A Prodigal Desperado

"Come home to the Father’s love, to the joy of Jesus’ feast. Are you a prodigal, far from the gate of heaven? Jesus now comes to lift you up. Are you a smug Pharisee, flaunting the filthy rags of your self-righteousness outside the Father’s house? Hear the words of Jesus: his Father calls you to repent and come home as a little child. Or are you somehow both at once: prodigal and proud, debased but despising?

No matter; cast all away and hold fast to Jesus. Or are you a believer? Has Jesus found you like the lost sheep and borne you home on his shoulder? Then consider the demand this parable puts on you. You have tasted of heaven’s grace. You know the embrace of your Father’s love. You know that he rejoices over you with singing. What does heaven’s joy, his joy, over lost sinners mean to you?

You say, “It means that I, too, must welcome sinners, be ready to eat with them, even as I have been brought to his table.” Is that enough? The true Son, who knows his Father’s heart, did not simply share with sinners his robe, his ring, his sandals. He went to find them to bring them home.

Where will you look today?

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8, NIV).

Ed Clowney "Sharing the Father's Welcome"

I loved the Larry Sanders Show with Garry Shandling, a sarcastic, humor driven look at life on a late night talk show. His flawed characters, full of insecurity and neediness, were people with such huge faults that I can’t help but laugh as I identify myself with them. Growing up watching Johnny Carson, the similarities are unmistakable, especially Hank the sidekick, who bears all the nuances of an Ed McMahon, a second fiddle character who unabashedly clings to the coat-tails of the shows star, Larry Sanders. And Hank takes a figurative beating in the show, often being embarrassed and laughed at, but at the same time, being so ego-centric and needy that he continually lands himself into those situations.

In this interview, Shandling talks about what was the underlying motivation of his show and I think he points out some truths that are quite profound. Authenticity is something Garry is looking for by using his characters to demonstrate his observation of himself and of us all. The metaphor is the show, the Larry Sanders Show. In suggesting that we tend to live our lives while wearing a false face over a curtain of emotions and dysfunction, the show has a literal curtain, but the dysfunctions are all there just as they are in real life. Garry seems passionate about this subject as he states firmly that the characters in the show are doing what all people (meaning every one of us) are doing, which is desperately searching to find love...somehow, someway.

In a clip from the show, Hank (a needy and insecure, yet ego-driven character) pleads with Larry to receive his acceptance and love when he asks Larry to promise to never abandon him again. Larry can’t really give this promise, but Hank is more than willing to accept whatever he can get, which in a humorous way falls dreadfully short of what he needs. I think Shandling illustrates in this scene that as desperate as we are for love, we cannot get this promise and love from other people. To do so, as Hank does, is to settle for something that is never going to be enough, it simply isn't able to do the job. Profound and true, I think, but Shandling does fall short of where this discussion should lead us to, which is to say that what we need and desire can only truly be found in Christ, who offers us everlasting love and tells us that “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst."

This is Shandling in an interview with Ricky Gervais of the British TV comedy The Office.

Thanks Jesus!

Night, darkness of night
I've got a friend, I'm turning to
Stay, beside me now
Though night and day,
might slip away

Always with you,
there I will be
Where you might go,
I'll be there too
I have in you,
such a good friend
I have in you,
such a good friend

Days, numbers of days
Giving us now, love in this day
Life, all of my life
I've got a friend,
I'm turning to

Always with you,
there I will be
Where you might go,
I'll be there too
I have in you,
such a good friend
Friend like as you,
there is no end.

I Like This Short Article by Vincent P. Collins

ACCEPTANCE

By Vincent P. Collins



Facing Life



Sooner or later, everyone arrives at a point where life seems to become too big to cope with. Life is never really too much for us, but it can seem to be. When this happens, we have to get life back in focus. We have lost our perspective, but it can be regained.

You may have to come to think of the world as unspeakably vast -- the earth, twenty five thousand miles around, and outer space, full of unknown worlds. But, practically, the world is limited to your house, your shop, and your town. Even if you fly to India or Paris or Hong Kong, your world is no bigger than the interior of the airplane, and no further away than the nearest airport.

You may have come to regard the world as teeming with millions and millions of people. In reality, your world consists of a very small number of people -- those you live with, those you work with, and those you're acquainted with.

And the awful menacing future, that unending nightmare of shadowy days and years! Can't even bear to think about it. Well, quit even thinking about it at all. You live only a split second at a time; that's right this minute. You can think of only one thing at a time, do only one thing at a time; you actually live only one breath at a time. So stop living in a tomorrow that may never come, and start living one day at a time -- today. Plan for tomorrow, but live only till bedtime tonight.

In short, that big bogey-man, life, can be cut down to his real size. Life is only this place, this time, and these people right here and now. This you can handle -- at least today.

"But my life is just one problem after another!" Of course it is -- that's life.

I don't know how it is with you, but it took me a long time to realize that at least some of these problems were of my own making. For instance, I thought that it was my duty to try to solve other people's problems, arbitrate their disputes, and show them how to live their lives. I was hurt when they rejected my advice. I finally learned that you cannot help people unless they really need help, are willing to be helped, want you to help them, and ask you to help them. Even then, you can only help them to help themselves.

An old Arab, whose tent was pitched next to a company of whirling dervishes was asked, "Don't they bother you?" "NO!""What do you do about them?""I just let 'm whirl!"

I caused myself alot of unnecessary grief by trying to be unselfish, to think of everybody else first, myself last, and to try to please everybody. You can knock yourself out doing this and that and the other thing to please "your cousins and your sisters and your aunts," and you find out that they are not really affected one way or the other. Please everybody, nobody's pleased; please yourself, at least you're pleased! Charity begins at home, and enlightened self interest is a basic endowment of human nature. You can save yourself allot of grief by admitting the futility of trying to please everybody, or of trying to please somebody who just can't be pleased.

A surprised number of people believe that other people can hurt their feelings. They won't believe you when you tell them that it just isn't so -- that no one can hurt you unless you let them! If irresponsible or unreasonable criticism causes you unhappiness, that is at least partly your own fault. We all say "I don't care what people say," but the tragic thing is that we do care, pretending we don't makes thing worse. What to do?





Practice turning a deaf ear to the person who irritates or upsets you; make up your mind that you are not going to let yourself pay any attention to what "he" or "she" says, and mean it. This you won't believe until you try it. If you refuse to at least try it, some suspicious and cynical soul (like me, for instance) might suspect that perhaps you've got so in the habit of having your feelings hurt that you'd be bored otherwise.

So much for unnecessary suffering.

How about real trouble, trouble that comes regardless of what we do, think, or say? That terrifying problem that has no apparent solution? Let's stop for a minute and see what a problem really is.

A problem is a set of circumstances that threatens your well being. And what are circumstances? Circumstances are people and things. So, "solve our problems" really means getting people and things the way we want them. Sometimes we can do it. More often we can't. What then?

There are several things we can do. We can look around to find somebody or something to blame. Or we can put ashes in our hair, wear shabby shoes with run-down heels, accentuate our wrinkles, and make the rounds of our friends chanting, "Poor, Poor Me!" We can succeed in making our family miserable. We can haunt doctors. We can waylay our pastor, beat our breasts and blame God: "What have I done to deserve this?"



Acceptance



These various "home remedies" ---blaming everybody, self pity and the rest --- have but one result: they make everybody including ourselves more miserable and add to our difficulties without solving them. Shall we curse God and die? No.

Do what the politician does: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!If you can't solve your problems, learn to live with them and in spite of them.

"Oh sure, sure; just like that! All very well to say "Learn to live with them", but it's another thing to do it! Just how do you go about doing that?Very simple, my friend; so simple you wouldn't try it unless you were desperate. If you are desperate enough you'll try anything. So try something that works -- try acceptance!




Acceptance is the only real source of tranquility, serenity, peace. It is also known as "surrender", Bowing to the inevitable. Joining 'em. It can be acquired if you have an urgent desire to help yourself and are willing to ask God to help you.

Luckily for us, the perfect formula for acceptance, simple and practical as a can opener, is ready at hand, waiting for us to use it as hundreds of thousands before us have. Written by Reinhold Niebuhr, it is known far and wide as "The Serenity Prayer."

Here it is:

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

and Wisdom to know the difference.


You simply ask God to give you the ability to take people and things as they are, if you cannot change them. We can very seldom change people though we can change ourselves. We ask God, further, to enable us to convince ourselves that we would not have things otherwise, even if we could. Only God is powerful enough to control all things and He seems to prefer to make some things come out right without changing them.

In practice: face up to the problem that is driving you wild, and say "Is there anything I can do about it right now, today?" If there is, do it! Don't put it off another minute. If there is nothing you can do about it today, accept it and forget it.

You don't get over a forty foot wall by banging your head against it, you just get a headache. If you sit down in the shade of the wall and say, "Maybe I'm better off on this side, after all." You may be sure that God will make things turn out better for you and for everyone else. This ability of His to make things work out for the best is known as Divine Providence, or "The Kindness of God."



The Kindness of God



Divine Providence is that quality of God's action by which He brings good out of evil, or by which He permits us to do evil so that he may eventually bring good out of it. The Kindness of God is the best answer to the age old complaint, "Why does God let them get away with it?"

We are all aware that people just don't act the way they should. Some are mean, arrogant, selfish, vicious, ungrateful, and malicious all the time. Even the very best (are you listening?) are mean, arrogant, etc., part of the time.

Why doesn't God do something about it: He could, all right; but, strange to say, that would ruin everything. He created us with free will, that is, the power of choosing to do good or to do evil. He realized very well that some people would abuse free will, but He gave it to us anyway, because if without it we'd be robots. His plan is to reward us with Heaven but you don't reward a machine for doing well -- it can't do otherwise. No free will, no reward.

We may as well accept the fact that "It's a sinful world!" We don't have to remind God of that; indeed, no one ever suffered more from it than He Himself did when His Son was on earth. The big difference is that He accepted the injustice done to His Son and did not rebel against it. It was through that very acceptance that He was to save us. Everything that was done to His Son was permitted by Himself for our salvation. For His Son's part, he accepted it as the will of his Father. "Father if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; but not my will, but Thine be done."

Do you claim to be the victim of a greater injustice than His Son? Or more important than His Son? You'd gladly escape your unbearable situation, but cannot. His Son could have, but did not! "Is the disciple above the Master?"




The Providence of God turned the most horrible injustice of all time into the greatest blessing of all time. Divine Providence is still turning evil into good, if the victim of injustice accepts his lot, even as Christ accepted His. When you bow to the inevitable and accept injustice, you are not ignoring it or excusing it or explaining it away. You are simply accepting the indirect or permissive Will of God.

God does not will evil or condone injustice; He merely permits it, even while He works the marvel by which it results in good. So if we find ourselves in an apparently hopeless situation, with every avenue of escape blocked, we must not rebel. Instead, we must realize that God has His reasons, in His infinite goodness and wisdom, for permitting it. And so we accept it, saying "Thy Will Be Done!" Immediately the load drops from our shoulders, and the assurance that all will be well, brings peace to our soul.Look back over your life. Honestly, now, can't you see how the loving Hand of God has brought a happy ending to many events that seemed to be unmitigated tragedies at the time? "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?"



Suffering





Some humorist once said, "Just because we have the right to the pursuit of happiness, is no sign we'll ever catch up with it!" Sometimes it almost seems that God doesn't want us to be happy here on earth, that He demands misery and suffering in this life as the price of happiness in the next. The Puritans believe this, but don't you believe it! God wants us to be happy right here on earth and even points out the way. Sometimes, however, we refuse to look where He is pointing.

The trouble is that most of us think happiness consists in the fulfillment of our wants and desires, or at the very least in freedom from pain and suffering. Actually, it consists in the serenity that comes from conforming our own will to the Will of God. We achieve happiness by forcing ourselves to accept what God wants for us.

It's obvious that such a course would make for happiness in the next life, but it's hard to see how it would make us happy in this life. That's because we're convinced that happiness lies in getting what we want -- satisfying our instinctive appetites and desires -- all of which is the exact opposite of the truth. Actually, even if we could satisfy our every desire, we would not be happy. Self gratification, far from making us happy, makes us miserable, as we learned long ago from the tale of King Midas and the Golden Touch. If you have been making the universal mistake of trying to appease the drive of your self will, stop it! Stop catering to it, and start controlling it.

"Easier said than done!"

No, it's not too difficult when you know how. God has provided us with the perfect means to eliminate self will and free ourselves from the slavery of our insatiable desires. It is suffering -- the perfect tool to cut us down to proper size. Instead of going the limit to dodge pain, we had better start using it. Pain is the only instrument sharp enough to prune away the excesses of our wayward will and to fashion it into a reasonable facsimile of God's Will; which is to say into the shape of a cross.

Very few people carry a cross of heroic proportions, since God makes each one to measure and there are very few heroes. More usually it consists of daily annoyances and petty frustrations, disappointments, loneliness, and recurring disillusionment with everybody, ourselves included. You might term it a combination of the bodily aches, spiritual twinges and mental hotfoots that go to make up everyday living. The way of the Cross may be hard, but it remains the only road to happiness, serenity, and peace in this life, on this earth. And at it's end there awaits you happiness without measure, without limit, without end.



Contentment



Baby screams because Mama won't let him play with the nice, big, shiny butcher knife. Baby is very unhappy; he can't have what he wants, and he doesn't want that silly old rattle. Baby has yet to learn that contentment consists not in getting what he wants but in enjoying what he has. If we grown ups are contented only when we're getting what we want, we're going to be discontented most of the time. That way, our happiness depends on circumstances over which we have no control. No human being is so wise and powerful that he can control circumstances.

Then we had better see what we can do about finding our own enjoyment. Since we can't get everything we want, we must learn to enjoy what we have. Well, what have you? You're alive, and you have five senses in more or less good working order. Even if you were deaf, dumb and blind you could at least take enjoyment from the sensation of breathing.

I am not deaf, dumb or blind. I can even look at a smoldering dump and enjoy the realization that I can see it and I can smell it. I can listen to a cat yowling outside my window at three a.m. and enjoy the realization that there's nothing wrong with my hearing. I can walk; I can enjoy the sensation of picking my feet up and putting them down. I can be color blind and tone deaf and still enjoy a little baby's gurgling. As a matter of fact, we can find something enjoyable in any situation, no matter how disagreeable, if we look for it. If we try hard enough, we can even enjoy the drudgery of our work.

Don't make the mistake of postponing your enjoyment until vacation time, or even till the week-end. Some people have to go to movies or night-clubs for amusement and laughs, when their own children can provide more amusement than an army of M.C.'s. Let's enjoy here and now!

Perhaps the most difficult thing to bear is loneliness or aloneness. What to do when circumstances force us into a solitary existence? First, if you are fortunate enough to have a variety of interest, physical or mental, you must make a real effort to develop them. Failing that, you can search out and help the less fortunate. If you are not up to that, you are thrown back on the conscious cultivation of your five senses and intellectual powers. At the very least, you can tell God every morning that you hold yourself available for use as His instrument, if only by praying for Him to bless everyone whom you meet.



If these alternatives do not work, there is only one thing left; simple, rock bottom acceptance. Stop pitying yourself, stop rebelling, throw in the sponge, and surrender to the obvious fact that since God allows it and you can't escape it, it must be best for you and for everyone. Pray for the faith to believe it and to accept it.



"Lord, Save Us ..."



God is infinitely wise: He knows what is best for us. He loves us with an infinite love; He wants what is best for us. He is all powerful; He can achieve it for us. We, on the other hand, are ignorant, weak, and wayward. Yet in weakness lies our strength. Are we licked, beat, flattened, hopeless? Fine! It is only when we admit utter helplessness that we can be sure of God's help.

No one but a monster could pass by a starving, naked infant freezing in a snow bank without picking it up, sheltering, feeding, and clothing it. So it is with us. As long as we insist, "I can handle it!" -- God says, "Go ahead." But when we appeal to him as a helpless infant, He picks us up in His gentle Hands, cradles us in His powerful arms, and our worries are over.




A wise old Scotsman used to put it this way: "As long as I insisted on driving, I ran into trouble. After the last crash up I said to God: 'O.K., You drive it!' Since then, I have been driving in the back seat enjoying the scenery. I place myself completely in His hands every morning and say, 'Thank you, God!' every night. And that's it!

In praying we must remember that "Father knows best." Suppose, for instance, I think I am about to lose my job? Should I pray? What should I pray for? God may have ordained that if I do not pray, He will let nature take its course and I will lose my job; if I do ask Him to save my job, He will. However, with greater faith I may pray, "Dear God, do what is best for all concerned." In turn, He may permit me to lose my job, only to get a better one. I have nothing to lose by leaving it up to Him. After all, He can't possibly do a worst job of running my life than I have myself!

We all are inclined to make the mistake of thinking that the few minutes we spend in actually talking to God are all that count. In reality, the attitude of mind we maintain throughout the day is every bit as important. If you place yourself in God's hands in the morning, and through-out the day you hold yourself ready to accept His will as it is known through the circumstances of your daily life, your attitude of acceptance becomes a constant prayer.

To cultivate this attitude, to remind yourself how to live with yourself, start today to recite every day the serenity prayer.



The Serenity Prayer



"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

and Wisdom to know the difference;

Living one day at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He would make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.

Amen."

The Soundings of God

This is Rob Mathes next to Pavarotti. Rob is a musician about whom I know very little, but I heard of him from a sermon I got a hold of from my father (the consummate blog surfer) titled The Soundings of God.

The subject is the Soundings of God. Rob asks "Does the love of God have a sound? Is it like a song?" Then Rob begins by recounting a group of moving experiences on a trip to London and to Dublin where he was going to work with a poet on some writing. On the trip he takes in a Shakespearean play, King Lear, a London Symphony performance of Mahler's 8th symphony (a piece he describes as a personal desert-island piece) and most profoundly, the poet and his wife that he met and stayed with for a time.

In the play, King Lear finds himself in the middle of a cold, stormy night in the company of noone but his fool. The wind is howling, the king's fool is freezing and the King is meeting suffering face to face and for the first time he notices someone else's need. They find a small shelter and the King says to the fool, "How dost, my boy? Art cold? I am cold myself. In, boy. You go first, nay get thee in and I'll pray." Then the King says, "Poor naked wretches, where so e'er you are that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm. How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, your looped and windowed raggedness defend you from seasons such as these?" Rob's favorite part of the play.



Rob describes the London Symphony's performance...the theme of notes that run through the hour and a half. Rob sings the trumpet like call of Mahler's 8th symphony when the words are sung, "Veni! Veni Creator Spiritus!" meaning "Come! Come Holy Spirit!

It is a deep subject, asking where is my God. Yearning to behold His face, to hear His voice. Rob is not saying here is how you find Him, nor does he say this is what He will do for you in life to show that He loves you. Rob is listening and seeing and hearing Jesus in beautiful things that speak in the mysterious ways of song about the love and beauty of Jesus. In the people he meets, Rob sees Jesus in the fallible, frailness of human relationship, tinged with tragedy but soaked with love.

Rob uses part of Psalm 42 to frame this whole experience.

When shall I come and behold the face of God?
My tears have been my food day and night
while people say to me continually, Where is your God?
Deep calls to deep at the thunder of His waterfalls
All His waves and billows have gone over me
By day the Lord commands His steadfast love
and at night His song is with me.


For me, the beauty, selflessness and love Rob shows us from his story, is the voice of the gospel, singing the soundings of Jesus, the One who is selfless, who is love and who has overcome the ultimate tragedy. I have thought a lot about knowing God loves me and I do believe we can see that truly through the cross. I do yearn to hear His song, played clearly, played loudly in experiences that echo the sacrificial love of Jesus. Rob describes it as the ringing of the bells, the chimes of God's soundings, and I think of the psalm, the thunder of His waterfalls, His waves and billows have gone over me.


I have the sermon, but have not been able to find it online any longer. It is deep and beautiful, I want to explore more of it, maybe I can get it posted on here.

Steve Brown ~ A Scandalous Freedom

A quote from A Scandalous Freedom by Steve Brown

"If you are reading this because you count yourself a good person and good people read religious books, let me give you a warning; You are dancing on the edge of a cliff. One day, maybe soon, you’re going to fall off. Not only that, but when you fall off, its going to hurt really bad. I just wanted you to know, and I didn’t want you to say that nobody ever told you. I just told you - Feeling ashamed and knowing Christ far surpasses being good and never thirsting for mercy and forgiveness.”

Steve Brown, A Scandalous Freedom

Steve Brown Podcast

The Iron Giant

A cool ending in which the Iron Giant sacrifices himself to save his friends. A great example of the gospel's theme weaving itself into a story. Whether intended or not, certain wonderful truths about the gospel are often illustrated all around us. This video is cut together with various scenes of the movie to the musical soundtrack of the movie Fargo. I think the music is appropriately poignant and the scenes illustrate the themes of innocence, love, protection, restrained power, mystery and self sacrifice. In one of his sermons, Tim Keller recalls the way the Iron Giant looks as he sends himself toward destruction with the knowledge that his own suffering provides life for his friends.

Cheap Trick Forever!

Cheap Trick is still alive!!! Ok, not actually "breaking news", but it was an interesting discovery. Not only are they alive, but they have been basically performing and touring since the late 70's. THE LATE 70's!!! Let me just say that I am not in any way a huge Cheap Trick fan and have never bought any of their music, although I really love a lot of their songs, especially now that I hear them again. I can remember the bald guitarist with the hat who always changed guitars and flicked his pick into the air. And the drummer who had a cigarette perpetually dangling from his lips while playing, looking more like a businessman on break than a percussionist in a rock band. And I vaguely remember hearing about the lead singer, something about him being a teacher...maybe a music teacher or the flute...anyway, it is really vague.

Well, the interesting thing is that I looked Cheap Trick up on YouTube tonight to hear one of their songs, I Want You to Want Me for a video idea that I had. One thing led to another and I ended up finding out that they are still active and still together. Except for the bass player who was absent for some years in the 80's but has returned, the same four guys have been playing this whole time! Amazing and pretty cool!

This revelation is in stark contrast to some thoughts I have been thinking about today, which was centered around the fickleness of fame and the fleeting nature of pop-culture. As I grow somewhat older, it is fascinating to look at how people become famous, do various things in culture, and then die, often literally, like a spark leaping from a bonfire. What is fascinating is that the people who come in to replace them, which always happens, invariably seem to feel that they will last forever. I notice how oblivious the newcomers seem to their futile attempt to make the spark somehow seem profound in its value and contribution. In some way, the newcomers lose any sense of taking time to attempt the art that sparks longer, but instead make as bright a spark as they can, which of course makes them "flame out" all the sooner. Instant gratification put into a time warp. Reminds me of the Steven Wright joke, "I put instant rice in the microwave and I almost went back in time." The essence of this thinking, I believe, is that "things" become valuable to the newcomers simply because it is in the "now". It is definitely not old school, not by a long shot. It is not really new school either, but is just rehashed from a week ago. It is ok to be new and to be just like last weeks news, because last weeks news is gone, what matters is what is "now".

But I wasn't really thinking about creating art that lasts past the era that is was created in because of its inherent genius. Even so, that art, as great as it may be, is finite as well, it is just a more lengthy spark that lasts beyond our ordinary sense of observable "flaming out". It is important, don't get me wrong. There is truth and profundity to be sure, and music and art, for example, are staples of my diet as a human that I relish as much as anyone. But I am thinking more about the fact that all things are fleeting...even the good things, even the profound things, even the things we think should last forever. It doesn't seem right, does it? But the fleeting sparks of pop-culture are really just everything else in life thrust into hyperactive mode. In this sense the greatest of art is no more significant in and of itself than the most recent fleeting spark.

Elisabeth Elliot wrote a novel called No Graven Image. In short, the story is about a missionary who spends her lifetime working with a group of people in a primitive-like society. She learns their language and over her lifetime manages to create a large body of work relating to these people, their culture and language, all in her efforts to bring faith to them for their ultimate good. After the tragic accidental death of an associate of hers, the tribe of people turn against her and in minutes destroy all the work she has done, a lifetime of dedication taken away in an instant. The book was poorly received by many in the christian community, basically because people felt that God would never allow this to happen to somebody serving so faithfully. But no, this book was actually based on Elisabeth Elliot's life and yes, God allows things to happen to those He loves and who serve Him. Things don't last forever, even the profound, even the things we think should last forever. Of course, the things that only live in the "now", they are easier to spot as fleeting sparks...but the other things are harder to see, I think.

But there is something that really, truly and quite profoundly does last forever. Now that is something that I really want to see. It could be called the ultimate important thing, profundity on steroids of a "beyond cosmic" scale. Something that is so unimaginably profound, it can never be taken away or "flame out" like a fleeting spark. It cannot not exist, and it will always "be", because it comes from the only person who has always existed and will always be. What is amazing is that Jesus humbled himself by leaving the "profound" to enter into the "fleeting sparks" along with all of us, where he accomplished the only profound thing that transcends all other things. He did not come to extinguish the sparks but to make them last forever. Jesus gives meaning to even the most meaningless of fleeting sparks. Which leads me back to the song that I was looking up in the very beginning, which brought this lasting thing to my mind. I think there is a tremendous amount of poetic irony in this, because the thing that lasts forever, that is accomplished through Jesus, is really the thing that the "fleeting sparks" are mostly talking about. Now, I think I will listen to some more Cheap Trick, somehow I think I can find Jesus in there, even if only because Jesus is what it needs...just like me.