The Rusted Musket

Occasionally I look around, I don’t stare or anything, just gaze. Once there was this highschool girl sitting next to me talking to a friend and writing in her journal. The journal was tilted in such a way that I could see what was going on so I looked, but not in a “I’m a creeper” sort of way, it was more like an innocent “my eyeballs were already looking around and happened to land on your page” sort of way. Anyways, one word was legible, it was written larger than the rest, traced up and down, over and again

- Alone -

Granted, no word has probably been written more times in more teenage journals, mine included; but it does beg the question. In a world full of interests, activities, hobbies, friends, family, pets, video games, and carpet ball, what the hell is it (to borrow from a commonly used phrase), that makes all of us, not just the teenager, feel so alone? Ironically, the terminology of the phrase itself points toward the answer, it’s the hell in us.

We exist in a fallen state, no amount of philanthropy or facebook friends will improve the situation. We are separated from God. This is why Christians claim Jesus is a big deal, he bridged the gap between our foolishness and God’s holiness, between our house and His. He purchased our lives with His own, purifying us so that we may have audience with a completely pure God. This is what we Christians claim is in the name of Jesus.

To the girl surrounded but alone in the coffee shop; Jesus himself experienced the same crushing vacuum of loneliness. From perfection he was tainted not just with a piece of hell but all of it, so much so his own Father in Heaven had to look away.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

There is a God who has walked more than a mile in your shoes, who conquered loneliness, hell, and death. In His company we  no longer trace the word – alone -

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I was two days into my entry level, envelope handling position. The 12 hr shift was spent shuffling envelopes into trays and listening to whatever my operator (basically a mid-level boss) said.

On this particular day my operator was a bearded grumpy man I’ll call Mr. Grimm.

I’m an oldest child so I’m terrified of making mistakes, I ask tons and tons of questions till I fully understand something. Mr Grimm was the kind of guy who was like “yes new guy, ask me questions,” as I scream and yell and swear at you the answers.

It was a long, demanding, exhausting day. At one point I upset Mr. Grimm so much he started throwing envelopes at me while heaping abuse; just my luck, a multi-tasker.

Two hours into this I wondered if Mr. Grimm was my enemy, I concluded he was; which sucked because scripture asks me to love my enemies. So I gave Mr Grimm 110% all day long; he told me run and get something and I ran (not walked) to get it. He told me to do something his particular way and I did it his way. I smiled, didn’t talk crap behind his back, and counted down the hours.

And then a funny thing happened

It seemed Mr Grimm was impressed with my attitude. He started telling people how I’d gone above and beyond, that the only thing I did wrong was not complain and quit. We started giving each other friendly nods when passing on the factory floor. He was still a jerk, but he was becoming less of a jerk.

Sometimes I think scripture asks us to love our enemies because it makes it all the more easier when, on occasion, our enemies become our friends…

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I was walking around the Milwaukee Zoo the other day chatting with a good friend of mine (who I’ll refer to as Steinbeck) when the conversation entered the sphere of goodness. Steinbeck has a Lebanese friend who grew up within the radius of Christianity, he was actually in Steinbeck’s youth group, but the young man doesn’t think much of Christianity anymore. He now works on capitol hill and tells my friend, “many people are good, some just happen to be Christian.” The point being your faith doesn’t make you good or worse, some are good regardless.

This is interesting because the focus of the comment is accurate, and off. Certainly there are people who don’t subscribe to creeds and still emanate good, but goodness to the Christian is a slice of product, not the whole goal, the goal is to “be holy as I am holy,” whatever the heck that means right! But hear scripture, it’s not just a positive reaction but a complete permeation of “love, joy, peace, forbearance,, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control” that only the Spirit of God can accomplish in decayed hearts.

Yes my faith makes me a better man and I guess I could pursue ethics of good apart from faith but Jesus reminds me what little is gained when the focus of life is one step ahead of your fellow man and a thousand steps behind the place God wants you to be…

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I have  a deep suspicion that the Desert Fathers of the 4th and 5th century would have been hairy. They would have amazing beards, no razor blades, and a holiness of astounding degree. I would seek these wilderness men out and ask them to share wisdom as I slept in my REI two plus tent outside their hovel. I have a sinking feeling someday they’d ask me to share my two plus tent and I’d say no because I’m selfish. They would pause, allowing me time to reflect on my words and then I’d recognize my selfish two man tent pathologies. That would be the lesson for the day, we’d go to sleep and tomorrow they’d ask me to give the tent away…

Henri Nouwen writes in his The Way of the Heart: “The words flee, be silent, and pray summarize the spirituality of the desert.” The idea of fleeing, of seeking solitude, makes both no sense and complete sense. Here we go.

According to Catholic author and monk Thomas Merton, “Society… was regarded [by the Desert Fathers] as a shipwreck from which each single individual man had to swim for his life… These were men who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster.” ¹ These were men and women who swam away from the worlds sinking ship of seductive compulsions as if their lives depended on it. Out of breath and near death they reached a shore called solitude, a desert for sure, but this desert would give, not take life.

Solitude, especially to us, often means privacy; but solitude to the Desert Fathers was the “furnace of transformation,” a conversation with the source of true self, God alone. It’s where you got rid of life’s  scaffolding: “no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me-naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken-nothing.” ² In the desert we clearly see our false self (ie. fabricated self), with all it’s posturings, the BIG ME and my little god. It’s in solitude that we realize how wrapped up in persona building we are, it’s in solitude that we realize being wrapped up in ones self makes for a small package…

There’s this wilderness cabin I know of that sits on a hill way far away from everything else, it screams solitude and reminds me of something else the Desert Fathers learned, what starts out as a physical position becomes an inner disposition, “solitude molds self-righteous people into gentle, caring, forgiving persons who are deeply convinced of their own great sinfulness and so fully aware of God’s even greater mercy that their life itself becomes ministry.” ³

You see solitude destroys then rebuilds you, it breaks self and builds Christ, solitude isn’t moving away from people but moving towards them through a compassion mindful of where you yourself came from. It’s throwing a rescue rope not from the wreckage, but from the solid shore…

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Two weeks ago I sent the car windows to the bottom, turned the stereo way to loud, and left my most favorite place on planet Earth, Village Creek Bible Camp. I had just wrapped up three profoundly awesome weeks as a cabin counselor and with dust billowing behind my auto like some crazed apocalyptic vision I sped home. It was near Madison, WI, where my car quite incidentally hit the hundred thousand mile mark, that I startled upon some realizations.

I was physically exhausted (Adventure Camp tends to break and then rebuild you) but spiritually alert and alive; honestly, the last three weeks was the first time I felt myself firing on all six in a very very long time. It was as if the sum total of all my being was in play, an exhilarating and terrifying thing. Terrifying because, if transparent, what would this spell for a casual and safe life outline?

Well, the simple answer is change…

When I got home it was Liz who actually broke the ice and it was crazy because I couldn’t distinguish her heart from my own as she spoke life potentials, such were the similarities. She was motioning forward outlandish concepts I had only just been stitching together at camp. Ideas I hadn’t floated by her while Skyping she was floating by me in person! An answer to prayer this was for I had asked God to weave threads of unification. I suppose He had been doing this all along since both Liz and I have had amazing mentors, dearest friends, and prayer warriors speak into our lives; their accumulated message always the same, something youth focused.

All that to say this: We’re finally willing, not ready, but willing, after a decade of meandering around to acknowledge intuitions, coincidence, and the odd burning bush or two. I believe God uniquely couples your personality with His anointing into something Christians refer to as “calling.” It’s this then, the specific thing you can’t help but do because you were built to do it that’s coming together for us.

Mind you, not all the puzzle pieces are in, but the corner pieces, along with most edge, and right center chunk are:)

(Sorry for being vague, there is more to it, the puzzle pieces and all, let us know if you desire details.)

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When you fast you don’t eat, eventually you start thinking about food and every time you think about food you think about God; I’ve been thinking about God a lot lately.

Two days into my fast I wanted to kiss my wife and she said no because my breath was stinky; so I went to the kitchen and ate 3 tic tacs. I then told my wife we could kiss because my breath had been de-stinkified via tic tac. She said “”oh no” because tic tacs have calories and I said “No way!” I checked the package and sure enough, each tic tac contains 1.9 energies.

So I was really down for having inadvertently broken my fast when wifey spilt profundity upon me. She said “You know Ben, fasting isn’t about food, it’s about prayer.” And dear reader, prayer isn’t about prayer, prayer is about God; I had made fasting about not eating food instead of its true purpose, imbibing God. +1 to wifey for the reminder…

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“I am not asking anyone to accept Christianity if his best reasoning tells him that the weight of evidence is against it. That is not the point at which Faith comes in.” ¹

It’s important to be able to define certain words, “Faith” is just such a word, “Doppelganger” another. That opening quote from CS Lewis is interesting to me because I think it highlights how more than a few people view Faith, as a dumb unreasonable thing. I don’t think Faith is as dumb and unreasonable a thing as some suppose. I think it more probable that people have dumb unreasonable Faith definitions.

Faith for Lewis was interwoven with reason, reason in lock step with belief, kept steadfast by Faith; for it is almost a certainty that once a man “decides that the weight of evidence is for it” he will experience within the next few weeks a personal crises, or his friends will voice their collective displeasure and because of this  “emotions will rise up” and assault his belief. ¹ Faith then, is the ability to maintain core holding’s despite fancies and mood, for without Faith in this respect you can “never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion.” Which is interesting to me for this Faith definition rightly implies faith usage, even among “faithless” or the “scientific.”

I would like to end with a simple summation of my Faith definition, it starts out with a little Hebrews 11.1 and ends with a little Lewis:

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. It is the habit of telling moods where they get off.

The other day I passed a young man sadly walking down a semi busy thoroughfare.

He looked so forlorn

He was wearing a t-shirt with scorpion stinger encapsulated within a red triangle looking thing (+1 to the peoples who know the t-shirt origin)

I thought to myself that this young man must be sad because he’s walking to his destination, not driving; because driving, as you know, is normal. I then thought to myself how bizarre it was that I felt driving was the normal method of humanoid travel rather than us bipeds using our legs…

Perspective – Perspective

Yesterday my friend Dan gave me a Gears 3 Beta invite code, we united our powers later that night.

I got “double buried” (a term I invented to describe death by double barrel sawed off shotgun) and curb stomped a lot and somewhere in between these events Dan started calling me something altogether different; instead of “Kenuchfleck,” my normal handle, he started calling me “Ken-flo.”

It made my noobishness not seem so bad, the new nickname that is, especially when I decided to use the OP’d double barrel myself…

Update: Even with the double barrel I still stink…

So maybe it isn’t as slick as COD, nor does it have destruction 2.0, and yes, Crysis graphics are about three generations beyond. That said, Homefront is definitely better than Medal of Honor and if Homefront misses the mark I believe it more accurate to say it’s aiming for something altogether different, which truth be told, is just fine.

The Story – Red Dawn Redux

Some might declare Homefront’s plot improbable junk but compared with COD’s Manchurian candidate and Battlefield’s gold crates I find Homefront’s plot to be the most believable of the three. I mean, the specter of inflation, gas prices on the rise, and social unrest all play into the hand of the cataclysmal. (Did anyone catch the Wolverine reference?) The escalation of world events retold via 61 newsclippings scattered throughout the game was actually one of the things I enjoyed most. They helped paint a fantastic, yet probable scenario as to how we got from here to there; very very good fiction.

So, I felt the campaign was short but good, the story really couldn’t support anything of length. The mission set pieces were fine and mostly memorable. All the campaign cheevo’s are possible, worth a playthrough or two but the legs of the game are multiplayer…

Mulitplay – Surprised by Depth

Pros:

- With format, menu, and challange cues taken from COD, I found myself happy and familiar with offerings both old and new.

- The kit selection is like BF2142, with different slots for different things, I dig it.

- Battlepoints (BP) are cool, your prowess is rewarded with call-ins and character buffs – counter strikish.

- Maps are real big, lots of places to hide yourself.

- Guns are great (the Diablo SMG ftw; it’s also one of the best video game gun variants I’ve seen in years)

- Sound effects are fantastic, better than COD, M-16 has a snappy sweet semi auto action groove!

- Great environmental art direction, reminded me of a cross between Terminator Salvation, Jericho, and The Road.

Cons:

- This is a perfect game for squads, yet there are no squad options, this sucks. I don’t have any friends so I haven’t done this but I assume setting up an xbox live party squads you up, but I dont’ know for sure.

- Almost a hundred cheevo’s tied with “partying up” which is lame, I don’t have 16 friends to party up with to unlock those blasted cheevos.

- Game can look fugly, xbox 360 pushed to the max. Team USA comes off as a bright green looking dudes, real easy to see

- No destructible environments. Once you get used to Battlefield you just lament the fact that your M1A1 gets snagged on rubble.

Favorite gameplay moment:

- No bigger heart-pounding moment than when I hit Threat Level 5. I was on foot with low ammo and charging headlong into the enemy with time running out. It was simply awesome!

Bottom Line:

I liked the game, not a long haul type of game, but good non-the-less. If you’re looking to score this off of Ebay be aware that you need an online pass to play multiplayer beyond lvl 5, it’ll run you about $10.