Love and Wonder

I don't remember exactly what my attitude was the morning of April 28, 2005. I do know that whatever little annoyance I was dealing with on that particular day, I was trying to suppress it quickly. So many days gust by us year after year, never to be revisited or recalled, and it is only a select few that remain with us, stored somewhere within for whatever reason. On that day, my mind was focused on one main thing, my scheduled interview for a position as an associate director of recruitment in the Truett Recruiting office. Nothing else was important; I wanted a job.

With only a few minutes before my interview, as I waited in the office at one of the computer desks, lazily making my normal rounds across the Internet, I came across something that indeed would, in hindsight, supersede any job interview, as well as any occupational event I might experience in my life. From the comment section under one of the posts in a blog I had only recently established, there sat, as innocent - and suspicious - as a dove, a short comment by someone identified only as "simchah."

"'...that whatever you love (writing, music, a certain someone, God) continue to fall, and may it never find a bottom.'"
wow that is good. did you write that?
fun to find a Texan on xanga! :)"

Now, a less pessimistic person would view this message, in which the last line of that post is quoted back to me, as a polite praise and a friendly greeting. I only saw the weird name, a tiny profile picture I could not make out, and read the comment as questioning whether I had written what I personally believed to be a great line ("That's gold! Gold, Jerry!"), or had plagiarized it from someone else. With seconds ticking away before my interview, I clicked on simchah's link, prepared to do cyber-battle, armed with my powerful, unplagiarized rhetoric ... and I looked upon a much larger display of her profile picture. Oh, I thought, she looks nice.

The next few months were as quickly moving and disorienting (once again in hindsight) as a whirlwind. Noticing that though she was presently located in New York, she had attended the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor and was from Houston, I commented back. She returned the sentiment. Then I, as innocent as a fox, e-mailed her. She replied again. Most endearing was how long her e-mails were. While they did not rival my epic-length e-mails (few can), they were quite large; she was not shy about professing and confessing her views. I do not mean to romanticize this to the point of syruppy sickness, but throughout May, June, and July, we had a bit of a You've Got Mail-thing going on.

The subsequent relationship that began (though it all seemed to happen in stages, the comments, the e-mails, the first phone call at the end of July, the first date at the end of August, the first kiss on the Brooklyn Bridge at the end of September ...) is made up of a host of golden days that rest somewhere deep within me. They continue to form me, changing me and reminding me of the very truth I was waking up to when I wrote that blog post over a year ago. Love ... and wonder. To be aware of these is to be in communion with the matchless grace of God.

Edit from my Xanga post of April 10, 2005 (two and a half weeks before the comment that changed my life):
Keep seeking those hidden depths - the chasm to which love and wonder can plummet just keeps opening. May my wish for me be for you as well, that whatever you love and whatever fills you with wonder (writing, music, a certain someone, God) continue to fall, and may it never find a bottom.



I love you forever, Leigh.

Extinguished

It is finished.

Jesus is captured. He is rejected. He is despised. He is mocked.

The Lord, the Christ, has taken upon himself the sins of the world. As man, he is the only one who stands outside the arena of guilt and rebellion in which we all are gathered. As God, he puts aside all that it means to be God (power, glory, justice, reign, sovereignty) and steps silently into this savage arena. With only whispered words, fragments of a holy conversation lost on the ears of all who surround him, he subjects himself to our brutal, impatient violence. We pour out upon him all our misguided wrath, and as it was foreshadowed by prophets, such undeserved punishment pleases the Creator, who in misery and sorrowful acceptance, stays his hand from turning back upon us the wrath we gleefully pour out.

It is finished.

Jesus is stricken. He is wounded. He is bruised. He is pierced.

The Lord, the Christ, bows his head and enters a place no god would dare trod. He gives himself over to those who could never foresee, do not comprehend, and perhaps still will never understand who he is, and what he has done. Saturated with our spit, soggy with his own blood, torn and flayed, no one in this dark arena sees the mystery. Before our eyes, manifested, incarnated, is the Mystery of Grace. It is a mystery he dies. It is a mystery he allows a single blow to land upon him, allows but one hand to arrest him, yoke him. It is a mystery he enters this arena in the first place.

It is finished.

Jesus is dead. The Christ is dead. The Lord is dead. Our God is dead.

The Lord, the Christ, is laid in a tomb. The sky over the arena is black. A peal of thunder, and we who inhabit the arena could swear we hear the anguished roar of the Creator. Our tumult settles. The din falls silent. We witness a stone heaved over the tomb and sealed. The choked, dying words descends upon the arena floor: "It ... is ... finished." We answer with whispers choked with our shock. What have we done? And yet, this day is Good. This is Good Friday. The Mystery of Grace is dead, yet lingers. Like a fog refusing to dissipate, we are surrounded by tragedy mixed with wonder, grief mixed with reverence, guilt mixed with awe.

It is finished.

The lights fade and go out. The candles are extinguished. All is dark.

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

- Bernard of Clairvaux