Category: Reflection

Getting Older–or Younger?

Mom, Dad, thanks for having me.

I'm 26 years old today, and I've spent the last three years trying to figure out what it really means to be a man.

[Que Damien Rice or Bob Dylan song.]

Truly, many a good song have been written (by others) in search of the same answer. Something has clicked recently, though, and I'm simply less concerned about it all. Don't get me wrong, young men and women in their twenties should be ambitious, hard-working, and responsible--but that doesn't require the exclusion of fun.

So for my birthday, I asked my wife to get me a pair of shoes from the skateboarding world. (It is a different world, by the way, very fun and outrageously creative.) That's where I resided from around the ages of 13-21; I still take short vacations there from time to time.

I'm feeling younger already.

This morning, I remembered reading C.S. Lewis' words about what it means to be "adult." I hope they encourage you to be comfortable in your own skin and to do your best, however young or old you are:

Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

Singing after Supper (in Chinese)

I've uploaded some songs we sang recently. I'm hesitant to give too many details, but I'll say there were around 20 people gathered together, about 75% being Chinese Christians. We had a feast, and the food was followed by some singing of worship songs. I recorded these two via my phone, so the quality is low--just the way these young folks like it. I hope you enjoy it and praise God.

Tim Keller – Christ Is Your King

"Democracy is medicine, not food." -C.S. Lewis

We all worship something or someone, admittedly it or not, so choose the real king: Jesus Christ.

Tim Keller - Christ Is Your King

As Keller gives instruction on how to treat Jesus like a king, namely, to accept whatever he gives (including orders), in prayer, Keller recalls a stanza of John Newton's hymn, which I like:

"Thou art coming to a King,

Large petitions with thee bring;

For His grace and power are such,

None can ever ask too much;

None can ever ask too much."  

via Tim Keller - Christ Is Your King 

A Copy of St. Andrews Seven

John Piper said St. Andrews Seven is one of the best books he has read on missions, so a lot of people (including me) flocked to Amazon to buy said book, months ago.

This book is no longer in print.

That afternoon, the prices increased from $30 to $50 to $75 and then...almost $300? (We're talking about a tiny, used book). I didn't buy it originally because I thought $30 was too steep for a used book...

I was creating an Evernote about the experience today as I sat down to read the copy I checked out at HST (from the phenomenal library on campus), when I decided to check to see if there are any copies on Amazon  still for $300 a pop), just for the sake of accurate note-creating, today, and there were some.

The price was still jacked up except for on one copy! Caught and bought after being sought for months--you rascal!

St Andrews Seven
St Andrews Seven

I think I'll wait for that copy in the mail, so I can make notes in it (with pencil).

This evolved from an Evernote note, to a Facebook Status, to a blog post before I could save or submit the former--

My, how things can escalate quickly.

Psalm 50: God Shines Forth

Psalm 50: God Shines Forth

              The Mighty One, God the Lord,

       speaks and summons the earth

        from the rising of the sun to its setting.

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,

       God shines forth.

(Psalm 50:1-2 ESV)

© 2013 Clint R. Boyd.
© 2013 Clint R. Boyd.

God "speaks and summons the earth." Right off the bat, The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons. He is the boss, but what kind of boss is he?

Well, we get a picture -- of the sunrise and sunset. The Psalmist is saying that this speaking and summoning is done from dusk 'till dawn, but with the words sunrise and sunset comes a memory of a splendid sight for those who've seen the sun rise and/or set. For any who haven't had working eyesight to see a sunrise or sunset, this must be calling upon the one of the greatest faculties of the human mind: imagination.

Either way, clearly we are invited to get a greater understanding God by mentioning him directly after the sun's radiant rising and setting:

"God shines forth."

He is not a gloomy God. This is not Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The Lord Almighty is righteous, Holy, and just, always loving and using honest weights and scales (Proverbs 16:11). He is not an oppressor. He is the Great Giver. That's why He doesn't need anything from us, nor can we provide much for him past adoration, worship, trust, and thanksgiving.

"I will not accept a bull from your house

or goats from your folds.

For every beast of the forest is mine,

       the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know all the birds of the hills,

       and all that moves in the field is mine.

If I were hungry, I would not tell you,

       for the world and its fullness are mine.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls

       or drink the blood of goats?

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,

       and perform your vows to the Most High,

and call upon me in the day of trouble;

       I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

(Verses 9-15)

Thankfulness is how I should feel and be toward God. You and I were created to glorify and ENJOY Him -- to bask His radiance, mercy, and forgiveness -- forever. All of that is made possible, of course, by Jesus Christ, who was slain for that purpose, then resurrected: the greatest news in the history of mankind.

Match Point Opening Scene: Luck vs. Greatness

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. (Genesis 50:20, ESV)

Last night Linli and I watched a movie given to us by a dear friend who asked us to pass it along after we watched it: Match Point. She probably asked us to pass it along not because the message is the best, but more likely because not many people will want to watch it more than once. By no means is it a "feel good" film, but Match Point is interesting and definitely provocative. I will not go into more detail, but I do want to share the opening scene because I think it is beautifully done.

The movie's themes, aside from commenting on the dichotomy of love/lust and marriage, strongly revolves around fate having a greater role than ability.

I love reading, listening to, and watching artist's explorations of the ancient question: how much of life is in our control?

One verse in the Bible that I believe gives us insight, despite how many Christians will disagree, is the one at the top of this post, and below:

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. (Genesis 50:20, ESV)

The NIV even translates the word as "intended" rather than "meant." There is a large difference between this idea, that God not only knew it was going to happen but moreover meant that it take place, is quite different from the common, "oh, God will use it for good, even though you meant it for evil." True, he will, but this verse, often misquoted, says that he meant it for good, and I do not believe that He makes mistakes.

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/ask-pastor-john/how-can-i-believe-that-god-is-in-control-when-something-bad-happens#/listen/full 

*By the way, I do not recommend the aforementioned movie to everyone. To the Christian strong in faith, I do. To those easily offended, I do not. Indeed, the taking of the Lord's name in vain several times in the movie is hard to hear, but for some, the movie may provide insight without causing them to sin. The film is rated R for "some sexuality."

Medgar Evers Through Bob Dylan and Paul

Fifty years ago, a hard-working, risk-taking, family-loving man was shot in the back, dead in his own driveway for his efforts leading the NCAAP in the Civil Rights Movement. His name was Medgar Evers.

That was only fifty years ago.

evers_medgarmedgarmarching

As we get older, history seems shorter in perspective. In high school, to me, the Civil Rights movement and segregation sounded so far away because it was forty of fifty years earlier, and that was almost three or four times my age then. To a twenty-five year old now, however, fifty years ago is only twice that age, so the perspective changes.

Thankfully, We The People have come quite far in the last fifty years, in terms of segregation, by the grace of God. There is, of course, still work to do, and there always will be.

I first heard of Medgar Evers, though,  in the opening lines of "Only a Pawn in Their Game," a song Bob Dylan wrote in 1963, the same year of Evers' death:

A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game

The last verse also explicitly references Evers and his burial:

Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game

Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/only-a-pawn-in-their-game#ixzz2VNQnQiUO

Thirty years passed before the jury convicted Evers' murderer, according to Debbie Elliot's NPR blog today. Those years surely crawled by, especially for Reena Evers-Everette. Even when Medgar was alive, however, the last decade of their marriage was still fettered to fear, she says:

"And we never knew from one day to the next what would happen. I lived in fear of losing him. He lived being constantly aware that he could be killed at any time." (NPR-Elliot)

So the shooting of Medgar Evers was not something that happend randomly: it had been a long time coming, and Evers lived waiting for it.  Yet he kept at the work he knew he was called to do.

In the book of Phillipians, Paul writes:
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. (3:17, ESV)

I am certainly no expert on Medgar Evers nor the Civil Rights, but it seems clear that Evers was a man who looked fear and evil in the eye, without a blink, and kept on working.

Such a person is to be honored.

To read more about Medgar Evers, see his entry in the encyclopedia of the King Institute, here:  http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_evers_medgar_1925_1963/