Something of Beauty

I put this on my Myspace a while back, but I felt like posting it here, as well. This is a poem I wrote once while watching the sunset on Brighton Beach, the most beautiful spot in all of Brooklyn. Enjoy!



Something of Beauty

Joy and pain

Wrapped in the warmth

Of sunlit rain

In darkness falls

But skies all around

With heavenly light

Do resound

That at great cost

We pay this price

For hope does not come

Without sacrifice

And at what cost

But that we may treasure

The sacrifice

Of greatest measure

Bittersweet reflections (some thoughts from last Saturday)

I just got to see a bunch of the youth I used to work w/ some years ago. Truth be told, the term "youth" hardly applies any longer in the typical sense in which it's used. They were all so young, once, fresh in high school or still in middle school, but you blink, the time goes by, and before you know it, they're driving, graduating, moving on to college, and all those bittersweet etceteras you can think of. As I'm sure anyone can tell you a few years after having started in youth ministry, you look back and begin asking yourself, "Was it worth it? Did I make an impact on their lives? Did I really, really, really connect w/ them, or was it just fun while it lasted?"

So I arrived in Maryland, and I saw one of the girls who's now living in Israel and has been visiting for the summer, making sure to bring her a little going-away present (dark chocolate peanut M&M's, her favorite). She lights up and exclaims, "You didn't!" I shrug my shoulders and reply, "I did." We get to chat for a little while, and as I really listen to what she's saying, I know that God has had His hand on her life, and her heart is set towards him no matter what.

I look across the room, and there's one of the girls who joined the group some time after I started helping out. Barely out of high school, she's already showing some leadership initiative, spending time w/ the other youth and challenging them in their relationship w/ God. I'll never forget the time not long ago when she was sitting down w/ one of the older youth leaders, pouring her heart out about how much she really wanted to reach out to the needy in the local community. After talking for a little while, she put her hands down on the table and said, "Just...just let me! Just let me step out and do something! I understand that I'll probably make some mistakes, but God is bigger than that! I'm just so tired of waiting around for somebody to give me the thumbs up!"

I look up and see her brother approaching, who I also only got to spend so much (or so little) time w/, yet even his face lights up, surprised to see me. I see another one of the guys who I got to spend a lot of time w/ in the years past, and even though we didn't get to chat much during my visit, I know I've been seeing him grow spiritually as time's moved on. The same can be said for yet another guy who I didn't get to see b/c he no longer lives in the area, yet I logged on to my facebook and got a comment from him saying that he misses me.

"I thought you were a cool youth leader, Jimmy," one of the girls said as I was giving her a ride home. "You had some nice ideas, but I also remember how you were very sincere when you'd open up and speak to us from your heart. I really liked that." She, too, is moving on to do some incredible things w/ her life, admitting that the steps forward are downright scary at times, which is just teaching her to trust in God all the more.

It's easy to doubt oneself and get discouraged in life many times, and this can especially be the case in youth ministry. It's good to have a humble attitude about oneself, as well, constantly open to recognizing areas for growth. What good is it, though, if we confuse that w/ having a negative self-image. As one of the youth said, God is bigger than our mistakes. It was truly refreshing to have had this time last Saturday, to see how the youth have grown in so many ways, and what more can be said? It was such an awesome time getting to spend those years developing strong, lasting friendships w/ the other youth leaders, seeing how God is moving in their lives, as well. In times like these you look back on it all, and asking whether or not it was worth it, your heart gives out a resounding, "Yes!" I'm so thankful to God for the opportunity to have been a part of these (no longer) kids' lives.

"B'reisheet - Yehiyeh": In the Beginning was the Word...

Many are familiar w/ the opening part of the Gospel of John - "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was w/ God, and the Word was God." Something really caught my attention about this as I was looking at a few passages of Scripture in the original Greek and Hebrew. By reading the opening words of this passage, one of the first things that pops into many people's heads is the story of creation ("In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." - Genesis 1:1). There's a word that keeps popping up in the original Hebrew as God is speaking forth creation - yehiyeh. It refers to a state of being, translated as "let there be" and "there was" (hence, if we were to translate the entire passage into English except for that word, it would look something like this - "And God said 'yehiyeh light,' and yehiyeh light).

Going back to the beginning of John, we understand this "word" as referring to Jesus ("and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us"). I don't want to get us off into some sort of weird, hyper-spiritual, meaningless mystical wandering after "deeper meaning" (i.e. I don't want this to be about anything other than Jesus as this is what the passage is talking about). However, I don't want to overlook the fact that there can be more meaning to something than what we see at face value, especially if it reveals to us something more about God's heart. It's interesting to note that it says that this word was w/ God "in the beginning", but it also says that the word "was God". Again, we understand this to be talking about Jesus, but here's something interesting to go along w/ that. This word, "yehiyeh", is conjugated another way which appears in Exodus 3 - eheyeh (as in "EHEYEH ASHER EHEYEH" ["I AM THAT I AM"]).

So you probably know that I've been doing a lot of reading up on quantum physics lately. I ran across something rather interesting about 2 months ago known as zero-point energy. It's kind of difficult for me to explain right now as I only know the cursory definition of it, but zero-point energy refers to the power that brought this world into existence. It exists all around us, nevertheless, we don't perceive it. It is mostly rested, and it would have been only by what's known as a "quantum fluctuation" that this power caused this world to be. It is my understanding that this energy exists as a product of some other dimension, as it seems to pop up mysteriously (hence it is known as the "phantom force" of energy). It's as if something from another dimension had to breathe everything into existence (which is interesting, b/c the Hebrew word that keeps appearing in creation seems to have an inhale/exhale sound to it).

There's more I could say, but I'll save it for later. For now, I close w/ this. There is power in that word. No, I don't mean that it's some kind of magical word that gives us special power if we say it, but what I'm saying is that there's something to be said about the findings of modern science, the appearance of this mysterious word, and God knows what else, all pointing to the power and authority of His holy name. So next time you walk outside and look up at the stars, next time you see the green grass growing in the bright shining sun, the waving trees, the crashing seas, or whatever it is in nature that brings you to your knees (<--he saith, as he attempts to wax poetic), you might want to keep in mind the awesome power behind it all.

"Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM." - John 8:58

"As soon as He had said to them, "I AM", they went backward, and fell to the ground." - John 18:6

"O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth." - Psalm 8:9

"Current" reflections (deeper thoughts from the shallow shores)

Last Thursday, I got to visit Rehoboth beach w/ some friends of mine. Man does that bring back memories (I practically grew up on that beach, but that's another story). As soon as we got to the sands, I instantly fell prey to the forces of oceanic gravity, the riptides tugging at the depths of my heart.

"Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me." - Psalms 42:7

Being a person who's fascinated by the world of physics, all the intricate workings of God's creation, there's something about throwing myself into the wild unknown that I find utterly irresistible. Waves moving mercilessly in their predictibly unpredictible fashion, cresting and crashing all around so speedily that only a fool would turn his back for more than a few seconds. That is motion. That is force. That is acceleration. That...is...AWESOME!!!!!!!

Reflecting upon the beauty of what I saw caused me to realize something. Navigating the currents of this massive body of water is not unlike swimming through the seas of life. You don't have control over much, you can only predict what will happen w/ limited accuracy, so you have to be ready for anything. Somehow people fail without fail to realize this, though. We spend so much of our time trying to control the currents, we will turn our backs on the waves only to get wiped out in a matter of seconds, and when we get caught in the undertoe, we react in fear by swimming directly against it, burning out so much energy, rather than going to the side to get out of its pull (metaphorically, that is...we spend so much time trying to secure a bunch of variables over which we have very little control, we kick our heels up when circumstances look fine on the surface only to get hit quickly w/ something we weren't expecting, and when this happens, we often let fear take over and react on impulse, rather than taking a moment to stop, breathe, and assess what we should do).

I've recently been thinking a lot about all the symbols and hints that God often leaves in Scripture, the meanings within meanings that He put there so that we would continually journey deeper w/ Him. What we encounter in nature I think speaks so powerfully of Who He is (creation pointing to the Creator, if you will). A particular passage in the opening of His story to mankind has really made an impression on me lately: "And God said, 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear,' and it was so." (Genesis 1:9) Ok, get ready to put on your learning cap, 'cuz I'm about to give you a Hebrew lesson, here. The word for "gathered" that appears in that passage is "kavah". Though it appears 49 times in the Old Testament, this is the only place where it is translated as "gathered". The definition of "kavah" isn't so easily understood by a cursory translation, here. We would think of the waters being "gathered" as a process of some outside force (or collection of forces) acting upon inanimate matter. "Kavah", however, is something far different from this. It refers to an act of waiting in hope or expectation (it's actually the same word that's used in that oft-quoted passage, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength" [Isaiah 40:31]). It's as if the waters spoken of in Genesis 1:9 were acting of their own volition in obedience to the voice of the Lord, which is kind of interesting when you consider the term "living water" (and "living waters") as it appears a few times in Scripture (Jeremiah 2:13;17:13; Zechariah 14:8; John 4:10,11;7:38).

So let's consder this. We spend so much of our time, energy, and hope on the unpredictible waters of life. The story of creation tells us, however, that it wasn't God's expectation on the waters, but rather the waters' expecation on God. We spend so much of our time judging the waters by what we see on the surface, yet we stop short of considering the currents underneath. Then there are those of us who keep in mind that no matter how much we attempt to calculate the trajectories of our lives, so much of it is still based on variability. It's good to be wise, to consider our paths, and to plan accordingly. Nevertheless, many of our calculations end up getting swept away w/ the currents as the foundation of predictibility gives way underneath. We, however, don't have to be swept away w/ them, if we accept the fact that all of those calculations are just good pointers to help keep us moving forward, never to replace God as the solid ground beneath us. When we let go like this, all we have left is faith, and this is something truly, truly beautiful.

"Trust in the Lord w/ all your heart, and don't lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths." - Proverbs 3:5,6

Projects, hobbies, and other matters of the like

So what have I been up to since coming here to Coatesville? Good question (thought you'd never ask:) Well, I've had a few things in the works since the beginning of this year (some from even before then). There are about 6 ongoing writing projects, which include 3 sci-fi scripts, 1 suspense/thriller, 1 drama (inspired by a true story), and a fictional story that I'm writing as a book (not quite sure if I want to put that one to screen, yet). There's also a long-term research project that I'm working on (and I mean loooooong-term....it will probably consume the rest of my life and those of many others in the process) which deals w/ the history of developments in science (as well as other areas). To that end, I'm doing a lot of reading, including The Elements by Euclid, an in-depth biography of Albert Einstein, tons of books on physics, some on linguistics, one on church history, another on biblical history, and many, many more. There's more I could go into, but that's the gist of it (you'll get to hear about the other stuff in future blogs).

So life is keeping me pretty busy these days, but I'm glad I get to be busy doing the things I love. Well, I guess that's a wrap for now. See'ya next blog!

Transitioning to Philly: Phase two...ish...

Well, big news, big news. As of the second week of June, I transferred jobs and am in Coatesville full-time, now. So what's the new schedule looking like these days? Well.......

Mon. morn. - Wake up, get ready, man the reception desk
Mon. afternoon - staff meeting, other duties as assigned
Mon. evening - staff dinner
Mon. night - relax, unwind, go to bed
Tues. - Fri. - wake up, get ready, help out around the base (duties vary from one day to the next), eat lunch, read (or do some small chores), leave for work around 2, get back around 11
Fri. after work - help out 'til 2 at the curfew center (a program we started working w/ that helps facilitate the local curfew restriction for minors)
Sat. morn. - sleep in (YAAAAAAWN!)
Sat. afternoon - Bible study in Philly (www.bethemanuel.org)
Sat. evening - Enjoy the day
Sat. night - Curfew center (10p.m. 'til 2a.m.)
Sun. morn. - sleep in (YAWN! YAWN! YAWN! YAWN! YAWN!)
Sun. (rest of the day) - chores and whatever else I have time for (hang out w/ staff, visit a local church, go to downtown Philly, etc.)

So the busyness remains, but it's nice not having to be constantly moving back and forth between here and the good ol' VA. I'm really liking it here, all things considered. Pennsylvania's such a beautiful state, and there's so much to explore. I'm looking forward to being here for the long-term.

The Art of Gracefully Coming Undone, and the Beauty of Surrender (In Conclusion)

A friend of mine once said something that really made an impact on me: "Never trust a man who walks without a limp." This saying is so beautiful, if you understand the story from which it originates (it is one of my favorites).


In the 32nd chapter of Genesis (the first book in the Bible), the character Jacob is wrestling w/ an angel. Now this isn't your typical wrestling match that lasts a few minutes, maybe 5 at the most. No, this match lasts throughout the entire night! There's something interesting about the timing in which this took place, as well.


Earlier on in the story of Jacob's life, he took advantage of his brother, Esau, on two separate occasions. Now, this wasn't your typical, "Oh, Jacob charged a little extra interest on Esau's loan," kind of situation that we're talking about here. No. The first time, Esau was absolutely famished, so Jacob made a deal w/ him that he would give him some food in exchange for his birthright. "Fair is fair," one might say, though, as Esau did agree to this without hesitation ("I feel like I'm about to die. What good will my birthright do me?" - Gen. 25:32 [paraphrased]). The second time Jacob took advantage of Esau, however, he went right behind his back to do it. The longer version of the story is in Gen. 27:1-41, but to put it in short, Jacob went to his father, Isaac, pretending to be Esau so that he could get his brother's blessing (to put it in modern terms, he basically got Esau's portion of the will).


As you might imagine, Esau wasn't too happy about this (to put it more accurately, he wanted to kill Jacob, which would explain why Jacob took off running indefinitely). So, fast forward to where we left off. Genesis 32. Many years have passed since Jacob last saw his brother Esau, and he figured he would try to make amends w/ him. After Jacob sent his servants to Esau's home terrain w/ a message of reconciliation. The servants returned saying that Esau was coming to meet him...along w/ 400 other men. Needless to say, Jacob was rather terrified at this point. He sent away his servants and his family who carried all of his possessions w/ them, and we're left w/ the chilling, sobering words, "And Jacob was left alone," before the angelic visitor shows up for the showdown.


"(Do not) say in your heart, 'My power and the ability of my hand has gotten me this wealth. Remember the Lord your God, b/c He is the One Who gives you power to get wealth...," (Dt. 8:17-18)



Have you ever prided yourself in your abilities or your possessions? Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe you don't deserve half the credit you give yourself? As Jacob's wrestling match comes to an end, his competitor exclaims, "Let me go, already! The sun is about to rise!", but Jacob gives a resounding reply, "I will not let you go unless you bless me!" Why would Jacob ask for a blessing? He already got this from his father. What more could he ask for? A blessing from God, that's what. "No longer will your name be called Jacob, but Israel, b/c you have power like a prince w/ God and w/ men, and you have prevailed." (Gen. 32:28)

The heart of Jacob was nothing short of persistent, and he was blessed tremendously for this (as the Scripture goes, "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." [Mt. 11:12]). This blessing did not come without a cost, however, and a great one, at that. Verse 25 of this chapter tells us that the stranger with whom he was wrestling touched the hollow of his thigh and put it out of joint, and we already know that Jacob was all by himself. To put it in short, Jacob had to be stripped of anything and everything until there was nothing left but him (ok, maybe not every single thing; the text seems to indicate he still got to keep his clothes, thank God). Jacob received a blessing from on high that would give him a sense of his true destiny - one that no man (not even his father), could give him - but he had to come to the utter end of himself to get there (and even then, the story tells us that he was left w/ a limp, probably as a solemn reminder from God to help keep him in humility).

So my friend said, "Never trust a man who walks without a limp," which is to say, never trust someone who acts like they have it all together. We are all broken vessels reeling from the fall. Our human efforts, no matter how noble, no matter how accoladed, still fall so short of the holiness, the splendor, the awesome power of Who God is (need some more Scriptures to chew on there? Ok - Rom. 3:23, Phil. 3:4-8, and while you're at it, consider Ex. 33:17-23 in light of Dt. 34:10). This is the art of gracefully coming undone, and the beauty of surrender.

"Great, Jimmy, but what does that have to do w/ the last two blogs?" Glad to hear you say that. I thought you'd never ask:) Throughout life, it's been easy for me to try to hide behind a shell of talents and potential, to say things just the right way so that people would like me, but still keep them at a safe distance. God's been teaching me a lot, however, about what it means to truly let go. It's not easy. I'm not gonna lie. There are still plenty of times when I want to keep my walls up, when I get frustrated trying to explain myself, when I feel like there's a wellspring of thoughts, ideas, opinions, and emotions within that I just don't know how to let out, when I want nothing more than to walk off to some cabin in the woods and drown myself in reading books, writing poems, playing my guitar, coming up with theories, solving puzzles, and just be left the heck alone. However.......I've come to believe that God makes each of us different in ways that benefit one another (so that we can learn to appreciate what each of us has to offer), and that require one another (lest we get too heady and highminded in our own right, thinking that we can make it through life just fine on our own).

I was recently at a Bible study that lasted a few hours. It's hard to say that there was a central point of discussion, even though we were all reading from a very specific passage. It was more like the conversation took various twists and turns, each of them enriching us with truth, despite how unrelated the wanderings of discussion may have seemed. Somebody brought up the point that walking in biblical community means living life without our masks (to paraphrase). "This is one of the things Scripture is talking about when it says 'iron sharpens iron'" the leader of the discussion pointed out. It suddenly hit me - iron sharpening iron, refining as gold, circumcision - the pictures God uses in Scripture to teach us about growth are anything but comfortable. Yes, there is a "balm of Gilead" to be poured out, but sometimes we forget that this anesthetic is administered after the surgery is finished.

I am reminded of something I've been saying for years, now, that if there's nothing that you're willing to die for, there's nothing you truly live for (that is, if you don't have a purpose in life that means so much to you that you would rather die than give it up, then you're obviously gripped by the fear of death; as long as fear has you in its grip, you will not know the fullness of life). Well, if I've been saying for so long that death is nothing to be afraid of, what's a little growing pain back down from, then? I will grow, I will move on in life, I will continue to have my struggles b/c I'm not perfect, but that's ok. I will live in such a way that no matter how hard I trip over myself and fall, my hope remains in Someone greater than myself. I'm learning to walk w/ a limp.