I've enjoyed writing a bit over the last few weeks. I was out of practice. I've also realized in the same time how far out of touch I've fallen with many of my friends. I could blame school, but I make the time I make, and reaching out to a friend is not time-intensive. While I bet most are guilty of this to some extent, my fault is my own, and I'll try to do better.

School is moving along, careening towards closure. I have so much to do in the next 15 or so weeks, and top on that list is - no surprise here - find a job! I'm covering a lot of ground on this front, and I feel like something will land, but I'm not letting up until I receive a written offer. The University has a great network of employers, and I'm doing all I can to leverage those connections. As much as I would love to detail what those are, I expect that any employer intent on evaluating me will find this website, and far be it from me to say too much too soon. Actually, I've just now received a speck of inspiration. My next post, due out soon, will be an open letter to investigatory employers. If they want to sift through my virtual life, I am happy to meet them there and show them around.

The one snippet of specifics I will offer is that I was recently offered an internship role in China. That's right, China. Feels wierd saying it. 

...China... 

Anyway, a company in ...China... is looking to take their services to market in the US, and my role, as I understand it, is to help consult them through that process. As you may have guessed, this leads me to a significant philosophical contrast in how people respond to me when I tell them about ...well, you know...

The parties fall in two camps. Both congratulate me, and then pick a side. 

Side 1: Congratulations! This will be a great experience for you.

Side 2: Congratulations! This will look great on your resume.

You'll never guess to which side I assign value. Resumes are a necessary evil in the modern recruiting environment. They are necessary because recruiters don't have time to do much else in front-end evaluations. They are evil because anyone can write any combination of words on a page that make them look like Christ incarnate. I liken resumes to a modeling agency issuing an open call for candidates to take a head shot, photoshop it without mercy, and they then pick the prettiest 20 faces, or 10, or 5. What a mess. I feel a lot of sympathy for recruiters.

I value experience not because it makes me look good on paper, but because I have a better perspective with which to make difficult decisions. I look forward to this internship because it will challenge me to think and perceive challenges from a non-American standpoint, and because I get to meet new people, develop relationships with those people, and help them out. I will gain new friends I would otherwise never meet. 

I look forward to those relationships not for what I will gain from them, but for the enjoyment of community and a common purpose. I've tried to take that attitude into my MBA program as well, and I've developed some friendships I expect will carry forward a very long time. Perhaps business opportunities will come out of some such connections, but I subscribe to the view that people want to be loved unconditional of what they are prospectively worth. This is not a groundbreaking idea, but with many, love separate from perceived worth runs thick in praise and thin in practice.

Beyond these thoughts, a year in grad school has given me a year to reflect and mature in many of my perspectives. I am very excited about what lays ahead, and soon enough I'll be on my way.

But not too soon, of course.

That's right. Last Wednesday, those following my drivel busted through the ceiling, jumping an unheard-of 2 subscribers in a single day, from 9 to 11 (enter Spinal Tap reference now). 

More drivel will surely follow, and I have mostly no idea who reads this stuff anyway. Regardless, thank you for sticking with me through my writing lulls and spats of terrible literary construction, and here's to a fruitful 2010. 

ps - Goal for 2010: 15 subscribers. Yeah, I said it.

The conversation is based on a segment of G.K. Chesterton's book, Orthodoxy, where Chesterton contrasts the rationalist and the mystic. Somehow, over time, we adapted these figures into the scientist and the poet. The illustration still carries, and I felt like our last two exchanges, which span almost two years, were worth sharing. I'd wait for his response, but that might not happen for a very long time.

Not to over-generalize or start of with something overly fluffy, but I'm overcome this morning in a realization of how difficult life can be at times. As Christians, we rail and rail against our fallen selves and work so hard to respond to God's love, and we fail so often. Then, we feel bad, and tell God we're sorry, and pick ourselves up, and start the process all over again.

Is this what life is about? I for one have often viewed life through the lens of this cycle. While I believe that sin, guilt, repentance and redemption are all elements of the human experience, the cycle itself seems so vicious, like an endless exercise, three fourths of which just kick my butt. I know there's a solution in there, and I think the components are legitimate, so I've decided my struggle isn't with sin, guilt, repentance, and redemption, but perhaps in the system or lens through which I view them. 

Paraphrasing Chesterton, a common problem is not forming a logical system of beliefs and practices, but instead seeking the system that allows us the greatest degree of freedom. Chesterton refers to many such systems as circles. A circle has no beginning and no end; no loose ends, so to speak. So often goes with many belief systems; they are logical circles. 

His contention is that logical circles, though systematically perfect, still bind their subscriber. Circles pervade our existence. Many belief systems exist which the best of men could not disprove. If I claimed I were Christ incarnate, what case could be made against me? After all, the world rejected him the first time around; why not again? My point is that these systems, though logically consistent, are bound in size. They are always limited. I might be Christ, but I also can't even find my keys most mornings, each point is indisputable, but each point defines the capacity of my logical circle, and that circle is, I assume, somewhat less than we might hope for a messiah. 

What Chesterton discovered, in his rogue, radical attempt to build from the ground up a philosophical answer to religion, discovered an avant-garde fragment of spirituality that operated independent and in brash violation of circular belief systems. To his surprise, he found orthodox Christianity, which for its systematic oddities can hardly be called a system of belief. It certainly isn't circular. Unlike belief systems that work to eliminate conflict, Christianity brazenly associates herself with conflict. To entrust one's faith to her is to accept a world of talking donkeys, chariots of fire, nine-hundred year old men, rivers of blood, angels of death that are really good, angels of light that are really bad, forming men from dust, raising them from the dead, healing their ears, eyes, legs, tongues, illnesses, and relieving their deep and unspoken fears. Christianity makes room in her heart for the low things of the world, be they that in stature, dignity, or moral conviction. Christianity openly courts the worst of sinners, and holds intimately close even those she knows will betray her. Christianity knows even Judas should know love. 

At the heart of Christianity is conflict, and the cross reflects this conflict at its core. But, from that point of conflict, her arms stretch forth in infinite length, reaching forth without prejudice or limitation.

So coming back again to the redemption idea. I often love and loathe redemption all at once. I love redemption because it is very, well, redemptive. I sometimes loathe redemption because of the bigger cycle within which I view redemption. What I am beginning to realize is that, to view life in that cycle is to strip the gospel of its power, and to reduce Christianity to another religious system, which entices with its order but frustrates with its scope. Christianity is not a system. Christianity is Jesus Christ. Our faith is not bound up in principles, or methods, or rules. The basis of our faith is not static, but dynamic. I cannot overstate how radical and outlandish is such a faith. 

A static faith allows for cycles that condemn and redeem, and a static faith always tells the same story. Like any idol or monument, static faith leans on its subscribers, always requiring their efforts to correct the disrepair of time and age. When I view redemption within a cycle, I eventually despair at the constant work to keep my faith from crumbling. And, therein, we find the key. The idea that I work to keep my faith upright is truly static. Our faith is self-contained, and any conception we have of God is self-contrived. He takes on our appearance, and, doing so, becomes no less limited than if we claimed ourselves as the messiah who loses his keys. Can you see how perfect this circle has become, and yet how pathetically small it always was? 

Orthodox Christianity, by contrast, is completely wrapped up in the person, power, and credibility of a risen Jesus Christ. Our faith is not defined in cycles. Rather, God made us because he wanted to; gave us life and gave us some degree of freedom, and he shared life and goodness with us. We bailed on that idea in order to create little circular worlds, run the way we think is best. Since then, God has done a lot of work to give us a second look at that idea. For those of us that returned to him, we still bear the damage of our original failing. We have an inclination to view the world in these little compartments that make sense but sap us of any lasting joy. But, despite all of that, God is pulling us out of those compartments and replacing all of the damage we did to ourselves in the process. His efforts are not comfortable, but therein lies my point. Redemption is not painful because it is futile. Rather, redemption is painful because it is working. God is still working, in his dynamic and beautiful way. We are not pressured to develop systems, or really do much at all. If anything, he asks that we stop trying to do his work for him. We tried that already. It didn't work.

I wish I didn't sin, but I do. God knows I do and he knows I'll do it a lot more in my life. All the while, he keeps kneading and shaping me from this awful and cold circle back into something that resembles what he had in mind when he made me. This is redemption, and it's alive.