Blaise Pascal observed that the human heart is a God-shaped vacuum. But his perspicacity (I've been wanting to use that word for some time) hardly ended there. Pascal is imminently able to connect dots where the human condition is concerned. Thus, while some people point out that "Bored people are bored," Pascal makes a sweeping, truer, and more biting observation: Boredom will destroy you. Listen to the man.

Despite [his] afflictions man wants to be happy, only wants to be happy, and cannot help wanting to be happy. But how shall he go about it? The best thing would be to make himself immortal, but as he cannot do that, he has decided to stop thinking about it...

Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. Now the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our author and our end. Now what does the world think about? Never about that, but about dancing, playing the lute, singing, writing verse, tilting at the ring, etc., and fighting, becoming king, without thinking what it means to be a king or to be a man.

So sustained boredom, medicated with endless diversions, keeps us from thinking about and confronting what could actually lead to our salvation: the inevitable desire for happiness with an infinite shelf life. Read more here.

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I was looking for new information about God's will for my life.

"Just give up," said God. "You're not getting any more. Stop trying to see my cards."

"But God, what am I supposed to do?"

God looked down at me. I shuffled some papers around.

"I sent you a book. No, not the one with the accompanying DVD. There. It's on your shelf. It's called the Bible."

"God, c'moooonnn..."

"Your voice has taken on that whining tone again. Now get out in the world and start living before I, well, damn it. We don't have time for these kinds of discussions. Or more accurately, you don't have time. Now, are we communicating here?"

Sigh. "Yeah."

"Good. I think I've given you more than enough of my will to work on."

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It's becoming clear to me that I am getting close to the status of Master-Sub in the North Kansas City School District, at which point I'll probably get a major pay raise, and, who knows, maybe a monogrammed NKC jacket. A few days ago I got a call, entered the class room, and found three piles of worksheets. No notes. Obviously, word had circulated in the teacher lounges: Mr. V. has this job down cold, so you can leave a minimum of direction and he'll get it done. Which I did.

Then on Monday this week, I got a class with no sub plans and no worksheets - just an enigmatic note to call the teacher for directions. Done. I can do crowd control and punch phone numbers at the same time.

Today, the school district's implicit trust in me was confirmed once again, as I arrived at the front desk to discover that there were no sub plans, no schedule, and no "call me" note. Not a problem. The secretary printed me off some rosters, gave me a handful of attendence forms, and I sauntered forth to create order out of chaos. Master Subs can think on the fly, roll with the punches. They like the challenge of no structure and thrive on raw spontaneity.

Thank you, North Kansas City Schools, for your unbridled faith in me. I will do all I can to justify your confidence and I can't wait to see that Master Sub bonus check show up in the mail.

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I'm a Moby fan because I hear something archetypal in his music. In the way that Myths (in the C.S. Lewis sense) transcend mere news accounts, Moby's soundscapes contain soaring, epic sensations. Or at least I think so. I should probably defend that at more length some time. But I just discovered that Moby has a blog, and that he's a smart, poetic, gritty writer. I like his stuff. Check this post, summers when i was little.

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I arrived home from school with my mind brushed back, collegiate-like. Aidan greeted me with an uproarious grin. "I think I just had an argument with a neighbor," said Lindsay.

"Oh, what happened?" I pictured Lindsay in the hall, exchanging heated words. I wondered if the neighbor was a guy, how big he was, and whether I would need to go find him...
"Well, he was playing his music really loud, and I got mad." Great, people have died in these Loud Thump-Thump Music Wars.
"So I turned up Secret Garden really loud." Oh. So you never actually saw this neighbor?
"Then he turned his music up higher. So I turned Secret Garden up even more. It was a musical argument."
Well. As long as nobody got hurt.

I'm really liking our new place. The sun streams through the East-facing picture windows every morning and you can see the dust motes dancing. The view is a form of therapy. The loft layout is wide open and gives you the feeling that life isn't claustrophobic. Maybe this is the place where I'll write my novel. Or maybe this is the place where I'll write a bunch more essays so I can graduate.

Either way, not even musical arguments are detracting from the good vibe here. If I have to eventually take a shiv to the neighbor, well, I'll have to. In the meantime, the new loft is treating us well.

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For those of you who missed the heart-stopping KU vs. UT game yesterday, here's a solid write-up, courtesy of my hoops-crazy little bro. Hints: The game was for the Big 12 regular season conference championship. The Texas Longhorns, always a hard team to beat, were front-lined by likely Player of the Year Kevin Durant. Sherron Collins, the Jayhawks' latest offensive spark plug, had a big zero in the points column. So what happened? Let's just say it's a good thing we had a defibrillator in the house.

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Does Angst Lead to God's Shadow?


I'm not convinced that the experience of desperation is truly God-awful. Actually, I suspect the opposite, that it's good for us. I'd just rather not say it out loud. Like the dark names of legendary, awful nemeses, there are some truths best left unpronounced.

So, just to clarify: You didn't hear me say that when present or future concerns scrape through the surface of your wood-veneer confidence it's probably for the best. I would never actually claim that having a leg pulled off your three-legged stool could improve your posture. Or that tripping and falling on your face might give you a more realistic perspective. No one wants to believe stuff like that--much less when it's elevated to the level of cosmic law.

So to save you the pain, I'll only speak to my own experience. Part of me prides me on my realism (Well done, self, you are really engaging with this thing we call the world)--but I'm forced to admit that a larger, more honest part of me gets ticked off when I'm forced to think about the rampant uncertainty and general shakiness of life. What will I be doing a year from now? Is there a future in this writing thing? If and when I get a Real Job, will I enjoy it, tolerate it, hate it--or, worst of all--loathe-it-but-pretend-it's-cool?

Without trying to, I put distance between myself and questions like this. Questions that pretend to have answers but don't (what's a word that rhymes with "orange?") are annoying and they make me mad, so I pass on them. When this happens, it's possible to adopt a faux calmness and peace. I can almost mistake it for trust. In reality, it's just psychological distance.

This brings me back to that thing that I don't want to say and in fact am not actually saying since none of us really want to hear it: It's good to have the curtains pulled back. It's necessary to see the harsh light of day. Real trust in Christ, child-like faith in the Father, demands that we rub shoulders with the concerns and desperations that crowd this earth. Only then does trust have any meaning and effect and, ultimately, any saving grace. We see the shaky thinness of our plans. At best they're hopeful guesses. But then trust steps in and the story takes an upward turn.

The future isn't really shaky-thin, not to God. In reality it's thick. It's set like cast lead, heavy and not going away. These hyperventilating souls and angry minds--they've been taken in by perspectival sleight of hand. We forget whose view of life is true and lasting: God's. In reality, the future is not a snaky labyrinth, cobwebbed and shadowy. It's a series of well-lit corridors. God saw it coming--and the statement doesn't need to be qualified. God knows my life and waits to lead me. But what will it take for me to lean on this truth without my self-made crutches?

No one wants to hear that it's a good thing to feel rough edges, carry the weight of hard decisions and taste raw desperation. So I'm not going to say it. At least not in a chipper, delighted voice. I guess I will go so far as to kind of grunt it out, though: The pain of this life drives us to God, so we had better take it on the chin. If engaging our uncertainties and fear brings us into the shadow of the Father's towering kindness, there to pause and rest, how could we ever regret it?

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After reading All the Pretty Horses (my review) last year, I knew it was just a matter of time until I devoured the next two books in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. The Crossing represents Part II, but in my mind, it doesn't reach the same level as the poetically gritty and soulfully epic Horses (which received the coveted A+ grade here).

The Crossing lacks the simple lines of the earlier book and loses something in the resulting entanglement: Too many transient characters wax eloquently philosophic. Too many paragraphs in Spanish frustrate an English-speaking reader. The book falters at times under its own weight.

Nevertheless, Cormac McCarthy’s saga carries a heavy sorrow that causes one to examine the shape of this life and the end toward which the world tends. Billy Parham is straight-up and likeable, but unfortunate. Naïve seems too harsh a word, but Parham is seldom prepared for the branching events that hem him in, even when he takes the initiative. We find a capable man trapped within a fruitless journey, and to what end? Darkness and death? Or is there redeeming fire hidden in the ashes of despair? One suspects that for McCarthy, the answer is a blunt, bone-freezing grief. However, one book remains in The Border Trilogy. There's no way I'll pass on that final book, Cities of the Plain.

The Crossing is worth reading for its chilling effect on easy platitudes: There are sorrows in life that cannot be glossed over, and answers must be found.

Yes, it's on the Master Book List.

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When the page elements editor quit on me, it was the last straw. My sidebar was frozen in an empty limbo. For now, I'm back to the Old Blogger. I'll try and make the conversion again sometime in the future...stupid New Blogger.

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Monotony is cunning. You don't notice him at first. He sneaks in like Carbon Monoxide, then all of a sudden you realize you are flat on your back and your senses are dulled. Life seems a little hazy. If I could just get up, you think... Then you realize the thud you heard was your head hitting the floorboard. Getting up won't be easy.

Nevertheless, one must try. Getting up again is the special duty of Christians. Consider: Jesus.

The weather, the majority of my classes, substitute teaching: They've been continuing. And that's about all I can say about them. Isn't that the heart of monotony? Things happen, but they don't seem to signify? I'm convinced that another special duty of Christians is believing that boredom isn't really. Monotony has uses. Tedium completes invisible tasks.

As Paul said, "Faith is the mystery that overcomes the world."

I would like to point out that boredom is a central attribute of the world, so Faith is also the mystery that overcomes monotony. Underneath a veneer of sameness runs the life-altering, earth-ending mystery of Jesus. God doesn't take his foot of the accelerator when the radio starts playing rhythm and blues.

I'm preaching to myself a little here, but these things have to be true. Sanctification doesn't shut down when life is lacking intellectual spice. Christ-likeness depends on Christ--not life's current interest quotient.

You look around, and events have the tonal quality of a teacher who is reciting his notes from a written outline. But perhaps there are other words being said, Someone else talking. Despite appearances, Things are actually going on, is what I'm saying.

Monotony is only sight-deep.

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