moving on...

So I've decided to cease striving on three blogs and consolidate a bit.  This means that I will no longer be posting on Xanga.  You can check out my other (more literary-focused blog) at www.bryanmcinnis.typepad.com

Peace

My blog, my cross

The way of the cross

Frustration in counter-intuitive.  We by nature choose the valley floor to spare our soft feet from the fangs of rock we are certain to tread upon on the way up the mountain.  I think this tendency is perpetuated by our culture.  In a few months, some students and I will be in Poland; a nation which, in many respects, is like ours.  Poland is not a "third-world country," is ninety-nine percent literate, and has an infant mortality rate that is similar to the U.S.  So how is Poland different?  A century of bloodshed (Poland lost a third of its population during WWII) has created an wholly different Christology.  While in America we often consider Christ's embrace of the cross the means through which we receive a bigger house and a wholly more comfortable existence.  We'll often quote Isaiah's words "..by his stripes we are healed" to justify our belief that Christ's lonely walk up the dusty path toward Golgotha was meant to spare us from any personal discomfort while we bide our time until eternity happens to us beloved ones.

Sometimes I get the idea that because holistic and consummate destruction has yet to greet our eyes, we believe it's God's will that we relish in our comfort while the rest of the globe endures the torrent of unfathomable disaster.  We've become convinced (thanks in part to Tim Lahaye) that God will once again rescue us from pain by snatching us from across the sky just before all Hell breaks loose on earth.  The problem is that at many points in human history all Hell has already broken loose, and continues to do so today in places like Sudan.

I'm willing to bet the majority of Polish believers we meet this summer will have a bit different take on things.  Stories from grandparents and parents who endured concentration camps and fought the Russian and German onslaughts during WWII probably mingle with their own suffering under decades of Communist rule to create the belief that hope in the Incarnation is rarely found in the leather Ikea chair with matching ottoman, but is a byproduct of anguish, loss, and bloodshed--something completely foreign to most of our stories. 

All of this leads me to wonder how one goes about choosing the way of the cross while stuck in the gallows of material comfort.  While for many, the journey is a physical one, I think all of us are being called to an inner journey up the mountain.  There are compulsions, habits, addictions, and tragic distractions that keep us barely alive in the valley, aimless and alone.  Since fellowship with Christ requires discipleship, we therefore must be prepared to, like Him, choose the hard road.  It is my belief that Jesus did not endure the cross, necessarily, so we wouldn't have to (though that is part of the story). His painful road is also a blood stained invitation to experience the horror of a lonely night in Gethsemane, an unfathomable series of floggings, and being nailed naked upon wooden slab for all the world to mock.  Thankfully, that is not the end of the story.  The resurrection is a definitive reality.  But as Andy Comiskey asserts, "There is no resurrection without first dying."  This is the painfully glorious rhythm of the cross.  We must choose death (whatever that means amid our present circumstances) so that we can eternally rise. 

"Further up and further in..."  - C.S. Lewis

Doin That Thing I Do...

"If you don't stand up for anything, you'll fall for everything."

                                                               - Unknown

Prayer has brought me to the cross, wondering why there's this huge hole in my heart.  It seems people in this world would much rather know a person who bends according to their context than one whose truth mingles with cement.

Living in our heads affords us the option of signing a short-term lease.  Anyone can easily advocate for any number of positions on the basis of mere theoretical assumptions.  It's the act of dropping our bare feet in the mud of a particular plot of land that's risky.  It's the living out of our hearts--one's committing to unwaveringly walking eastward, westward, any noble direction amid the fears of eventually discovering a more attractive option--that breeds substance.  (Insert any number of concrete examples here--a nuclear family, a war time soldier, a God who would humbly embrace the cross). 

I believe it's the fear of finding ourselves alone that leads us to waver between moral absolutes.  Making a stand means limiting options of conformity.  To claim everything as gray affords us the option of being a chameleon with a hollow heart and a disproportionate mind.  Surrounded by multitudes of insecure "thinkers" we slowly take on the likeness of the N.I.C.E. in That Hideous Strength completely impotent when it comes to swallowing the blue or the red pill, and content to wallow in the decrepit room arguing with Morpheus for all eternity.   

Of course all of this begs the question, "To what shall we cling?"  Standing up for "truth" is a double-edged sword, for there are many religious zealots who, in the name of faith, assert doctrine and policy that has been derived apart from the heart of the creed, and works to enslave, not set free.  And so it is essential that great "thinkers" arise from the ashes of religious flagellation and provide an example of one who is not only able to think it up, but also poised to walk it out. 

I simply pray that God would guide us all in ways that help us hold onto (as tightly as supernaturally possible, and with great abandonment to the stagnation of merely thinking it up) as little as necessary for, "Only a few things are necessary." 

"Furter up and further in" - C.S. Lewis

Famous people

Wow...over ten days since my last post.  That means that no one has had the pleasure of being punished by my insanely redundant inner ramblings.  I wish my lack of posting could be justified by some dramatically interesting turn of events in the quasi-mediocre life of a twenty-something Minnesotan, but to no avail. 

I will begin this post (officially) by confessing something that could, for many years to come, be an extreme source of ridicule from anyone who happens to stumble upon this: I went the the James Blunt concert Monday.  Ok, ok, I didn't actually pay for the tickets...but I probably would have I needed to.  To be honest (and this may supercede the previous statement in terms of its potential for future humiliation ammo) I really enjoyed the show.  Despite the fact that Beau and I were two of about twenty guys in the place who weren't there because their significant others love Blunt's frosty blue eyes, deep English accent, and heart-melting smile...ahhhmm...you know, it was really fun. 

As we sat in our incredibly close seats waiting for James to take the stage, the two women sitting next to us offered us their after-show party passes for free.  Apparently one of the women had a baby at home and made a pre-arranged breast feeding appointment with her youngster.  We gladly accepted the gift, and after the show (and after a few seconds of deliberating whether or not we could legitimately sell the pair of passes) we began to discuss how late we should show up to the party in order to not seem desperate.  It's funny to think about this in hindsight, since probably everyone who goes to these parties and isn't a close personal friend of the artists is assumed to be desperate. 

Well, we showed up really late.  So late, in fact, that James and his band were the only ones (practically) left in the bar.  As we spun through the rotating doors of the Capital Grill, we practically bumped into the band.  I think simultaneously Beau and my stomachs leapt.  As I stood there watching the band do everything they could to lead us to believe they wanted absolutely nothing to do with our company, I thought about how funny it is that we completely alter our personalities and let go of every fiber of self-confidence when we are in the presence of "famous" people.  It's as if we sub-consciously feel we owe it to them to appear completely void of any semblance of personal value or inner intrigue.  James Blunt is about four feet tall...seriously...ok, not SERIOUSLY, but he's really short.  I'm pretty sure I could take him.  I do, after all, know Tae-Kwon-Do.   But in that bar he was really big.  I mean, he was lord of the bar.  This guy, who will perhaps never make another hit record, because of his moment of fame, caused everyone around him to be completely different people than they would, say if they were talking to me immediately after a(n) (insert your own adjective) rendition of "Walking in Memphis" at the karaoke bar. 

How do famous people exert such character-altering powers?  Why do we melt so easily? To be honest, the whole thing was disappointing.  In the end, yeah, I got to shake the guy's hand. Yes, it was really soft and I'll probably never wash my right-side digits again, but seriously, are mere humans meant to have such abilities?  Maybe if any famous people read this (which would have to be by accident), they could enlighten us.