A Wandr'er they called him, such paths did he tread,

forever his feet moving, but no place for his head.  

"My goal" he said was this, "to arrive safely at home", 

athough shrouded were his steps, and heavy were their toll. 

Mist cov'red ground beneath, and thorns there were in masse,

and if this weren't enough, a break shew'd in his path. 

Now two ways there were, a dilemma did he face,  

which way should he walk, for he could not stand in place.

Though he knew not why, he chose the path forlorn,

for though it was less traveled by, this choice was never mourned. 

Here the story comes to me, although I must admit it seems,

that I knoweth not which paths to tread, and evil fills my heart with dread.

Fear grips my heart fast, as I see the less travelled road,

but know that for all its pains, 'tis the one to me was showed.

In silvian darkness still evils lie, and wish from good my heart to pry,

despair and disdain utter their cries, confusing my mind with myriad lies.

Armed I must go into the night, ready to struggle for my very own life,

and so now this great battle begins, the mighty onslaught comes intense,

I fight wide eyed for life itself, striking swords like nothing hence.

Ev'ry day the path winds on, the battle's fought, our spirits moan,

but until light shines from Heaven's throne, may it be, His will be done. 

I welcome disagreements and all other thoughts.  I only ask that the former be scriptural and all be reasonable.  Otherwise, God bless, and I may amend in the future as my understanding of this issue progresses.   

     This is just to get some thoughts out. 

     I had several most interesting dreams last night, though I only remember one sufficiently to detail any of it in writing.  It was similar to the movie Armageddon, or this old G.I. Joe comic, or even Final Fantasy 7.  I giant asteriod, I think perhaps about the size of our moon, was plunging towards the Earth.  When it hit, it was certain that all life here would be wiped out, and perhaps even our planet would be hit so hard that it would break apart!  I remember looking out of some window shortly before Earth's end, and musing that now, death was certain for us all.  However, there were also many other people around me, and they didn't seem so concerned about it.  Reminds me of Paul's statement that if Christ is not raised, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!"  So, very soon after that time, this asteroid hit.  Oddly enough, I got to see it hit, from space.  It was round, and when it hit Earth, the planet cracked pretty bad, but did not break apart.  Life was quickly extinguished.  (Naturally, in a dream, I was still "alive" to experience all this).  However, this was not the end of the story.  God was merciful to humanity and decided to restore life, according to certain fundamental principles of life.  I realize that sounds confusing, and I don't remember exactly what these principles were.  However, just as an example, a life principle is that of gender.  That is, masculine and feminine go far deeper into life, into the universe, that just biological male and female.  This is a fundamental aspect of life.  So, God recreated Earth on a couple of similar principles. 

     Even more odd, this whole chain of events happened twice before moving on to other dreams.  Then I woke up to get ready for work, and have these thoughts floating around in my head.  Thoughts of pain, suffering, death, people lost, hopeless, apathetic, with no purpose, even in the face of certain destruction.  I then had a new Zao song in my head, from their CD, The Funeral of God.  Which, for those who dont' know, is a concept album about a world in which God got so fed up with the way humanity treated him, abused and ignored him, that he just decided to get up and leave us.  Alone.  The resulting picture is, as one might imagine, quite bleak.  The particular song is called "The lesser lights of Heaven" and seems to be discussing the stars and their desire for their maker who has left them.  It went well with the whole asteroid thing.  That, and listening to this new David Crowder song haunted my thoughts for most of the morning.  Although the exact effects it had on me are difficult to describe.  Either way, being sincere and focused at work was difficult.  I was very distracted, thinking about all of these things.   

     Pain and struggle and what I call 'existential agony' often plague my mind.  People walk around, spiritual zombies!  They have no purpose in this life, only drifting from moment to moment...and so many not even in intellectual pride like many professors, but just poor, purposeless, and in pain.  As Ravi Zacharias relates in a story, to even try to listen to everybody's heart cry would be absolutely deafening!  I don't know how such suffering does not also burder other's hearts.  Perhaps they are too burdened with their own trials.  However, these issues are is interrupted by what I perceive to be much foolishness.  For example, this obsession with sports, Carolina, Duke, blah blah blah.  Who cares?  A bunch of guys are running back and forth and throwing a ball into a hoop.  I have come more and more to despise these things.  And yet people go fanatical for this.  I don't understand it.  Yet, people never cease to talk about this with great enthusiasm, indeed posessed by some spirit unbeknowst to me.  I won't start on some rant about how nobody is serious about their faith, etc, because I'm just as guilty.  But I do wonder where passion is, where purpose is, where we draw our battle lines, or do we even draw our lines for battle at all?  Do we get out of our church bubbles and go reach the world, reach the streets, go to the hurting with the gospel?  I don't, but I hate that.  I want to, I want to reach all those around me, I want to do spiritual war, the idea is enthralling!  Let us get out of this "Mist of the spirtual dimension", where "Satan has cursed thy mind." and "Awake, abandon mortal sin, truth thou shalt find!"

    Now I'm just rambling.  Enough for now. 

     Though there's no way I could do this subject justice in a blog entry of any kind, I feel the desire (haha...) to write out at least some of my thoughts concerning the matter.  I'm not an expert on this subject, neither a philosopher or a psychologist.  However, I shall endeavor to write from my heart, my thoughts and observations, even if they may not be objective truth. 

     Often, human desire and emotion are said to step from "the heart".  I'm not exactly sure why that is, but even the ancient Hebrews talked about such things as being in their kidneys!  Without going through all of history, we can see that men have frequently distinguished desires and emotions from mere intellect and rationality, seem to lie in the mind.  While I am tempted to say that this is not true from a purely biological point of view - for without the mind there would be no consciousness to desire anything - I can understand the distinction.  Everybody has experienced the brain, good reasoning, telling them to do one thing, while the emotions/desires say something quite different.  Now, one could try to explain these things through a mass of biological hormones and psychological instincts.  Again, I am not a scientist, so I won't get into such possibilities.  Rather, how do we experience desire, and what causes it?  What are our desires ultimately for? 

     It is helpful to reiterate C.S. Lewis in this matter.  He describes in his book Mere Christianity that all desires must have a possible fulfillment.  For example, he says that if somebody is hungry or thirsty, one can eat and drink and fulfill those desires.  The physical hormones that drive the desire for sex; in the same way that desire can be fulfilled.  To paraphrase Peter Kreeft of Boston College, "Imagine going to a planet where the aliens have no stomachs, and they never have.  Yet they are always hungry.  The very idea is absurd."  Thus, it is logical that every physical desire must have some fulfillment.  I can't think of any that do not.  However, Lewis's point is that, if physical desires can be fulfilled, what about the desires of so many throughout time for something higher than themselves?  Why have people historically worshipped some diety or dieties greater than themselves?  Is there not a desire for something more than this earthly, human life, which, if nothing more exists, is ultimately meaningless?  Lewis says that if we have this desire, then there must also be some means of satisfying it.  Of course, that would be a real higher power, which he calls God. 

     I would agree with Lewis and Kreeft on those points.  However, how can we recognize such desires and recognize them for what they are?  First off, for a Christian, a desire that does not conform to God's Word, no matter how strong it may be, is impure and unholy, and should be purged.  Easier said than done I realize.  However, what about other desires for which we can find nothing explicit in His word?  I will use two potent personal example of occasions when I experience what I might describe as transcendant desires.  By transcendant, I mean those desires that somehow seem to superceed normal, explainable desires.  They empower the 'heart' (Despite biological probablilities, it is still easiest to use the heart for the center of emotion/desire), and suggest something above and beyond normal experiences in life. 

     The first of these is music.  I listen to a great deal of music, but not just any music.  Good music for me must meet at least one of two criteria:  Either they must praise God or be otherwise musically and/or lyrically profound and sincere.  There are exceptions of course, but the more of those conditions that are met in a song the better.  Here is where clear language begins to break down.  It is hard to describe exactly what makes a song "profound".  Typically, music that questions life, is very purposeful, or seeks the depths of human existence itself is very good.  The music itself can be slow and sappy, or complex and melodic, or fast and very heavy.  I could list many bands that I feel comply, but that's somewhat besides the point.  Further, the desires that these kinds of music so powerfully evoke is also hard to describe.  However, during the right song, the heart gets a tasts of....something higher and more profound than itself.  At times, it is so brilliant that a kind of sonic euforia sets in, a psychological high if you will, but soley because of the music. 

    This brings me to another aspect of desire.  We have already distinguished between mundane physical desires and desires for something beyond our normal experiences.  Peter Kreeft says something like, "Even to suffer the pains of these highest desires is far greater than fulfilling the lower, base desires."  Thus, it seems to me that to experience even a shadow of greater things, and this indeed can be painful psychologlcally, is more pleasurable than fulfilling, for example, one of the famous seven deadly sins, such as lust or greed.  I generally find this to be quite true.  Not that I am impervious to "carnal" sins, but when seeking these higher desires, normal fleshly desires do fade away and become trivial for the time being.  Not that temptation is thus conquered.  These greater desires do still invoke a strong longing, almost a kind of suffering.  Even today, at the Renyolda House with my family, looking at the history of R.J. Renyolds and his family, this kind of desire came in hard.  I had this song (again music), an intense choral piece in Latin from a movie, in my head very strongly.  You can check it out (The music and the movie clip) for yourself at: http://media.putfile.com/final-fantasy-VII-Advent-Childrenavi72  Then, looking at this ornate house, and all of the beautiful details in it, especially the old turn of the century clothing (Though why that, I'm not exactly sure) I was struck with some unexplainable, intense desire for something, perhaps ideal beauty, but I cannot know for certain.  Of course then the thought does tend to drift towards the opposite sex, which seems trivial in a sense.  However, I think God endowed women with such a strong sense of beauty, and woman as God intended would be amazingly beautiful in every sense, and I think it a wonderful thing to admire how He has created them that way.  But girls are another topic...haha. 

     Maybe I'm crazy; maybe I'm the only one who experiences such things in these ways.  Or maybe there is something deeper here in the human psyche.  Perhaps God has put these deep desires somewhere in each human heart so that we would seek him, seek the eternal, and seek truth.  I know I experience many such desires, sometimes to the unfortunate apathy of other things that I should pay attention to, but nonetheless I hope to use such desires to seek God and his ways, and the reality of all that he has made in this world until He returns.

     I don't know what else to add right now.  It's certainly not an expert opinion as I said before, but perhaps it will stir up enough minds - and passions - to seek the truth for themselves.  I hope so.  Until I think of more, or write something fresh, remember....everything.  But first and foremost, your creator.  Grace and peace. 

     Suffering.  Though some might argue as to the nature of suffering, few of a sane mind would doubt its ubiquitous nature.  I will for this entry considering suffering to be either great physical or emotional distress or loss.  This includes death of loved ones, illnesses, a life without purpose or love, severe injury, and anything else that causes great pain to human beings. 
     I want to start here on a personal note, for this is how I came to write this in the first place.  Obviously I know that suffering has always been a part of human history.  The more history classes I take the more I realize that.  I mean, we grieve, and not unjustly, at modern wars and their losses.  Yet wars have been happening since the beginning of recorded human history!  The same famines, killings, wars, injustices, cruelties, hatred, lust, and greed have existed throughout time as well as now.  Further, the topic of suffering is a special one among Christians, for the issue of how to reconcile the plethora of the world's obvious suffering with a God who is all good remains a difficult question to answer satisfactorily.  So, certainly the idea of suffering has been in my own mind my entire life.  I have studied it in the Christian context.  I seen my own loss, physical and emotional, and in my friends and family as well.  So, after these and many other things, why talk about suffering now?  Before further exploring these thoughts, I want to lay down some of the key Biblical verses concerning suffering.

Romans 5:3-5 "Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings; because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and charatcer, hope.  And hope does not dissappoint us, for God has poured out his love into out hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us."

James 1:2-3 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, for you know the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

2 Corinthians 1:3-5  "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.  For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows."

     There are certianly more, but these are a sufficient foundation.  This recent train of thought was probably started by hurricane Katrina and the massive damage done in LA and neighboring states.  It was made very vivid to America, and we made a big deal of it.   Yet, it was really stimulated by the massive earthquake in Kashmir, between India and Pakistan, where it is now estimated that over 50,000 people died in this event.  Yes, less focus has been paid to this event, though it terms of human suffering it is far greater than Katrina.  But that's not the point.  The point is many people suffered horribly, and clean up/ministry to the affected is still greatly in progress.  Then there was a landslide in Central America claiming at least 1,400 lives, and now there's another hurricane lashing Mexico and around the Florida Keys.  This of course does not even begin to take into account the massive amount of human suffering every day.  Thousands around the globe die daily from a multitude of causes, many suffering greatly in the process.  Perhaps such things are too mundane to be of interest, or perhaps most people block them out becasue they are unpleast, and instead these people would rather seek after happiness, which excludes thoughts about suffering as much as possible.  I can't say for sure.  However, all of this stuff has become so much more personal in the past few days, though I am not the one suffering.
     For example, I was working (at Chick-fil-A) the other night, and there were a couple of men ordering some fodd, and for some reason is was taking a while.  I apologized to them about their wait, then one of them said something to the effect of, 'Oh, this isn't a long wait.  We just got back from the hospital where we were told that our father isn't going to make it.'  I tried to express sympathy, and I wanted to do something for them , but I knew that I couldn't.  I was shocked that somebody would tell me a thing like that when they didn't know me at all.  I didn't have too much time to ruminate on it becasue I had other duties at work.  However, it stuck firmly in my mind.  Then, even the day after I think, one of my co-workers came in and reported that somebody who had been close to her had overdoesed on drugs and died.  She was shaken up, and again I was shocked (Even more so by others' insensitivities to this pain). 

     Weeks, even months later, more thoughts of this nature plague me.  I should not be surprised.  Suffering is of course a normal part of life.  Every human being who has every live and will ever live has and will suffer, some immensly.  Even this night the haunting spectre of sudden pain, the very real possibility that a friend might lose a family member in the next couple of days, is a burden.  Yes, all must someday die, even ourselves.  Though we often don't think that way.  Death is the great enemy of all that is good, the enemy of life.  No matter how much we try to rationalize it, and say that death is "just a part of life" as in Brave New World for example, it is always unnatural. 

     I cannot get this song out of my mind.  I have known it well for some time, and it hits home now more than ever, even though these sufferings are not yet my own.  The song is Path of Pain by Crimson Moonlight, for the very few who might have an inkling of who they are.  It describes a man on the path of life, suffering greatly.  Then Jesus comes to him and talks with him.  He tells the man that the Father has seen his pain, that he himself has walked with him the whole time, even if he was not seen.  Jesus tells him that even if he does not know the purpose of his pain, he knows that he can trust in Jesus, for he walked much deeper, and bore far more burdens than anyone else ever has and ever could.  He was "Made perfect in his suffering"  for "The Christ has to suffer all these things..."  The song is a poetic, powerful, profound look into pain and how we can relate it to our savior.  In the end of the song, the wanderer is beside "The clear spring again."  The suffering has passed, but he now knows much more about his Lord, and can trust in him the next time he must face suffering.

     One more thought for now.  I think o the story of Gary Habermas, author and professor at Liberty University.  He discusses in Lee Strobel's books (Case for Christ, Easter, etc.) the story of how he lost his wife, I beleive it was to cancer.  His academic focus and personal passion is the ressurection of Jesus Christ.  As he watched his wife die, and after she died, he had many, many responses from students with a similar theme, to paraphrase:  "If you really believe in the ressurection of Jesus, you know that you'll both be resurrected with him.  If it was good enough for Jesus, is it not good enough for your wife as well?"  The wonderful thing was, he actually found solace in that.  The resurrection of Christ was so powerful and so real to him that he was comforted even in the loss of his greatest earthly treasure.  Or, in closing, to use lyrics again, "The final cry of God's faultless, wounded Son brought freedom!"

In adendum, I have come to beleive that while yes, the scriptures are powerful, preaching them to a sufferer who does not alreayd believe them fully heart and soul is a meaningless endeavor.  When somebody goes through pain, they don't want trite words but real love.  If I suffer, I don't want to hear the verses I listed above, no matter how true they may be.  I want sombody to be there who will cry with me if need be, somebody to "mourn with those who mourn", to be a friend and a brother/sister.  We should "live a life of love" above all else.  Truly, to try to listen to the heart cry of every suffering individual, even within a smaller group, would be deafening.  However, does not God call us to preach healing to as many human hearts as possible, though loud indeed be their cries?  Is that not what ministry is all about, reaching and loving and teaching and pointing to God as many as possible, though you know you're never reach them all?

I may never know for certain why humanity suffers in this our exile.  Perhaps it will always burden my heart, whether it is personal or not.  Father, let us yearn for Heaven, to rid ourselves of this Earthly land, for we long to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling...and not to be such miserable strangers in this world.  Until we too die, and rise again with Christ, give us peace and strength to trust that you care for us even when we can't see it.  "I have walked the whole path with you."  Enough for now.