Letter from the Generose Psychiatric Clinic

Dear Mitchell,

At the Mayo Clinic on the St. Mary's campus in the Generose building is a psychiatric ward where I spent fourteen days last spring.  My motives for self-harm had never been so crystal clear, and I carried a burden heavy enough to necessitate an admission into the ward.  Had my mother not walked in on me, the steak knife would have done more damage than the quickly-healing surface wound that now sneers back at me in the mirror.  The cut only grew longer when, on my first full day in Generose, I turned the rough end of a tube of toothpaste into a weapon against myself, and rubbed until the friction cut away further at my flesh.  The nurses put me in a special room — a better room — that kept me safe under video surveillance.  I was here when I began putting notes together, notes that eventually became this letter.

The portrait I'm painting doesn't sound like the John Hooyer that you grew to know.  Self-harm rarely tempted me until about a year or two ago, and on April 1, I became dangerously wounded — spiritually — enough that I became vulnerable to my own thoughts.  I had a desire to mutilate my face during my weekend with family, and finally made an attempt on April 3, which also happened to be my father's 53rd birthday.  It would be nice to explain to you why these thoughts became so critical, but for the time being, that isn't really appropriate for me to reveal my pain.  It's a highly private affair, but I have faith that you will understand that my suffering was severe.  Sometimes we're afflicted by misfortune, but every once and a while, true and perverse evil strikes our lives.  This was one of those times.  Only something truly evil could have brought me to this.

This.

Of all things I thought I'd be inspired to do after an energizing weekend with family, staying at a psychiatric ward only made the list as a joke.  By God, I actually did it.  I actually, properly put myself in a psychiatric ward.  And quite literally, by God.

Let me explain.

My kneejerk reaction, when faced with the dilemma I created for myself, was to question the kind of Christian I was.  I especially wondered what other Christians would think of me.  Would my faith be somehow less compelling because I sank to such a point that I destroyed myself?  Could a self-destructive individual be a mature Christian?

Ever since then, I've known that I need to open up about this.  I need to claim this experience.I can't continually wonder, "Who is safe enough to share this information with?"  It has to be something that I can talk about with anyone, without shame.  If I keep it pent up inside, then I haven't made peace with it.  I continue to carry it as a burden, and that burden is contagious.  If I do share it with someone, they must keep my secret.  If this suffering controls me, then I will inevitably also use it to leverage control over others.  I don't want that, so I'm coming clean, and writing an open letter for the world to know.  There are other spiritual wounds that I must endure that I do still keep private, but this one should be known.

It isn't easy.  It's a no-win scenario.  Some people will think less of me now that they know that I abandoned the comforting guidance of the Great Comforter.  Others won't think less of me, but they'll have sympathy.  Sympathy easily turns to pity, and pity eats away at people like an invisible, inaudible lotus swarm.  I don't want anyone's pity.  Pity shrouds people in their shame.  So, I've come to conclude that there is no victory for me in sharing this account.  However, there is a victory in it for Christ, who is in this story.

The first few days were bleak.  At every passing moment, I wished that I had some means of leaving scars on my face.  They had to be there, in particular, in order to be as public as possible.  They had to display for the world to see the twistedness of my suffering, and that when I suffered, I suffered as only a giant can suffer.  This mutilation was a part of my identity, my calling, my destiny.  It was what the very name "John Hooyer" stands for, and, I feel, a part of the identity of all Hooyers.  To be a Hooyer, and particularly John Hooyer, is to be at the forefront of the war with Satan.  I wanted people to see that I had looked at evil directly in the eye, and this was part of who I am.  I had been wounded.  I was tired of hiding all of that pain, all of that terror that I had endured.  I wanted to be incapable of pretending to anyone, ever again, that it never happened.

I am married to that war, that suffering.  That war is my wife, the only woman that I feel comfortable introducing to my family.  And my family is the only thing that I trust with the burden of this war.

Then, the obsession with making myself hideous subsided into something less overwhelming, something that I could manage.  There were people out in the lounge, fellow patients.  When I first came, I didn't want to associate with them at all.  It was easier to spin around in the whirlpool of my own torments, laying in bed from morning until night, coming out only to eat and use the bathroom.  I reached a point when I was able to be my normal extroverted self again, and started getting to know them.

There was someone named Joseph, a young Hispanic college student who I instantly took a liking to.  We had some things in common.  There was also someone else named Thommas (I'm not misspelling that), who was an INFJ personality and a fellow Dutchman.  Somme of these individuals had, like me, been voluntarily admitted, but others had been turned in by their concerned families.  Almost everyone wanted to get out of the psychiatric ward.

Going out with the other people made me feel better, although it didn't negate my depression.  The evil that had befallen me had never left my mind.  It left permanent scars.  It leaves an impact on my life story that can never be undone.  There was a whiteboard in the lounge, on which I wrote the lyrics to "Hurt" that I had long since memorized.  That song has a lot of meaning for me, and it had a particular meaning for a patient in the psych ward.  Some of my peers appreciated the lyrics.

The highlight of every day was when family came to visit.  We talked about good things and bad things.  Sometimes we just kept ourselves entertained.  At other times we cried and didn't stop crying.  We would also discuss serious matters of mental health.  They helped me get through, and with their guidance, I was able to leave the ward.

Part of me is still in that ward, though.  It never left, nor should it ever leave.  I will always need that psychiatric ward.

One thing that I noticed is that most people talked about when they expected to get out.  There was one exception: man named Eric, who was a homeless man with a long beard that made him look like he belonged on Duck Dynasty.  My uncle actually graduated with him, and one of the people in the ward recognized him as someone he had once worked with.  In a way, I rather admired that he was able to admit his complete dependence on the ward.  If he absolutely couldn't handle the world outside, then there really wasn't any option but to resign to the care of doctors and nurses.

St. Mary's is a Catholic hospital.  I was able to talk about my faith with the staff.  With one in particular, I talked about demons.  I talked about how my family and I had warred with Satan, and how this war must never leave the confines of my family.

Inspired by Ravi Zacharias, who had found a Gideon Bible beside him when he was on a bed of suicide, and came to Christ, I brought my own Gideon Bible along with me.  That nurse that I talked with showed me verses from it to comfort me.  There was another Bible out in the lounge.  I read from it when I wasn't in the mood for King James English.

There was also a Qur'an.  Out of curiosity, I picked it up and read from it.  There wasn't much to impress me, since all it did was sit back and condemn sinners from its ivory tower and say that the Kingdom of God was only for the godly.  That wasn't particularly helpful for someone stuck indefinitely in the psych ward because of his ungodly desire to harm himself.

Every once and a while, someone else would pick up one of these two books.  Joseph, who was raised with a Christian background, got curious and started reading the Bible.  It was interesting that he should suddenly take interest in it once he was in St. Mary's.  Before he read the Bible, though, he flipped through the Qur'an briefly.  I suppose he was open minded and looking for spiritual guidance.

Thommas had a lot of familiarity with Christianity, but was also fascinated by Islam.  During his thirty minutes of allotted computer time each day, he would study Arabic songs, and he would read through the Qur'an diligently.  There were several Muslims in the ward, and he talked with them every day, and insisted on eating from the special Middle Eastern menu.  He would eat with them and converse about the wisdom of the Prophet Muhammad.  He thought that due to his eating habits, and his prayers, that he was a fairly stable and righteous person, who didn't quite belong in a psych ward.

I had opened the Qur'an to educate myself on another faith, but I can't speak for the others.  Perhaps they were curious to learn about other people, but I was under the impression that they were looking to find wisdom anywhere, anything that could give them guidance.  Why did they want guidance?  Easy: they knew that they were in a dark place, and they wanted out of it.  They fell far from glory, and ended up in the shed where all insufficient things are stored.  Somewhere, in the backs of their minds, they thought:

"I'm better than this.  I'm going to get religion.  I'm going to improve myself.  I'm going to get to the point where I'm worthy of leaving this psychiatric ward, where I'm no longer a patient.  I can't believe I was admitted here in the first place."

When I thought about this, I wrote a note to myself, on a sheet of yellow paper that I have with me to this day:

To what extent does religious faith become a mere "positive thought" philosophy with a compilation of inspirational quotes that make us feel better?  And how do we share the Gospel — the good news — without turning it into a mere positive thinking exercise?  The Gospel is also brutally honest — but at the same time, the perfect news for the Sinner in the Psych Ward.  Jesus was a doctor for the sick, a God who redeemed the shameful, the lowly, and the meek.  He doesn't always leave them out of their shameful, lowqwly, and meek states, though, but assured them that they're redeemed because of it.

We're redeemed because of it because only a truly lowly sinner could admit himself to the psych ward.  I looked around me, and I began seeing Jesus in the doctors.  I realized that it wasn't a shame to be here, but a good thing.  Whereas some patients looked around them and saw sterility, I saw abundant life.  One other person, a well-off man coincidentally named Ward, actually realized just how privileged he was to be there.  He had voluntarily admitted himself, like me, and as a matter of fact came from across the country just to be there, because he wanted the best of the best, and to be in the care of the Mayo Clinic.

On another day, I wrote up on the whiteboard "Know thyself; know thy suffering and they joy and they life; take His yoke upon thee and learn of Him."

The job of the self-destructive person is incredibly simple.  It is to realize that there is no shame in living in the psych ward.  Our goal is not to get out, but rather to embrace the doctors there for helping to prevent us from destroying ourselves.  They are a blessing, not a curse.

Grace is a psychiatric ward.  We are all sinners who have hit rock bottom.  We have the option to never admit ourselves to the ward, and if we don't, we will inevitably destroy ourselves.  The natural outcome of our sin is suffering, despair, and ultimately death.  To some extent, we must all be like that homeless man named Eric, who knows that his only way of getting through life is by living in the ward.  And that's why part of me has never left, because I know that I need it.

The wonderful thing about the comfort that the Holy Spirit provides is that, unlike worldly psychiatric wards, you don't accept His Grace and get a six-thousand-dollar hospital bill.  Because of the blood of Jesus, God's psychiatric ward is completely free.  We could actually afford to live there forever.

Superficially, I got better, and I left the ward.  But that shouldn't fool anyone.  I'm still a sinner.  I'm still messed up.  I will die one day because of my sins.  The temptation will always be to think, "Wait a minute, I'm better than this!  I need to find religion again!  I need to start thinking positive thoughts!  I need to get on the right track!"  That won't lead me anywhere, though.  It will prevent me from ever receiving the healthcare of Christ that I so dearly need.

It truly is a bit humiliating to receive Grace.  People who receive it are undesirable misfits who hit rock-bottom and need to be babied by the psychiatric staff.  We don't look at the people in the psych ward and think, "I want to be like them."  They are pitied.  They are seen as victims.  They are the wretched refuse of society that we don't feel comfortable talking about.  And yet, they should be our role models.  Those who embrace the psychiatric ward are the most sane of us all.

Love,
John

Legalism Got Shacked by the Spirit

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby,

Like most Christian movies, The Shack wasn't the best.  By no means was is bad, but it's something that definitely good have been better.  It's every so slightly cheesy, although mercifully much less so than a Hallmark Channel original movie.  I watch Oscar-winning films all of the time, so I know what quality storytelling and filmmaking looks like.  I've seen films that evoke God which are truly great, and this isn't one of them.  I'd imagine that, realistically, a man having a conversation with God would be mighty impactful and would take some incredibly impressive writing in order to convey, but you don't see that in The Shack.  It does an acceptable job at doing what it's supposed to do, and many Christians going in will be pleased, but again, whenever I see a film like this that's merely okay, I think that its a wasted opportunity.  Christians who have the Holy Spirit in them should not only be able to confess the Truth, but be able to confess it more Beautifully than non-believers are able to confess untruths.  The Truth about God is powerful and moving, life-changing, but this is not one of the movies that has changed my life.  Schindler's List changed my life.  Dead Poet's Society changed my life.  Those weren't necessarily Christian films, and yet they deeply spoke to me as a Christian.  So why is it that Christian films, even when they reaffirm what I believe, don't really speak to me?

While my criticisms of the movie's shortcomings as a piece of art are plain and frank, that's not what I want to talk about here.  That's more suited for an official review of the film.  This is not a review of the The Shack, but rather, a review of some of the claims that people have made about it.  To my surprise, it wasn't just movie critics who were criticizing The Shack, but people of faith.  To quote some of the stronger language that I found, "You are accepting the doctrine of demons in place of the Word of God."

Let me be clear about this: I do not think that The Shack teaches any sort of heresy.  The film is about a man named Mack whose daughter is murdered in the titular shack, after which his spiritual life dries up because he fundamentally doubts the goodness of God.  He gets in invitation from God to come back to the shack, and arrives to find that it actually was God who invited him.  He meets the whole Trinity there, and they spend a week talking about why God allows bad things to happen to good people.  Some of the points that God makes are that Mack is seeing the world through the lens of his suffering, that he doesn't understand that God entered in to that suffering, that God grieves too when loved ones die, that He loves the murderer, too, that we are to forgive those who sin against us, that Original Sin infects us all, and that He's all about relationship, among some other things.  The book went into a bit more detail on these subjects and discussed a wider variety of topics, but the movie is a little more focused and gives priority to discussing the subject matters pertaining to Mack's suffering.  In all this, I agreed with everything that it said, which wasn't too hard to do, considering that the film didn't say anything particularly controversial.  This was fairly standard Christianity.

It surprised me, then, when I discovered all of the distrust and accusations of heresy leveled against this film.  The first thing that I heard was that the film preaches a message of Universalism, which is the belief that since God loves all of us, we're all going to Heaven no matter what.  Nowhere in its runtime does The Shack preach this, or even suggest it.  Yes, it says that God loves everyone and forgives everyone, but it did not say that all were saved.  In fact, the book goes into a bit of detail about this.  God says that He loves the man who murdered Mack's daughter, but He also says that not everyone who is forgiven chooses to accept forgiveness.  The book actually mentioned it quite a bit that God is about relationship, and that while forgiveness makes a relationship possible, one must actually accept the relationship in order to be in it.  That isn't a Universalist message.  Granted, the movie doesn't find time for that particular bit of wisdom and thus isn't as explicit, but I still don't feel that at any point it suggested anything heretical.

God says that He is particularly fond of Mack.  Mack asks "Is there anybody you're not particularly fond of?"  God said "No."  This might have also been construed as being Universalist by some, but I think it would actually be more heretical if God had said the opposite.  If God is Love, and God created the entire world and everything and everyone in it, then God must be particularly fond of everyone.  If He didn't like someone, then He would admit to having made a mistake, and furthermore, if He didn't like sinners, He wouldn't have died for us.  A God who likes some righteous people and dislikes other, more sinful people who aren't in His Grace, reminds me of the false god of Islam, who selectively chooses people to forgive.

So far, still no heresy.

How about God being friendly and jovial?  Yes, people have in fact found issue with that, so let's discuss it.  Is it heretical for someone to have a conversation with God in which God isn't judging him, and isn't condemning him?  Possibly.  God is, after all, the final Judge, and one could say that The Shack trivializes that aspect of His personality by not evoking it much and instead focusing on His friendlier, gentler side.  But the Bible says that He will reserve that for a later day, which will become the Day of Judgment.  Yes, God desired holiness in your life, and God condemns wicked actions and foolishness,  but He doesn't get us to the point where He wants us to be by coercing us.  He gets us to that point by having a relationship with us, and through that relationship transforming our desires, which is what the film depicts.  He takes sin very seriously, it's true, but He takes the enjoyment of our relationship with Him even more seriously.  The most dangerous sins are those that distort our faith and prevent us from being close with Him, and it was such a sin that God lovingly extracted from Mack in the story.  Mack doubted God's goodness, and believed that he would make a better judge than God.  God didn't get demanding with Mack and didn't see him in terms of His sin, as a walking record of rights and wrongs, as a problem in need of judging and fixing.  He saw him as a child who had gone astray and needed extra attention and a taste of the joy that waited for him in Heaven.  Was He angry?  Not particularly, but God also mentioned that even though He loved everyone unconditionally, even though He was especially fond of everyone He had created, He still got angry sometimes.  That's scriptural, and it also works against the accusations people have made against the film that it's Universalist and that it depicts a hippie God who has no standards.  God does have standards; He just doesn't enforce those standards in ways that we find intuitively obvious.  Some people are under the impression that this movie has a false New Age god, but it's actually quite old-fashioned.

All these, so far, seem like really sloppy criticisms waged by people who haven't even watched the film, or weren't paying attention too much.  There was, however, one aspect of God that everyone noticed that you didn't have to look to hard to see.  I'm also utterly shocked that this is being considered heretical.

So let's get down to it.

First starting with the not-so-controversial: Jesus is depicted as a Middle-Eastern carpenter.  I think we can all agree with that.

A little more controversial now...not really, not in my mind, but apparently in the mind of enough people:

God the Father takes on the form of a black woman.  God the Holy Spirit takes on the form of an Asian woman.  Some people, including my sister (your cousin) have said "I've read the Bible and nowhere in it does it say that God can take any form that He pleases.  God is a man and would never present Himself as a woman!"  Those are interesting points, and I understand where they come from.  I, too, believe that we should understand God's character in terms of how He's revealed ourselves to us.  God is not all things.  He is not a God without a distinct personality.  He is not a featureless concept without peculiarities, as Plato imagined Him.  He isn't bland and predictable.  He isn't inoffensive.  He chose to be a certain way and we are to accept the manner in which He decides to identify Himself.  We like to think of God as being beyond names, beyond human language, but in fact He chose to give Himself a name in a human language, Yehweh.  God chooses to express Himself and His Love in ways that seem arbitrary.  He isn't a deistic God, but a personal God, who acts as a person and has the distinctness of a person, so we as Christians must believe in Him as He has chosen to be.  In scripture, He primarily identifies as a Father, and we are to take that very seriously.

But at the same time, the Bible also says that we are "born" in God.  He gives "birth" to us.  He is described sometimes as a womb, and as a breast.  In Isaiah, it says that "As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you."  Clearly, he has motherly characteristics.  And also, although the bible doesn't say that God can take whatever form He pleases, it never says that He can't.  Seriously, this is the all-powerful God, Creator of Heaven and Earth.  All of the diversity of the human race can be found in Him.  Both man and woman are created in His image.  Are people actually telling me that he can't appear as a black woman?

"Oh, but God would never compromise on his modus operandi!  He's described himself as being like a mother, but never actually as a mother!  He's always done things a certain way and he would never compromise on that for the sake of one person!"

Yes, but there was no precedent for Jesus, either.  There was no precedent for Pentecost before it happened.  There wasn't precedent for God appearing as a flaming bush, either, nor has there been any incident of Him doing so since then.  Sometimes, God does something new.  I can see Him appearing as two woman and a man for the sake of one man.  In the book, as well as the movie, He said that He needed to shatter Mack's preconceived notions of God, that God was some bearded white man stoically executing judgment from afar, and that Mack would understand God better if He appeared to him as a woman.  God also acknowledged that Mack had a terrible father, and wasn't ready to understand God as a fatherly presence yet.  When Mack is finally ready, God comes to him as father.

"But God wouldn't compromise!  He never meets someone halfway!  He demands that you accept Him the way He is without first feeding you an adulterated version of the Truth!"  Okay, that's an interesting argument, and in some ways it's true.  God uses half-truths to His glory when people spread them, and uses evil when it occurs to work for His will, but God Himself doesn't tell us half of the Gospel whenever He directly speaks to us.  He always speaks the unadulterated Truth.  And as it happens, I thought that He spoke the unadulterated Truth in The Shack, or at least as much as the author could comprehend it.  It is true that God has described Himself as feminine and motherly.  It is true, as far as I can tell, that God can present Himself as a Mother if He so chose.  Perhaps it's controversial for the author to suppose any choice of God, since we don't know if He has chosen or ever will choose to appear to someone as a woman, but isn't supposing that He would never do that also a supposition of His character?  In any case, this is fiction, and the author isn't describing an actual encounter with God so much as a hypothetical one, and he's also trying to illustrate God in ways that will help people make connections that they might not have easily come to before.  I'm sure God is using this depiction of Him to His glory, even if He never has and never will present Himself in the exact same way as in the film.

The final criticism took me by surprise.  People said that the film promotes idolatry.  What's that?  Idolatry?  That's was a pretty serious accusation, and I kept it in mind before going on to the theatre.  Perhaps there was a humanistic moral in the story teaching that family is just as important as God.  Perhaps there was a mention of how good the creation is and how we are to love creation.  Something like that, something that would suggest that there are things that we are to put on equal footing with God.  There were no such themes.  Later, when I looked at these charges of idolatry in more depth, I saw that the issue that people had was that the film should depict God in any way, shape, or form.  You know how Islam prohibits anyone from from making any physical representation of a prophet, or depicting God in any form of art?  That was pretty much the outlook of these critics.  I saw a lot of people quoting of Exodus 20:4, "You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below."  To my ears, this is a very primitive and one-dimensional argument that doesn't appreciate the complexity and the purpose behind that command.  Most of us learn to understand the actual meaning of this command early on, and I wasn't expecting fully grown adults to have such a simplistic view on it.  They seemed very concerned with following the letter of the law but not necessarily the spirit of the law.

Allow me to explain idolatry.  Idolatry is, first and foremost, valuing anything more than God.  God must be the source of all value and the central focus of our lives, our reason for living.  That's how most adults understand idolatry today, and just about any church that I go to will make a point of mentioning that it's even possible to idolize our spouses and children.  We can idolize other things.  Some of us put our ultimate self-worth in our jobs, and that's idolatry.  I see many humanistic people idolize the arts; just listen to Viola Davis's acceptance speech at the Oscars, or what Meryl Streep said at the Golden Globes.  When you tune into those award ceremonies, you're basically watching a bunch of wealthy people congratulating themselves on the art that they created, and defining themselves by their artistic achievements.  It's completely disconnected from the real world that matters.

This is where I have to confess something, actually.  I worship art.  Specifically, good art.  Truly, I do.  I am idolatrous.  As an artist, I am particularly vulnerable to this, because I see art in a different way than others.  I become proud and attached to my own art when I've completed it.  I adore it.  What can I say?  I put hard work into it, so it's hard not to value it!  When I see good art, I tend to take it very seriously, more seriously than I should.  Perhaps I even become jealous of the artist who created it, because I wish I could have accomplished what they have accomplished.  I'm jealous of Steven Spielberg, because he gets to make films with John Williams scores.  I'm jealous of George Lucas and J.R.R. Tolkien, because they created the two greatest works of fantasy in modern art that I'm always afraid that I will never live up to.  Because I idolize these images, I break another commandment, because I begin coveting my neighbor's wife.

Furthermore, I want to write my books series.  I put my self-worth in self-expression.  This self-expression in many ways makes me vulnerable, which is a virtue, but I begin idolizing that virtue instead of putting my faith in God's love for me. I begin making the meaning of my life all about how perfect I can make my art, but that's not why I was created.  I was created to be loved.  Idolatry distracts me from that.

That is the most dangerous kind of idolatry, and that is the evil spirit that Exodus 20:4 ultimately wishes to protect us from.  Boiling it down to this ridiculous formula of "All art depicting sacred things is bad" is oversimplifying the command, and missing the point.  God commanded the Jews to make many beautiful things, including statues of cherubim.  The trick here was that God didn't want the Jews to worship the art itself, but what it represented.  We humans are visual creatures, and often do need physical prompts to remind us of the things that we value.  When I went to a Greek Orthodox church last December, they handed me a pamphlet with a bunch of questions and answers about their style of worship, and one of the questions they addressed was why they had so many icons.  They said that they wished to worship God in every way, and that humans as physical beings were not only to worship God in our minds, but with our bodies and with everything that we created as well, hence the decorations in their church.  The Catholic church has a similar stance, saying that we create art in order to venerate the things that we value.  When I talk to people of the Reformed tradition, they believe in the same thing, and like to use the words "stewardship" and "cultural mandate," and they have formed a great deal of art to the glory of God.

That's what this film is about.  It's trying to glorify God.  It isn't asking for us to glorify Octavia Spencer, even though I'm sure some people walked out of the theatre idolizing her just as they idolize any actor who appears in a Christian movie, to which I say "Just because someone's famous and a Christian, that doesn't mean that they should be your role model."  It isn't taking itself too seriously as a piece of art, as some films do, such as basically anything by Quentin Tarantino, who is constantly gratifying himself with his writing and directing style.  The movie was trying to reach out to people who might have questions about their faith and answer them, and that's noble.  I don't see too many people bowing down and worshiping the image of God seen onscreen, not in the same way as they bowed down to idols in the Old Testament, because that's not the spirit in which this film was created.  It wasn't created to be a monument of religion to be adored.

If there is an issue with idolatry, it isn't the film's fault, but our own.  We as Christians sometimes have a tendency to idolize the "goodness" of our sub-culture.  We idolize our name-brand.  Instead of making our only idol God's love for us, we put our ultimate sense of worth on "being Christian."  That's something we should be weary of.  You see this problem in the Jewish community.  Only about 10% of Jews in America are Orthodox, seeing themselves as in a covenant with God and following the commands of the Torah.  The rest are merely people born into Judaism, who like identifying with the Jewish culture, but don't live an actual covenant relationship with God.  They do many Jewish things and take pride in the tropes that are associated with being Jewish, which is the same thing as when we Christians take pride in our art, and our churches, and our charities.

Here are some other thoughts that I have on idolatry: some people who look at Exodus 20:4 and take the literal interpretation that we should never make visual representations of anything, especially God, still think that its okay to write music about God.  Isn't writing music sort of like creating an image, just for the sense of hearing?  If a composer writes a piece of music designed to express the character of God, that's painting a portrait.  Johann Sebastian Bach signed Soli Deo Gloria on every piece that he composed, "Glory to God Alone," and I always imagined that the piece "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" was all about creating an image of the things in heaven above above and the earth beneath and the waters below, expressing through the mathematical harmony of his notes the essence of a perfect Creator Who knows all things and is in control of all history.  Soli Deo Gloria.  He created this purely for the glory of God, and so God finds this sacrifice of praise acceptable, just as He was pleased by Abel's sacrifice.

Sometimes I am more like Cain.  I make offerings that seem like sacrifices, but they are for my own glory.  That's what I struggle with sometimes when I put so much time and effort into a piece of art, because I begin to idolize the art instead of the Person that the art is dedicated to.  That sacrifice becomes its own idol.  Also, I'm guilty of treating the music of Beethoven and Bach like idols.  Even though they are clearly inspired by God, and are of God, and point to God, I at times act like a wine-sipping cultural snob who's proud of himself for his pristine tastes in art.  At that point, I begin idolizing the image of this music in the same way that people in the Old Testament would idolize images.

Every time we create art, we're depicting God in some way, whether we're creating a visual of how we'd imagine he'd look like in a vision, or in more subtle ways, because essentially all art is making a statement of the character of God.  From my earliest days of writing, I understood that God was a major character in my stories because I was highly conscious that whatever happened in my stories could only occur if God willed for it to happen.  That made me feel odd at first, and it still sort of does, because as a writer I was aware that everything I described in my stories made assumptions about God.  I also felt weird that I was writing fiction, which involved me creating a world full of things that never happened in real life, the real life that God created and therefore intended.  In writing fiction, I was writing a world that God had not intended.  God reveals Himself and His character through history, and to write about something that never occurred in history is, in a sense, writing about a world with a God who revealed Himself in a different way than He has chosen to reveal Himself, and thus has a different character, and thus is a different God, and one can then claim that fiction is a false god.  If literalists wish to take their interpretation of the first commandment to its logical extremes, they're realize that all fiction, all poetry, and all music is blasphemous.

Yet Jesus spoke in parables.  He revealed Himself through His incarnation, but also through small bits of fiction.  Perhaps one could say that the fiction given to us directly from God can count as valid historic revelation, but I'd argue that we have Jesus' Spirit in us, and therefore have the liberty to tell stories just as He did.  If we are under the Law, then instead of learning to speak a living language, we'd just learn to recite quotes from the Bible all day long, Bible quotes would be the only things worth saying.  All other possible normal, everyday phrases, such as "I would like pancakes for breakfast," would be sacrilegious, because we'd be taking language into our own hands and saying things that weren't dictated to us through God's historic revelation.  True faith in the Law leaves no room for creativity, no room for progress, and no room for individuality.  When we are in the Spirit, we don't have to constantly second-guess ourselves, and we can be free to be who we are.  We are free to find new ways of revealing the character of God in new ways that have never been done before, and we know that our sacrifices to Him have His blessing, because though these are not revelations of the Law, these are still revelations of the Spirit.

When Jesus spoke in parables, He compared God to a woman who lost a coin and threw a party when She found it.  He compared God to a father who rejoiced when He reunited with His prodigal son.  We have the freedom to tell similar stories, because we have been moved and transformed from the inside so that we are now the Body of Christ.  God lets us find truth from one another as we tell stories about Him, because truth can be found in His church.  That's one of the ways in which I interpret Matthew 18:18, when Jesus says "Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."  God has revealed Himself by speaking from a flaming bush and through His incarnate Son, but He doesn't stop there.  He continues to reveal Himself through His church — through her sermons, through her worship, through her stories, through her art, through her music, through her lives.

The Shack strikes me as a retelling of the parable of the woman who lost her coin, as if the author, William Paul Young, were trying to tell it in his own words.  That's not blasphemy, and that's not idolatry.  That is teaching, as Christ taught, and it has His blessing, because the Spirit is talking through the author.  Even though it doesn't match the exact wording that Jesus used, and in a legalistic sense has fallen short of the glory of God, because no Christian artwork is technically perfect, the story still comes from the Spirit of God.  It saddens me when Christians so harshly judge other Christians and are slow to trust or forgive each other.  People have been telling others not to see this film, because they are paranoid and afraid, but fear does not come from the Spirit.  A Christian is capable of watching an imperfectly written screenplay and still getting the Spirit from it.  We sometimes become frightened and start judging God when He allows someone freedom to walk as they please in the Spirit, but we must learn to let that sense of judgment go.  Yes, we should always have wise discernment, but we're also called to be united.  What I have seen is division between Christians because of this film, and that isn't something that we can be content with.  If we can't all agree on finer theological points, that's okay, but we must remember that the Spirit that unites us is stronger than the spirit that divides us.

Soli Deo Gloria,
John

Holy Reading

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby

I felt closer to my calling when I was a welder, and I really hope to get into the profession again, although it will most likely require that I move.  These blog entries have become less frequent now, but they were pretty frequent when I trained in a college shop, walked a total of five or six miles a day, worked at McDonald's, arrived home at midnight, and resigned to an empty apartment with no Wi-Fi.  Something about that seems counter-intuitive, since loneliness depresses me, and I get my energy from friendship.


It was interesting, though, spending so much time by myself.  It gave me an opportunity to examine myself in a new way and feel out my calling, once social concerns took away some of my bias.  It also allowed me to pass the time with my new friend.


In my dusty living room, stashed in the corner, was a stand with my small, private library of books.  I made a vow to myself that I would read some of them, and I did.  On restless nights when sleep just didn't come, they helped me pass the time.

But it wasn't out of nerdy interest.  "I love books!" is a very sophisticated way of saying "I need a pacifier for adults!"  Which was true, for me.  I would have gone insane without something to read.  Most especially, I needed to really dig in and study some of the Epistles of the New Testament in greater depth, and allow it all to soak in.  Then there were the other books, like The Case For Christ and The Reason for Faith and Building a Contageous Church.  Some of them were more intriguing reads than the others, but what they all had in common was a calling.  Every time I read one of those books, I felt like I was more than just intrigued, but called to read them.  It felt like a duty, a purpose.

Books mean quite a bit to me.  I have a bigger shelf now, and many more books to go on that shelf.  I've taken pictures of some of them, but there's even more to look at.  I picked up many books either for real cheap or for free, and often found myself wondering "Wow?  What's the point in getting another one if I don't think that I could possibly read all these throughout my lifetime?"  It's a legitimate concern, but setting that aside, I do intend on reading all that I have.  The simple reason for that is "knowledge is power," but since those words don't resonate with me and only partially explain my interest, I think that I need to go into more detail.


It is very true that knowledge is invaluable.  I greatly desire the wisdom that books can provide.  They make me well-rounded, more objective, and more responsible.  I look at the subject matters of the books and realize, "I want to know all about that!"  So I read them, and feel equipped.


Then there's the aspect that goes beyond the mere utilitarian use of reading and research.  I feel paternal and like I'm fulfilling a responsibility to the people that I love.  Moreover, as I reach out to these authors and develop an author-reader relationship by reading their works, I feel connected.   It may seem one-way, but I still get this sense that I'm in community with them. When that happens, I can tell that I'm immersed in the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of community.  Even when I'm reading the painful, atheistic works of Mark Twain in Letters from the Earth, I find the Holy Spirit active in me, calling me to love.


Knowledge may indeed be power, but it's a power that I pursue as a steward over Creation.  Knowledge makes me a better steward, and God created me as a steward.  God also created me to worship, and knowledge increases my worship.  The more I know, the more I learn to appreciate the beauty of God's creation.  A true man involves himself in such things.  As a scholar in pursuit of knowledge, I get to know Him more by underlining the important information in these books, bt as a Christian reading with the help of the Holy Spirit, I also get to know Him by seeing His work through these authors and how he uses them, and I must allow these books to influence me in a way that is suitably holy.

A good Jewish man embraces scholarship, and I think of how Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof values these things.  Scholarship is a worshipful exercise.  He would have ideally married his daughters to such men, and I can't blame him.  The more I read, the more I feel like I'm preparing myself to spiritually lead my future wife and be a blessing to her.  I feel more paternal and ready to raise children wisely and lovingly.  For everyone else, I feel just a little bit more engaged in the church by entering into the author-reader relationship.  And when I read, I feel like I'm talking with God, like it's a form of prayer.


Not everyone is meant to be a bookworm, but I think that I'm one of those people who's called to be one.  It's one of my spiritual gifts.  The deeper I am in this past time, the closer I am to who I was meant to be, the more I see the Holy Spirit's work in my life.  I feel more Christlike when I'm reading, not that Jesus was a bookworm, but in the sense that I discover my intended humanity, the human being in me that is married to Jesus' name and is truly holy in the eyes of God.  Whether I read books or not, it's there.  That holiness is part of me, now.  It's part of my nature in Christ.


Sincerely,
John Hooyer

When Personality Conflicts with Character

Tiffany Maxwell: crazy personality with a heart of gold.

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby,

What, did you think that I completely gave up on this blog?  No!  Although it will be quite weird, since after all, Shelby is now Grand Dutchess of Gloudemans and probably has some lovely "Justin Time" to delight in, and Shannon now officially no longer uses the internet.  What's the point in addressing these to half of you guys, anyway?

No matter, there's a not-so-simple subject at hand that I'm not sure how to address.  Heck, I'm not so sure I even know if I have a thesis statement for even defining what the subject is.  So let me stat by explaining how these recent thoughts of mine came about.

You all know Tiffany Ortman (just kidding: no you don't).  She graduated from the University of South Dakota with a psychology degree.  What was it, five years?  I forget, but a lot of years.  She knows more about psychology than I ever will.  A couple of years ago, I talked with her about God's sovereign pan, free will, and people with Down Syndrome.  Not a pleasant topic, if you're open to the possibility that it's possible for people with cognitive disorders to go to Hell if they don't embrace the Gospel.  Wouldn't that thought depress you just a little bit, especially if you had a cousin with Down Syndrome?

Thanks to Star Wars, she and I have been talking again.  Thank God for amazing pieces of popular art that bring us together, right?  Right.  But since we began talking, the door opened for other topics of conversations.  Missions.  Trouble with raising money.  College.  Insecurities.  Youth group stuff.  God's plan for us.

And finally, for these last few days, the subject of personality disorders.  We had to be certain that we knew what we were talking about: personality disorders are not the same as cognitive defects.  I brought it up because of (what else?) Star Wars.  Some people have always found Anakin Skywalker's transformation to the Dark Side to be quite unconvincing, but some psychologists have looked at his behavior and diagnosed him with different personality disorders.  I do find it helpful to point out that he did indeed have personality disorders, but I also wonder if anyone reading these sorts of things and agreeing with them might fall into the rationale that "Of course he wouldn't have turned to the Dark Side if he had a normal personality such as ourselves.  I'm fortunate that I don't have any personality disorders and am not capable of these things.  Evil and dysfunction are only possible in a person whose psychology operates under a different set of rules than what is common in humans."

My outlook on it is that those personality disorders weren't controlling him, though.  It's not like they were elements alien to the normal rules of psychology, thought patterns that could not have possibly existed in a normal brain.  These personality disorders weren't additions to normal personality.  I think that normal thought patterns actually got exaggerated and deformed.  I think that there's a lot about himself that he brought about with his own free will.  He wasn't a good steward over Creation, which included his personality.  So that I say is not "Look at what personality disorders can do!"so much as "You don't know what personalities are capable of."

Really, you don't.  Supposedly, Gandhi and Hitler were of the same Myers-Briggs personality type: INFJ.  Could you tell?  No, they're completely different.  Within just one personality type, two people with similar inclinations made decisions that set them down completely different paths.  I don't quite know how to explain it, but they had different spirits within their spiritual walks.  Clearly, anybody is possible of great evil.

In fact, everybody is capable of great evil and commits it all the time.  It isn't just people with clinically diagnosed personality disorders.  Everyone sins and fails to live up to the perfect order that God created.  Everyone is twisted.  Sin is the ultimate personality disorder, and we all have it.  I think that just about any personality disorder is an extension of that one disorder that we all already have.

But let's get technical, now.  Are we all just walking lumps of personality?  Do our personalities define everything that we're going to do?  Does God just wind us up with personality and let us go?  That would imply that we don't have free will, though.

Which gets me to the subject of this entry.  We have character.  I'm an incredibly vicious ENTP personality.  But then I think about my future wife, and what sort of man I want to be for her.  Still very ENTP at heart, but then I think of some of the sinful weaknesses of my personality, inclinations that I'd rather not have.  There comes a moment when, because of my values and my commitment to God, that my natural personality goes against my character.  If I have a personality disorder to be ADHD or OCD, for example, I would try my best to set their drawbacks aside in order to be a stronger person for those I love.

After all, they're only personality disorders, and we sometimes do act out-of-personality.  We also sometimes act out-of-character, a term I think we're all much more familiar with.  The point is, though, it's not like they're cognitive impairments or learning disabilities.  There's an extent to which personality can be helped.  If there's something in our personality that inclines toward sin and goes against the order of God --- disruptive sarcasm, pessimism, irreverence, strong emotional attachments to negative memories --- then we can obey the Holy Spirit that calls us to take those aspects of ourselves and deny them if we must, but otherwise do a good work on those aspects of our personalities so that they are no longer in disorder, that they conform to the order of God.

So...what does this mean for me?  Let's look at a few aspects of who I am.  I'm stubborn.  Although it often scares me, I really don't mind making enemies.  I can be gentle in my desires, but mean-spirited in my practical application of those desires.  I stand up for others, although at the same time I'm not naturally empathetic.  I get angry with my computer.  I make lame jokes.  I want to get off Tatooine and go on an adventure.  I'm creative, try to use new ideas in order to make old traditions even more beautiful, proud of my heritage, and so forth.

There's a lot of good there, but what about the lack of empathy?  How does that bring glory to God?  Yes, it's part of my nature, but that's my sinful human nature.  The only good I can sluice from this is that it does serve to protect me so that I can better go about my other strengths, and that it's a spiritual gift God gave to others over me.  But what about my pride of heritage, family, and personal history?  On one hand, it's a gift that I don't live in shame.  On the other hand: pride.  That's not so good.  I boast in Christ, and nothing more.  This is a personality trait that might have otherwise been good, but it does get distorted for evil.  Granted, no psychologist will call it a personality disorder any time soon, but something wicked in my character, something that isn't the Holy Spirit draws me in to accept subtle forms of pride that drive a wedge in-between myself and God.

What about that beloved God-given talent for my stories?  It's a beautiful gift, but sometimes I think I idolize it, and it fails to bring glory to God as it was intended to.  My God-given personality and talents are put to waste because of my sinful disorder.  This goes against God.  It goes against my character, or at least the character of the Holy Spirit that lives within me and reshapes my own spirit.  Yet, there is still sin in my humanity, and I distort God's gifts unto disorder.

Who's the culprit here?  My personality?  My character?  Certainly not God's character.  When talking psychology, I have a hard time wrapping my head around all of this, because the fine line between nature, nurture, and free will is very difficult to trace out, and at times the concepts really all seem jumbled.

What I think I can say with certainty is that personality disorders are distortions of God-given personality traits that are already there, but were made for another purpose.  Sin is the driving force behind any damaging personality disorder.  When we fight for our psychological well-being, our objective is to purge ourselves of sin.  When we do this, our core personality remains, but with its sinful nature kept in check so that we may better glorify God.  The personality trait or traits that were disordered is restored to its original beautiful purpose for which God made it.  No personality disorder is an all-new trait alien to the personality that God created for us.  Our goal is not to discover an ideal personality, but rather to use the attributes we already have in such a way that is consistent with the character of the Holy Spirit within us.  And because the Holy Spirit is in us, in a way we can also say that His character is ours as well.

In short: Personality good!  Disorder bad.  We absolutely should not be ashamed of our personalities or see personality disorders as reasons to think that our personalities are flaws.  There's no need to change who we are.  They're merely signs that we still have much to discover about our true selves, and God is inviting us to do so.

Sincerely,
John Hooyer

When Good Doesn't Feel Good

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby,

Conventional wisdom: If you do good things for others, you will feel good.  That's why God's Grace is foolproof, because He knows that if He lets us off the hook, we'll get addicted to doing the right thing because we enjoy it and not because we're required to.

Except that doesn't work.  Not always.  Sometimes you do the right thing, and you know that you did the right thing, and it feels awful.  Someone close to you will tell you about how strong you were, but it doesn't make you feel better.

I'm a writer.  Not published yet, but I see the world as a writer does, with all sorts of possibilities with people, their motivations, their decisions, their consequences, and so forth.  I'm the person to ask when you want to think up of a situation where doing the right thing doesn't make you feel better.

Sometimes you have to let go of something, and you'll always feel sad without it.  But it's the right thing.

Sometimes you have to forgive someone for doing something unforgivable, and even though justice won't make you happy, neither will forgiveness.  So you're still unhappy.

Sometimes you have to compromise on something, because it's the only way to lose forward.

Sometimes you have to lay down your life for someone, and you especially won't be thinking to yourself about how good it feels.

Fact is, being selfless is against our nature.  Only Jesus could be selfless, because He was the Son of God, and He was God.  Only a triune deity, existing equally as three persons, could even begin to think outwardly.  Otherwise, every human being identifies as "self," and therefore it would be a paradox for us to be "selfless."  These words are opposites.

Except for when we take on the identity of Christ.  Then we're one in body with our fellow believers, and we're truly connected to others.

Still, being selfless isn't always easy.  We won't always be selfless, because we still have these sinful bodies.  And it will always be tempting for us to turn away from selflessness, because it simply isn't always pleasant.  Jesus Himself pleaded with the Father to lift the burden of His death from Him.  And then He walked off to His trial anyway.

Not because this act of giving made Him feel good. It had reached a point where it didn't matter if He felt good about Himself, or about whether or not He could live with a guilty conscience.  He was under enough temptation that He would have gladly shirked His duty and lived with that conscience.  The pain of crucifixion and then death vs. a lifetime of guilt?  Are you kidding me?  I'm human, and so I have the credentials to admit that I do things because I believe that a lifetime of guilt is a reasonable price to pay to spare me from the pain of selflessness.  I do it more often that I would like.

But Jesus didn't do that.  He walked the whole way, and He didn't do it because He was trying to avoid the guilt.  He did it out of love.

Sometimes I do the right thing when I really don't want to, and so many times I do it because I'm afraid of feeling guilty.  But there are times, mysterious enough as it is, that I think I might forsake my own happiness for a better reason.  Could it be that because God became suffering, that I have become more Christlike?

Sincerely,
John Hooyer

I Dreamed a Dream

Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby,

When I was younger, this wasn't the song I cried to.  Then the movie came out, and I still didn't cry.  Then suddenly it hit me, when I saw Fantine appear before Jean Valjean at his deathbed.

Fantine was Jesus.

The Bishop was, too, actually.  A far more likely candidate.  I always honestly thought Colm Wilkinson looked like a silver-haired Jesus.  And since Colm Wilkinson played the original Jean Valjean, and since Jean Valjean was described upon his death as being a saint, that means that Jean Valjean, too, is Jesus.

But the point remains that the most unlikely candidate for God to reach down and say "You are the body of my only begotten Son" is Fantine.

A few months ago, something struck me pretty hard that brought me crawling to this song.  There was a dream I had, a hope that was wholesome and good, and I lost it.  It's gone.  It's over.  It's a done deal that it's never going to happen, that thing that I was really hoping for.  I'm going to die without that thing.  So I listened to this song, and it spoke to me.

And if Fantine is Jesus, how does that change my perspective on things?

The other song that I listened to during my depression was the first half of the Godspell finale.  The part where He says "Oh God, I'm bleeding, I'm dying, I'm dead."  Go ahead and find the song for yourselves.  I'm even providing a link for your.  It's that easy.  Just do it.

Do you hear that?  He's torn apart.  We make His death all PG-13.  We show it to our children.  We hang it up in public.  And because of that, maybe it's lost some of the impact.  What should be a tragedy is the subject of inspirational paintings, portraits of joy, and most grievously is flown around with all the same fanfare as the American flag.  Does that really make any sense?

If we were to actually put ourselves into Jesus' skin, what would it actually feel like?  Think about it.  This is a man dying.  It's not just physically painful, but it has all the dignity of a prostitute losing her life to her profession.  I would compare this to rape.  Who's going to glorify the rape of someone?  Who's going to make that the symbol of their religion and, God forbid, American pride?

Jesus is Fantine.  He's a woman who gave up all of her dignity to save a child.  He's a woman who could have lived a beautiful life, but had that stripped from her.

Does it not occur to us that Jesus might have had dreams?  He was human.  He had to have dreamed.  What must it have been like when He slowly had His life suffocated from Him?  Can't we hear it?  Can't we hear the shock when He cries out that He's bleeding?  He's in the process of losing everything, of vanishing from existence, of no longer being there for His mother, no longer having His friends.  And His friends have abandoned Him, His closest disciple outright denying Him.  Only two of the disciples bothered witnessing His death.  Out of all of the fullness and richness of life that could have been afforded to Him, He died very alone.

And then it hits Him.  He's dying.  He's actually dying.  This is it.  This is the moment.  Everything that He had ever been and done was just about to become someone else's memory.  He could feel it coming upon Him, not as some distant future, but right around the corner.  How do you possibly make peace with that?

He's dead.

And there's silence.

The world closes in around Him, the blackness overtakes Him.  The entire curse of creation clamps down like the lid of a coffin.  He dies a man without anything.  He dies a victim.  He dies without fulfillment.  And all that He did, did any of it ever matter?

Fantine is Jesus, and by God she saved us all.

I listened to these songs because I felt that.  In my bones.  I was trying to find closure, but every time I did it was an act of denial.  The fact is, I might move on, but parts of me are now dead.  I will never have my life as it should have been.  And it really should have been.  It's just that the world is broken, and it's not fair.

We raise our children to believe that everything is going to be all fine, but how we have blinded them to reality.  In the real world, people die unhappy all the time.  On a planet with seven billion people, do we honestly believe that everyone goes to their graves fulfilled?  Can I convince myself to be happy for someone when an entire world full of hopes and dreams died with them when they stopped breathing?  And to think, those dreams might have come true.  When we lower them to the ground and gather around in black suits, does the eulogist talk about those dreams?  No, they talk about how great the person was, how they smiled all the time, how they were fulfilled, and so forth, and it's not true.  The majority of all people live out unfair lives, and they die unfair deaths.

I have one last dream left in me, and I'm crying because I don't know if it will ever come true.  Just a few days ago, someone told me "we would explode the world with creativity!"  That's what I want.  I really have a vision for this, changing the world and history itself using my God-given gifts.  I want to be like Walt Disney.  That's my dream.  That's the kind of difference that I want to make.  But so far I'm still an obscurity, and I've been afraid for so long of how unlikely this dream is that I've suppressed it.  But now I've just been reminded of how badly I want this.

I live for two reasons.  To talk as much about Jesus and Grace as I can, and on account of these things overflow with abundant creativity.

When I die...

I don't want to think about it.

In any case, I've pondered the mystery that I will join the many, many other people who died unfair deaths after living unfair lives.  And before any of you try to tell me to think positive, let me remind you: Anne Frank.  There's no way in Heaven that you're going to tell me that her life was a celebration.  She wanted to be a Hollywood actress, and what she got was the last portion of her short life oppressed and directionless.  When she died, what did her life amount to?  Yes, her journal made a difference for us, but it didn't make a difference for her.  She died a meaningless death.

And I don't want to live and die without meaning.  I actually want to live out the identity that I have for myself.  I want to explode the world with creativity.  I have an imagination, people inside of my head that I want the whole rest of the world to see, and I owe it to them that they shouldn't die with me, that they should never be alone.

And if I find myself dying...I feel as if the entire world is dying with me.

The entire world died with Jesus.

And, of course, all who believe in Him will share in His resurrection.  For that reason, I know, many of us can be happy and hopeful when a loved one dies.  But it doesn't completely wipe away the emptiness I feel inside.

When Dillon died, I hated death.  I still do.  There's nothing that I hate more.  I hate it.  It's my worst enemy, my most personal nemesis.  It's unfair.  It's terrible.  It's unspeakable, and beyond my ability to describe.  I'm still angry with Death, and I want to expose him for who he truly is, for the entire world to see.

I want to see more people realize their most secret of dreams.  I want more people to rob Death of his sting.  He will still take them physically, but maybe fewer people will have to die as Jesus did.

But in the meantime?  Those people who die unfair deaths at the end of unfair lives?  They're Jesus.  Their dreams are like Christ.  Maybe we should give them a little respect.

Sincerely,
John Hooyer

Jane the Baptist

Chapter 1: The Family Reunion

The girl in a blue and white dress ran down the hallway to the kitchen.  The sun seeped through the slots in-between the window blinders, and there were no adults around, no one to see her, so the eight-year-old Julie stood on her tippie toes to turn on the faucet.  She opened the dishwasher and took out a clean glass, and then she filled it to the top.

Still no adults around, she held the cup with both hands and snuck out the kitchen door, into the backyard.  Her three cousins were there, paying a visit.  Mary, Michael, and Joseph.  Julie held up one hand from her cup to hold a finger to her lip, and handed the cup to Mary.  She held it close to her chest and brought her brothers into the garden.

Julie then ran next door to the neighbor's house and knocked the secret password on their back porch door.  There was the sound of light footsteps, and Matt, Mr. and Mrs. Shannon's five-year-old son, opened the door a crack to peek and see if it was her.

"Come on, Matt!  My cousins are here, so we can do it now!"

"Alright.  Where are we going?" said Matt.

"They're waiting in my parent's garden.  My parents are busy looking at pictures with my aunt and uncle, so we won't get caught.  But we have to hurry!"

Matt followed Julie to her cousins, who stood by a row of colorful flowers.  Julie took Matt by both hands looked him straight on.

"I'm ready," he said.

She looked him up and down, wondering if she was forgetting something, but he was right, and he was ready.  Mary handed her the the cup, and they all lined up to face Matt.  Julie took the cup.

"Matt, do you want to do the will of Jesus?"

"I do."

"And everyone here, do you promise to help Matt grow in the ways of Jesus Christ, our Lord?"

"We do," said her cousins.  "God helping us," added Mary.

"Do you accept in one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins?"

"I do."

"Do you confess that Jesus is the only Son of God?"

"I do."

Julie drew a cross in the air with her finger, and then dipped it into the cup.

"Matthew Bennett Shannon, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  You are a new creature in Christ."

She touched sprinkled his head with water, and the other children gathered around to put their hands on him.

~~~~~

Steven Shannon would be home late today.  He didn't mean to be, but by some twist of fate, three people called in sick, and someone had to pick up their work to meet the needs for the day.  It all came straight to his desk, and he filled out twice as much paperwork as he had expected to.

The sun was going down, and he took a slip outside during a coffee break to get some fresh air.  He looked to his left and saw George Keats, a fellow coworker, a ways further down along the building, standing alone in the parking lot.  His suit was in one hand, strung over his shoulder.

"This might be the first time I'll ever leave the building at the same time as you," said Steven.

"This day sure does suck for you, doesn't it?"

"I had to work longer hours when I was young.  Speaking of which, are these new hours of yours wearing on your health?  We haven't talked in a while.  How are the kids?"

"Nope.  My body can handle overworking myself.  Stress isn't getting to me too much.  I've been paying the bills, et cetera, and doing well.  As for the kids, they're great.  They're a bit older and rebellious, but I don't have to hold their hand all the time.  I actually find them more fun this time around than when they were so tiny, because they argue with me, and they always have something coming for them.  Matt is like what, three?  Too young to have opinions.  But Trevor and Lacy, my goodness.  'Dad, I think you should get us a television.  Dad, I'm too young to have to be paying for my own cell phone bill.'"  George rubbed his hands together and grinned like a demon.  "And I'm like, 'Ohhhh, now this is what I've been waiting for.  I had to be a pushover when your self-esteem was so fragile, but now I can show my true colors and throw the book at you!'  It's great.  You have no idea.  I love it."

"Sounds like you," said Steven.

George let his coat slide off his shoulder and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the inside pocket.

"I didn't know that you smoked."

"Well that's because you've never seen me late at night.  I don't do it when most people are here.  All of the questions people have over my health are sickening.  Do a favor, though, and stand on the other side of me.  I can tell that you're downwind right now."

Steven switched spots, and just looked at George.  It had been a while since they had talked, and they used to know each other fairly well as far as coworkers go.  It seemed like all possible conversations had been tread already, and there was nothing new to talk about, except that even now George remained something of a mystery.  Outspoken, confident, opinionated.  There was always something more to find out, but he still felt like he hardly knew him.

George sucked in another lungful of fumes and breathed out.  The smoke swirled.

"I'm assuming that you plan on quitting sometime," said Steven.

"Yeah, of course I do."

"Have you ever noticed that there are different types of smokers?"

"I know what you're talking about.  There's the scum, then the trash, then the factory workers who are better than both but still smoke anyway.  Somewhere in the middle there are the James Deans, the well-intentioned but stressed-out single mothers who didn't have the proper parental guidance and maybe saw one too many rated R films, and the optimistic high schoolers who think that they're invincible.  Then there are the philosophers, the aristocrats, and businessmen like me.  High society types, and I'm not smoking like a high society type."

"I'm trying to figure out what type of smoker you are."

"Oh, that's easy," said George.  He faced Steven, leaning against the wall, and before he continued, he turned his head around and blew out in the opposite direction.  "Actually, it's hard, because I decided that it would be hard to explain when I first started.  You won't figure out.  Active verb.  Well, forget it.  Passive verb: You'll find out, because I'll tell you.  Ha."  He blew in the other direction again.  "But first, you asked me if I planned tot stop.  Like you were assuming the best in me.  What a polite way of addressing a lifestyle choice that you disagree with."

"Yeah, I disagree with it.  But I respect your decision."

"Well the answer is, of course I will stop smoking."

"Do you know when?"

"Yes, whenever I want.  I have a contact who specially makes these cigarettes.  They have all of the poisons with none of the nicotine.  I'm not addicted.  I have to work myself into kissing this blasphemy.  But here's the point," he said, taking the cigarette from his mouth with his right hand and pointing at him, "It's not a fashion choice.  It's not a philosophy.  I want people to think it is, like I'm the kind of guy who smokes because I can do whatever I want because I don't care.  I don't smoke like a philosopher.  I smoke like scum."

"Hm.  Fair enough.  Hey, can I have that pack?"

"Sure," said George.

Steven held up the pack and shook it.  "Mind if I keep this?"

"It wouldn't make a difference, but I get the point.  One was enough to get us talking.  Interesting conversation so far?"

"Yeah, sort of.  Why did you start?  I'm just curious.  I've never hung out around smokers much, and I never related to it.  And you're not scum, so I'm even more confused.  I always wondered why people started if they knew what the consequences were.  There's no benefit, no logical reason, nothing that motivates them, and even if it's peer pressure, it doesn't make sense.  And of course, I never asked, because with most people that might just sound judgmental.  It makes me genuinely curious, though."

"Easy," said George.  "Each time you smoke a cigarette, you shave seven minutes off your life.  It's a socially acceptable form of suicide.  And I hate myself.  Everyone knows that I don't care what others think and that I'm confident.  Well: I confidently hate myself.  You smoke, and you're punishing yourself with the future.  It's an easy way to go.  You get there, and you're a bit older, and when death comes along, the end of life feels like the end of life either way you go, whether it's at age eighty or eighty-seven.  You don't feel those seven minutes that you lost.  And I'm sure that in the future, I'll be a nice guy.  I'll start loving myself again, but I want to punish myself before I can change my mind.  It's the perfect masochism, punishment without pain.  I will feel the hatred I had against myself even when I don't feel that way any more.  I'll be the past and the present, and upon my death, I'll have a holistic picture of myself, because I will simultaneously value and celebrate my life while dying on account of my own hatred of it.  All I ever was, in that one moment."

"Which is kind of scummy."

"Exactly, so you're catching on."

"And also philosophical, so your still something of a high minded smoker."

"Well, I never said I wasn't a hypocrite.  Seriously, though, if you think about it, why do you think people start smoking?  It's because they don't want to give their future selves a chance.  They want to sabotage the good person that they don't think that they're worthy of becoming.  I'm just the one madman who knows what he's doing."

George finished his cigarette.  He slipped his suit back on, and headed toward the entrance.  Steven looked at his clock.  He still had an hour left to go.  It would be dark.  He would have missed dinner.  Matt would be waiting for him.  He would feel emotionally exhausted when he got back, but maybe a little satisfied.  He definitely respected the venerable Mr. Keats for the rogue that he was.  Some people might not have expected it, but the Keats children were remarkably intelligent and stable, and they admired their parents.  His friend George was a remarkable father.

And still, a mystery.  Maybe he wasn't meant to understand.  Steven returned to work with his mind on home, knowing that he would return with a greater appreciation for the father he was, for the son he had, and for just how unique the Shannon life was.

With this on his mind, the remaining work passed in a flash.  He packed up, shut down the offices, and left with another one of his coworkers.  In his peripheral vision, he saw George leaving with Nancy, who worked in the office next to him.  In the distance, he could hear George cooking up the typical Keats dialogue with her.

"Of course, of course, I understand that, but how do you know that that's what you believe?  Have you actually been that sort of parent with your child?  And you ultimately won't know, will you, until they leave the house, and you're going to be filled with doubts for the first few years.  See, my methods are scientific and proven, so my self-confidence isn't an illusion.  You have great ideas, though.  Keep it up.  I accept that society needs guinea pigs like you.  Or rather, your children."

Steven laughed as he got into his car.

~~~~~

When he arrived home, he smelled dinner cooking.

"LaVerne?  Thank you, honey!"

He entered the kitchen and found her reading a book at the table.  Her humble features were so restful, and when she looked up at him, he felt the equivalent of a musical leitmotif, that feeling he always got when he arrived home.  The feeling that said, as redundant as it was, "Home!"

"I figured that since you would be late, I would wait on dinner.  How does it smell?"

"Good.  Hey, is that enough casserole for the three of us?  Matt should be in bed by now."

"I let him have some snacks out of the refrigerator to keep him fed enough, but he still has plenty of room left for dinner, which he should.  It's summer, by George, and he doesn't need to go to bed early every night, and I wanted to make sure that the whole family eats dinner together.  I don't want to make any exceptions."

"Okay, good idea.  Thanks for thinking of that.  Now where is Matt?  Matt!"  He heard footsteps coming down from the second floor.  "How long until the casserole is ready?" he mumbled.

"Two more minutes."

"Okay, plenty of time to set the table."

Matt reached the ground floor and ran straight into his father.  Mr. Shannon bent down and caught Matt in his arms.  "Hey there, my little buddy!  Tell me everything!  How did your day go?  What did I miss out on?"

LaVerne, from her chair, said "Well I was solving puzzles with him for most of the day, but he went out to to play with the Du Mez family.  You had a nice time, didn't you Matt?"

"Lava?  Lava lava lava lava lava.  Don't spoil it all from me.  I want to hear it all from the man himself.  Matt, let's talk."

LaVerne set down her book and opened the oven door.

"I had an awesome time with Julie!  She's so nice and cool, and her cousins were over this time for a family reunion!"

"That's so cool!  How many cousins were there?  Tell me, how many?"

"She had three cousins.  Mary, Michael, and Joseph."

Well then it wasn't really a family reunion, thought Mr. Shannon.  "Was that all?"

"Yes."

"Did you know that their family is even bigger than that?"

"Really?"

"Yes," said Mr. Shannon.  "The Du Mez family is huge!  Julie has over twenty uncles and aunts!  It would be pretty awesome if they all came over, huh?"

In the background, LaVerne began setting the table.

"Wow!  But I still had an awesome time.  I love them so much!  And today's my new birthday, I think!"

"Your new birthday?  Silly, what, did she adopt you?  You know that that girl loves you so much!"

"No, she baptized me!  I'm a Christian now!"

LaVerne stopped in her tracks.  Mr. Shannon missed a beat, then looked in her direction.  She looked at her son, then at her husband.  In a soft voice, she rejoined the conversation.  "Matt, what do you mean by baptized?"

"Julie brought me out and baptized me.  Her cousins were around to be witness."

"That's good, Matt.  That's good," she said.

"Your mother and I are so proud!" said Mr. Shannon.  He matched eyes with her a second time, then looked away.  LaVerne reached out and placed her hand on the Bible at the center of the kitchen table.  "You know, I think that we should celebrate by reading a special Bible verse for this dinner.  Lava, do you have anything in mind?"

LaVerne began rubbing the Bible.  Mr. Shannon couldn't afford to wait, so he had to improvise.  "Just a second, I'll set the rest of the table."

"What sort of baptism was it?" she said.

"Julie sprinkled water on my head, like this," he made the gesture with his hand, with zero coordination.  "And I'm a new person in Christ."

"Do you know what that means?" she said.  Right next to her, Mr. Shannon completed setting the table, and opened the Bible.

"Ah, here.  Honey, what do you think of this?" he said.

Matt had already forgotten his mother's question.  With the table fully set, and his father flipping through the pages of the dinner Bible, his mind immediately became distracted by food.  He pulled up his chair, and began fiddling around.

LaVerne looked over at the verse her husband had selected.  "No, that's not the one.  John, chapter three."  She put on her reading glasses and flipped to those pages and cleared her throat.  "Matthew?  Are you listening?"

"Yes, Mom," he said, and he folded his hands and closed his eyes.

"No, Matthew.  Bible first, then prayer.  Remember?"

"Oh, right."  He put his hands on the plate and tried the best to pay attention.

Mr. Shannon sat down in-between them.  His wife read the chapter.

When she was finished, Mr. Shannon hesitated and looked at his son.  He waited for a moment, then said, "Well, wasn't that special?  An extra long Bible verse today.  So what did you learn about Baptism?"

"John baptized, and whoever is baptized is reborn," said Matt.

"Something like that," said Mrs. Shannon.  She glance over the rims of her glasses to Mr. Shannon.

Honey, why is is that just because I'm the head of the household, I'm the one who has to explain things to teach him tough lessons?  He cleared his throat.  "Well, um...maybe this is a lesson best suited for another day."  LaVerne raised her eyebrows at him.  It was subtle, but he just felt it.  Her prodding him, and him feeling guiltily tugged along.  "Well, you can see that the people being baptized here were adults, and they weren't Baptized until after accepting Jesus for who He was."

"Hey, I did that!" said Matt.

"That's good.  That's good.  Because that's exactly what Baptism is," said Mr. Shannon.  "Say, honey, would you say that there was a particular verse that stood out to you?:

Her was soft again, in that guarded sort of way.  "Well...I liked the part that said "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.  Whoever believes in Him is not condemned."

"That's good.  Very good.  Good lesson.  Now I'm hungry, and I know that Matt is especially hungry.  How about let's eat?"

They picked up their silverware, and Mr. Shannon engaged in lively talk with his son while Mrs. Shannon remained a silent observer.

~~~~~

Matthew was tucked in bed.  Mr. and Mrs. Shannon were alone in the master bedroom together.

As he took off his suit and tie, he said, "Well, I didn't see that coming."

"Steven, that was a disaster!  How could you have — "

"Done what, exactly?  LaVerne, what was I supposed to do?"

"Tomorrow, you go and talk to James Du Mez and let him know what his girl did."

"You know what?  It doesn't matter.  He's baptized.  It's a bit early.  It's not what we would have liked.  But what's done is done.  He said that he believed that he was saved by Jesus.  it sounds like he just wants to be a Christian like his mom and dad."

"Steven!  You know this matters to me!"

Steven grabbed LaVerne by the face and kissed her with all his might.  They fell sideways onto the bed.  "And you matter to me!  Lava Shannon, you're the most amazing mother ever, and you're so completely right, so I know.  I want to sort this through.  I'm going to sleep on it, and I want you to sleep on it, too.  And I promise you, I will talk this over with all the right people tomorrow."  He kissed her again, and he kissed her again.

"But — "

"I don't want to hear it.  I propose that we both feel too exhausted to argue."

"No, Steven!"

"Oh, alright.  What do you propose?"

"You talk to Matt tomorrow, and tell him about Jesus, and tell him about why he has to really understand salvation."

"You know, I was wondering earlier, why is it always me?"

"Because Matt looks up to you as the mentor.  If he ever remembers any lessons I teach him, it's always the emotional stuff.  But you're a man.  He wants to think logically with you.  He wants to learn logically with you.  That's how boys are."

"So if we had a daughter, it would be you teaching her about Jesus?"

"No, it would still be you," she pointed.

"H-what?"

"The father is the ambassador of absolutes.  It's just nature!"  And then she kissed him.

"LaVerne, even though I care, I know that you care more about this.  Please have something to do with our son's learning.  Please.  I'll still do the part you expect of me, but I want to know how you're going to mother him."

"I don't know.  I don't.  I wasn't expecting this, and...I just don't know.  But please, I'm counting on you to do something for me.  I love you."

Steven closed his eyes.  He was tired.  "Well, since you love me...I'm talking with James tomorrow.  Come here."

They hugged.

"Lava Shannon..."  You're my favorite Lava Shannon.

"I'm lucky to have you."

I'm kind of glad that she leaves this to me, come to think of it.  If this was all left to her, I swear the boy would have been "Baptized by Lava."

They fell asleep with her in his arms.  And Mr. Shannon had surprisingly very happy dreams about his son.