Depravity

She was shocked. "You actually believe that people are inherently evil?!"

I said, "Yes."

I should have said, "You are shocked only because you don't really know evil. You believe evil is rapists and murderers, Hitler and terrorists and the other bad men on TV. You don't know evil because you haven't found it in yourself. You've probably heard rumors in your soul, seen in hints in your body. Easy enough for most to ignore, rationalize, relativize, speculate on environmental causes, to never need to believe you were broken from the start. But you were and you are."

"To say i believe we are inherently evil doesn't capture the character of the concept. We're broken, from the start, all of us. And the whole world is broken with us, by us."

"Tell me you can see that. We're not what we ought to be, what we could be, what we should be. This whole world is not actually whole. It's corrupted, like us, with us, by us. We live in the constant tension between what is and what should be. The seed of Adam carries the seed of evil, the persistent rebellion against the way things were meant to be, even as we have not forgotten, not wholly, not truly what it is, who it is we rebelled against."

"If you want to know what's wrong with the world, you needn't look any further than yourself. It's right there, an evil so pervasive we are as ignorant of it as we are of the air we breathe. We only notice when a particular aspect of it concentrates somewhere or precipitates little mustachioed Hitlers to ruin our day. Or maybe, when we stop to think and observe carefully. But so many people never do. They don't want to know, don't want to find it inside themselves."

But i just said, "Yes."  I wish she had asked me why.

Sailing the Sea of Culture

Cultures press upon us all. The collective weight of a thousand trends. The memes, the stories, the passions swirl about us, and no one is immune, nor should we be. We are living, relational, communal beings, it does not behoove us to be indifferent as Gibraltar. But neither are we to be flotsam upon the tide. We are to be both ships and shapers, to navigate by the fixed heavens at one time and pressing even the waters back from our shores at another. We are to constrain the sea with the levees of reality and set steady courses by the light of truth. Ground yourself in reality. Gird yourself with truth. Be alive, reactive and adaptive to your environment, but never slave to it. Find guidance from the eternal amidst the fashionable; never allow the latter to adjudicate the former.

You wish to be progressive? Excellent! But never forget that progress cannot be measured without a fixed goal. The doctrines of relativism countermand those of progress and cannot even hint at proselytism without hypocrisy. Truth will be what truth is, quite oblivious to our sophisms.

You wish to be loving? This is the highest aim! But never confuse blind tolerance for love. Love is not blind and will tolerate self-destruction no more than attack. Love will discipline what mere tolerance must abide.

You long for justice? As do i! We will surely find it at the junction of love and truth, a crossroads i believe we selfish creatures can reach by God's grace alone.

And if you do, if you act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Truth, be assured that the winds of fashion and waves of politics will buffet you, chastise you. The tide of culture will rise upon your walls, and you will feel the pervasive, persistent pressure of peers pushing and pulling at your principals and precepts. Who can hold back the sea alone? Bind yourself to a community of others and together anchor in those harbors old and sure, together navigate the uncharted with diligent study, together shape for yourselves an identity, a story even, that is alive, both rooted and active. Know together whence you have come and whither you will go, or else who will be able to distinguish you from a lifeless branch drifting aimlessly about the sea?

So, be different from your culture and even from the "march of history", but at the bidding of truth and love, not reflexively nor stubbornly. Neither be merely "true to yourself", for you owe yourself no credit for your creation and are in no sense the arbiter of reality. Be true to truth. Be different from lies. And on both counts, expect and accept the opposition you will oft find from both others and your own self. Your internal resistance will oft be the greater challenge. Be at peace with the inescapability of conflict and failure; never cease your efforts to avoid and ameliorate them without compromising either truth or love.

With man, this is impossible. With God, all things are possible.

Getting The Units Wrong

I got into an internet debate today. Yeah, i know, it's mostly a waste of time. But i did enjoy the process of sharpening my own thoughts. At one point, the opponent rephrased my words "follow Jesus" into "follow the Bible 100%". Some who agreed with me accepted the rephrasing and ran with it. It bugged me immediately, but it took a while for me to articulate why.  Here's what i concluded:

We don't follow an "it"; we don't measure salvation in percentages. We are called not to comply with a rulebook, but to follow a divine Person, revealed in creation, history, community and, yes, scripture. These scriptures were given in pieces over time to differing cultures and situations, and they are a true story far, far more than they are a factual textbook or rulebook. To speak of percentages implies a measurable equivalence between any one part and another, something you might get with a dictionary, but never with a story, never with religious texts. All parts matter, but by no means in equal measure. So when we emphasize that we follow Jesus, the Son of God, revealed in all of the Bible, it is because saying something mathematic like "follow the Bible 100%" utterly fails to describe the lifelong (and then some) process of interpreting everything contextually (big picture always trumps cherry-picked text), culturally (in light of people to whom it was given), literally (in proper "literature" sense, as many genres are found in the Bible), and relationally (it was never given to be interpreted in isolation). It is pharisaical to try and handle the Bible (or any story) like a series of manageable numbers/facts/rules, and i'm sure you're aware of what Jesus thought of the Pharisees. 

Anyone handling theology or scripture MUST maintain a sense of humility and accept a certain degree of mystery, because every idea you grasp of an infinite, creator God is, by definition, simplified or wrong in some way in order for it to fit into your finite, created head. Any other approach to God inescapably means you've a priori concluded that either your own understanding is infinite or else God is finite/non-existent.

Yeah, i'm pretty happy with this coming out, regardless of the likely fruitless outcome of the debate.  Gosh, are internet debates even worthy of the word "debate"? Probably not.

Leonard, The Lonely Astronaut

The best science fiction stories are never actually about science of any kind; they are about the human condition.  They are about truly human characters and challenges that just happen to use space travel and the like to tell the story in a unique and sometimes more powerful way.  Science fiction has served many novels and films well in this way.  This year, it provides the backdrop for what is probably the best album of 2012, even though there's still over three months left in the year.

When i first heard Andrew Osenga was creating an album called "Leonard, The Lonely Astronaut", i laughed.  It sounds silly, right?  He was going to do a Kickstarter project to finance it, and if the project hit a high enough goal, he would build a spaceship and spacesuit and record the album within.  It was strange and silly, but i liked his Letters to the Editor concept albums well enough that i figured, why not give him the chance?

I am so very glad i did.  The project not only met all of its funding goals, but surpassed all hopes and expectations.  By being a Kickstarter for the project, i was able to get this album many months before its wide release date.  I would guess conservatively that i have listened to it 60 to 80 times since then.  My twenty speculative dollars helped create a kick-ass album whose one paragraph review goes like this:

The production is great, the music is varied and beautiful, and the songwriting is absolutely stellar.  I don't just mean that the lyrics of the individual songs are well-written; the album as a whole, as a unit is superbly crafted.  Osenga has written some great songs here and there, enough to get my attention, but i had no idea he was capable of something as musically and lyrically impressive as this.

The story behind the songs is that of Leonard Belle a man in the future whose wife dies in a car accident while they are finalizing their divorce.  Leonard decides to get away from it all, signing up for a solo trip on a space freighter at relativistic speeds.  This means many months alone in the deep of space while 100 years passes on Earth.  Literally leaving behind everyone and everything he knew forever, with nothing to do but play his music and face his issues for months.  If you consider this backstory, the lyrics are intense and profound.  But even if you don't, they are still full of depth, beauty, and challenge.

At the start of summer, i left a burned copy of Leonard in a car my sister-in-law borrowed for a few weeks.  When she returned the car, she exclaimed, "What was that CD in you left in the car? I could not stop listening to it!"  I know the feeling.

One last thing, i asked that sister, my wife, and daughter what their favorite songs were and read several early reviews by other people.  No one agrees.  Favorite tracks include: Tower of Babel, Firstborn Son, Ever and Always, It Was Not Good For Man To Be Alone, Beat of My Heart, We Never Said Goodbye, and Out of Time.  That's 8 of the 12 full tracks (not counting the two beautiful, but brief instrumental tracks).  Lately, i've gotta say that Shooting Star has really been growing on me.  I think that makes 9 out of 12 favorites by different reviewers now.  That diversity either means the whole album is terrible or the whole album is fantastic.  Trust me, it's the latter.

You can, and should, buy Leonard here, as it provides the artists their best return on your purchase.

On Heresy

Capital ‘T’ Truth longs for ardent missionaries, not angry guards. If it were otherwise, He would have given a great commission more like: “Therefore stay and vigorously argue about theology with all nations, antagonizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and forcing them to obey everything you are convinced I have commanded of them.”


Truth is crucial, theology is import, orthodoxy and tradition are of immense value.   Arguing is as often worthless as worthwhile, divisiveness is terrible, and fear-mongering is seriously obnoxious.


There are two kinds of fools, one who says "i know better than orthodox tradition" and the other who says "i know orthodox tradition better".

faith is a verb

the life i hold here is fragile;
the eternal you give, robust.
the dreams i have may shatter;
the plans you make will not.

the strength i have is waning;
your glory burns ever hot.
the love i offer is fickle;
your love does never stop.

my motives are truly little;
your passions, grand as the stars.
the reasons i give are lowly;
none can measure the height of your thoughts.

yet daily you descend, quite willing,
to empty yourself in my hands.
and always you rush to forgive me,
for the wounds i inflict once again.

there is mystery here that defies me.
there is hope for a promised land.
there is love striving always to free me.
Lord, grant faith, though i don't understand.

risk required

if i took a step toward that
i would have to be a brave man
real life doesn't come that easy
if i left behind a fear like this
i believe i'd be a glad man
but would they look at me the same

stepping out on that limb
is not just going to happen
risk is always required

safety is not security
surviving is not reviving
when your soul is slowly dying

requires risk to love for real
requires faith to get something better
requires change to beat the weather
whether you like it or not

lay down that fear
relax that grip
empty your hand if you want
to get a new hold on life

hold on to that neighbor
give more to that stranger
even die for your friends
there's still nothing higher

like it or not
there is risk required

the baptist

best man in the true wedding
among men and prophets none greater
John, fulfilled in diminishment
was that what made you greater?
love. for the Son, your cousin
eclipsed disciple's pride
the voice calling in the wilderness
leaps at the Bridegroom's sign
but still not beyond doubting
to ask, "are you the One"?
was that just ignorance speaking?
about how the Groom should be?
or was decreasing harder
than you expected it would be?
but the blind did see
and the lame men walked
so i'm betting joy leapt again inside
despite the death you faced
and the prison you were inside
another womb to exit unto life

on giving

I fear i am too detached from my giving,
for the people i give it to mostly give it away.
What good does that do me?
When i give to those
who give to those
who give to the needy,
am i really giving to the needy?
There's no human face on it.
I never see God do His work with it.
Oh, it's good that i give to those
who give to the needy,
for they do it better than i.
But it means more
when i give to a needy stranger
and look him in the eye.
Or even a needy friend,
if God is the reason why.
If i joyfully, faithfully fund the charities,
that's a good thing to be sure.
But that's not all
that the call to give is for.

i want

i want a new world

i want a new body

with better reasons to sing

i want a pure heart

one that doesn't feel the shame

of the weakness hiding in me

i want the strength to believe

and the vision to see

that i can share in that world

today

i want the patience to wait

and the mind to conceive

so this hope can overflow me

i want to see you

with my eyes not just my mind

i want to know you

with fingertips that are mine

i want forever

filled with possibilities

i want this tension

to be just a memory

i want you to teach me

how i really ought to be

who it is you're making me.

i want to look up

and love the people that i see

with the things you know they need

one year

one year,

sadness still.

that, too,

is good.

time passed,

laughing girl.

that, too,

is yours.

tears rise

as blood falls.

that, too,

does hurt.

grey skies,

hide sunrise.

that, too,

can heal.

deep vows,

embrace truth.

that, too,

is proof.

love lives,

death is dead.

that, too,

brings peace.

it's not fair

Ok, the last post was started out of frustration with the idea of fairness and became something rather different. I'm still irritated by "fairness" though. So i'm trying again...

I just don't see fairness as a very biblical, God-like concept, at least not in most pleas for it. "It's not fair" feels like selfishness well-disguised. It is "i deserve better" dressed up in the false humility of tolerance and equality. "Fair" is a word more meaningful in this world's economy than in God's economy. It is the failed law of "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" that need never touch the heart of the problem, the heart of us. It speaks always of shallow thinking or selfishness deeply buried.

Fairness is wholly empty of the sacrificial love and extravagant grace of God.

When i was younger, my siblings and i would whine, "it's not fair". My father's usual reply was the typical, "life's not fair." I, in the infinite wisdom of the adolescent, would always think, "but shouldn't we strive to make it fair?!" Now i know better. Fair would be a terrible thing for life to be, for in all fairness, we deserve nothing of the grace of God. The living root of true Justice is Love. Fairness is justice cut free of its living root. Fairness is a cold and loveless calculation. When we cry "it's not fair", we paste that calculation atop false assumptions about what we deserve to argue for the outcome we desire. And what outcome is that? Justification for our selfishness, either to share less of the bounty God has graciously and undeservedly given us or to covet what was graciously and undeservedly given to others.

Life is not fair. I am very glad for that.

phony shortcuts and cheap substitutes

seem to be all the deceiver ever offers
in the garden, in the desert,
in my head.
to Adam, to Christ,
to me.
One of us three always saw through it.
fairness is Justice writ shallow;
tolerance is nothing like Love.
self-glorification is but vaguely like Glory;
believing in oneself has never taught Faith.
power is only in what you will give;
what you can get will never plug the holes.
there is only one true Hope;
only Freedom in the strong grip of Grace;
only Beauty in the straight highways of the King.
the shortcuts are cliffs and mires;
the substitutes polished by the tyrant's slaves.
still, only One of us three always sees through it.

Gilead

I just finished reading Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead". I cried at its end, not for its end, nor because it was sad. It was beautiful. I sat there on the toilet reading until my legs were asleep to finish, a ridiculous place to experience beauty that would make one weep.

The book is no master piece of poetry, no epic, not the brash offspring of sharp wit or forceful essay of vast intellect. I would not call the story or its players particularly memorable. No surprising twists. No strange quirks. No gimmicks. No cliffhangers or breathtakers. The landscape is plain, with residents to match. The story moves slow, even sluggishly along. If anything in it is foreign or new to me, it is the age of John Ames. But that, too, is not unusual, only outside my experience to date.

There is no escapism or novelty to grab interest in this novel. I can think of little to recommend it to you, except perhaps to say that it moves me. Its town is blessed in the end by the old man, "To me it seems rather Christlike to be as unadorned as this place is, as little regarded." As the town is to him, the like-named book is to me, a clear yet gentle echo of real beauty, humble enough to be thoroughly human. The very bones of it are composed of grace, the muscle faith, the skin a little regarded, dying man.

If you read it, do not be afraid to take a long time and let it sink in slowly. As one reviewer on the back of this library copy says, it is "a book to be savored." It is rich food, best not gulped down in a hurry.

to my Lord and Savior

come.
please, please, come.
it feels like all is wrong because you're not here.
my heart is screaming, screaming.
i want to look in your eyes
and know you understand.
i know you understand,
but i want to look in your eyes and know it.
i want a hug.
oh God, for even a word my ears could hear.
like this world,
i'm such a mess.
i know you're working on it,
but there's so much to be done.
and i'm tired
of faith
of hope
of love only my heart and mind can feel.
you've given me so many other ways to feel,
i long to feel that love with every atom and every thought.
come, Lord.
rule here
in me,
in this place.
i've heard you are making me new
and this place too,
but the waiting is so hard.
and i'm scared of praying for patience.
i know you're not a microwave
or a vending machine,
but Daddy,
you said you give good gifts to those who ask!
i read that in a book i'm pretty inclined to trust.
you being here would be a very good gift.
why not give that now?
if the timing is so wrong,
can i negogiate for something less?
will you instead
give my son a kiss from me
and tell him his earthly father loves him lots.
that'd mean a lot to me.
i know you love him more than me,
but i still wish he were here.
of course,
i know you're a dad,
so you don't need a gift in exchange
for the ones i'm asking of you.
you already gave me all i have
and don't need anything anyway.
so i guess i'll just remind us both that
i'm yours.
whether you come now or later
or even never (please not never!),
i love you.
even when i don't know why.
i just do.
i guess that's a gift from you too.
so, thanks.
a lot.
i mean that.

-me

to remind and remember.

i have to live with this
most often below the surface

tears.

i want to live with this
it is that or forget

i will not forget.

there is a hole in our lives now
that was not there before

our son has gone.

don't mistake me for a sad man
joy is not in bluer skies

Love holds and molds us.

know where my treasure lies
candle lit and waiting on

the King of kings.

the waiting means there is love
that's what the lonely is for

(loop)

Phineas "Fyn" Bubna - March 15th, 2008 to March 16th, 2008

so many places to begin at this end.
i must write while the words are mine.
and i must write.
grief has always flown from my fingers
far better than joy.
giving birth to these words
like all birth
means letting go
of some safety
some control
that was probably never really ours.

he is already in my dreams,
just hours gone
and i see his face in my sleep
and feel his soft skin.

the end of one day saw his birth
the beginning of the next his death
one sweet, precious hour.
one sweet, precious hour.
he tried so hard to breath.
his heart was good and strong.
i could not be more proud of my son
or his mother.
at the end of such a day,
how she looked so beautiful,
how she was so tender and strong,
i may never understand.
miracles surround us here.

i would have torn down mountains for just that hour,
but You gave it, You just gave it,
the most beautiful gift,
the last thing i wanted,
so much i was afraid to ask.
but You knew.
oh my God, You knew!
that fear i had,
prowling about my heart,
terrifying in its strength and closeness;
that beast you slayed for me
when they placed him in my wife's loving arms
to die so near the hearts of us
who loved him most and knew him best,
save only You.

we sang that lullabye...
the terrible beauty of it
so fraught with joy and tears.
it took us both to sing it
louder than the sobs.
neither alone could have sent him off so well.
i didn't know those words could mean so much.
good night, my love.
i have seen the glory of the Lord,
even as we groan inwardly,
wait eagerly,
for the redemption of it all.

in the peace of my son's face,
the warmth of his rosy cheeks
and tender little movements,
so few.
in the love that sobbed
and ripped
and clawed
through our hearts.
yes, grief,
the most awful face of love
in this fatal world,
and still so beautiful.
this is holy ground.
we must leave changed forever.
such a terrible blasphemy
it would be to reject the power here.

it may be some time
before i can sing that lullabye again
without sobbing.
but i will keep singing it.

i thought i would be so angry,
but anger wanted from me
a pride my desparation
could not allow.
will it now?
i don't know.
but i feel no obligation to feel that or not.
only love demands life and voice here.
only love can.
for

"it is love who makes the mortar
and it's love who stacked these stones
and it's love who made the stage here
although it looks like we're alone
in this scene set in shadows
like the night is here to stay
there is evil cast around us
but it's love that wrote the play...
for in this darkness love will show the way"

i don't just believe that.
i don't know how not to believe it.
i never have.

so goodnight was goodbye once more.
i already miss him so
that it is hard to envision life without him.
don't read that wrong.
i mean forgetfulness seems
as impossible as it is undesirable,
which is a lot,
my heart will tell you,
but is not totally so,
my heart knows.

we do not grieve as those who have no hope,
even as we may grieve much more than they.
for our grief is the parting of lover and beloved,
and everyone who loves is born of God
and knows God.
my heart knows.
that, another miracle,
my God your grace is so unfair,
how can i bear the weight of this glory?

grief feels so like fear,
for it asks of me faith
that the end is not the end,
for it's not what He has planned.
goodnight, my love,
we will meet again.

i do not understand the joy in my heart
such a strange bedfellow for this awful ache
for all that is not and will not be.

before he was born,
i knew this as the worst day of my life.
never such pain before, never.
every muscle in my face hurts,
for sobbing is such an effort,
such a hard-won gift,
from the body to the soul.
but then my first son was born.
that was one of my best days.
"i have come that you may have life
and have it to the full"
it was a full day.

the sadness comes in waves.
reality is, as usual, so surreal.
how obvious that this is not our true home.
this is not how it was meant to be.

every person who visits,
every hug and kind word or silence,
these are mirrors to me.
i see our grief in the eyes of those who love us,
and it makes me cry all the more.

and i am still so glad we sang to him
that he died in our arms,
near our hearts and ragged breath,
hearing our voices,
feeling our touch,
not alone, never alone.
and then he slowly grew cold.
my son is gone. my son.
my son, i love you so.
i will trust your heart knows.
for our love comes from God,
who alone could speak and you understand.
what tongues do you hear now as you sleep,
waiting for the revealing of a
new heavens and a new earth.
your new body will have lungs that work well.

palm sunday.
how i long for Christ to come
and gather us beneath his wings.
shelter from this fatal world.
i will greet Him alone as my king.

in a few days, Good Friday,
what it will mean now
that we too have lost a son.
so too our hope is in the resurrection,
and i bitterly long for that day.
when there is no more hope,
no more faith,
only love remains.

come Lord Jesus, come.
and while we ache,
come Spirit,
be our comforter.
with your many hands and feet and tongues, yes,
but most with peace in our hearts.
and we cry.

my son, Phineas Bubna,
was born yesterday, March 15th, 2008.
my son, Phineas Bubna,
died in the arms of his incredible mother
as we sang one sad lullabye,
today, in the early hour of March 16th, 2008.
one sweet, precious hour was all.
one sweet, precious hour.
Lord have mercy on our bleeding hearts.

Phineas, we will miss you,
and we will not forget,
for you are very loved.
thank you for being our son,
and you always will be.

we will keep singing.

physical is spiritual

today, i'm thinking the physical is only the subset of the spiritual that presents itself directly to our meager five senses. i think the gnostic heresy goes further than wrongly calling the physical evil. i don't think it is sufficiently rebuked by biblical and theological defense of the good of physical creation. i think that still oft leaves the assumption that the physical is by nature not spiritual. i didn't even really realize i was groundlessly making that assumption until recently (which likely shows how embedded in western culture the assumption is!), and now, after some thought, i think the opposite is true.

the physical is inherently, intrinsically, thoroughly spiritual.

of course, there is also spiritual that lacks the nature of being physical; the spiritual is not in the least limited to the physical. but the thought that the physical is also thoroughly spiritual seems increasingly sensible and biblical to me. and it's a real paradigm shift for me,
overriding questions about how the natural and spiritual interact and undoing reflexive devaluation of mundane physicalities. it was a first step to realize that everything can have spiritual implications and eternal repercussions (however little i still live like i believe that). now, i do not see how anything could NOT have such importance.

we'll see how the idea holds up, though it's new to me, i'm sure not the first to have it.

what is love

in early 2003, i grandly opined to myself...

"what is true love but a selfless obsession?
to put the best honor and benefit of the beloved
always and irrevocably above, beyond, and before
any love or hatred of self,
to be wholly rapt and unaware of one's own existence
in the presence of the beloved,
to be concerned only with the desire and interest of the beloved,
are not these things the only true evidence of true love?"

as ideas about love go,
i figure that was chivalrous, simple, eloquent and wrong,
closer to idolatry than love.
love does put the other before any love or hatred of self,
but it is no selfless obsession, unaware in rapt awe.
obsession, sure, but not selfless.
adoring, yes, but not unaware.
to tango, it takes at least two who can tango.
love is not love if its object is an object.
and love is not love if the lover is annulled therein.
such loves are idolatry, love's evil twin,
another sick, sad surrogate for the Real.
the idolater naively abrogates himself
in a feigned relationship with the temporal others:
stone and wood, money and fame, image and fantasy.
all dead, all dead.
the lover knowingly gives himself
in true relationship with the eternal, immortal others.
and i'll take it further.
love is not agnostic.
love is of God.
every love finds it source in Him.
there is no other.
we cannot speak of true love without speaking of Him.
for the second commandment is like the first,
it cannot stand on its own.
we cannot truly love our neighbor without in some way loving Him.
when we find true love,
He must have some part of it,
however obscured or impure,
else it is merely idolatry,
beautiful, in clever disguise.
This is no encouragement to doubt your loves;
look for Him in them and praise Him for his part,
that it may grow.
anyway, i wonder how much of this i'll disagree with in five years...

unreasoned and unreasonable

much,
maybe even most,
of what i believe is unreasoned, unreasonable, or both.
i'd wager the same is true of you.
we all hold to things that are, either apparently or ultimately, nonsensical;
that is unreasonable.
we constantly accept things without understanding them;
these are unreasoned.
and many things we don't reason through we would find unreasonable.
now, to say something is unreasonable,
is not to say it is untrue.
that is another question entirely,
one i don't want to deal with here.
what i want to know,
is whether this is faith,
this active,
but not always cognitive,
trust in the subconscious assumptions,
traditional maxims,
fantastic religions,
inscrutable fundamentals,
shifting fashions,
and selfish lies
that underlie so many of our daily
feelings,
thoughts,
and actions.
is all of this faith?
none of it?
some of it?
if you asked me right now
to define faith.
i do not believe i could do that well.
i can offer cute analogies,
simplistic synonyms,
and scriptural descriptions,
i can talk about faith,
pray for more of it,
and even look up a "definition" in a dictionary,
but that's not what i want to know.
i want to know the length, depth, breadth and heart of it.
of course, it may be unreasonable to assume that i could,
but this is what's on my mind.