Afraid to Dance?

Several times in my life I have overcome my own dignity, and danced.
"Dance like nobody is watching", I've heard. The invitation to hear and respond, to be silly, and expressive, and to be transparent... all for the fun of it.
Pure joy is offered to all who get over themselves.
Does this remind anyone of the Story?

lesser things

There comes a certain point in... i dunno... life, where we begin to think big thoughts about why we think we're here.

Am I supposed to just carry on in the same direction as most people?
Do well in school, get into a good college?
What is going to make me happy?
Rock in college and get a good job?
Will money keep me comfortable?
Long term goal
Buy a house in the burbs, settle down, make more than my parents?
All our ears have heard “mo’ money, mo’ problems”.
Keep up with the Joneses?
Love the world and the things in the world and seek my satisfaction in them?
Jesus talked, seek first the kingdom of "God and his righteousness", and all these things will be added to you.
Is Jesus just being harsh here?
The knuckleheads say this because he doesn’t know how good life can be?
Is this hard to believe?
Hard to follow?
Is it even possible to get in step with this today?
Do we know anyone who lives like this?

We are the most entertained generation that has ever existed.
Twenty years ago, it was the 45 year olds that burned out on self-absorption and entertainment and make one-last-gasp-splurge (they used to call it a midlife crisis?)
Now it’s the 15 year old that is jaded and done with “more of the same”...
At what point do we begin to change the script?
Too easily pleased with lesser things?

gospel-conversation-izing

So, I ran into this series of clips posted by the Gospel Coalition peeps (http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/10/conversation-tim-keller-john-piper-da.html)

After peeking over these guys shoulder into a conversation I’d die to be a part of, I get all stirred up, and then sometimes its hard to end well. I find that sometimes I can pursue the ends of these thoughts as if the goal were justification by right thinking or good sorting. As if, the intellectual work of having a deeper grasp of the gospel is something other than existentially beholding Christ and being fundamentally changed by the breathtaking sight.

Perhaps someone close enough to these gentlemen can suggest a panel discussion that gives an exploded view of the last part (5 & 6 of 6) specifically. Many of us who were ambushed by Keller in May of 2006 at Resurgence are still trying to reconcile the missional and practical ecclesiological implications of gospel-centeredness like Keller and the Glory-centeredness of Piper. This has created dichotomous discussions regarding rhetorical priorities that pit the subject of the gospel against the subject of glory of God. The difficulty comes in that the accompanying errors which Piper and Keller confessed they are prone to don't tell us how to go past this. In the same way that Edwards contrasted common and true virtue, is there a difference between common glory and true glory? Can God’s glory really be known apart from the gospel? Does the fact that God glories even in my futility apart from him escape the scope of the gospel? All this, much less how to begin to address (as Carson came oh-so-close to) how to preach the gospel twice a week to a backslidden high schooler.

biblical excitement

So, when people you greatly greatly respect start getting all excited together about a study bible, it just makes you wonder. Piper, Grudem, Packer, Carson, Driscoll, Dever, Mahaney, Harris, such unqualified praise... wow
ESV Study Bible is coming...

believing the news?

Do I understand the news? This isn’t just some fancy PoMo way of talking about the gospel. It truly gives an image that carries the idea… Do you know what this news means? Do you believe the news?
Either I get the news about Jesus, or I don’t. Sadly, if I say “I kinda get it” and remain indifferent to it, I don’t get it at all.
Seeing the GFA announcements about Orissa, India and now even in Karnataka (another state) makes me both humbled and fired up. I actually stopped my afternoon and began praying, really praying. Praying like I believed.
Praying for people I would call brothers and sisters keeps my heart grounded… I am so stinking comfortable here, with 4 different bible versions sitting on my desk… my brother in India was forced by Hindu extremists to burn his own bible to ashes. My heart begins to plead, why am I here and not there? Why do I have this many copies of the Word and others, who would devour theirs, lose their only copy? Why am I so comfortable, so soft to sin, so hard hearted? What if our entertainment news in the evening went like this…

http://www.gfa.org/orissa-video

There are plenty of people railing against American Christianity, as some kind of sick hybrid between the American Dream and the teachings of the bible. I feel acceptable when I don’t break the rules, as if the gospel is about me, and making me a better American… I ran into a woman the other day who actually talked like her Father in Heaven was real… Like the kingdom of God was a spiritual beachhead actually established, really created, by the gospel. She walks around and talks like Somebody is listening. If our Creator is there, it makes more sense to talk to Him, than not.

The part of me that thinks she is weird is the same part that doesn’t believe.

Sometimes I start to think that my heart doesn’t want to understand the news… check Luke 24:25 “And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” That’s me more than I wish…

Our brothers and sisters in India - who get told to deny Christ or lose all they own – they understand the news like I wish I did…

Sigh… Lord. I believe, help my unbelief, even so, Come Lord Jesus….

PS 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"

The Story of Isaac, part 6

But a broken heart is a strange thing. See, grace truly is what we pretty much think it is, and then something large goes down, and then grace becomes something more... and what we knew is still the same truth, but different too.

So, when Isaac almost dies right in front of me, Chris and I, we find ourselves in the shelter of the Kingdom of God. Four touch-and-go days later, we get a report. His blood oxygen levels have unexpectedly stabilized at day one levels. And we get to stare a doctor in the eye and ask him for an explanation we know he can't give... Imagine beholding the glory of God in the stuttering of a UCSD research physician. God brought healing supernaturally. Hard time. Rad.

We stand on the edge of summer. One that would be filled with constant fluctuations, monitoring, lung function, tests, brain scans, heart tests, muscle therapy. When a baby is too immature to digest food, then what? Well, see, you pray. And the nurses, they feed one drop at a time hoping that a little something in the GI tract will lightly stimulate absorption.

It gets scary when we learn about gut-death. Turns out, too much food in a non-working stomach can kill preemie stomach tissue. Its like trying to make his organs do something theyre not ready for on a circulatory-system-infrastructure built for tissue development, the tissue runs out of oxygen if you ask it to digest anything it dies. Gotta remember, he wasnt planning on digesting anything for another three months.

Something a nurse told me on day one. Provided he makes it through the summer, the progress will always be two steps forward, and one step back.

Miracle after miracle, the summer will go on. Big, huge celebration, when he can finally keep a few milliliters of milk down. Big step for a courageous little man. Boris the nurse, our favorite Russian of the NICU, gives him the nickname Bugs as while sleeping he is snoog-asa-books-ina-rook (read: snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug). The next milestone is just ahead, looking for a kind of weight-gain inertia. Snowball growth. Bigger makes stronger which makes healthier, which makes bigger and stronger Parades and confetti and all, comes when his little frame hits the 1000 gram mark. 2.2 pounds.

The Story of Isaac, part 5

Three nights sleeping on a lobby floor.

Chris BP eventually stops spiking. So she gets her own room. Tennis is on the t.v. The nurse makes her turn it off. Every serve causes her BP to jump.

Prayer.

Its easy to pray in these times. Grace is, there's no words, overwhelming? You literally burn it as fuel for existence. I cant spend the night in the room, and so sleep again in the lobby. The night staff realizes that visiting hours mean nothing. Recovering from a c-section is harder than I thought, but in hindsight, it makes sense. You try even sitting up in bed, after getting sawn in half, and having a baby cut out of your stomach. Chris gets her first shower, refreshing. They remove the drain from her side and stitch the holes closed. Shes a rockstar. Its Sunday, were scheduled for discharge tomorrow morning. They're telling us were leaving the hospital, and Chris has yet to see her baby.

Prayer chain update: Isaac is stable. Chris is coming home Monday. Specifics: Pray for Isaacs recovery, that his lungs would fully recover and that there is no brain damage from the hemorrhage. Pray for Chris recovery from c-section and for her insulin levels to return to normal and for her BP to continue to drop.

Last Tuesday we were driving along the coast. Its Monday morning, and we stop by for Chris first visit to Isaac nerves. Theres that thing inside us that runs from uncertainty and newness when you arent sure what youre going to encounter. She pushes through it, and in this case the rewards are huge when this scene comes on so strong, we experience the presence of Jesus himself. Let me tell you, it hits so hard, your heart is a non-issue, it doesnt stand a chance, it just breaks.

The Story of Isaac, part 4

Friday May 28^th, 2004.

Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit. NICU. Its pronounced Nick-u.

The hours that Chris is asleep are spent watching over Isaac. Meeting cheerful nurses, consulting with doctors, trying to witness to our social worker. The family sees Isaac. I run out of clothes and begin to get fragrant. UCSD Hillcrest is about 35 minutes from our home God is truly our Great Physician. Hes given me everything I need to keep it together for the last 4 days. Moment by moment I'm sustained as needed, composure sometimes, other times, tears.

On the trip home I lose it so bad I almost crash my car.

The visitors begin.

Mrs. Bentley and I walk into the lobby and I run her through the prep that Ive now gone through several dozen times name, date, relationship to patient, sticker, scrubdown. But this time I learn the hard way, one more question of the lobby nurses needs be regular, Is Isaac Harrell undergoing any procedures at this time?

We roll into the NICU and wander over to Isaacs spot in the room. His monitor bells explode - beep, beep, bongbongbong! Several doctors and a nurse run to his bed. A nurse puts her hand in my chest and suggests we come back later.

As we walk out I see a tube forced down his throat, they begin breathing for him by pumping a bag on the end of the tube We leave, with confusion and, I'll never know why, no fear.

Chris is dignified as ever, and stubborn. Wont use a bedpan for her life. Her BP still wont steady so shes shipped to another floor for 24 hour direct-nurse care. She shares a room with a delusional man who keeps pleading for a drink of water, some poor chump who tried to off himself by drinking bleach, and later a moaning woman whose leg is destroyed car crash, so we talk about buying a Volvo.

Later, we find that Isaac hemorrhaged - his lungs filled with blood and collapsed. Several minutes without oxygen. These things happen when babies are born too early. The word comes, Hes touch and go for now. We caught him in his last minute. We wont know if his lungs are still okay for at least another week or two. We had to give him seven doses of surfactant after pumping the blood out of his lungs. We wont know about brain damage until August. Some babies that go through this, never recover - they never come back.

Isaac isnt even 24 hours old.

The Story of Isaac, part 3

Thursday May 27^th, 2004 continued...

Several cell phones are calling different churches, Prayer chains explode.

I am sent back to our delivery room. Only thing delivered there were ice chips and later on some bad jello. Friends had decorated the room with pineapples, dvds to watch on a computer, and about 25 handmade get-well cards from an elementary school class our friend teaches, innocent care is sweet. Half-hour later Chris is rolled into the room with a drain in her side, nurses in tow Shes asleep.

Grace.

Chris needs quiet. A doc pops in to invite me to come down and visit Isaac for the first time. He made it out of the O.R. They were able to stabilize him, making him one of the three-fourths who so pass the first test. Walk up to yet another door which Ive yet to pass through, Isaac is on the other side. Hit the bell, the door clicks and I'm allowed into a small white lobby with a windowed desk. More security than any bank Ive been in. Sign here, name, date, relationship to patient. Parent sticker, scrubdown, walk through the next door backwards so as to touch nothing... I know nothing of what I'm about to see. A nursery, full of horrifically sick babies, some only two or three pounds, monitor bells and wires and nurses everywhere. Isaac is stable, and weighs in at 675 grams... 1.5 lbs, hes one of the smallest there.

Emotions dont even register. Grace. Shock? Not yet. Just peace and grace. Tears? Not yet. Just awe. Our great physician is taking care of more than I realize. In the middle of this storm, I cannot see reality as it is, I later learn, I don't need to, but God's fingerprints are everywhere.

Surfactant. Its the stuff in soap that makes it slippery. Turns out its the stuff that keeps our lungs from drying out, sticking, and collapsing. Isaacs little frame wont make any for a while, so the docs give him some artificially while the nurses hold their breath.

Im told, You cannot touch him. His skin is too immature. Hes so small, I didn't even think to. A nurse explains, Hes too small Pressure gives rise to a thousand questions, more stats give little comfort... One doc sets the tone for me, If he makes it through the summer, hell likely have no less than 3 infections during his stay here, so its something to get used to now. At least he isnt screwing with my head, giving me hope and all. for an incubator, it would only get in the way... if something happens at this stage, they need to get to him quickly.

He wont be out of the woods until September. If were lucky, he might come home sometime in October. Next week he was supposed to begin the third trimester in the womb. Bones and skin, arms smaller than my fingers, hands smaller than my thumb

They say, The first 24 hours will be telling.

The Story of Isaac Part 2

Wedenesday May 26, 2004.
Morning arrives. New nurses. Little sleep.
Chris is hooked up to more wires than I can count. All the monitor bells and sensors, a BP cuff that goes off every 10 minutes - mightas well be alarm clocks. 24 hours of magnesium sulfate does strange things to a person - you can't drink a drop when you're on it, and it makes you hot and shivery at the same time.
Its a scary last resort, and her BP still spikes uncontrollably.

We've seen more friends and family in the last day than I can remember. The docs come by after lunch with more of "If we can't get her stable, we'll have to take the baby", and then later, "Its either you or the baby, and you're our first priority..."
At the end of the day, after too many needles and too many tears, comes the verdict, "We're gonna take the baby out tomorrow".


Thursday May 27, 2004.
We are over a week away from starting the third trimester, and we're scheduled for a 1p.m. c-section... Okay... I grab a social worker and punch every statistic I can out of her head. I learn, "Chris should be fine" - its not a stat, but a "should be" is better than worse, or nothing, at this point. At 14 weeks early, I hear, "1 out of 4 babies don't make it out of the delivery room." Of those who make it to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, "1 out of 4 don't make it home" and finally, of those who make it home, "80 percent are functionally normal".
I got an A in stats in school, for a moment I wish I hadn't.

Chris rocks. She is the most amazing woman I've ever seen. I am seeing perseverance and strength and unbelievable courage, things deep within my wife's character I had yet to know and see. I mean, she was rad before, and we've all teared up when she sings and all... but this is a whole different caliber of person before me. Swollen, tired, anxious, beautiful. I'm not worthy of such a wife. Watching this grace beget durability, fight, and even humor... We click with the anesthesiologist, Brian. Finally a doc with an appropriate synthesis of concern and humor. Chris, for the sake of her friends wonders aloud, "Is he single?" Refreshing, he's the "drug dealer" of the UCSD surgical ward. Given a patient's plight - if at all possible - I imagine most folks are happy to see him. Enduring what would've crushed me, she's making jokes. They roll Chris off to the operating room to begin c-section surgery prep and the epidural.
They hand me a bag of blue XL disposable scrubs. I'm a 6'2" smurf. Waiting, I feel a bit like the hour before our wedding ceremony less than a year ago. Those - at least they're familiar - butterflies, much excitement, some anxiety, knowing certainly, change is just around the corner.

A knock at the door, "They're ready Mr. Harrell", calls my escort. I am led into a blue room, tiled floor to ceiling. Chris is on her back, there's a curtain at her neck, separating her head from her body - presumably so she can't look down at what she can't feel, and shouldn't see anyways - making wisecracks at Brian and the other surgeons... anyone else would have fainted. Surgeons, needles, wires everywhere, rotary saws and drills I could use in the woodshop, nurses, monitor bells, oxygen masks... an unbelievable, indescribable 40 minutes later, Isaac Richard Chanco Harrell is born. He doesn't cry. He's passed on to his own team of specialists and is immediately gone, down the hall to the Neonatal ICU. Born a full 3 months early, "675 grams", someone reports... 1.5 lbs. "He looked good" someone says.
We never even see him go.

I watch the docs sew my wife back together, its almost surreal. They stitch her uterus back together and place it back inside her, then her muscles are reattached, then her skin is stapled shut. "Congratulations, we're all done", a surgeon calls to us... congrats? Her vitals slowly begin heading in the right direction within the hour.

Tuesday we were enjoying a ride down the coast. 48 hours later my wife has been cut in half, and Isaac is here. 3 months early, in a new ring, fighting a battle all his own.

The Story of Isaac, Part 1

My shoulder is wet.
I winced a few minutes ago, my finger was being chewed to bits.
A slobbery hand reaches out and grabs my nose, gack... smile... I'm suprised by joy.
"Thhhhhhhppppllllerrrrrfffffssssssh." In case you aren't in the know, that was Isaac-speak for, "I'm happy to meet you."

Tuesday May 25, 2004.
Lunchtime. Chris and I are "getting out", on a ride down the coast, headed to a doctor's appointment. She's been on bedrest for weeks now, I think to myself, "its good for her to see the sun and the waves". Her BP is high - and on the up, her sugars are low - insulin needles and snacks are the order for the trip. The doctor retakes the BP, immediately our afternoon shifts gears as we go from one Dr. Kelly to a different Dr. Kelly - one Scripps hospital to another - scaling the ranks of specialization... Perinatologist? You don't visit one unless things are headed downhill.
The adventure is on.

The sort of feeling, that dwarfs the nausea when our hack-nurse-in-training spills my wife's blood all over the floor trying to start a precautionary IV, arrives with the Perinatologist coming into the room with eyebrows raised, my heart skips a beat. We hear, "You aren't leaving the hospital without delivering the baby"... and I'm thinking "we've got over 3 months to go".

From Scripps to UCSD Hillcrest, our third hospital this afternoon. Frustration shades my eyes, I can't see what I should... God's fingerprints... positioning us for that which we cannot imagine. Watching Chris disappear in an ambulance gives anxiety a new face. But this third move is good they say, if she has any more complications, being at UCSD gives the baby a "fighting chance"... a fighting chance?
Needles, blood, my wife a prisoner in a hospital bed... this isn't how its supposed to go down. When preeclamptic swelling hides all the veins, the nurses gore her foot instead - checking for warning signs, constantly monitoring insulin levels among a million other things. Blood pressure though is the central issue, when it spikes she could have a stroke. Some nurses are wonderful, others seem heartless. If the magnesium sulfate doesn't stabilize her BP, there is only one other treatment that is certain to work, c-section. We'll wait for tomorrow, hoping things will calm down.

Conspiracy and Competition

God's "conspiracy" is one that I wonder about, in its work in our lives.
Lost in a soccer game today and was left semi-pouting with a few friends, pretending to be a good sport, being dragged around by my heart, replaying things in my head, wanting to be the god of my indoor league. Pathetic, its a little kingdom, and where I don't even possess it fully I can imagine doing so, one minute I am a monster... and the next day I can't remember the "why" in all the concern. That land where my hand does all I want doesn't exist, so I go mad.

A song goes, "We are gods, we are small"... aaaaaamen.
I'm not the only one, imagining an attractive scene where I am at the top of my game... the best. At it I wonder, "Is competition evil?" All these bad feelings, the coulda shoulda wouldas, the rapturous thoughts of last minute saves... If this evil is only a twisted good, then what was the good?

When I remember to play my part, "Man in Pub with Stine" perhaps, I frame my glorious play differently. I am simply one more "keeper" in a rec league, on the field to have fun. Match my godhood against the others, come out ahead or behind. My big head pops. The Beautiful Letdown, someone once called it... the discipline of struggle is a good thing learned. When I look at my role in the story, and I play my part with too much sincerity, I get a little silly and God's patience laughs and stretches. I didn't spill my stine and ruin the scene, as I'm sure I could have. The good of it all is the joy of play, we grownups make it filthy, its meant to be light. And so repenting I am made perhaps a little more fit for paradise.
Laughing in the end... I'm suprised by joy.

Opening - The Divine Conspiracy

PULCHAR.
VERITAS.
BONUM.
Someone is paying attention.
The Light has shone, giving the knowledge of the glory of God in Jesus. Should that translate into a nomos - we would win. Alas the war was won on the cross - Jesus is Lord. So, head, heart, hands.

Many have seen the light, but live as lost in a wine dark sea.
I am one of these, yet there is a current afoot which bears the ring of Truth! A current akin to a hobbit plodding unseen through middle earth - and I am "Man in Pub with Stine" when the credits roll. I grow pumpkins.

Nothing I say is mine. Most of our words have been used before.
So, there are places where this current can be found. I think this is the point where I plugplugplug my favorites over yours.
Nevermind.