Wednesday 20 April 2011

A long drive

Its just past 4AM and I just arrived at my parents' home.  I drove from Canada home, all 15 hours of it today so naturally I had a lot of time to think.  One of the subjects I pondered isn't any new idea that someone else hasn't had before nor was it a revelation for myself either, but I thought about it a lot.  When I crossed the border I called my mother because she likes to hear from me as soon as I'm in country.  Unfortunately I was sarcastic in my response to some legitimate questions and I could tell, even over the phone, that I had hurt her.  In a way, I know my mother loves me so much because of how much I hurt her from time to time.  Let me explain.  Have you ever had someone you loved spurn your love?  Whether it be a family member, a friend, a significant other, the closer a person is to you when they don't respond to your love or worse reject it the more it hurts.  Say for example you're engaged to be married and your fiance calls it off the week of the wedding.  Can you or I really imagine the pain and turmoil going on in that person's heart and mind?  We all have experienced this kind of pain from time to time and in varying degrees.  It gives us a glimpse into other people's situations and feelings when it happens to them, even God's.  Can you imagine the pain and hurt he feels whenever a person that Christ died for rejects his love and continues to live in sin?  It is unimaginable the heartache God must feel for every single person that does not yet know him!  But the most amazing part is he doesn't give up and throw in the towel because of heartache rather he continues to call and woo and love even though some will never turn to him so that a few might be saved.  What love is that!  I know my inclination in these kinds of situations is to give up and try in every way to squash out the pain I feel, but God doesn't turn away from the pain we cause him and rather redoubles his efforts.  I think of the saying, "It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."  I'd rather say, "It is better to love and continue to love no matter the obstacle, heartache, and betrayal."  So that is my motivation to love, that God has loved us and continued to love us in all our pain and His pain, and I pray I will try to love time and time again person after person in spite of the pains of my past and overcome the fears caused by that pain.

The second interesting topic I thought of was nothing.  I don't mean I wasn't thinking about anything but rather trying to wrap my mind around the absence of anything (or everything).  Just like infinite things(used as a semantic component, not saying God isn't a person) like God, we finite beings have trouble comprehending nothing.  Often when we try to think about 'nothing' we think about empty space, that is the vacuum of space outside the boundaries of our globe.  But there is a problem with that because it is not truly nothing.  Space is something, it has dimensions and is there.  It is not the absence of everything, simply the absence of physical matter, but it is still there.  So then, is there really such a thing as nothing?  This line of thought sparked from a song that stated, "Without you I am nothing" referring to God.  I thought about how true that is.  Without God no matter, no soul, not even space and time would exist(if you want to get into a discussion with me sometime about whether space and time was created please do its an interesting one).  There would unequivocally be 'nothing' in its truest sense.  Before God created the cosmos, there was nothing.  There was a void, an emptiness, a nothing that pervaded everywhere(not exactly accurate, but like I said understanding and especially encoding 'nothing' in language is especially difficult and in this case I could think of no way to describe outside of God without referring to space though there was no such thing at that time(or dear there I did it again)) but God.  Therein lies the rub.  God must be so powerful that nothingness could be overcome.  From a human standpoint we can only ever manipulate what is already here, never truly create.  But for God to speak 'nothing' into 'something' is on the level of incomprehensibility that infinity and nothing both exist(this is getting frustrating referring to nothing as if it is something).  Its truly amazing and my brain is running in circles just trying to get my head around it right now and my brain is starting to hurt.  I recommend you don't try to think about this too long or you may make yourself go mad, but it is an interesting illustration of God's might and power.

For His Glorious Name,
Jason

Saturday 9 April 2011

Perspective

I had just picked up my dear friends Kyle and Amanda from the airport (or was it taking them to it?) and we were talking about wanting to go on a hike together.  They brought up a hike we had gone on, the four of us, wanting to go there again.  Our band of four hand dwindled down to three by then, and the pain was still there.  They apologized as they realized the implications.  But I had a different perspective.  I said, "I've learned over my few short years on earth that we can't live our lives avoiding things because of a painful memory, we must make new memories."  I'd learned that lesson a few years before because of music.  It wasn't something written in any song I've heard, but rather an experience with a particular song.  I do not remember what song it was.  You know how certain memories can attach to people, places, or songs?  We attach emotions and memories to these things and whenever we encounter them it brings the memory back up whether good or bad.  Well, what I learned was that we can reassign emotions and memories to songs and other things.  It was from my sheer stubbornness I discovered this as a song I had associated some bad memories with was one that I liked so despite the pain it caused me I chose to keep listening to it.  Over time some good things happened that I associated with the song and no longer did it bring up negative emotions or memories.  Anyhow, I say all of this simply to set the stage.
     I find it funny how some memories that some people might consider bad I am very fond of and that make me glad.  I find it amusing that I am already writing another blog so soon after my first, but it could not be helped.  I went for a night run tonight and I was bombarded with memories as I ran.  It was cool and pleasant as I ran in the dark toward a road that I run on quite often.  I like to run on this road at night because of the general lack of street lights.  I often get lost in my prayers and the pleasure of running down this dark street.  What I encountered surprised me.  Even as I started out my ankle was hurting a little bit.  I haven't been running as often as I should, so my body is weaker than it should be.  I injured my ankle in Tanzania two summers ago, and unless I keep up on my running, the ankle grows weak and aches when I start running again.  That made me think of Tanzania.  As I ran along the dark street I was reminded of a particular night after fellowship, games, snacks, and prayer at a missionary's house I rode most of the way to the place I was staying with another missionary as her companion since she didn't particularly want to drive home alone.  I then walked from her place to mine in the dark, and running down the street reminded me of that.  The ditches along the side of this street reminded me of the ditches along the streets in Tanzania.  Even some of the odors on my run reminded me.  Here is my point.  The pain of my ankle and the stench of trash should normally be bad memories, something people generally want to forget.  Yet I cling to these as good memories reminding me of a time where I was closer to Christ than I've ever been before or since.  It is all a matter of perspective.  I hope I can have the perspective of Christ.

For His Glorious Name,
Jason Carwile

Of New Beginnings

It is interesting to note that new beginnings often spring out of the end of something else.  This blog is no different.  I am a thinker.  I spend most of my free time pondering things philosophical and mundane alike.  Every once in a while I feel like sharing those thoughts with others, even if noone is listening.  I used to use facebook for that purpose posting notes on my thoughts from time to time.  However, over a period of time I found facebook to grate against my sensibilities and slowly grew to disdain the amount of time I was spending hitting the refresh button.  It was not healthy.  So I finally made the decision to deactivate my account and never look back.  And yet with that decision I cut off my contact with many people from my past and removed the means to release the overflow of my thoughts on the unsuspecting public.  It has been a little over a month since I made this choice and I finally decided to do something about it, therefore this blog.  Maybe nobody will ever read this.  I haven't fully decided whether to even inform anyone that this blog exists.  Maybe I'll leave it for whatever person happens to stumble upon it some day.  But I doubt that will be the case.  At some point I'll mention it to someone or maybe even reference it in a paper I'm writing.  Whatever the reason, my thoughts will be recorded and maybe they'll be useful to someone in the future.  Already this blog has changed something that had been static in my life for some time.  If you know me well enough, the end here should be enough of a clue to see it.

For His Glorious Name,
Jason Carwile