Come Up Higher!

Have you ever been driving down the road and wanted to pull over to climb whatever peak you happen to see?  I did exactly that today.  I took a long drive into the mountains with a friend.  We saw a mountain, pulled over, and started straight up.  we had a blast.  We scrabmled over rocks, stopped to take in scenic vistas and enjoy the scent of pine trees, plowed though snow up to our waist, and scaled bare rock faces.  We praised God, enjoyed his creation, and had a very fun, pure good time.  I felt like I was a kid again.  You know that kid; the one who wants to climb every tree he sees.  I just let me Id go wild.

I have cuts and bruises to show for it, and I have to check to make sure I didn’t rip any clothing.  I also lugged a camera, so I’ll post some photos in the next few days.

Similes in Revelation 4

The fourth chapter of the book of John’s Revelation paints a picture of God’s throne room, albeit with an uncertain brush. John grasps at any descriptor he can find to portray the scene. I counted 9 similes in the first 7 verses. At one point, John’s eyes, which are trying desperately to take in the scene without popping out of his head, roam across what he describes as, “four living creatures.” I can just imagine him trying to put pen to paper to convey what he saw. The original mauscript may have looked something like this:

” In the center, around the throne, were four people /four things/ four animals/four uhhhh…. four living creatures…”

He didn’t know what to call the creatures. Or how to describe the throne. Or the one sitting on it. But somehow, the scene made some kind of internal sense to John when he took it in. In fact, the scene not only made some sort of sense, but John actually became emotionally involved in what was happening before him. We know this because he says, “I wept and wept,” when no one was found who was worthy to open the seals on the scroll that appears at the beginning of the next chapter.

The scene was foreign to John, but made sense when he observed it. I imagine that everything was somehow familiar to him, judging by the fact that he had comparisons to draw from. Foreign but familiar? That’s an appropriate reaction to a place that, even though he’d never been there, was even then Home to John. And I imagine that we as Christians would have similar reactions to a place we’ve never been, but a place that’s more of a home than we’ll ever find this side of Heaven.

Comment on the new blog! Please!

Friends, Family, and Faithful Readers,

I haven’t seen any of your comments since I migrated the blog to our new spot on the internet.  Maybe it’s just that I haven’t written anything worth commenting on, but I doubt it.  I’ll bet one or two of you are put off by the new interface and having to log in to post comments.  Let me assure you, I’m hosting this blog myself, so registering as a user is no big deal.  I promise I won’t sell your phone number to telemarketers or your e-mail address to that guy who keeps trying to sell me Viagara (doesn’t he know I’m only 26?!).

So post your comments along with this post.  Do you like the new blog?  Are the categories a good thing?  Should I give up writing and get a life?  Are you steaming mad at me for changing our blogger-reader-commenter relationship?  These are all things I must know.  If you need help or want me to create a username and password for you (i.e., you don’t feel like doing it yourself), feel free to drop me a line at andrew (at) shinnphoto (dot) com.  Anything to get our relationship back!

Sleepless and wondering,

Andrew

Testify

Lately as I’ve been praying, I’ve found myself, more than once, unable to ask God for some things. Even in silent prayer, I can’t will myself to complete some requests. In those moments, I realize that I’m a human, a speck, and I see my size and authority in relation to God. Who am I to ask things of the Almighty, the Cosmic Christ to whose will the very universe owes it existence? Moreover, what have I in my overinflated self-importance to add to or give to the One who is the originator of all?

Yet the mind-blowingly wonderful truth is that this God, this creator became nothing, scum, on account of me. He suffered on a Roman cross with me in mind. Such truths are almost too wonderful to ponder, like the radience glowing from Moses’ face that symbolized the Glory of God. I imagine the people of Israel having to turn away from that glow, yet being drawn back as if magnetically, forcing one more glance.

You see, Jesus didn’t visit our planet and die the most miserable of all deaths to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live. He came to make me live. Me, who would never even be able to dream of deserving his attention. And my only response, the only thing I can offer, is to point mutely at him. Not by my goodness. Not by my merit. Not even by my decision. It’s Jesus who saved me, and there’s not a thing I can do in this world that adds to or takes away from that. The power of the forces of Hell isn’t enough to snatch me from his tightly-gripping, ever-loving hand.

So I hold out my arm, silently pointing to the One who made the stars to shine, and who sacrificed so much to purchase me. It’s all I can do.

* notes on Revelation

In my journey through the Bible, I’ve come to the last book: Revelation. I don’t read the book of Revelation lightly. It always conjures for me memories of a lunchtime bible study in which I participated while attending a military school. In this study, we watched videos of some guys who were trying to predict the end times, often using modern-day newspaper headlines and equating them to prophesied events. Ironically, the course of study at the school was journalism, and we were learning to write headlines. I learned that headline semantics are usually driven more by space and layout than by the significance of the news contained beneath.

Someone very perceptively pointed out that predicting the signs attending to the end of the world and Christ’s second coming is most often an attempt to control events, or feel in control of events by dint of knowing what’s happening. While at first I reviled at this notion, I eventually came to embrace it. My current approach is that it’s best to be faithful in all I’m called to do, regardless of how near or far the end may be. If I’m faithful with the large and small things given by God for my governance, then the coming of the end tomorrow or next year shouldn’t change my actions.

So I approach the book of John’s Revelation very carefully. I strive to read it with the goal of knowing God more fully, understanding his character, and discovering the things that challenge popular assumtions about heaven, hell, and the nature of reality. I’m sure it’ll be meaningful reading, and I’ll let you in on a few thoughts as I go. Feel free to read along with me!

Enjoy,

AJS

Ray? Not a Ray of hope.

Lisa and I watched Ray on Sunday. I feel like we were watching Walk the Line again. Different talented, tortured singer, different skin color, same struggles with pain, addiction, and hopelessness. The movie ended with Ray Charles’s alleged recovery from his drug addiction. Like Johnny Cash’s story in Walk the Line, the postscript claimed that they all lived happily ever after, implying that he was drug-free for the rest of his life. I don’t know Ray Charles (apart from his wonderful music), and I can’t comment on the veracity of that statement with any authority. But I have a tendency to suspect men who lie to their own families and even themselves about the depth and nature of their addiction when they claim to be clean.

Lord, may I never be famous enough to live like that. The more of these movies I see, the more I come to see fame as a curse, and not a blessing.

Enjoying relative anonymity,
Andrew

The Switch…. to Penguin Power

I finally did it. I’ve been contemplating it for several years now, but I finally switched our home computer from Windows to the free Linux operating system. So resistant am I to change that I actually considered buying or pirating a copy of Windows XP to re-install on this computer. A quick look at Microsoft’s online marketplace tells me that copies of Windows XP Professional run from about $400 to about $4000. That’s a lot of money to pay or steal. (I think if fewer people were stealing it, those who pay would pay less, but that’s a speculation best saved for another blog post.)

Anyway, I decided to go with a version of Linux called Ubuntu. Besides being free and really fun to say, Ubuntu is reputed to be easy to install and use, and very stable.

Installation was a snap. I backed up all my files onto an external hard drive, then installed away. The only decisions I had to make were:

  1. What to enter for my name (Andrew Shinn)
  2. What to enter for my username (andrew)
  3. What to enter for my password (like I’d tell you that!)

I had to make one other decision about hard drive partitions, but I just went with the default option that wiped my computer clean and started from scratch.

So, I really like Linux so far. Ubuntu comes with all the software you could possibly want, and easy access to more. All for free. I am now using Openoffice.org 2.0 as a better replacement for Microsoft Office (including Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint), Firefox as my web browser (same browser I used on Windows), and lots of other really cool software with funny names but great prices (free) and functionality.

Ubuntu is running faster and cleaner than Windows ever did on this machine, and I couldn’t be happier with it. The good people at Ubuntu will even send you an installation CD for free. Check it out at ubuntu.com. Here’s a screenshot: