REGAINING THE GLORY OF GOD

I've been dealing with a psychological depression during the fall quarter. Being depressed affected my creative impulses. This at a time when I've been trying to push forward with various works. So, on top of the depression, I would add frustration at lack of progress on any of my projects.

Back in the summer, a friend had recommended Waking the Dead, by John Eldredge. I had gotten a copy of the book, but not started reading it, not until November. And it has been helping me break up the log-jam.

Eldredge's starting point is a quote from Saint Irenaeus, "The glory of God is man fully alive." And being "fully alive" includes giving full freedom to our creative impulses.

This is one of the points J.R.R. Tolkien makes in the poem he wrote to C.S. Lewis, following their late night discussion of myth and Christianity when Lewis was on the verge of becoming Christian. Tolkien pointed out that we are made in the image of a Maker -- we are, therefore, by nature creative.

As these things began bubbling around in my mind and heart, one very late evening I sat down at the computer and began work on one of my projects. I had paused in typing as I played in my head how I wanted the next scene to progress. I was chuckling at the way the characters were interacting. And suddenly I stopped outside the process, and thought " I LOVE doing this!"

As simple as that, I was reminded of what gives joy to my heart. I was suddenly past all my procrastination and frustration and back in the midst of one of the things that makes me "fully alive."

Of course, keeping hold of that as I continue to combat the depression and frustration is not easy. Inertia can be powerful. But surely joy and touching the Glory of God is more powerful. The trick is to keep my eyes on that bright spot up ahead and not down on my plodding feet.

WHEN ARE WE TO JUDGE?

Anyone who has read these posts knows that I try to be careful about when I level judgments about other people. After all, "the measure you deal out is the measure that will be dealt to you." And yet, sometimes events come along that seem to encourage people of one stripe or another crow about how SuchandSuch a person will be burning in hell or screaming in purgatory because of the choices they made in life and the causes they supported.

And this week, with the death of Senator Kennedy, I have seen a lot of that from my more conservative Christian friends (many of them Catholic). Especially those committed to the anti-abortion cause.

Now, I am not an advocate of abortion. It is not something I'm going to recommend to any woman facing an unwanted pregnancy. My own reasons run deep and begin with the fact that I do believe intimate sexual relations forge an eternal spiritual connection between the participants. Hence, to me, there is no such thing as "casual sex". As a consequence, a child of such an encounter is another eternal spiritual connection between the mother's soul and the new life. (And yes, I believe this to be true even of rape situations -- where God's Mercy is the only coping tool.)

That said, I am realistic about human nature. The fact is, not everyone shares my understanding and belief about these relationships. And I do not believe that understanding (which is the most crucial thing in addressing the issue of trying to convince a woman not to have an abortion) can be legislated. And because it cannot be legislated, some women will continue to see abortions, as their way of coping with a consequence they did not expect, are not ready to deal with, or think they cannot endure (for whatever reason). If women are going to seek abortions, what then? Shall I be party to condemning them to seek unlicensed doctors (who became unlicensed for good reason)? Shall I be party to them turning to toxic means, or physical ones, that can end their lives? I choose not to be: since realistically I know that some women will seek abortions (as they have done since ancient times - it is not a modern disease), I would rather it happen in circumstances that will best protect their ongoing physical health. Their spiritual health they will have to work out between themselves and God.

I believe this is where Senator Kennedy was working from, in what his critics have called his support of abortion rights. But even if it is not, are they really in a position to declare his damnation? Last time I checked, that level of judgment was not in the job description for my life or for anyone other than the Son of God.

Do I have the least idea of how God will judge Senator Kennedy? No, I do not.

I think that when each of us comes before our Lord that we will be surprised at some of the things in our own lives that the Lord finds important to examine and weigh. "I thought I was doing right about that matter! Your scripture says that was the way we were supposed to be!" What will we say when we discover that He says, "Yes, my child, but I expected greater love from you for your fellow humans first."

I think it is a good thing to work to give everyone a better understanding of the nature of the beginning of life and what abortion is. BUT I think it is a spiritual disaster when anyone starts focusing on the personalities of the women who have abortions, the doctors who perform them, or the legislators who support keeping it a legal option for those who lack understanding. "They deserved to die!" Did they indeed? When were we made the judges of who is deserving of death? When were we made the judges of the eternal destination of others? Did I miss that?

I tend to be very careful of how adamantly I feel I "know" how God will judge others. Because the Lord's Mercy is very great, more vast than we know, more all encompassing and compassionate than we can conceive. Isn't that what Saint Paul says? That God and his love are wider, deeper, longer, bigger than we can possibly imagine?

I don't think it is Saint Peter who opens the gates of Heaven to us when we arrive to face our Maker. I think it is the person we least expected, who will usher us before the Face of God for our judgment. I think it is the last test of our willingness to accept the judgment and love of God -- for if we meet Him in an attitude of "I'm not going to stay if you've let THAT PERSON into Heaven!", have we really understood anything about his love and sacrifice?

Jesus died for everyone. And the only key we need to enter God's presence is the declaration on our lips that "Jesus is Lord!" He is the only one who will know whether or not we really believed that. And that should be the only cause we should be willing to martyr ourselves for, lest we make little gods of the causes, putting them first. HE is the one who takes care of all the rest.

EASTER THOUGHTS AND A CREDO

On Easter weekend, I posted a string of status reports that were meditations - or rather triggers for meditations - about the events of Holy Week. It occurred to me that I would want to keep a record of these posts, so I’m copying them here.

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Maundy Thursday meditation: Would you have been able to stay awake "another hour" in the Garden, after the seder dinner with your friends?

Maundy Thursday meditation: It's late, you're outside the jail your friend / teacher / leader was taken to after arrest, and in the crowd outside, someone sees you and says "Hey, you were with that guy!" What do you say?

Good Friday meditation: So there he is, your friend / teacher / leader, being publically tortured to death - can you endure sticking there nine hours watching him die?

"Dead Saturday" (what DO you call the day before Easter) meditation: Jesus is dead. It's the end of the world as you know it. Turn out the lights.

(A number of friends informed me that it is officially called "Holy Saturday" - which once they said it, I realized I knew. But it always seemed a bit incongruous to me - it probably did not feel very "holy" to the disciples.)

Easter morning meditation: The tomb is empty! What just happened? Even the Roman guards are gone!

Easter thoughts: Everyone's buzzing about it, but it's too absolutely incredible! I'm not going to believe it until I see it! .............. Ooops. WOW! Nevermind.

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The response of my friends to those posts was gratifying. On the one hand, are we supposed to be having "fun" in thinking about what Jesus went through? But on the other, I like the challenge of considering what the events must have felt like for Christ’s followers.

Which leads to the other matter I mean to post about.

The last two years, I have served on the Worship & Music Committee at church, and have greatly enjoyed it. The issues we have to deal with are much more "my sort of thing" than the other service options. One of the things we have done is to insert occasional "Worship Notes" in the Sunday bulletins, about elements of worship. One such was an explanation of All Saint’s Day. Another was an introduction to the Apostles Creed. Our pastor did a series of sermons based on the Creed, and we included the insert on the Sunday he began the series. I was the one who wrote the introduction, and liked it enough that I decided I would post it here.

About the Apostles Creed

The word "creed" comes from the Latin word "credo" which means "I believe."

As the early Church grew, and the days of the Apostles passed further into history, the simple statement "Jesus is Lord" became cluttered with various disputes. There were those who contended that because Jesus was divine, his body was an illusion, as was the crucifixion. There were those who contended that the Old Testament prophecies did not apply to Jesus and that he was not divine. There were those who contended that there was esoteric special knowledge only masters knew. Too many people were arguing that what they believed was right and what others believed was wrong.

To counteract all these conflicting ideas of what it meant to be a Christian, Church leaders went back to the basics of scripture. They drew up a list of simple statements about the Faith, to be taught to new believers as they came to baptism. These statements were called a creed", because they are what "I believe" as a Christian.

The various creeds accepted by the Church address different issues of the faith which need defining. The Nicene Creed, for instance, offers definition of the Holy Trinity. But the oldest and most basic of the creeds is the Apostles Creed.

If ever you feel at a loss to describe to a non-believer what it is you believe as a Christian, there is no more compact a declaration (short of "Jesus is Lord") than the Apostles Creed. It is good to be able to stand, before the Lord and the world, and say clearly, "I believe..."

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilot, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he arose from the dead and ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.

LIVING BY THE MEASURE

After the inaugural ceremonies last month, I saw a number of comments about people complaining about "all those prayers". (There were only two, folks. Invocation and benediction.) And some of the comments were specifically complaining about the use of the name "Jesus".

I couldn't help but feel that the then President-elect had a right to have the ceremonies conducted according to his faith, and that he had the right to have that faith practiced on the occasion of him beginning the most important job he's ever had, a job which is arguably the most important one in the world. And I would have felt that if the President-elect had been an atheist, it would have been within his right to dispense with any religious trappings. I did not feel in the slightest that the presence of the prayers in any way constituted an establishment of a state religion. Nor did I feel it infringed upon the separation of church and state. They both exist after all, and I see no harm of asking the one to bless the other.

But that isn't the issue that in the end started preoccupying me.

Those thoughts led me back to considering the standards by which I live and act. The standards by which I judge things around me. I'm not one of those people who thinks that because someone else does not profess the same beliefs as I, they are automatically wrong. They are living according to a different standard. Sometimes, I'm not sure what that standard is, nor am I sure they are diligent in applying whatever standard they profess. But unless I actually do know what their standard is, I'm not going to get all nit-picky about it. I'll just wonder about their reactions.

Those musings led me back to a Sunday afternoon when I was in junior high school (I think it was then, it could have been earlier). I had decided to read through the Sermon on the Mount. Just for myself. Not nudged by any Sunday school class or Bible study. Just me and the scriptures.

I came to the verse about judging, the one everyone cites as "judge not lest you be judged". Just about everyone always stops at that point, as if that's the command. "Don't be judgemental!" It was always a problem for me, because I was born with a judgemental temperament. I resented that God made me this way, and then there was this commandment not to be that way. But when I read the rest of that passage, it was a revelation. "Judge not lest you be judged, because the measure you deal out is the measure that will be dealt to you."

Oh. Now that, a different kettle of fish. A horse of a different color. A different matter altogether.

The measure I use against others is the measure that will be used against me. Not by those others, perhaps, but certainly by God.

This was something I could live with. I was willing to accept judgement of my behavior according to the standard I was applying to my own life. And it made me aware that not everyone chooses that same standard to live by. In which case, I might comment that I found their actions ineffective or harmful, but I wasn't going to weigh them more heavily than that until I knew what they professed to live by.

That became the key and heart of the Sermon on the Mount for me. Everything else in those three chapters was about the measure I was choosing to be measured by. The measure I would deal out in my own behavior - even if I did not expect others to be living by it.

So, when the musings began again following the discussions of the inauguration, I decided the time had come to begin a project I'd long thought about. I wanted to do, to write, a study of the Sermon on the Mount. For myself, mostly. But with an eye toward publication. (Hey, I'm a writer!) It seemed to me a good time to remind myself of the basics I claim to live by.

I began by copying out the first part (Matthew 5) verse by verse. Doing this makes me look at each verse closely. And I mean to do this in multiple translations - because the coloring each translation gives can be thought provoking.

It's led to an interesting start. Even just the Beatitudes have surprised me. It's not that I think about them day in and day out, but in going through them, I've been surprised to discover how much they actually have become woven into the fabric of my being. Oh... don't mistake me. I don't live up to them all the time! But when I am not, I know darned well that I am not. I know where I am failing to meet my standard.

In any case, because I mean to look at the Sermon from the perspective of personal practice, I've decided to title the work The Measure Dealt To Me. Or, The Measure, for short.

This is going to be a long term project, so I have no idea how long it will take me to complete. It will be something I work on as a break from other more immediate writing projects. But it will be there, challenging me, in the background.

GETTING OUTSIDE THE BOX

So, here I've been considering what to do next regarding making new income. A challenge in this economy, to be sure. Especially after 18 years at a job that was, over all, great to have.

But the thing about that job is that it was "a job". It wasn't what I really wanted to be doing: that would be writing. So, leaving that behind me, the prospect of being able to do that was exciting. And indeed, in the last six months, when I have done writing, I've loved it.

But I still have to do something about that income.

Now mind you: I realized during the summer that given a choice about it, I really, really do not want to get another "office work" type job. Something to "make do" to keep the roof over the head. And the further I get away from the old office routine, the greater that feeling becomes. Yet, that income thing keeps nagging away. When I learned that I would be moving on, I considered the possibilities, and figured I would have to find the next employment myself. That whatever it would be, it wasn't going to come off job listings. By now, I'm over-qualified and too expensive for the types of jobs that get listed - especially in the entertainment business.

Even so, last week, I sat down and did some researching of entertainment jobs. And depressed myself a little with that search - because the situation was just as I'd anticipated.

Dear me, what shall I do?

Now, mind you, running counter to this angst-ing, the scripture messages at church, inspirational book passages I read during the week, passing comments said by friends online - almost every thoughtful thing I've encounter has had one core message: do what you love, do what you are good at, and do not fear the circumstances.

Gee, you think God might be trying to tell me something?

Heh.

The thing is, all my life, I've chosen to do things the hard way, with no short cuts. Like cooking from scratch. Swimming the full length of the pool (not short-cutting it with the distance boost gotten from a dive). From square one to the end. (Now, I wasn't completely stupid about it - I placed out of freshman English as an undergraduate, and was quite willing to jump from First Year Latin to Third Year Latin when given the opportunity.) I'm not content with the things I am sure I can do: every so often, I make a choice that challenges me. I make a choice that sets me "outside the box".

Of course, then I get immediately uncomfortable. The latest bit of that is that I've set myself to write some new TV spec scripts (I have some, but they are a few years old - I need fresh meat!). But I've chosen to tackle a couple of shows that, well, are unusual for specs, to say the least. If I succeed in doing a good job with them, they will be different enough to attract notice. If I don't, I'll set a lot of people shaking their heads wondering "What was she thinking of?"

It alarms me that I might have bitten off more than I can chew. But it's a very good sort of alarm. Because I am by nature competitive. I don't like "losing". The prospect of not mastering something nags at me. It lights a fire under me. Yeah, it excites me.

The control-freak in me wants to be sure I'll succeed. But there's no way to know that, until I do whatever it is in front of me. And to do that, basically, I have to throw caution to the winds and just jump into it.

"That's not the best choice." "That's not a smart idea."

"Why?"

"Well, because it's almost impossible to do, especially to do it well."

"Oh, yeah? Well, just watch this."

I'm afraid that is often my underlying reaction to "knowledgeable" hindrances.

So, I need to take this aspect of myself, stir in all the "messages" that have been coming my way this last week (all encouraging me to trust myself and what I want), and just jump into it and get going.

I stick my toe in the water, and it's a bit chilly and discouraging. Should I stop and wait? But really, I know the body will adjust to the temperature, I actually do love the swimming, and I'm wasting time standing here on the edge of the pool.

I'm in. (And you know, I can hear God laughing at me for all this dithering and procrastinating analysis.)

REVIEWING MY YEAR

I began 2008 with a short list of things I meant to fulfill during the year. Of those, only one was actually achieved, but to me, it was the biggest one.

I did finally get my book, The Scribbler's Guide to the Land of Myth, into print. Well, print-on-demand. And I'm slowly getting the word out about it.

Of my other plans, they were only partially achieved. I did indeed work on my fantasy novel, The Ring of Adonel, but I didn't complete it. Even so, I got past some sticking points and can see my way to the end of it.

The apartment is not quite in the order I want it to be. After leaving my job with Jeopardy!, I had 18 years of reference book purchases, and various other office items to integrate into the apartment furnishings. This has forced even more decisions about what to keep on shelves in the apartment and what to put into boxes in my storage unit. And shifting material all around to accomodate the influx (plus all the things that came from my mother's home). But in this too, I can see the end of it, which is very pleasing.

The website, alas, needs work. I have not updated it in quite a while and I need to do that.

Even so, 2008 was a watershed year for me. God certainly brought about the "turning my life upside-down" that I asked for in 2007. I enter the New Year with entirely new prospects ahead of me. I need to find a new source of income, and I don't know the form this will take. I don't really want to go into another office job -- I have really enjoyed these months away from that routine. But whatever it will be, it is in God's hands. And He knows my desires and needs. And the prospect of "something different" actually appeals to me.

I'm feeling optimistic about this coming year. I'll have to buckle down and work, to be sure. But I'm optimistic.

TO GIVE THANKS

I've had a number of things preoccupying my thoughts lately -- working on getting word out about next summer's Mythcon (which I am chairing), various writing projects, and the dwindling nature of my savings and how I'll need to find new income. But Thanksgiving morning when I got up, I decided to sit down and write out all the things I had to be thankful about in the last year.

Well, actually, I went back further than the last year -- I went back a year from April, back to the point where I asked God to turn my life upside-down.

It's interesting how we regard things from the inside. I've mentioned that prayer request to friends who are believers, and they get a shadow of awe in their eyes at the idea, and usually comment about how brave or bold it was of me. And yet.... it seemed to be at the time that it was what I really needed to do -- I had been stuck in a rut and I knew it was draining away my joy of life.

In the time since then, God has proceeded to really answer my prayer in many different ways. At the time, I'd made only one "string request" on the prayer: that I not lose income. And God has honored that, so far. A lot of blessings have come to me because I asked for God to shake things up in my life.

And now, I've reached a season where... well, where I'm not sure about what to do next. I've had the time since my job with Jeopardy! ended to get clear with myself what I really, really want to be doing. That would be writing. And even though I let things distract me from doing the writing, I still want to be doing that more than working in an office again, for instance. I don't know if that's going to be what will happen, but I've been reminded that it is what I want. And I can be thankful for getting that insight.

Also, in looking back, I can see how well God watches out for me. As I get fearful about the possibilities, it is very good to be reminded of that. How He will do it, I don't know. And I suppose that is the point: to trust Him so completely. I do know I am expected to move forward and do the job-hunting and/or income-raising that I can think of doing. He might use another means of providing for me, but He does expect me to do what is in front of me.

So, on Thanksgiving morning, I spent and hour and a half writing down in my journal about the things I had to be thankful for. It was a very good way to start the day.