Adam and Eve

There have been a number of things running through my mind these past weeks and I should probably split them into a few different posts. The problem is I haven’t seemed to be able to post even a little in that time so here goes.

The first thing that must be said is probably the most profound statement ever made. And when I say profound, I don’t mean by me, I mean profound in the whole history of the universe, the whole history of humanity. And it isn’t anything that probably any of you haven’t heard a hundred times before. So why I would even say it now doesn’t make sense to me, but just the other day it hit me again. Like a ton of bricks it hit me. And here is that profound, utterly fascinating and wholly unfathomable statement:

God Loves You!

I know what you are saying, or maybe thinking because if you are saying it then you are probably getting some weird looks (that is if you are at the library or a coffee shop). You are thinking, “Duh! Of course He does!” But here is where I feel a little like Robin Williams.

“God loves you”
“I know”
“No you don’t, God loves you.”
“I know”
“No listen to me son, God… loves… you!”
“I know that”
“God loves you”

“God loves you”
“Don’t f#% with me Jesus, not you”
“God loves you”

We don’t get it. I don’t get it. Every once in a while, on that small island called my mind, I see a glimpse of this reality. And when I do, it is so scary and amazingly wonderful at the same time, that every time, I do just like Will did. See here is a truth that is so far beyond my comprehension that I quickly pass over the depth of the thought. Even now I can’t explain it, not here. This is a thought for people so much smarter than I. People like the following authors whose books that have brought about the second and last of my ideas.

(Lets pause a moment and discuss tonight’s refreshment. I am at my buddy’s, Chris Landry, place. It is an Army weekend and Chris is so incredibly kind each and every one to offer up his home and his spirits. Tonight’s is a 10 year old single malt whisky from The Balvenie Distillery, Banffshire, Scotland. Good stuff. You might remember that I drink it straight, no ice. I love to hold it in my mouth and savor the flavor. A really good scotch goes down so smooth you don’t even feel it. This isn’t that, but it is still good enough to savor. Good enough to hold for a moment, breath deep and then let it trickle down the back of your throat and settle in your stomach. A warm sensation begins deep inside as it melts into me and reminds me of the good old days back in ‘05 when life was simpler. Oh…, what a trip!)

There have been a couple ideas that have been exploring my island recently and meet tonight. The first comes from the series of Eldridge books. When God spoke, He had a plan. That plan was screwed up by its participants and the result was a big mess for all involved. Now it is probably sacrilegious or something to say that The Big Guy was in a mess, but it is starting to appear that way to me. But I don’t want to go into that, our mess is obvious. Eldridge, and now his wife, say that everyone is messed up and guys and girls are both screwed, but in different ways.

A guy is screwed in his strength. His biggest question is, “Do I have what it takes?” He, and when I say he, I mean me, goes through life trying desperately to answer that question. And because we are all in a mess, that answer tries to come from many places, but in the end, only one place knows what the answer is and can hence give it as the ultimate satisfaction of said man, i.e. me. Unfortunately, like Will, we miss the point so often and look at all the false answers instead of The Answer.

Women are screwed in their, well something else, and they ask everyday, “Am I lovely?” And just as sadly as the men, they look for the answer in the myriad of places that would be so willing to sell their dime store excuses to the fallen. In the same way for both men and women, “there can be only One.” So two halves to humanity, two questions. But are there really two questions?

No, there really is only one. “Who am I?” Since the man is intricately designed to be defined by his strength and likewise the women was woven in time to be the climatical being of glory, that one question is foundationally divided at its root. And my question simply is, “Why?”

An answer follows:

I am in the middle of reading “Searching for God knows what” by Donald Miller. (I feel a little guilty because I was at a talk he gave back in late November early December and it was very thought provoking. Normally I would have penned my thoughts for the masses, but there were other things going on and writing had taken a back seat. I wish I could say my car accident was one of those things, but it was at the earliest a week later so I can’t use that great and sympathy producing one.) Only a few chapters in, to be exact, and the theme of the book I have picked up on is one of relationships. This is what Don was talking about a few weeks ago and seems to be his mantra. “We are relational.” We were created to be in relationship. This isn’t a new idea, but here are some thoughts.

If God created us to be in relationships, especially with Him, then it goes without saying that we would be incomplete without them. C.S Lewis says that all throughout the history of humanity we have needed to be defined by something other than ourselves. There is an innate desire to know what others think about us. I, and all these other much smarter people, believe that to be true because that is how we where made. God made me and you to be in a relationship with Him, to be told by Him who we are, and when He isn’t there, we look for the next best thing. So when we ask, “Who am I?”, we are only doing what we were made to do.

Now here is where God did His amazing, His thoughts are higher than my thoughts, thing. In designing us to be in a relationship with Him, he also made man and woman just different enough so that we would compliment and push each other to want that relationship. (Last draw, oh what simple pleasures.) A man needs to know he is strong and a woman, lovely. That can only be perfectly answered by The One that is both perfect strength and perfect beauty, but in our fallen state, we only have glimpses and traces of The Truth.

Moses penned the beginning. He writes about the trees, and the fruit, and the naked humans enjoying their personal existence. But is it all joy? Yes it is, for a time. So then what about the aloneness? The pre-taking-a-bite-for-crime aloneness. It is there, and as Sailhamer through Miller points out, it was a good bit of time. God states that it is not good for man to be alone, and then he proceeds to parade the entire earth before him so that they all can get into the phone book. Guesses are that it was maybe a hundred years. So God says, in his best impression of James Earl Jones, “You need someone, lets slow cook for the next five score and really build the anticipation.” Granted Adam probably didn’t know what was coming, but if he did, he was one patient man. What was Adam doing for that 100 or so years? Working, yes. Keeping busy, no doubt. But was he complete, no.

This is where I start to wonder, “What was God accomplishing in those hundred years?” If I can relate it to my own life, He was making Adam into the man He wanted to be in a relationship with. Adam, like the rest of us, needed to grow.

So God used the waiting for Eve to mold Adam, just like he probably uses the waiting in our, my, life to mold us, me. And this helps answer those two questions. A scenario:

A man needs to know he is strong; he needs that confirmation more than life itself. What better way than to find it in the perseverance of earning the most glorious creation? A woman needs to know she is lovely, more than anything. What better way than to find it in the perseverance of earning the most glorious creation? See how we fit together. If a man doesn’t strive, work, endure, endeavor, pursue, then what is the value of the accomplishment? He has to do all those things. He has to. A woman has to be won with striving, work, endurance, endeavor, pursuit. She has to. I am not saying that a man and a woman complete each other, not at all. I am saying that a man and a woman are tools used to complete each other. We are all tools.

My good friend Anjie honestly asked what a woman should do when it comes to relationships. Things seem to be broken in the whole relationship system, and I have spent a good amount of time talking about what a dude should do, but what about the other 50% of the world. Well, they have to be pursued. Is that easy? It would seem so at first glance. “Hey, boys, here I am sitting on my porch waiting, come, pursue.” In my mind, that seems like the easier road. But ask any girl, and I have, if it is easy to wait, and they will let you know the real truth, sometimes more than once. Heck no it isn’t easy. With each passing day, their question isn’t answered in the affirmative and hence is answered in the negative. Just as with each passing day for a man, their question is answered, “maybe you really don’t have it?”

So they have to be pursued, and in my black and white world, the longer and harder the pursuit, the louder the YES is the answer of the questions on both ends. I am starting to think that the system is harder for the ladies because they have to deal with a class of men that are wimps, that give up well before the questions can be truly answered. I don’t blame them for giving in to early in the downward spiral that is this world. I wish they wouldn’t, but I don’t blame them.

So the next, and last, question is, “is it all worth it?”

Heck Yes!!!

It is tomorrow.

Jason

Now What?

Here is the deal, if confusion was a person, their name would be Jason Haggard. But this isn’t unusual. As you may have guessed, questions are much more common in my life than answers. Or maybe that isn’t the case, the answers are just more difficult to find or maybe except.

If two people enjoy being around each other, are, by their own confession, attracted to each other, and most importantly, desire the same end product in their separate lives, then it would only make sense that those two people should be together. But my dad always said that there is the right person AND the right time; you need both to make a match. If it is the right person but not the right time, then patients is necessary, along with wisdom and perseverance. If it is the right time but not the right person then, again, wisdom is much needed, but this time discernment and faith are indispensable. Then comes the all to obvious question of after seeing that something isn’t right, determining which of the two the culprit is. And that is where I stand today, or at the very present, sit.

It would only make sense, but as I am seeing now, that sense isn’t always something that is made in this world or especially life.



Let the pain begin again. The pain of uncertainty. Why has it begun? What has changed that would cause me to wonder with greater intensity at each passing minute why she is not calling me back. I sit here now, that voice mail hanging out there, my heart with it. For a time I can suppress the thoughts. Write them off to a busy day, a time at church, work, or other. But as time passes, each other becomes impossible. Impossible in my self-centered mind because what could be more important than I. 30 minutes for an important TV show; 1 hour for church; an hour and a half for a movie; 2 hours for dinner with friends so as to not be rude; 3 hours for family; 4 hours on a plane; 5 hours for what?; 7 hours to sleep. At some point this mind can’t reason away the hours. So when does this point happen? Maybe last week I never had to ask this question because it was never more than a few minutes, but that can’t be the case because I know that right now it has only been 1:30 hours and there have been longer delays. It is my faith and trust, those have been abolished. I hate this.

It all worked out

Two days ago, my car was sold for $2000.00. The check was delivered last Saturday, I mailed it to my bank, the money was deposited on Wednesday and now I am no longer the proud owner of a piece of junk, but I am looking to buy another piece of junk for about $2000.00. Any recommendations?

Oh shoot!!

It has been an interesting couple of days and unfortunately I am not really in a mood to talk about them, but since I feel like those people in my life who care would want to know, and instead of sending out a mass email, I realize that a blog does the same thing and only worries people that look at it, I am writing this. Last night while driving to a friend's house, I was hit by a young lady as we both entered an uncontrolled intersection at the same time. She ploughed into my front left fender and succeeded in making my car un-drivable. After much discussion, we decided to handle this without the authorities or insurance companies. Which wasn't difficult seeing that she didn't have an insurance company, or a driver's licenses for that matter. Long story short, she is going to buy my car for $2000.00, which is more than it was worth, but less than what it is going to cost me to replace it. So now I am in the market for another car. Oh, and I am fine if any of you were wondering.

She is supposed to stop by the house tomorrow and give me the money. We will see!

It is tomorrow.

Jason

To a Hammer...

So I was listening to the radio on the way home from the thing that I do on a fairly regular basis for which I am not getting paid but most would consider work but I don't since I am really against the idea of work, and the dude on the radio made this statement:

"To a hammer, everything looks like a nail!"

He said it like it is a common cliche. I have never heard that saying before. Now, granted, I haven't heard everything there ever is, but he said it in such passing that I felt like I should have heard it a hundred times before, but the thing that caught my attention is the coolness of the statement.

Anyway, I just thought that was worth mentioning. I don't have anything else to add.

It is tomorrow.

Jason

Where in the world?

I found this site and normally don't like these sort of surveys, but this one was interesting. I love to travel so I figured here wasa good place to save the link.

Here are all the countries I have been to, 17 in total. One day, I would love to fill this in completely.




create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Nothing is easy!

Why do we do it at all? Interact with another human being that is. There is nothing easy about it. Well, almost nothing. Let me explain. Better yet, let’s talk about the movies.

I watched When Harry met Sally today. It is possible that I had seen that movie before, but doubtful. Maybe at one time or another, I had seen the entire movie, but today was probably the first time I did it in one sitting. It is a good movie. Actually it is a great movie. A lot of it had to do with the intelligent comedy. Intelligent comedy is my favorite. (Intelligent comedy, as opposed to stupid comedy, comes from the proper use of timing, dialogue and subject rather than crass and lude sexual jokes. Austin Powers Goldmember, watched two days ago, falls into the second category.) It has been a while since I have seen anything with Billy Crystal in it and I forget how funny he really is. But I didn’t come here to write about the comedy of the movie.

When Harry met Sally was also a great movie because it so aptly described relationships, male female ones. Remember the scene near the beginning where Harry is telling Sally that guys and girls can’t be friends because the whole sex thing gets in the way and messes everything up. He goes on to explain his theory further and you will just have to watch the movie if to get those comments. I am not sure if I completely agree with Harry. I would say he is mostly true, but there is the aspect of a “brother” “sister” relationship between a guy and a girl that is possible, I think. Possible, although very difficult. Which brings me back to nothing being easy.

There are a few things going on in my life right now that bring all of these ideas to a head. Some of them have to do with my life itself, and others, the lives of people I know. There will be much greater detail when discussing my life and protective vagueness about the other people. I will start with the others.

I have four housemate, three girls and one guy. Interestingly, my relationship with the three girls is a little closer than with the guy. Some of that has to do with my being in a bible study with the girls, but mostly it is due to my own propensity to hang out with girls instead of guys. (This is an issue with me and something that I probably won’t discuss here. I could go as far as to say it may be a sin that I struggle with, but I won’t. Besides, I think that if you hold things in and don’t address them, it makes things better and they eventually go away.) So with these new relationships, come new insights, and opportunities to put my foot in my mouth and all sorts of fun. But I have also been able to get a closer look at relationships, something I am keying in on because of my own circumstances which I will discuss later.

One of the roomies is working on a friendship. Without going into details, God has told her to obey Him and change some things and now she is dealing with the difficulty in that obedience. I have watched and listened to a lot of what is going on and my conclusion is that, “relationships are hard.” There is also some tension in the house itself. No one is perfect and our living under the same roof brings out personality conflicts and issues that probably wouldn’t exist in another setting. Again, I look around and all I see it that, “relationships are hard.”

So I stand here, (sit actually) and ponder again, “Why do we do it at all?”

Here is an idea:

Somewhere it is written “it is not good for the man to be alone.” OK, why, why, why is it not good for man to be alone? Maybe because we were not made to be alone. Now, to agree with me on this you have to agree with me that we were made and didn’t just happen, but that is a debate you will never see me have. Assuming you agree with me, then if we were made that way, then the important question to ask is why were we made to be in relationships? And what are we supposed to do about it?

My answer is that we were made to be in relationships so that ultimately we could be in a relationship with our Maker. Simple, yet so complex at the same time. Again, I don’t have an explanation for this, it is just my hypothesis. But again, assuming I am right our relationships here, the boyfriend or girlfriend, the mom, dad, brother, sister, the roommate, the wife, the husband, the child, all of these, are showing us a little of what it is like and training us a little more about how to be in a relationship. This way we can ultimately enjoy a perfect relationship with our Maker.

That being the case, I am all for relationships. We should strive to work out each of ours with those around us. See each one as an opportunity to grow and mature. What we should not do is run from them, or try and escape when the going gets tough. And it will get tough.

I recently read, The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis. In it he is describing Hell, but in a very different way. Hell in the book is a place where humans go and get everything they want. Initially that wouldn’t seem like a description of Hell, probably because all of you have been so engrained by the Judeo-Christian/Western description of Hell as this hot place that devils and demons will torment bad people like Hitler for a long time, but not forever because forever is a concept you can’t wrap your mind around. But Lewis goes on to explain that in this Hell, humans have taken to extreme the lifestyles that we see becoming a reality in this world. In Hell, the humans are not forced to do anything they don’t want to do, and the result is surprising. See, Hell there is huge; everyone is spread out over millions and millions of miles because nobody wants to interact with anyone else. We get what we want. Things start out fairly normal. A couple meet and are together, maybe even living in the same place. Eventually things become difficult in their relationship and instead of working things out, because it is so easy to move and get another house apart from each other that is what happens. Now the two only have neighbors to deal with. But after a while some thing becomes hard in that place and again, the people move to a neighborhood all their own. This happens again and again until every person in Hell is completely separated from everyone else, no interaction what-so-ever. By the end of the book, we get what we want and what we get sure sounds like hell to me.

There is another story I remember that sounds a lot like hell. In Blue Like Jazz, Don tells of this astronaut that gets lost in space, floating around the earth. Everyone back on earth thinks he is dead so no one goes looking for him. The problem is that he is stuck in this special space suit that will keep him alive. He ends up circling the globe for 50 years, unable to die, communicate with anyone, but always seeing the earth. In the end, old age triumphs and the man dies nothing like a man. Again, sure sounds like hell to me.

I have been trying to conceptualize these two stories in relation to eternity. It is too difficult to do because the idea is too horrific. That concept of hell is much more devastating to me than fire and torment. Which is why it perversely makes more sense. More upsetting than this idea of hell is what I see happening today; how we are starting this separation right now. Everyone lives in their own little world: head-phones, ipods, single passenger drivers, Internet, bill-pay, alberstons.com, telecommuting, direct-deposit, WOW, Sims, Netflix, and so much more. Relationships are replaced with a computer screen, sex with porn, reality with fantasy. Sorry, I got of subject a bit.

All of this relationship crap has hit me because of my own situation. As I have expressed before, I would really like to be married. I desire that because of everything I said before about relationships training us for what lies ahead. The relationship with my Maker before of me, I see marriage as probably the closest manifestation under the sun. What better way to practice? Because of this, I am keenly aware of those around me that could be a potential mate and frankly I am looking at every interaction through that lens. It sounds bad, so feel free to convince me otherwise.

But it is hard. It is hard to put yourself out there and be open and vulnerable. It is hard to sit down to the computer for the sixth or seventh time in a day and still not have an email from that one person. It is frustrating to call and get the voicemail, or look for them at church and they not be there. To talk with them and just get this feeling like you did something wrong and now what you thought was interest seems to be ambivalence. To second guess, and triple guess, and quadruple guess your words, their words, their lack of words. Do I call now? Or maybe wait a few hours because I don’t want to seem too anxious. I sent an email and haven’t received a reply. Would it look over zealous to send another? But I really have something to tell them. All these decisions and options and you know what they say, “life is a lot simpler without options.”

Relationships are a continual series of options. One decision after another and that is what makes them so hard. But that is also what makes them do their job of helping us grow, change, and ultimately mature. It is a wonderful Catch 22.

So I met this girl in Colorado. She loves the same God that I do, is beautiful, and wants to work with teenagers in Europe. Talk about the perfect girl. Too bad she lives in Nashville. Nothing is easy. We have been talking and email a little bit here and a little bit there. Our last conversation was eye opening to say the least and it certainly didn’t turn out the way I had hoped it would. The place I go to on Sundays often discusses the issue of marriage and is generally, extremely, personally, convicting. One thing they harp on is that it is the dude’s responsibility to be responsible. The dude will step out; the dude will take the chances; the dude will risk heart ache and rejection; and the dude will do all of this with the confidence of God. Nothing is easy. So with those convictions, I did just that and was, in my heart, shot down.

“Crash and burn?”

“Slider… you stink!”

It is for the best though because my confidence is in God… Nothing is easy.

What am I going to do now? Pray about it and try to have that confidence thing that seems to elude me at the moment. Dwell on this for a while:

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

It is tomorrow.

Jason