Last night—when I wasn’t watching the Jayhawks gut out a win over Iowa State, moving to 12-0 and showcasing again their daunting tenacity—I finished That Hideous Strength. Strength, being the final book in C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, brought his story to a crescendo and left me in a happily contemplative mood. Lewis excels at weaving “philosophy,” or what we would call philosophy if found in the abstract, into his narratives. But he does it so well that it’s hard to say where the story leaves off and the philosophy begins. Which is, of course, the point—they are one and the same; the vehicle of story, for Lewis, was ideally suited to conveying life’s hidden realities:

O WORLD invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

So Francis Thompson penned; and this seemed to be a working motto for Lewis.

Sometimes I think we have an almost physical hunger for story: “Take me below the surface of things and show me something undisclosed, that defies appearances, that is truer than what the eye sees. Give me a story, but make it real.”

Paradoxically, this is the great search that, however sweet, “stories” can never really end. But they have their uses. The great stories “trick” us into a mode of thought where trivialities begin to fade, and something larger appears through the mist. The real shape of life begins to materialize: mountains we’d never seen, while living on their shoulders; an ocean we’d never noticed, blinded by the waves crashing on the beach.

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My bro Paul flirts with disaster in the Grand Canyon. Could "infinity" present a similar threat to personhood?

Lately I've been thinking about the implications that God's "infinity" has for personality. What got me started was a statement from the memorable Apostle Peter: "...the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you." Perfect? Confirm? Strengthen? Establish? This is a soul-overhaul. More than a life's work. "Legacy" doesn't begin to describe it. And we're talking a very wide constituency.

I can't imagine the attention it really takes to bring out the nuanced edges of a personality, to quell insidious weaknesses that threaten chaos, burnish all traces of virtue to an ambient gleam. I'm not even sure a lifetime is long enough. In fact, "time" may be a poor context to conceive of such a project.

The reality is that none of us can understand this kind of artistry, much less actuate "perfection" in even a solitary person. You or I could invest ourselves in someone indefinitely, and after 80 years or so, that person still wouldn't be perfect. More pertinent to my case in point, we still wouldn't fully know her.

God's "infinity"—an endless continuum of "time," "space," and personality (I suspect I'm beginning to fray the edges of these terms)—is the only foundation for vivid identity in a vast multiplicity of souls. Only in the framework of an infinite being could there be significance for a multitude of "saints." Without the unfathomable capacities of God we would be lost in a sea of faces. God isn't extending mere recognition. He's promising more than an office plaque. Rather, he's guaranteeing heart-authenticity to myriads—to be fully formed and fully known. And no one else could do it.

Animated by a limitless being, the faces of a million "perfect" people will overshadow Hollywood's finest and our university intelligentsia like the sun outdistances a piece of quartz. This will be a civilization no Who's Who list could ever begin to fathom—a society where everyone will be Somebody. In a titanic, world-conquering crowd, no face will lack definition.

As the real thing outstrips the knockoff, as the Grand Canyon puts mere photos to shame, what passes now for "friendship" and "security" will seem like shadows. At the end of the day we'll be seeing Mankind, the genuine article, complete as planned.

And if you'll allow me to indulge a penchant for categorical statements, I'll sum up: Perfect identity in vast multiplicity is a tension only the Infinite could maintain.

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So I was trying to wash my hands in the Men's/Adolescent's/Boy's room at North KC Highschool, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out why the faucets wouldn't turn on. Nearby students washed up effortlessly, provoking streams of hot water with nonchalant gestures of their hands. I watched them from the corner of my eye. But when I moved my fingers in front of faucets—carefully targeting the small recessed squares above them—nothing happened. I tried it again. Nothing. How about a different faucet? Nope. But soon I got tired of standing there cavalierly waggling my fingers.

I felt stupid, but "Is there some special trick with these things?”

With typical baffled helpfulness: “Well, uh, you just push ‘em.”

Good thing that kid wasn’t in my class. I hate getting out-psyched by a lack of technology.

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Despite the ravages brought on by rap music and similar verbal garbage, we have no shortage of people who express themselves well in writing. Recycled clichés, dead-on metaphors and the snappy one-liner will always be with us. Beyond this, I would go so far as to say there are countless people who aspire to write about meaningful things. The clincher is that we have a shortage of sufficiently meaningful people.

In a sea of aspiring philosophers, few can row. Why? We can only write what we’re truly acquainted with. A threadbare author’s thoughts inevitably surface, and no amount of verbal drapery can hide the shortfall.

As Flannery O’Connor said, “I write to see how much I know.” For me, the answer is usually “Not much.” But I write in the hope that I’ll someday know enough, or become human enough, in the Christ-centric sense of the word, to say meaningful things. Does one reach this place of clear-eyed insight through trial and error, starts and stops, miscues and disappointments? A guy can hope.

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A few days last week, it was so cold outside I didn’t want to breathe. When I did, it was like inhaling icy steel nails, piercingly cold. I did, however, keep on breathing. I kept on breathing even when I had to crawl through our trunk and across the back seat to kick open the iced-over door from inside. My self-control was incredible, but even when it hurts, You Gotta Keep Breathing.

Stupid, I know, but I’m actually after a different paradigm. To invert this picture: Prayer, I believe, is just as essential as oxygen in cold weather. But when prayer gets painful, hard to maintain, do I continue? Inhaling icy air can be physically painful. Prayer is different—I am “discharging” something, exhaling, but when prayer becomes like icy air, or like pulling splinters, what happens then?

The redemptive essence of prayer is not, as some would maintain, the mere act of “breathing out.” Spiritually speaking, prayer is more than baroreceptors reacting to dangerous levels of CO2. In other words, it transcends catharsis—something beyond the emotional relief brought on by a good cry.

We may as well say the main benefit of breathing is the “religious” exercise of the diaphragm. Rather prayer, like an elliptical orbit, is only as strong as its central object. Reflexive, undirected prayer, unless accompanied by a heart in earnest, does no one any favors. As Shakespeare put it, “My prayers go up, my thoughts remain below. Prayers without thoughts never to heaven go.”

To return to the original “breathing” parallel: I’m convinced that failure of the prayer-reflex, like a flat-lining EKG, is an indicator of dire things. A non-breathing person will likely soon be pulse-less. A person without a pulse is called a corpse. Likewise, a person without a prayer life is, at the very least, clogged and asphyxiating at heart, descending toward spiritual unresponsiveness.

The analogy would of course need to be tweaked to really hold water, er—air. Oxygen would have to be a transformative entity, capable not only of life maintenance but something like cell-regeneration as well. Not to mention conversation. And breathing, I suppose, would have to be voluntary.

But there’s another sense in which, I think, the analogy does fit. Prayer, or the lack thereof, does ascend continually. There’s a sense in which we’re all, at all times, emitting a scent, if you will, either of spiritual deadness or of life. Don’t confuse this idea with some kind of new age “aura”—I’m simply saying that our spirits emanate life signs—soul diagnostics for those who can read them. Our souls are “beating,” whether they are in relationship with Christ or not.

We could say the “prayer” of a prayer-less person is not nonexistent but empty, like oxygen-less breath, carrying disintegration through the bloodstream instead of life.

I’ve come a long way to say it, but the crucial question is whether there is life in your spiritual breathing? And when will I learn, finally, to keep "breathing" through adversity?

I'll take frozen oxygen over an iced-up soul any day.

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The last three days I have paid my dues, you could say, for Wednesday's indulgence. Bookish reveries are now merely a pleasant memory.

Aiming to collect a few "extra" credits, I enrolled in one of those accelerated "J-term" classes...the kind that meets for roughly 10 hours a day...three days in a row. Add a "surprise" research assignment that's due the next morning, and, viola!—instant redeye. Even the most resilient of minds had to feel the impact, and my grey cells are beginning to lose their mad elasticity.

This was the kind of experience that turns your mind inside out and dumps the contents on the carpet. A good vacuum was hard to find.

The first couple days I jumpstarted my hours in the classroom with a pot of coffee, and repeated the dosage at various strategic points throughout the day. This morning, tired of feeling "stoked" and slightly jittery I decided to fall back on that old tool from my undergraduate days—mental toughness and cold, hard discipline.

This was a pivotal decision for me, one of those crucial moments when character and knowledge collude to yield an epiphany: Despite what the self-help books might tell you, caffeine works better.

No doubt there will be other occasions for me to put this new-found knowledge to use, but...why do I always have to learn the hard way? Experience, I was thinking all day, Something you never get until after you need to drink it.

So that's the story of my weekend. But, somewhere, I do have a notebook filled with copious scribblings...which, for inexplicable reasons, become somewhat disjointed about 2/3 of the way through. Now, if I can just remember what the notes were about.

And where I am and what I'm doing.

*blink*

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Faced with hours of precipitation and forced inactivity, it’s is hard to conceive of a day more gloriously spent than in bookish drowsiness. Yesterday, after an early-morning errand to get the car inspected, banal reality was put on hold as I burned through Out of the Silent Planet, the first book in C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy. (Lewis is one of those authors I feel “homesick” for after longish absences. It’s been since August since I read The Great Divorce.) Today Lindsay and I hoped to work, but a forecasted ice-storm closed down the school district and put an end to that aspiration. Instead, I turned to Perelandra, the second book, and with just pages to go…I take a few moments off to gloat.

Two non-mandatory books in two days. Aaaah. This sure feels good. There's nothing quite like being snow-bound and story-bound at the same time.

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While others immersed themselves in holiday festivities, I wracked my brain, agonizing over the life-changing resolutions I would bring to the New Year. ;)

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Some people shrug off the “resolution” thing as morbid self-immolation, and let’s be honest—there can be some of that involved. But attempting to change your life or stay the course doesn’t necessarily imply a mental beatdown. And I’m convinced, really, that a certain skepticism where our own motives and accomplishments are concerned is healthy. All this goes to say that rallying our oft-emaciated wills to a virtuous cause ought to be viewed without the dark glasses of cynicism.

So then, without further ado:

In 2005, I hereby resolve…

::: That BitterSweetLife will not go “pop.” Flirting with disaster once ought to be enough for anyone. Unfortunately, in my own experience it often isn’t, thus this reminder. Anytime I feel the temptation toward mainstream blogging creeping over me—to post, say, poignant non sequitors or some ravaged and dark inner thought life—I’ll remember this resolution. The blog must remain true to itself, pursuing topics of substance (most of the time, anyway). Pop culture never gets deep enough to be considered bittersweet. And besides, the illiterate masses are never going to stumble across this blog.

::: To age gracefully. Yeah, yeah, I know; I’m just a youngster, I still have hair, I fall in that category of the “ever-hip,” etc. But various sobering realizations struck me this year, such as My vertical leap has lost about 4 inches and I don’t seem to be regaining them. Beyond that, for the first time since I can remember, my NY resolutions do not include the perennial favorite—To play in the NBA. Don’t ask me why. I just didn’t feel like I had it in me this year. And that in itself speaks volumes.

::: To stop using satire and playful sarcasm in my posts. After much thought, I realized that quips and wordplay that some people might miss are simply inconsiderate. I ought to be more mindful of the satirically-challenged. From now on, any allusions I make will be painted with so broad a brush that even the lifetime McDonald’s employee who thinks PlayStation™ is high art will be able to make them out. After all, one of the fears that haunt me is that someone may not “get” some remark I make, and feel left out. This must not be.

::: To take the previous resolution in a manner diametrically opposed to its “face” value. And to use vivid and transpicuous* language while doing so.

Good enough for now. Four Public Resolutions ought to be enough for anyone. There are probably more, and I may post them if I can think of some way, however circuitous, that they relate to BitterSweetLife. Is anyone else out there bravely resolved?


* This word appeared in association with the Vocabulary Reclamation Project.
Transpicuous: The sense here is one of vivid understanding. Something crystal-clear and also memorable. Synonyms include “lucid,” “luminous,” “unambiguous.”

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I’ve spent the last several days in a post-holiday netherworld. The air here isn't dark enough to be called "blue" nor is it an indeterminate foggy grey. It's more like stormy weather at sunrise, low visibility pierced by glowing fragments. If there was a road sign in this haze, it would read, Welcome to the chronological doldrums. This location, or condition, is brought on by the semi-casual chronicling of the past year, a tabulation of things done and undone. It could be a happy exercise, but just as often, it’s not. There's a melancholy often associated with the year's end. Label it a hangover it you like, but contemplating chronology seems to have this effect on us.

Reviewing a year is a task nearly on par with reviewing a life; as long as you’re alive, perspective is never what it should be. One just makes educated guesses or unschooled stabs, as the case may be, and looks hastily to the future again.

I think the burden of having a life to live weighs on me this time of year—the incredible heaviness of being, I call it—and all the more so when 2004 ended in tragedy for thousands. Being alive implies grave responsibility. That being so, I’ve reconciled myself to the retrospection and introspection such awareness requires. It’s like car maintenance after a road trip.

I’m willing enough to take a glance back over the highways and rural routes I’ve traveled and then spare a glance inside the engine. It may be painful—at the very least it's humbling—but it’s only good sense. Ultimately, though, I realize such tune-ups exert only so much influence over the journey ahead.

Am I headed for the right destination this time? How long will it take me to get there? Did I pack the right stuff? Is my engine what it should be? (Can I afford the fuel?) Should I have arrived already?

Etc., etc. There’s no denying that taking stock of one’s life is sobering. It should be. Thankfully, in the end, I’m willing to acknowledge that every map I tentatively pen out is merely a smudged derivation of the master copy. And this is comforting.

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