Author: ckirgiss

“In the beginning”: when poetic truth meets scientific conjecture

ckirgissLeave a comment

I have a lovely little sewn-binding book about space that starts like this:

“In the beginning, say most scientists, there was nothing. Then about 15 billion years ago, the universe – the Earth, Sun, Moon, and all the planets, stars and galaxies – came into existence in a cataclysmic fireball known as the Big Bang. The universe has been expanding from that moment, pushing against the inexorable pull of gravity which may one day lead to the Big Crunch.”

Since I wasn’t there 15 billion years ago when (say most scientists) the cataclysmic fireball resulted in the Earth, Sun, Moon, and all the planets, stars, and galaxies, I can’t speak to the factuality of these lines. It might be worth noting that pages 56 and 57 discuss Pluto, “a little planet we still know relatively little about” (wrote the authors in 2000) and which we now know is not a legitimate planet at all (based on a scientifically democratic, or maybe a democratically scientific, vote) but is instead a mere plutoid (according to scientists who can now definitively state that there are absolutely only 8 planets, no matter what anyone said before).

Aside from the fact that planetary “facts” have changed in the 12 years since the book was first published – which might call into question the very definition of “fact” – I have little to offer by way of scientific reader-response to the opening In the beginning lines. I’m not a scientist. I do know some scientists, and I could ask them whether my lovely little sewn-binding book about space starts out factually sound, but I’m not sure that’s really the point.

The point is that, poetically speaking, the opening lines of the book are atrocious.  Big Bang, cataclysmic fireball, the inexorable pull of gravity – it’s enough to make any writing instructor curl up into a tightly wound fetal ball, reduced to meaningless simpering. And just in case she hasn’t quite toppled over the hypothetical edge of literary sanity, there is the equally hypothetical impending Big Crunch. You know. Like the Big Bang. But not alliterative. Please excuse the writing instructor while she chews on glass and pierces her eyes with a fork.

Maybe the authors of the space book wanted to draw on the emotional sensibilities of the reader – certainly the inexorable pull of gravity is not a strictly scientific phrase. Maybe they wanted to take a gentle (or not) swing at another poetic account of the Earth, Sun, Moon, and all the planets, stars, and galaxies, an account that begins with the same three words.  Sadly, they fail in poetry by their own hyperbolic clunkiness. Ironically, they fail in science (present Plutoidian science, at least) by, of all things, the advancement of science itself. What was a definitive fact just a few short years ago is, alas, no longer factual.

If someone is interested in the poetic beginning of all things – and since none of us was actually there, the poetic beginning is the only beginning we really have – might I suggest these lines instead, also taken from a lovely little sewn-binding book, and which are quite obviously the lines upon which the space book is patterned :

“In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth.
Now the earth was formless and empty,
and darkness covered the surface of the watery depths,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.
God saw that the light was good.
Then He separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light ‘day’ and He called the darkness ‘night.’
Evening came, and then morning: the first day.”

It seems to me that when poetry tries to be science or science tries to be poetry, we run into all kinds of problems. The theologians who insist that the first day definitively, factually, unequivocally, and absolutely equates to a passage of 24 hours are on no more solid ground than the scientists who poeticize the nothingness of eons ago into a non-deistic cataclysmic fireball. Similarly, the scientists who insist that a spontaneous and purposeless big bang is more likely and believable than God’s voice are treading in dangerous waters.

There are solidly scientific reasons to believe that the earth is very, very, very old. There are solidly sensible reasons to believe that God – powerful, creative, intentional, and knowable – was the intelligent and powerful source of all creation. These two things are not mutually exclusive. Science and truth can co-exist. Though science can reasonably theorize about the when of the beginning, it cannot speak at all about the who or why.

When science has faded away – perhaps in the Big Crunch it so boldly predicts, perhaps in some kind of Plutoidian consensus – truth will still be ever-present, just as powerful, creative, intentional, and knowable as always. At that point, facts and data will cease to exist, swallowed up in the expansively elegant truth known as Love. Can I prove it? Of course not. Can I know it? Absolutely. For though it may not be measurable, Truth is indeed knowable.

From social media to Sacred Mediator: reclaiming “follow me”

ckirgiss2 Comments

So.

Here we are in the two-thousand-and-teens, all of us thoroughly networked, connected, and socially mediated.

Theoretically, things should be nearly perfect because, you know, we are all so desperately in need of being networked, connected, and socially mediated.

[We are also desperately in need of eye contact, sincere empathy, meaningful conversation, and maybe also unstrained opposable thumbs, but we’ll save those for later, shall we?]

In fact, we all know that things are not quite so nearly perfect as many would like to believe.

[Nor are they quite so absolutely desperate as others would like to believe because, let’s admit it, Google and Skype have, on more than one occasion, proven extraordinarily useful.]

I take issue here with neither the staunch proponents nor the strident naysayers of social media. Nothing and nobody is going to change either of their minds.

Rather, I take issue with the linguistic loss that socially mediated connectedness has wrought on our discourse. Specifically, I mourn the fact that follow has been co-opted, flattened, emptied, and sucked dry of all its inherent power, depth, and gravity.

For the first time in history, follow denotes passivity rather than activity, and follow me is a plea for shallow popularity rather than an invitation to disciplined humility.

Rather than try to minimize the linguistic damage, we instead add to it our own unique brand of self-centrist carnage: “Follow me, I follow you. Unfollow me, I unfollow you.” Mm. It simply drips with relational grace and kindness.

I do sometimes wonder how technology is reshaping our lives, how smartphones are rewiring our brains, how Facebook is redefining our relationships, and how Twitter is re-energizing our addictive tendencies.

But of more import than my periodic wonderings are my increasingly persistent concerns:

  • that an obsession with gaining more followers will divert attention from the only One worth following ;
  • that carefully counted likes will obscure infinitely expansive Love;
  • that the demands of social media will clamor more loudly than the grace of a personal Mediator;
  • that the need to constantly refresh will weigh more heavily than the need to be continually refreshed;
  • that a vast web of virtual friends will crowd out a small circle of close community;
  • and ultimately, that follow me will no longer be heard as the radical invitation of a loving Savior but merely as the needy plea of a lonely (but fully networked) soul.

I know that we will never wrest follow me away from its two-thousand-and-teens context. To try would be decidedly futile.

But please, let’s never allow its newly mutated form to replace – or even minimally influence – its two-thousand-year-old meaning. To do so would be desperately fatal.

On being old(er)

ckirgiss3 Comments

So.

In the humble (errant) opinion of AARP – who sent me a complimentary trial membership card this past week – I’m now old. Or at least old enough to join the club.  Just like that. One day, not even an invited guest. Next day, a card-carrying (trial) member headed (one presumes) straight to the retirement community.

Schmeh.

What do they know?

After living for a certain number of years – during which each and every day I was turning older than the day before – I’ve learned a few things.

1. Going to camp with middle-schoolers is a blast. Period. No questions asked.

2. College students are profoundly philosophical. They ask all the right questions – and too often receive all the wrong answers.

3. There is always enough time to take a nap.

4. Age has nothing to do with the calendar year and everything to do with the spirit.

5. Parenting is more work than any of the books tell you.

6. Most books on parenting aren’t worth reading.

7. Staying married is more work than any of the books tell you.

8. Most books on marriage aren’t worth reading.

9. Sometimes there’s just no explaining one’s dietary cravings.

10. Relatively speaking, I’ve learned practically nothing. Or: I have a whole lot still to learn.

That last one is perhaps the most unexpected twist in this whole growing-up thing: the closer I grow to the Lord and the more I get to know Him, the more aware I become of just how very far from Him I am and just how very little I actually know.

The more I encounter His grace the more aware I become of just how little of His grace I’ve actually encountered.

The deeper I sink my roots into His love the more aware I become of just how shallow my rootedness really is.

The firmer I anchor my life into His strength the more aware I become of just how susceptible I am to a slow and gentle drift.

The more I experience significant change in my life the more aware I become of just how much more change needs to happen.

The more I am filled with His love the more aware I become of just how empty my soul tends to be.

It’s a little bit like discovering that the inside is bigger than the outside, and the farther inside a person goes, the more endlessly expansive it becomes – much like the stable in Narnia’s final days and the manger’s babe in Christendom’s first days.

Growing up, it turns out, is not really about growing old. Instead, it’s a lifelong process of discovering just how much more growing up there still remains to do.

 

 

 

Why this day – and every other day – matters

ckirgissLeave a comment

I wrote these words 12 years ago but could have written them yesterday – not just about the events of that day (because the events of that day are repeated over and over and over again throughout history, in a thousand places and in a thousand ways) but about all of life when it is lived outside of God’s immeasurable, forgiving, majestic, jealous love. (And please do silence your outcry regarding God’s jealousy, for it is not humanly petty. It is gloriously divine. It is for us – all of each one of us – and nothing could be more breathtakingly astounding.)

Some say that 9/11 forever changed our world. God says that today (and every day) He will forever change me. I choose the second.

______

Regarding September 11…
I have a thousand questions I want answered.
I have a thousand fears I want quelled.
I have a thousand thoughts I want sorted out.
I have a thousand concerns I want soothed.
I have a thousand things I want changed.
I have a thousand people I want saved.
I have a thousand places I want seen.
I have a thousand songs I want sung.
I have a thousand steps I want walked.
I have a thousand prayers I want uttered.
I have a thousand bridges I want crossed.
I have a thousand roads I want traveled.
I have a thousand books I want read.
I have a thousand poems I want whispered.
I have a thousand birds I want freed.
I have a thousand trees I want honored.
I have a thousand skies I want admired.
I have a thousand oceans I want remembered.
I have a thousand eyes I want dried.
I have a thousand ears I want opened.
I have a thousand voices I want heard.
I have a thousand wrongs I want forgiven.
I have a thousand mountains I want climbed.
I have a thousand stars I want named.
I have a thousand lives I want lived.
I have a thousand fields I want sown.
I have a thousand rivers I want blessed.
I have a thousand children I want born.
I have a thousand sorrows I want healed.
I have a thousand days I want begun.
I have a thousand years I want danced.
I have a thousand clouds I want explored.

But I have only one God, who is true from the highest heights to the lowest depths, from the farthest east to the farthest west, and from the beginning of always to the end of never.

The god for whom people were willing to die last Tuesday is no god at all.

The true God does not say, “Die for me.” He says, “I’ve died for you – though you did not deserve it.”

The true God does not say, “Hate others.” He says, “Love others – as much as you love yourself.”

The true God does not say, “Crucify the enemy.” He says, “Crucify your heart – so I can create in you a new one.”

Would that the entire world could live in the contented peace of such simple truth as this.

copyright 2013 Crystal Kirgiss

Of God’s deep love and dew-dropped webs

ckirgissLeave a comment
A drop of grace, a strand of love (Photo: CKirgiss)
A drop of grace, a strand of love (Photo: CKirgiss)

When broken anger rages in your heart –

when empty pain presses on your soul –

when bitter shame surges through your mind –

then (and every other “when”) you must stop and breathe and listen, because God is there, quietly and firmly cradling both the universe and you.

In the overwhelming flood of fear and the tangled web of worry there is (indeed) a cleansing drop of grace resting on a delicate strand of love, if only you will look carefully and listen closely.

Do you see? Can you hear? It is saying this:

“Hush, child. No murmurs now. Listen for a moment ( or ten or a thousand) in silence. Listen to My voice – the whisper of truth, the breath of love, the wind of peace. Be still and know. Behold and believe.

Believe that I designed you, then knit you together in the depths of love. Believe that I formed you from the source of life, then brought you into being. Believe that you are meant to be.

I have heard your cries for help. I have rescued you from the pit. I have redeemed you for new life.

I Am. I Am your healer. I Am your savior. I Am your rock. I Am your refuge. I Am your supply. I Am.

I Am the Lord your God. I Am your Abba, Father. There is none other. I alone Am the creator and sustainer of all the exists. Of you.

If you seek to follow other gods, you will be disappointed and discouraged – they are not me.

If you strive to live for yourself, you will be empty and alone – you are not me.

I generously offer undeserved grace within unmeasured love – you may have all of Me.

I jealously desire an undivided heart within a humbled soul – I do want all of you.

When I look at you, I am silenced. I am moved beyond expression. I am amazed and filled with wonder.

I spun the sun. I spoke the moon. I placed the stars. I breathed the universe. And it is good. Indeed it is.

But you – you – are a wonder to me. You are my child. My beloved. My own. More breathtaking than all of creation.

Feel my holy embrace. Trust my joyful presence. Taste my whispered love. Drink my gentle grace. Hear my sacred voice. And believe these words I speak:

You take my breath away.”

Did you hear? Did you taste? Did you see? Do you know? All is changed for one who believes that you take God’s breath away.

Veritas.

Copyright Crystal Kirgiss 2013

 

 

 

 

Miley does not define 20-year olds (or: six people you should know)

ckirgiss22 Comments

Well.

Fifteen hours after millions of people watched 20-year-old Miley Cyrus offer friendly benefits to a foam hand while twerking in the presence of life-sized teddybears – and fourteen-and-three-quarter hours after the entire world began tweeting about it – I find out that there was a bit of a to-do at the VMA awards last night.

Shocking.

I didn’t watch the VMAs last night. Not even as a way to keep pace with the most recent cultural trends. Instead, I rested after spending a weekend away with six Miley-aged college-student youth workers. And by “youth workers” I mean people who minister to teenagers, regardless of whether they get paid for it or not, which in this particular case happens to be “not.”

Fifteen hours after no one watched us sit around an open fire and talk about things as divergent as C. S. Lewis, Herb Brooks, and satellites, no one is tweeting about those particular 20-year olds – which is really a shame because they are the 20-year olds that are going to change the world, sans cable broadcasting, million-dollar budgets, and infinite wardrobe changes.

Instead, they are going to change the world through persistence, patience, and countless live appearances at such extolled venues as the middle-school cafeteria, the high-school track, and the public city park.

I might like to say a few things to Miley – as a musician: “Please work on your rhythm.” -as a mother: “If you keep hanging your tongue out, it will freeze that way.” – as a mentor: “Maybe we should meet more often.”

But I’d rather say a few things about the six 20-year olds that I spent the weekend with and that most of you will never meet.

I’d like to tell you about how they love middle-school and high-school students with their whole selves.

I’d like to tell you about all the ways they invest in teenagers, just so they will know that someone genuinely cares about them.

I’d like to tell you about how much fun they have, how much joy they exude, how much laughter they share.

I’d like to tell you about how they intentionally choose to live life differently than so many of their peers.

I’d like to tell you about how every day they seek to reflect Jesus in all they say and do.

I’d like to tell you about all of the minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years that they commit to being the hands and feet of Jesus in the lives of teenagers.

I’d like to tell you about how they lead and encourage a large community of other 20ish-year-olds, all of whom are equally committed to knowing and loving and showing Christ’s love to middle- and high-school students.

I’d like to tell you about how much they give up in order to gain the privilege of doing kingdom work in a ministry setting.

I’d like to tell you all of that – and so much more – because those are things that matter. Immensely.

The twerking, the profanity, the lewdness, the degradation, and the mockery seen and heard by millions will all pass away.

But the faith, hope, and love of these six (plus fifty) 20-year olds will remain.

That’s a story (within a Story) worth knowing and being part of.

20-year olds worth knowing (Photo: CKirgiss)
20-year olds worth knowing (Photo: CKirgiss)

Update: After posting this, I realized there is one more thing I might like to say to Miley – as a minister: “You are fearfully and wonderfully made, deeply and eternally loved. Believe it.” Really, that would be the most important thing of all.

The bend in the road…

ckirgissLeave a comment
Bend in the road (Photo: CKirgiss)
Bend in the road (Photo: CKirgiss)

I walked this still, peaceful, and lovely country road a few days back.

I had no idea what lay at its faraway end, nor even what lay just up ahead, around the bend.

I surely do wish that my life were as still, peaceful, and lovely as this road instead of frantic, anxious, and distorted. Fortunately for me, I live life with the One who is the very essence of peace, the very source of beauty, and the very fulfillment of a still, small, quietly whispered voice. Even when my life seems not to be quiet, peaceful, and lovely, the Source of my life is those things. As long as I abide with and drink from Him deeply, there is hope beyond measure.

But also: I surely do wish that my life were not as bent as this road, first in its essence – because way down there, buried under layers of undeserved grace, is a heart bent beyond recognition but for the righteousness of Christ in which it is bathed, once and for all, each and every day – and second in its progression – because up ahead, just within my sight, is a great big bend in the road beyond which I can see nothing. Nothing at all.

It seems like that bend has been there for a mighty long time now. Maybe forever. And for folks like me, a forever-bend is just about unbearable.

Except for this: God works on folks like me. Patiently. Deeply. Lovingly. Daily. And because of that, there comes a day when the bend up ahead, the one beyond which I can see nothing at all, is not such an unbearable thing as it once was. The change in perception is slow coming (especially for folks like me). But come it does. Not in the road itself, but rather in me myself. Because that’s what God does – unbends our bent hearts so they can rest, so they can trust, so they can take their eyes off the bend up ahead and see instead all the still and peaceful beauty that flank us on both sides.

I don’t know if the bend ever goes away entirely, or even gets any closer. I suspect that the life of faith is best lived on a road that runs straight in its purpose even as it bends endlessly in its knowability.  Fortunately for us, we can live life with the One who not only knows all but also can be known. This road is His. He not only walks beside but He also waits up ahead. Around the bend. Meaning that around-the-unknown-and-unseen-bend is not a place to be feared but rather is the most beautiful place to be headed.

…those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength…they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not grow faint…

Prayer stars

ckirgiss2 Comments
Paper prayer stars (Photo: CKirgiss, Folding: LTenBrink)
Paper prayer stars (Photo: CKirgiss)

At some point, every pray-er — no matter how devout — struggles to pray, sometimes for surprisingly pathetic reasons. One would think that shutting oneself up in a dark and quiet closet in order to listen to the Almighty would be a delightful gift to oneself, especially in a world that is spilling over with glaring and blaring distractions.

But it turns out that sometimes the dark and quiet closet is its own distraction. So much darkness. So much silence. So much closeness. The simplicity and sparseness can be quite overwhelming.

And then instead of praying, we end up thinking in spirals and worrying along rivulets and wandering through mists.

So we pinch our arms, reprimand our souls, nag our chattering minds, and get back to it. Diligently. Mercilessly. Stoically. Because, well, we should; we must; we ought; even though it’s so much work and requires such sternly disciplined singleness of mind. (And by “sternly disciplined singleness of mind” I mean “something that looks quite a bit like joyless self-martyrdom”.)

But – if you are very fortunate and very willing to listen and very emptied of self – something might break through the joyless self-martyrdom. You read a book that helps you understand prayer in a new way. You have an experience that peels back all the false layers of piety. You sense the Spirit gently whispering within the holy breath of life.

Or maybe even this: you receive a box of 8 small folded stars (that are beyond comprehension) and a note that says,

When I prayed for you I made these.

What manner of miraculous friendship is this, that someone not only prays for us but at the same time creates anew (from the old) something that reflects not just us but also the very One who made us?

In that moment – and everyone should have such a moment as this – prayer becomes something much sweeter and larger and more miraculous and divine and beautifully disciplined and creatively focused.

To the star-making pray-er: thank you for making prayer and creativity and friendship even sweeter and more brilliant than they already were.

To the rest of us pray-ers, including myself: what could be more unspeakably amazing than that we are invited to converse with the Almighty Creator (of the individually named and intentionally placed Stars), who is also Abba Father (of the undeserving and helpless flock known as humanity)?

Let us all find our own manner of star-making so that we will joyfully and often enter that sacred space to utter sacred words in the presence of the Sacred itself.

Summer’s End (or: Why going back to school sometimes hurts)

ckirgissLeave a comment
Summer's end (Photo: CKirgiss)
Summer’s end (Photo: CKirgiss)

Classes started today at the university where I teach. Classes started last week in the local K-12 public schools and the week before that in the Big City just down the road from me.

But it’s 83 degrees outside today and (says my weather app) the heat will last for several weeks. The flowers are still in bloom. The frogs are still symphonizing every night.  My garden still needs regular weeding.

The timing on this seems all wrong.

But timing in life is rarely predictable and is often surprising. A month ago, Christmas decorations and supplies suddenly appeared in the craft stores. Back-to-school supplies have already been displaced by Halloween candy. Somewhere an Easter rabbit is poised and ready to spring free from its storage space.

It makes my head spin. The discombobulated rhythm of the seasons, holidays, months, and days (for which we can heartily thank Madison Avenue) makes everything seem just a bit off kilter. I shouldn’t see Santa before the harvest is in. I shouldn’t see Halloween candy before school starts. And I shouldn’t see “School is in session” signs until summer is over. Which it isn’t.

Meh.

Thankfully, above and beyond and around and behind and under all of the topsy-turvy calendric nonsense is God’s soft whisper, reassuring me that there is a time for everything that truly matters and season for everything of eternal value. That’s more than any of us deserves and is quite enough to soothe my frazzled sense of annual rhythm back into a place of peace and contentment.

I’m baaaaaack….. (or: Why Middle-Schoolers Are the Awesomest)

ckirgiss5 Comments

Wyldlife boys Wyldlife girls

It’s been a long summer. A long and full summer. A long and full and amazing summer. Mostly because I got to spend 5 of the 10 weeks with awesome middle-schoolers.

That’s right: “middle-schoolers” and “awesome” – all in the same paragraph, same sentence, same phrase.

The reactions I get to spending half my summer with middle-schoolers range from eye-rolls to offers of sympathy. The reactions I get to the fact that I spent half my summer with middle-schoolers – and loved every single second of it – range from disbelief to concern to condolences, as though there’s a direct and quantifiable connection between my love for middle-schoolers and my impending mental demise.

To which I say: phooey.

And phooey again.

Middle-schoolers are simply delightful beyond words, and if I could bundle them all up and bring them home with me, I would (though that would require a pretty big supply of Axe and neon nail polish).

To every middle-schooler I met this summer: thank you for being you.

And to every middle-school doubter out there: you don’t know what you’re missing. Fact.