I like to think I don’t get scared easily – that I’m more a man than a boy. Sometimes I’ll put myself in situations I’m terrified of just to prove I’m not scared. But I usually am. I only end up proving I’m good at not actually showing I’m scared.

Tonight I was at work by myself and I walked out of my office into the darkness of the rest of our floor. I looked to my right and a bright light suddenly flashed in my eyes. My heart fell into my stomach and I could feel adrenaline flood my body. I wasn’t alone. Someone was 20 feet away from me. My face got hot and my body was ready to run at whoever was there. Then my mind gained its function back. I remembered. We’re on the ground floor and there’s a garage door that looks out into a parking lot. Someone was just leaving the lot.

Ready To Kill
Why, when the unexpected happens, do we so often assume the worst? The boss calls us into his office and we figure we’re in trouble. We hear a noise in the house and we think there’s a burglar. An unexpected light flashes in our eyes and we think someone wants to hurt us. What a strange response. Mandela said courage isn’t the absence of fear but the triumph over it. How does that happen though? It seems to me it happens by having the ability to think rationally during the moment of crisis – or as close to the moment’s passing as possible. We must have the moment when we’re scared or ready to kill. That’s our body’s natural reaction. But we should aim to get control back as soon as possible.

When You Can’t
What happens when you CAN’T get control back? Teenage girls see Justin Bieber and other teen idols in person and sometimes faint. They actually lose control over their ability to stay conscious. And, guys, before you’re quick to laugh at how weak girls are, many of us can barely speak anything qualifying as a single complete sentence when we talk to girls who are even moderately good looking. We lose control over our words and our perspiration. Sweat spouts from every pore of our body – our hands, arm pits, and face. What’s that about? It’s about beauty. Things that are beautiful leave us speechless. And, sometimes, even unconscious, inarticulate (when words do come), or wet.

1+1
If we’re scared of the unknown and timid near the beautiful, what do you think your reaction would be like if you met God face to face? How scared would you be? How uncontrollable your emotions and words? In the bible, God says, “every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God” (Isaiah 45:23; Romans 14:11). Any human, regardless of how well they know God, knows very little about him because he is infinite. So he is largely unknown. And he must be beautiful. Not because he creates incredible beauty (though he does). Not only because the bible says so (“perfect in beauty, God shines forth” – Psalm 50:2). He must be beautiful because even though we do really crappy things every day that are offensive to him, he still wants to walk with us through life. What’s more beautiful than a friend who gives you a high-five and $50 after you punch him in the face?

When we finally meet God, he will be largely unknown to us and very beautiful. And we won’t be able to control anything about our reaction. Even us Christians who follow Jesus and believe in him for salvation…We’ll bow before him and blurt out all kinds of things. I want to make sure the words that come tumbling from my mouth on that day are also beautiful – filled with stories about saying no to bad things and yes to good things. Even when it was hard. Now is the time for thinking.

I wrote and recorded this over Christmas break as I listened to Olafur Arnalds’ Near Light on repeat.

Lots has been happening in my life over the past few months. I continue now, as always, to desire hearing God tell me I’ve done well at the end of my life. But I think I’ve been seeing that much of modern life gets in the way of that – living a good life pleasing to God – oftentimes without us even knowing it. I feel like I’ve been slumbering for quite some time, unaware of all the suffering in the world. Most of us really do live in bubbles insulated from the poor and suffering. I don’t think many churches fully and consistently teach God’s desire for justice and care for the poor. If they did, I don’t think we would see much suffering in the world at all.

I don’t fault anyone – even teachers in the church. I don’t think there are many of us intentionally suppressing these truths. But I think the truth about God and His desire for the poor, oppressed, hungry, thirsty, lonely, homeless, diseased, orphaned, and widowed is suppressed nonetheless. That it’s unintentional isn’t too important – the poor in our world suffer all the same.

We’re all trying our best to make it in life, and right now, this is what I think I know. I’m changing my life in significant ways to fix my past ignorance. More on that in due time. For now, some other words… Click the Play button to start it.

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Thoreau is awesome not because some English teacher said so but because he thought so well and expressed those thoughts with great language. At the beginning of his classic, Walden, Thoreau writes about how he came to live in the woods. This is one of his reasons. This is real writing…

“Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. ‘Do you wish to buy any baskets?’ he asked. ‘No, we do not want any,’ was the reply. ‘What!’ exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, ‘do you mean to starve us?’

“Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off – that the lawyer had only to weave arguments, and, by some magic, wealth, and standing followed – he had said to himself: I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be the white man’s to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other’s while to buy them, or at least to make him think that it was so, or to make something else which it would be worth his while to buy.

“I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one’s while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men’s while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.”

the want: a poem
by andy merrick

i went to the beach and wanted a tan
i went to a casino and wanted a grand
i went to a bar and wanted a drink
i went to a mountain and wanted to ski

i went to see football and wanted to score
i went to the emmy’s and wanted awards
i went to a classroom and wanted to teach
i went to a lecture and wanted to speak

i went to a garden and wanted to grow
i went to a concert and wanted to flow
i went to a club and wanted to dance
i went to see fashion and wanted slim pants

i went to a wedding and wanted a girl
i went to a jeweler and wanted some pearls
i went to hot yoga and wanted less girth
i went to the ocean and wanted to surf

where are you going and what do you see?
the answer to that is what you’ll want to be
where you go is what you’ll want
and what you see is where you’ll run

go to the ghetto, go to the slum
go to the prison, go to the bum
go to the diseased and those breathing their last
before your days so, too, do pass

yes, the accolades and bright light fame
very soon will rust and dimly fade
the worst of fates is not a hearse
for the first will be last and the last will be first.