Kibitzing Thereunto I

i woke up this morning terribly concerned about Love. There isn't much of a formula for Loving people, you see, but we're supposed to do it anyway. So, as with any Divine Command to which the outcome is Vitally Important, but to which the Rules of Play were translated into English from classical Greek by a native Latin speaker, it's hard to be properly prepared when the Big Moment arrives.

The easiest method (in my own experience) is to go pick a target to which you cannot become emotionally attached. That way, if you screw up and blow the sale you can just move on to the next quarry without a particularly Troubled Spirit or Heavy Heart. You can commit this kind of Love in busy market-places in Foreign Lands with pamphlets in the Love-Objects' mother tongue. i gather you could use an AK-47 in place of the pamphlets and-- while you would probably convince fewer people that you deeply Love them and hope the Best for them-- it would incur approximately the same emotional repercussions.

i strongly suspect that Loving people demands some level of Emotional Attachment-- maybe even some amount of Sacrifice. The Concern arises when i am faced, in the moment, with the kind or magnitude of that Attachment or Sacrifice. i think, as my limited grey-matter and Time permit me, i will explore the Murky Depths and Dizzying Heights of that Demand. Feel free to jump on board and comment as your Concern is offended.

Bit o' bragging on mi hija

Having apparently exhausted all your wild imagery of Heaven, i'll-- for the sake of the faster-moving brooks among you-- move on to lighter fare. Our wee family has taken up knife-throwing for a hobby. The above pic is of Annie with her first stick. She was pretty proud of that. Let this be a warning to all you 2 through 6 year old boys out there: she'll only be more accurate in 10 years; as will i. For the non-2 through-6-year-olds out there, you're still encouraged to post on Heaven. Right, then.

A little thought

i had a weird little thought this morning on the way home from work. Not that it's the first time i've thought of it; only it occured once again, and this seems like the correct alter on which to lay an idea for the church to squish, prod, cursorily wink toward, and, after a good eye-rolling and a dramatic sigh, summarily dismiss. (Or at least that's what i do with most of your ideas.) All that notwithstanding, it may just be the crux of all my theologicalish problems. Thus at yer feet is she hurled:

i was managing a li'l Self-transcendence whilst watching a fairly exciting thunderhead doing its very large, exciting thang in my rear-view, and i couldn't help cogitating on that very Self-transcendence with respect to Heaven: i was thinking of how awfully nice it'd be to be free from my Self there, how tired i am of me, how-- to shamelessly steal some Chris Rice-- "freedom from myself will be the greatest rest i've ever known." But then i thought if i'm so keen to be rid of me, what is it (approximately) that i'm hoping will endure eternally in Heaven. To consider that i'll still be me with the bad bits purged is to consider that there are some essentially good bits to me that are somehow me-defining, i.e., cody. Trouble is i can't imagine what that might be like. If i abstract from me all my good works and finer qualities and then put 'em back together in a roughly cody-shaped pile, besides being an embarrassingly small pile, it'd also fail to be i. There'd just be this vapid shell shaking your hand and being generally selfless toward you, maybe a bit along the lines of what those ubiquitous oddlings in your average Sanctuary want you to believe they really truly really are so that you'll conjoin yourself with their particular doctrinal flourish or will, at the very least, sign up for their network marketing scheme. [And the congregation chuckles warmly and on cue at the preacher's demagogic ribbing.]

But maybe that's not a fair model. (To be sure, i desperately hope it isn't a fair model.) Maybe the "new creation" i'll be, the "transformed mind" i'll comprise has more to do with choices i shall have made-- those being obviously very particular to the situations, temptations, environs, etc., i'll have lived through, and so very particular to who i am-- than any abstract qualities or works which i might very well possess, but which could be reconstituted as good qualities/ works quite without me showing up for the party. To get the sense of what i'm trying for, you could think of the choices i've made (which may have led to those good qualities/ works) as a cody-specific algorithm; no one else could have made those choices, so when the Judge judges and the corrupt is burned away, all that will remain are still-cody-specific good bits of code.

Maybe that's a li'l more contrived a way to say what i'm trying to say than is necessary. (Ogres are not like parfaits; ogres are like onions!) i've just been pitching about me here of late for a grasp of what i believe in, what i hope for. Believing in a worship-deserving God is not too huge a leap. Believing in, hoping for a Me that could endure through eternity (whatever that is: discuss) without any sort of Godless self-interest.... That's a taller order. i just know me well enough to be confident of my infinite capacity for the slimiest sorts of self-interest; i sometimes wonder where the good and noble bits of me reside and how they'd hold together without the dark, tortured matrix.

i'd love to read your thoughts, your models, your ideas of Heaven. While i have nothing against scripture (and even expect it), i'd appreciate it if you'd not huck some vaguely poignant passage Albuquerqueward like a holy hand-grenade and then scurry off with a satisfied smile. i'll return your gift in a bowl with the soupy consequence of cynical nausea {-o Get poetic or technical or mystical: with a faith like i know some of you have, i very much look forward to being encouraged by what you think you'll be in Heaven. Invite your friends and we'll have us a church-service ;-)

Late Morning Scribble

Just got back from the better-part-of-a-week-long vacation in southern Colorado. Colorado is nice. It is, in fact, one of the nicer bits of the earth. It's about 0600 in NM (a locale conspicuously south, as it were, of a nice place on earth), which occurence on a clock i visit-- almost without exception-- by the back door. That is to say, when i'm awake at 0600, it's 'cuz im still awake. This particular 0600 is no different; i just got off work. Being in Colorado for most of a week climbing, sailing, breathing, etc., infected me (and Steph, it seems) with the licentious notion that 1)life could be mildly fun and contain something evocative of meaning or reason, or 2) life could suck less than it does, and 3) i utterly abhor my present job. Gimme a week and i'll numb up and fall back in line. Until then, i'm watching my Monster.com agents like a man dying in the desert gapes at the cottony tufts in the Sonoran sky in case they might, for variety, decide to monsoon on his head. At any rate, i've been encouraged by this wee string and i thank you for thinking out loud. i'd covet your prayers and i hope GOD is blessing you.

Down with O.P.P. (Dun Bin Blakbald Remix)

In response to a [smallish] wave of sarcastic mewling, i'm gonna rewrite my last post so that everyone will like me and want to be my friend.

For a while now, i don't know, maybe a few weeks or something, i wrote some comments on other people's posts, but not on my blog. But then Julie was all like, "You should all come back to blogworld!!!" and stuff. So here i am!! There's this thing i wanna write about, but it's all, like, stuck up in my head-hole. It's like writer's block or something... i don't know. Maybe i'll hafta think about it some more or, like, something, you know? Well anyway until then, i'll make some more comments on other people's blogs. Word.

Down with O.P.P.

i have recently been spending my writing time commenting on other people's posts and, as a result, have neglected my own. Notwithstanding, in response to an overwhelming 50% of my readership demanding that i blog once more, i will blog once more. There is a subject in the densely carpeted innards of my skull wanting to hatch, but it's taking some maieutic coaxing to bear from that crepuscular abyss. Until then, i'll say as little as possible as prolixly as possible without going to the trouble of thinking up any original material myeself.