Divine Plagiarism

I sent these to her two years ago. They ended up, I think, being more true for me than they were for her.

'From Poetic Myth to Humble Fact

The essential meaning of all things came down from the 'heaven' of myth to the 'earth' of history. In so doing, it partly emptied itself of its glory as Christ emptied Himself of His glory to be Man. That is the real explanation of the fact that Theology, far from defeating its rivals by a superior poetry, is, in a superficial but quite real sense, less poetical than they. That is why the New Testament is, in the same sense, less poetical than the Old. Have you not often felt in Church, if the first lesson is some great passage, that the second lesson is somehow small by comparison - almost, if one might say so, humdrum? So it is and so it must be. That is always the humiliation of myth into fact, of God into Man; what is everywhere and always, imageless and ineffable, only to be glimpsed in dream and symbol and the acted poetry of ritual becomes small, solid - no bigger than a man who can lie asleep in a rowing boat on the Lake of Galilee. You might say that this, after all, is a still deeper poetry. I will not contradict you. The humiliation leads to a greater glory. But the humiliation of God and the shrinking or condensation of the myth as it becomes fact are also quite real.'
- "Is Theology Poetry?," CSL.

You seemed to have a sense of weariness, one beneath sheer physical tiredness, more a frustration that dreams and labors did not overlap as much as you wished they would. It was as if you were asking for the clouds to break once and a while; trying to will pieces of dreams to take shape through sheer desire and struggle. As if you were in the desert land between dreams and fulfillment, in that place where hope and faith are food. That is where I spent my last year. I have dreams beyond the current capacity of this world to realize, and I live on hope and faith that somehow this path that I believe God has set me on will lead there.

It is after awaking from a dream that we feel the most tired, and at that time the dream feels the farthest away. Yet in awakening, we gain the capacity to realize the dream. It is then that the labors are the hardest, in that time without the end in sight. This is why faith and hope must inhabit the place between dreams and fulfillment. Even so, sometimes we find that dreams look different than we had imagined when they begin to take form. Unconstrained, we trail our hands through the ether as we tap into the deeper streams, weaving an amazing story in lightning and clouds. Yet when that story takes flesh, it may not look the same. It may lack the fireworks, it may lose its myth as we pour the dream upon the tangible. But it will gain one crucial thing it lacked. It will gain reality. We are creatures of flesh and spirit. Our dreams must then take on both to be realized. So in this, you reflect your Namesake. The Almighty, the One whose words set the universe in motion chokes out His breath as a newborn in a stable, all to become real to us. You are then no longer the Storyteller, but now the Carpenter. But you are a carpenter on a path of dreams. May hope and faith sustain you on that path.

Sometimes, you can feel the first whispers of a dream before it really begins to take shape. Job hears a whisper when he says that he knows his Redeemer lives. The dream truly takes shape to the prophet Isaiah, as he describes the Suffering Servant with all the thunder of prophecy. But it comes alive crying in a manger outside of Jerusalem.

I see more now than when I began to dream. I am becoming something that once had existed only in echoes in my heart. The lion cub knows something of what it is destined to be, it lives it out in its play. But what starts with a mew ends in a roar, as the thing becomes full grown. I was not there when the world was made. I cannot carve my own path. But I can walk the one set out for me. I was not ready when I began dreaming. But perhaps, it is the dreams that cause us to prepare. I am more ready now, even as more of the dream takes shape. It seems that the path comes more and more into focus as I become more and more the man who can walk it. The dream has not taken flesh yet. But it has moved from the whisper of Job into the thunder of Isaiah.

Allow me a few specifics. A few months ago, I was talking to a Chaplain, and in the course of the conversation, I accidentally (as I am apt to do) found that I had talked for ten minutes straight. Which was not the crazy part. The crazy part is when I was done, God reveals to me that I had just preached, totally extemporaneously, an entire sermon. And even crazier, it was good! And even crazier than that, I really totally enjoyed it, so much that I lost myself in it. In preaching, I got the same adrenaline rush that I get when flying. And it hit me… I could do this for a living and I would be totally happy doing that. I have never had any alternate career plans. I have never seriously considered doing something that was not flying airplanes. But it was like I was being called. Not for right now, more God letting me know what to prepare for down the line. I had heard Him say during training something to the effect of ’enjoy this, because you know I’m not going to let you do this forever.’ It was true. So, effect rather than cause, I remember that she had described herself as wanting to be a pastor’s wife. And it started to fit. So I talk to a friend of mine from undergrad and his wife about it. He went to MIT for grad school, and knew a lot of the same people from Cambridge, even though he and I were not there at the same time. His wife worked for YWAM for a long time, and she mentioned this ‘Missionary Trainer’ thing. Basically, you go in the field for a few years, then you come back home for a few years and you train other people. Then you go back to the field, continue, etc. So it totally hits me, that as dissimilar as her ( C) and my skill sets and social networks are, they would be perfectly complimentary in the missions field, especially to be missionaries in closed countries. I am learning Spanish and Arabic, and have taken recently a large number of cultural anthropology and regional studies classes. She is a Sociologist, and would be superb at missions work in closed countries. Both of us are adept at adapting to other cultures. Both of us are a little bit crazy. To live is Christ, to die is gain. Some of my professional skills, which I do not particularly care to discuss, being the internet and all, would be a great aid in serving as a missionary in closed countries. And both her and I are born teachers and leaders, and would be able to teach others the things that we had learned. This is the path that has taken shape so far.

Here is the thing. It does change things somewhat. Sort of by accident, I seem to have happened upon a career track that seems very promising. If I were to dream this dream, then I would have to change parts of that track, and give up certain possibilities to gain others that would be of far more use in preparing for missionary life. I feel passionate about providing for a family, and for this reason, I plan to stay in my career until I retire. At that point in time, children would be grown up enough to either attend high school with grandparents or accompany on the missions field. And of course, there are miracles and prerequisites that have to occur that are totally out of my control. And perhaps there are alternate paths, or other people that can walk that path. But this is the dream, wrapped in lightning, but with form. As I understand it now. Perhaps it will change, or I will change, but this is what I see now.

The hope, just like the hope of Simeon, is that the dream takes flesh. And perhaps, even as I am changing, she is changing. Even if the dream loses some of its lightning in the process, it becomes real. And so the woman I see now in incandescent light, lightning arcing off of her profile, becomes the woman who called Boston Air Traffic Control ’Mister Man.’ And the me I see trailing fire and moving mountains becomes the man who laughs awkwardly, almost inappropriately as he tells the girl that he likes her with whatever words he has available. But in this silliness, in this pedestrian foolishness, we become real. And you cannot hold the hand of a dream. Nor can you tell the image in the prophecy that you love her.