My Thirtieth, Intentional Year

This week I turned 29.

...  (I'll pause while you sing me Happy Birthday.)  ...

The 366 days that I lived as a 28-year-old were kinda rough. Not

horrible

, not close to

tragic

, just kind of

sad. and angsty. 

It involved a lot of sitting and wishing, not very much doing.

If I honestly evaluate the year that passed, it was kind of a waste. Some things were learned, experienced, enjoyed, accomplished-- but so much more

could have been

.

But

birthdays come around every year to remind us that we're getting older all the time, and all the time we have time to start anew.

I have completed 29 years, and now I begin my thirtieth: 365 days of the rest of my life. So I am considering the question: What do I want this year---this life!---to be?

What would my life look like if I dedicated this next year to a focus on physical fitness?

What if rocking an Ironman triathlon was my goal? What if calories and carbs and lean body mass were the foci of each day? My schedule, my diet, my routine, my finances---all would be servants of my goal of ultimate physical fitness.

What would my life look like if I dedicated this next year solely to academic accomplishment?

What if getting published in a prestigious journal was my goal? What if acing all my classes and amazing my professors and colleagues was my primary focus? Books, books, books. All library all the time. My sleep schedule, my social life, my Amazon purchases---all subservient to this goal of impressive academic achievement.

What would my life look like if I dedicated this next year to my savings account?

What if putting a down payment on a big house was my big goal? Interest rates, coupons, and penny pinching would be my daily obsessions. Everything in my life---from the thread count of my sheets to the number of times I used the same paper towel---would be affected by my single-minded goal to save up as much money as possible.

BUT. 

But

what would my life look like if I resolutely dedicated this next year to Christ?

What if being formed in His likeness was my driving aspiration? What if bringing Him pleasure and dwelling in His company were my measurements of success? My schedule and activities, my diet and my finances, my words and my relationships---all intentioned for His glory. I would seek for ways to be useful to Him. I would saturate myself with His word. I would earnestly learn from Him in the school of prayer.

And I would know that this year---this life!---was not a waste.

And

I will know

that this year---this life!---was not a waste, but awake! My thirtieth, intentional year.

"Teach us to number our days, 

that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

[psalm90.12]

me thinking about the church. part 4.

During my time in Seminary, I felt ever more keenly the great weaknesses of the church: our apathy and worldliness, our troubles and tensions, our administrative and theological shortcomings, and blah blah blah. It can sometimes be difficult for me to believe that this church---this group of failing disciples---could turn the world upside down.

One morning I asked my professor, "With the apparent fall of denominationalism, what do you foresee as the future of our denomination?"

His reply: "This church started as a movement and it will end as a movement."

I never could figure out how that made me feel.

generic church. wah wah.

if you'd care to read >>  

part 1.

part 2.

part 3.

$$$

I'm so broke, you guys. I'm trying to figure out how to make money since I'm about maxed out with the number of hours I'm working. So... any ideas?

Should I make stuff? Sell my possessions? Hire myself out to an internet spammer?

Give me your best ideas for making dough. I'll take your suggestions below.

beneath the shadow

We've labeled one day in the year "Easter" and on it we remember the resurrection of Christ from the darkness of the grave. On that day the Lord of Life tore through the blank, heavy curtain of death---and in so doing, opened the way for those who trust in Him to follow. It is certainly a day to be remembered! In commemoration of Christ's resurrection a large cross was set up on the sanctuary platform of my church last weekend, swathed with purple cloth as a symbol of His majesty. It made a lovely backdrop to our Easter service. Yet the significance of Easter goes beyond one day a year. This significance was impressed upon me again this morning.

Today the friends and family of 39-year-old Holly gathered in our church sanctuary to celebrate her life and to mourn her death. It was a beautiful scene---glowing taper candles, dozens of flowers, hundreds of loved ones. Most beautiful of all to me, however, was the Easter cross.

 There it stood---still draped in the royal purple, surrounded by resurrection lilies. And so we mourned the loss of a daughter, sister, mother, friend while literally beneath the shadow of an empty cross, the sign of the Living Savior. 

Jesus said to the mourning Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life." That's our hope---on Easter and every day and today. 

// 

Seven Stanzas at Easter
by John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen,
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.