constantly, and wants you to be there too. Similarly, I can show, you can show, we can show that we love others in the 364 very merry UN-birthdays almost better than the one birthday per year we all have.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Snow

Snow is complex. Not chemically: a couple of hydrogen and an oxygen come together below 32°F (0°C) in the atmosphere, eventually becoming too heavy to stay afloat and drift, tumble, flurry down to an oddly expectant planet.

Snow is complex because there is such dichotomy in its existence. Perhaps this rings true for many things that I am simply overlooking, but I can think of few comparable examples that can bring such simultaneous elation and chagrin.

Sunday night, along with a large number of my college-attending peers, I was overjoyed to learn the school administration had bowed to the weather's whim and given us a snow day. The sentiment carried over to Monday morning, when most woke up at a later than average hour due to the nonexistence of academic obligations.

Yet, once pelted with a snowball, or after taking an unexpected dive on an inopportune sled ride, the love for snow died quickly. Complaints of the cold, and the wet, and the driving difficulty all began to drown out the adoring comments we had for the precipitation just a few hours earlier. Those comments returned Monday night, and Tuesday as well when we received two additional snow days.

Similarly, snow has great connotations for both death and birth, innocence and degradation. Christ is said to have washed us whiter than snow--so it is a standard of cleanliness and purity. But, at the same time, snow brings desolation. There are few things as harsh and violent as cold, and as subtly destructive as ice. For many, snow spells death. Any vegetation or unsheltered wildlife is certainly doomed at the arrival of snow.

The only things that can survive snow are those that can fight it. Humans combat it with our central heating and snowplows, but we welcome it with adulation. Snow is, like almost everything else in creation, complex. Love to life to death to doughnuts have a pro and con comparison, a good and bad connotation, especially humans. The beauty of it all, and at least one purpose of art, is sifting through the light and dark of it all.