awe•some
–adjective
1.
inspiring awe: an awesome sight.
If one were to spend several long days writing out a list of the truly great and tragically overused words in the English language, “awesome” would undoubtedly rear its head near the top. I’m guilty of letting it slip, often as a synonym for “cool!” or “that’s really great, man!” Wrong-o. This word is so much better than that.
In my heart I know there is only one thing worthy of this description. It is not the staggering sight of the mountains at sunset, or some laughing waterfall, or even the brilliant zenith of starlight at night (though that’s getting close). No, “awesome” was designed to describe El Shaddai, the Lord Almighty, our Abba Father. Yahweh. The One who began all things, and in whom all things will come to an end.
A close friend and I were talking the other night about the awesomeness of God, and just how scary He is. Take a moment to think about it. We would like to picture God as a kind-faced, benevolent old man, almost like a grandfather. The fact that we’re picturing God as anything really speaks to the finite nature of our human imagination. God is a wild, intangible, incomprehensible Being. “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” (Exodus 33:20). God is the perfect embodiment of Love and Power, wielder of the might of the entire universe. In the blink of an eye He could take everything away, cast the earth out of its orbit, blot out the sun, destroy all of humanity in a matter of days (as He once did). Humbling thought.
Imagine how Moses must have felt, slowly scaling the mountainside at Sinai, his skin rippling with the waves of God’s anger, burning against the Israelites for their idolatry and wickedness. Moses had to face Yahweh to speak for his people – even to intercede on their behalf! Moses lived quite a unique existence, interacting with the Spirit of God in such an intimate matter, receiving the Law literally from the Lord’s mouth. He was all at once an incredibly blessed and harassed man. More often than not he had to face an angry and vengeful God.
It’s easy for us to forget that we serve the same jealous and angry God. True, God has manifested His incredible, all-encompassing love for an undeserving people through the ministry, death, and resurrection of His Son. But God never stopped being angry at our sin and wickedness. Christ trembled in fear, was torn apart by anguish by the thought of becoming Sin on the cross, facing the wrath of God all of us have justly earned.
Our God is an awesome God. His Love is an awesome Love, because it goes in hand in hand with his wild, violent, and perfectly just wrath. The Lord is a beautiful paradox.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Storm
A man sits close to his dying campfire, twisting bark from his walking stick and looking out upon a miracle. His camp perches atop a precipice, one last lookout before the trail’s descent back to the world of deep, deep ground and real things. Here the man still has but air to breathe and a vivid landscape to help him dream. Dream differently, perhaps, than the boy nestled against his shoulder and heaving peaceful sighs in the night. The man wonders whether he should wake his son to view the strange vista before him.
The valley is alive with violence. A storm from the northeast is tumbling wildly between the mountain pass, here and gone within several minutes, but terrible in its brief moment of existence. Snow explodes and freezes upon the air, billowing and billowing as if God finally blew the dust from off his tower on high. And there, in the center of the snowstorm, lightning ripples in dazzling flashes, trailing a low murmur of thunder in the air.
The boy stirs, eases open his eyes and looks up to see the awestruck face of his father, lit every now and then by the ghost of lightning in the valley. The boy is too sleepy to speak, and instead he watches curiously as the flashing fades and his father’s face is slowly overtaken by the darkness. All that stirs now is the mingling of their frozen breath. They both shiver with the dying embers, jealous for the stillness so characteristic of the stars. The man finally notices his son is awake, and asks him what he dreamt about.
The valley is alive with violence. A storm from the northeast is tumbling wildly between the mountain pass, here and gone within several minutes, but terrible in its brief moment of existence. Snow explodes and freezes upon the air, billowing and billowing as if God finally blew the dust from off his tower on high. And there, in the center of the snowstorm, lightning ripples in dazzling flashes, trailing a low murmur of thunder in the air.
The boy stirs, eases open his eyes and looks up to see the awestruck face of his father, lit every now and then by the ghost of lightning in the valley. The boy is too sleepy to speak, and instead he watches curiously as the flashing fades and his father’s face is slowly overtaken by the darkness. All that stirs now is the mingling of their frozen breath. They both shiver with the dying embers, jealous for the stillness so characteristic of the stars. The man finally notices his son is awake, and asks him what he dreamt about.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
On Childhood and Fallen Angels
I recently reconnected with a childhood friend of mine. We had grown up together, spent hundreds upon hundreds of afternoons and weekends at each other’s house. The love that I had for him then, when I was still below the age of ten and taking every friendship for granted, was something I’ve quite enjoyed rediscovering. Spending time at his house has also jarred me a bit, because it is a foreign place strongly tied to my memory, my past, in a way that my home is not.
My own house has, in a strange sense, matured with me. Meaning, just as we never really notice ourselves grow, I’ve never once got a sense of nostalgia in my own house because I’ve never missed it. The back porch is still the same, its wood still feels the same to my touch, the living room welcomes me today in the same way it did in my younger years. But reentering my friend’s house – now that was strange. The rooms were small, depressingly so. His finished basement, a central location for many of our adventures and memories together, has shrunk drastically. I used to be able to bound across from wall to wall and get out breath – but now the walls have all gotten into a great hurry to contract upon themselves, to the point where I can cross the carpet in a few short steps. I’m not a large man by any stretch of the imagination, and so I’m forced to assume that I was just an incredibly small boy. Which I was.
This friend and I have also undertaken in our reunion an important project, one that will possibly echo across our entire lives. And now I must make a dramatic introduction.
Once upon a time, there was a small knot of close friends, all of them between the ages of 14 and 16, who shared a love of filmmaking. No matter that the films they made were crudely fashioned and unable to match the glory and beauty of their ambition; they were nonetheless natural-born storytellers who found true joy in making movies. And so they decided one day to do it right. Two of them, the writers in the group (myself and one other) cobbled together a script about fallen angels seeking redemption and battling each other in a fantasy world plagued by wars and wizards. Turns out the two writers ended up playing the fallen angels, which may or may not have been the plan all along.
To make a very long story short, this ambitious film project, entitled “The Fallen”, became the very center of our lives. We devoted an entire summer and the better part of a school year (2004-2005) to principle photography, which was never completed. Fight scenes were meticulously choreographed, costumes carefully designed, and dialogue scenes rehearsed to the point where we could easily have put the whole thing on as a dramatic stage production and made out okay.
This aforementioned friend I’ve reconnected with, who was the director of photography on “The Fallen” and a true master behind the camera (manipulating angles, organizing scene blocking) and also a consummate professional at editing and special effects, rediscovered all 8 full tapes of “Fallen” footage, and he and I have since embarked on a long, hard crusade to search out and edit all the finished takes and scenes, string them together in some sort of order, add in all intended special effects, and produce a finished product for everyone who was involved in that magical endeavor. Since we filmed out of order, the final film will make absolutely no sense. Entire story arcs and key scenes are missing, but there’s really nothing we can do about it.
Reviewing all the old footage, I am struck by the amount of maturing we were forced to do in order to make headway on this movie. I’m sure it probably taught us something about budgeting our finances, committing ourselves to an idea, and maybe being responsible. But also, it was just a true joy to be apart of, and a true joy to watch it all these years later. I watch my fifteen-year-old self spouting out epic lines (no doubt heartily influenced by Tolkien’s work), attempting to smolder in front of the camera and not break character, and I must say it’s strange. I wonder if I were to sit the 2004 version of Brendan down and have a long chat, probably over coffee and donuts, some pretty interesting differences would arise between us. For instance, I was sporting a long and shaggy hairdo, wearing hemp necklaces, and listening to a lot of Zeppelin and Aerosmith at that point. A significant discussion/argument could flow out of that point alone. But I digress.
If you’re interested in seeing “The Fallen” once we’ve finished our mission, let me know.
My own house has, in a strange sense, matured with me. Meaning, just as we never really notice ourselves grow, I’ve never once got a sense of nostalgia in my own house because I’ve never missed it. The back porch is still the same, its wood still feels the same to my touch, the living room welcomes me today in the same way it did in my younger years. But reentering my friend’s house – now that was strange. The rooms were small, depressingly so. His finished basement, a central location for many of our adventures and memories together, has shrunk drastically. I used to be able to bound across from wall to wall and get out breath – but now the walls have all gotten into a great hurry to contract upon themselves, to the point where I can cross the carpet in a few short steps. I’m not a large man by any stretch of the imagination, and so I’m forced to assume that I was just an incredibly small boy. Which I was.
This friend and I have also undertaken in our reunion an important project, one that will possibly echo across our entire lives. And now I must make a dramatic introduction.
Once upon a time, there was a small knot of close friends, all of them between the ages of 14 and 16, who shared a love of filmmaking. No matter that the films they made were crudely fashioned and unable to match the glory and beauty of their ambition; they were nonetheless natural-born storytellers who found true joy in making movies. And so they decided one day to do it right. Two of them, the writers in the group (myself and one other) cobbled together a script about fallen angels seeking redemption and battling each other in a fantasy world plagued by wars and wizards. Turns out the two writers ended up playing the fallen angels, which may or may not have been the plan all along.
To make a very long story short, this ambitious film project, entitled “The Fallen”, became the very center of our lives. We devoted an entire summer and the better part of a school year (2004-2005) to principle photography, which was never completed. Fight scenes were meticulously choreographed, costumes carefully designed, and dialogue scenes rehearsed to the point where we could easily have put the whole thing on as a dramatic stage production and made out okay.
This aforementioned friend I’ve reconnected with, who was the director of photography on “The Fallen” and a true master behind the camera (manipulating angles, organizing scene blocking) and also a consummate professional at editing and special effects, rediscovered all 8 full tapes of “Fallen” footage, and he and I have since embarked on a long, hard crusade to search out and edit all the finished takes and scenes, string them together in some sort of order, add in all intended special effects, and produce a finished product for everyone who was involved in that magical endeavor. Since we filmed out of order, the final film will make absolutely no sense. Entire story arcs and key scenes are missing, but there’s really nothing we can do about it.
Reviewing all the old footage, I am struck by the amount of maturing we were forced to do in order to make headway on this movie. I’m sure it probably taught us something about budgeting our finances, committing ourselves to an idea, and maybe being responsible. But also, it was just a true joy to be apart of, and a true joy to watch it all these years later. I watch my fifteen-year-old self spouting out epic lines (no doubt heartily influenced by Tolkien’s work), attempting to smolder in front of the camera and not break character, and I must say it’s strange. I wonder if I were to sit the 2004 version of Brendan down and have a long chat, probably over coffee and donuts, some pretty interesting differences would arise between us. For instance, I was sporting a long and shaggy hairdo, wearing hemp necklaces, and listening to a lot of Zeppelin and Aerosmith at that point. A significant discussion/argument could flow out of that point alone. But I digress.
If you’re interested in seeing “The Fallen” once we’ve finished our mission, let me know.
Friday, June 11, 2010
This is the Way the World Ends (and the blog begins) . . .
Not with a bang, but with a whimper. I’d like to say my reasons for creating a blog were noble or different than many other of the reasons ordinary men like myself create blogs. No one suggested or “talked me into” making one. No well-meaning friend, after a long and weary conversation, took off his glasses, pushed aside his dinner plate and seriously told me to consider a blog. Really the reason for this thing is simple: I’ve discovered a need to break silence. I’ve known for years that despite the other titles I toss upon myself like old clothes cycled through fashion, at my heart I love to write. And I don’t do it nearly enough. So here I am.
This is not a Christian blog in the sense that I’m here to provide uplifting words or speak continually of Christian things, but I am unapologetically a Christian, and so that will inform everything I say or do. My life is one transformed by a mysterious and awesome thing – the love of God, in the form of a perfect replacement for me, an undeserving sinner, upon the cross – and so there is no way I can escape the perfect shadow of Christ on my life. I dwell often upon God, upon His influence in my life and the world. He will be making numerous appearances throughout this unstable and disputed endeavor.
If you are a friend, a member of my large and rather widely extended family, or a stranger I’ve yet to meet, I apologize in advance, for this is a place to unload my thoughts, which come streaming, tumbling, and galloping out of my mind in different ways. Short stories, essays, poetry. All those things will probably end up here in some fashion. And they probably won’t be very good. So again, apologies.
This is not a Christian blog in the sense that I’m here to provide uplifting words or speak continually of Christian things, but I am unapologetically a Christian, and so that will inform everything I say or do. My life is one transformed by a mysterious and awesome thing – the love of God, in the form of a perfect replacement for me, an undeserving sinner, upon the cross – and so there is no way I can escape the perfect shadow of Christ on my life. I dwell often upon God, upon His influence in my life and the world. He will be making numerous appearances throughout this unstable and disputed endeavor.
If you are a friend, a member of my large and rather widely extended family, or a stranger I’ve yet to meet, I apologize in advance, for this is a place to unload my thoughts, which come streaming, tumbling, and galloping out of my mind in different ways. Short stories, essays, poetry. All those things will probably end up here in some fashion. And they probably won’t be very good. So again, apologies.
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