Month: December 2019

The chilly winter air washes over my face as I walk down the snow dusted sidewalk past a familiar four plex unit, only four blocks from my house. Instantly, I am transported back in time. Twenty five years ago, I was about to move into that residence with my new wife.  

I think about that young couple only 22 (me) and 21 (her) and wonder if they had any idea of the adventure, heartbreak, elation, tragedy, disappointment and successes that would shape who they would become over the next quarter of a century. They were different people. Very sheltered and naive. Very idealistic with well thought out plans as to how their future together would be. 

We are not the same people as we were back then. Almost unrecognizable really.  Life simply did not happen as we had planned and it changed who we are. None of us are meant to be static beings. We are all meant to be dynamic and in the process of becoming.  I believe that the people we surround ourselves with are an integral part of shaping who we are and who we will be.

I think that the best part of the marriage adventure is that of discovery.  It’s about a lifetime of exploring one other person in the most intimate way possible. Knowing and being known. If you just love that person as they are now and expect that person to stay that way, you will be disappointed and may “fall out of love” when he or she inevitably changes.  I wonder if that’s one of the factors in so many failed marriages these days?   

I remember being shocked to have found a beautiful woman who would love who I was back then. I am amazed that she would continue to love who I would become over the years. The constant adjustment hasn’t always been easy for either of us. There have been many growing pains. Not only have we developed wrinkles, grey hair (balding in my case) and achy joints, but our whole way of thinking, our priorities, our way of doing life has completely changed.  I believe this has been for the better, though our younger selves would likely question that.  Looking back, I can see that we have indeed evolved into wiser, deeper people and with that, our love has grown deeper and more deeply rooted.  

I’ve realized over the years what a priceless thing it is to have someone next to you who is ready and willing to change WITH you. In our relationships, we need to hold on to who that person is with a loose grip. Willing to let go and allow for growth. Healthy relationships are ones where we love who our partner is becoming. Where we cheer each other on in personal growth, following an upward trajectory together. 

Thank you Carlita for being on this adventure with me for so long and shaping me as a person. You have been instrumental in my personal evolution. Because of you, I’ve become more patient, caring, thoughtful, more loving and less selfish.  Not only have I enjoyed discovering who you are, You have helped me discover who I am.  I am not perfect and still have many personal flaws to overcome, but I am still in progress.  I am becoming and always will be.

I don’t know what experiences life will hand us in the future, but I look forward to who we will be twenty five years from now!

When all you know is blurry vision, it seems pretty normal. What does it mean to see clearly?  No one can tell you. It must be experienced. 

I received my first pair of glasses 40 years ago at the age of seven.  The interesting thing is that I had no idea that I needed glasses.  In fact, I remember feeling somewhat offended at the suggestion that I couldn’t see well and needed something to correct my vision.  Even though I was born with perfect vision, I no longer had any frame of reference for what clear vision might be like as my eyes had slowly deteriorated without me noticing. It took teachers at school and my parents to realize that I could not see as I should be able to.  Once I put on that first pair of glasses, everything became clear.  I hadn’t realized how detailed the world around me could be until I saw through them.   

As human beings, I believe we are also born with perfect vision of our inherent goodness, completeness and worth.  Not one person is ever born “sinful”. The teaching of “original sin” is an unfortunate idea which infected Christianity via a 5th century church leader (Augustine of Hippo).   However, it is inevitable that we will lose focus of who we are and what God is like.  From the time we are children, people around us—our very system of society inflicts us with the idea that we are worth less than we are. We are told that the universe is not a very safe place and that if there is a God, He must be very disappointed in us because we are so flawed.  Religion tells us that God’s acceptance of us is entirely conditional. IF we believe in the right things, IF we act the right way and IF this deity gets the right sacrifice, then maybe we can be forgiven and accepted.  Otherwise we are doomed to retributive punishment. Angry gods always demand their pound of flesh.  

This just seems normal.  We have no other frame of reference to think of such things and are often offended when someone suggests to us that our vision might need fixing. 

Is there even anyone out there to correct our eyesight?

2000 years ago God became enfleshed.  The eternal Christ who has always been, became a human.  Jesus came to show us what God is really like. He said things like, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  Many other things He said, were and still are confusing, but the way He behaved was not.  He spent His life living not as a deity, not even as a king, but as a common peasant without economic or political advantage.  He spent His time loving the unlovable, preemptively forgiving the guilty and healing those who were soul and body sick. The only ones He chastised were those who would dare to create distance between the people and the Father.  The highest revelation of this God we observe in the person of Jesus, is on the cross.  We clearly see the radically forgiving, others-empowering, co-suffering nature of God.  We clearly see how God has ALWAYS been.  We did not know this before, but now we do.  

It’s interesting how Jesus constantly refers to Himself as the “son of man”.  He identifies not as divine, though He certainly is that.  He identifies as human.  

Yes, Jesus is the archetypal human.

He doesn’t just show us what God is like.  He shows us who we are as well and invites us to live as such.  Many of us have been led to believe by systems of religion, that whenever Jesus invites us to believe in Him so we can enjoy “eternal life”,  this means “living forever somewhere else” (in heaven) after we die.  This idea is clearly the wrong prescription for our eyes.  Jesus is actually inviting us to observe how He lives, to understand that this is the way that humans are designed to live and to do likewise.  This is the “narrow road” which leads to life.  Life as humans are designed to live in the here and now. 

What Jesus accomplishes through His life and death is to redeem all of humanity. The word “redeem” is a good word. Let’s break it down:  To “deem” is to give something value.  In the creation narrative in the book of Genesis, God declares that we are “good”. The word used here is “טוב”, which means “complete”.  Somehow, our vision deteriorated and we came to think that we are not complete.  We are lacking. We are flawed. We are inherently sinful at the core of our being and deserving only of eternal retributive punishment.  If you believe that’s who you are, it’s not surprising when your praxis reflects this thinking.

Then Jesus comes along and restores our value.  He “re-deems” all of humanity by showing us what God is really like and showing us what it looks like to be fully human.  He restores our value by becoming one of us and by treating us as priceless!  Even when we murder Him on the cross, He speaks forgiveness to the unrepentant. He absorbs our hatred and recycles it into forgiveness and dies that way. 

Now if He remained dead, history would see Jesus simply as another inspiring person.  Another nice guy who tried to make a difference, but ultimately failed.  However He didn’t. He was resurrected!  This is vindication of what He has revealed to us, as well as a promise of a continuation of life for us. Resurrection is after all, a very human thing to do.

The greatest gift we have received at Christmas is glasses. We see God and ourselves through the lens of Jesus—God incarnate who lived and died and rose again to show us what reality looks like. Do you see God as an angry judge?  Someone you need to please to earn acceptance?  Or worse…someone who will torment you for eternity if you believe wrongly?  Do you see yourself as flawed?  Defective? Unlovable?

If this is how you see reality, you in fact need corrective eyewear.  Will you put on the “Jesus glasses” and experience perfect clarity?

Merry Christmas!