Today’s resolution.

I know of no more terrifying, somber, and sad passage as Lamentations 2. Really, the entire book is devastating.  It came up in my readings today and I was struck on many levels.  Without much commentary, I’ll just let you absorb it.

Lamentations 2

(I’d recommend clicking the above link, then ‘Options’, selecting ‘Flash (Max McLean, complete Bible)’, click save and then listen to it as you read along)

2:1 How the Lord in his anger
has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud!
He has cast down from heaven to earth
the splendor of Israel;
he has not remembered his footstool
in the day of his anger.

2 The Lord has swallowed up without mercy
all the habitations of Jacob;
in his wrath he has broken down
the strongholds of the daughter of Judah;
he has brought down to the ground in dishonor
the kingdom and its rulers.

3 He has cut down in fierce anger
all the might of Israel;
he has withdrawn from them his right hand
in the face of the enemy;
he has burned like a flaming fire in Jacob,
consuming all around.

4 He has bent his bow like an enemy,
with his right hand set like a foe;
and he has killed all who were delightful in our eyes
in the tent of the daughter of Zion;
he has poured out his fury like fire.

5 The Lord has become like an enemy;
he has swallowed up Israel;
he has swallowed up all its palaces;
he has laid in ruins its strongholds,
and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah
mourning and lamentation.

6 He has laid waste his booth like a garden,
laid in ruins his meeting place;
the Lord has made Zion forget
festival and Sabbath,
and in his fierce indignation has spurned king and priest.

7 The Lord has scorned his altar,
disowned his sanctuary;
he has delivered into the hand of the enemy
the walls of her palaces;
they raised a clamor in the house of the Lord
as on the day of festival.

8 The Lord determined to lay in ruins
the wall of the daughter of Zion;
he stretched out the measuring line;
he did not restrain his hand from destroying;
he caused rampart and wall to lament;
they languished together.

9 Her gates have sunk into the ground;
he has ruined and broken her bars;
her king and princes are among the nations;
the law is no more,
and her prophets find
no vision from the Lord.

10 The elders of the daughter of Zion
sit on the ground in silence;
they have thrown dust on their heads
and put on sackcloth;
the young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.

11 My eyes are spent with weeping;
my stomach churns;
my bile is poured out to the ground
because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
because infants and babies faint
in the streets of the city.

12 They cry to their mothers,
“Where is bread and wine?”
as they faint like a wounded man
in the streets of the city,
as their life is poured out
on their mothers’ bosom.

13 What can I say for you, to what compare you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
What can I liken to you, that I may comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is vast as the sea;
who can heal you?

14 Your prophets have seen for you
false and deceptive visions;
they have not exposed your iniquity
to restore your fortunes,
but have seen for you oracles
that are false and misleading.

15 All who pass along the way
clap their hands at you;
they hiss and wag their heads
at the daughter of Jerusalem:
“Is this the city that was called
the perfection of beauty,
the joy of all the earth?”

16 All your enemies
rail against you;
they hiss, they gnash their teeth,
they cry: “We have swallowed her!
Ah, this is the day we longed for;
now we have it; we see it!”

17 The Lord has done what he purposed;
he has carried out his word,
which he commanded long ago;
he has thrown down without pity;
he has made the enemy rejoice over you
and exalted the might of your foes.

18 Their heart cried to the Lord.
O wall of the daughter of Zion,
let tears stream down like a torrent
day and night!
Give yourself no rest,
your eyes no respite!

19 “Arise, cry out in the night,
at the beginning of the night watches!
Pour out your heart like water
before the presence of the Lord!
Lift your hands to him
for the lives of your children,
who faint for hunger
at the head of every street.”

20 Look, O Lord, and see!
With whom have you dealt thus?
Should women eat the fruit of their womb,
the children of their tender care?
Should priest and prophet be killed
in the sanctuary of the Lord?

21 In the dust of the streets
lie the young and the old;
my young women and my young men
have fallen by the sword;
you have killed them in the day of your anger,
slaughtering without pity.

22 You summoned as if to a festival day
my terrors on every side,
and on the day of the anger of the Lord
no one escaped or survived;
those whom I held and raised
my enemy destroyed.

I am not black.
I am white.

I am not a woman.
I am a man.

I cannot see out of black eyes.
I see out of white eyes.

It is not dead.
It hides beneath the surface.

It is not quiet.
It shouts with silent words.

It cannot be defeated.
It must be defeated.

It is winning.
We are silent.

“Let me . . . ; remind you that it is only by working with an energy which is almost superhuman and which looks to uninterested spectators like insanity that we can accomplish anything worth the achievement. Work is the keystone of a perfect life. Work and trust in God.”
— Woodrow Wilson

I am, by nature and development, a person who is spontaneous. When I say spontaneity I mean that I love to do things at the last minute, I intentionally procrastinate, I enjoy operating under pressure, I fly by the seat of my pants, I like orderly chaos. There is a certain adrenaline rush that I enjoy when I know that I have a limited amount of time to achieve some result. I often crave it like a runner craves to run or an adrenaline junkie craves jumping out of a plane. For those who have worked with me in the past this will come as no surprise.

During a two week summer camp we were supposed to spend a week at an established camp ground with a group of kids we hadn’t met yet. There were months of planning and preparation for this camp. Team members had raised money, read books, built crafts, and trained for this camp. The camps sewage pumps died and the campground flooded. Our camp was canceled. We could have all gone home at that moment. I was counseled to fold it up and go home. But I thrive off of those types of situations. I love to be told ‘You can’t do this – you might as well quit’. To that I smile, roll up my sleeves and head up the hill. We had our camp that summer because we served a great God, I had a great team, and I live off the adrenaline of last minute crisis.

This same drive pushes me into working three part time jobs. I love working on three different missions, vision and goals. I love working with 3 different sets of people and constantly moving from one issue to another, one goal to the next. I love it! I also love having 7 kids. Life is always changing. Emotions, sports, schedules, and “want to’s” keep me going.

While spontaneity is sought after in some professions and heralded by the younger generation, there can be negatives. Being spontaneous can mean that it is OK to not be orderly, to not discipline yourself. Spontaneity can become an excuse for laziness, chaos, and irresponsibility. I know it, because I have failed in all of those areas and used spontaneity as an excuse. I feel like I have grown in the area, but I always know that it is there. It is a danger for me.

So I want to discipline myself in an area that I don’t ‘have to’. I want to discipline myself in an area that is not required by a job, or my wife or my children. At the same time I love to write. Ben Franklin once said something like ‘To be remembered you need to write something worth remembering or live your life in a way that it is worth writing about’ – that’s loosely quoted from memory, so don’t hold me to it. I have been told that someone could write a book about our lives, so I don’t feel the pressure of writing anything worth remembering. I’m going to discipline myself to blog daily. I’ll go ahead and tell you that I’m going to fail in it. I may intentionally fail in it tomorrow just so that I don’t have the pressure of forgetting to write one day and missing it.

I’m just going to write. Primarily it will be for me and secondarily for you…whoever ‘you’ may be. My writing will cover topics that I am most interested in like family, adoption, orphan care, theology, Gospel, urban renewal and reviews of food, beer and cigars. Of course if you have something that ‘you’ want to discuss we could always do that here as well…or you could get your own blog and have people read it there