listening

i include the following not because i'm any good at it. rather, because i think what bonoeffer is getting at is critical to relationships with other human beings. maybe there's more of the love of God expressed in real listening than in any other part of discourse. listening exalts other; it humbles self. it speaks louder than words: "you are important to me. i genuinely care about you."

from Dietrich Bonoeffer, Life Together:

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love of God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them… Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it amongst Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening, but he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon no longer be listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God, too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words. One who cannot listen long and patiently will presently be talking beside the point, and be never really speaking to others, albeit he not be conscious of it.

trilobites and worms and sponges

i love evolution.
i really mean it.
i love it.
at first, it was this incredibly intimidating idea...
and it was posited to me early
(by the christian church or by some book i read or who knows,
it doesn't really matter)
that there was a great either/or.
either creation or evolution.
either there is a good and loving God,
or else single-celled organisms formed in the ocean
from smaller functional mechanisms,
and over hundreds of millions of years,
cells started interacting in bigger functional units,
and eventually trilobites morphed into sponges which
morphed into anemones and so on.
i heard a recent conversation between a renowned
marine biologist and a woman who asked:
"how do you reply to the controversy of evolution in today's society?"
the biologists' response: "madame, there is no controversy."
i don't argue with mathematicians about the riemann hypothesis,
factorials or the gaussian distribution
because i'm not a mathematician,
and i sound really dumb when i argue about things i don't understand.
and i have come to find it rather silly that non-scientists
enter the conversation about whether or not evolution takes place,
when to the (respectable) scientific world it is so clear that it does.
mark hobbs asked last weekend:
"have you ever met a scientist who didn't believe in evolution?"
my reply: "not a good one."
that to say, there is quite incontrovertible evidence
that speciation takes place,
and has been taking place for eons.
so then awhile ago i found myself in that uncomfortable posture
of not being willing to give up the evidence
of evolution in front of me
and not willing to give up this central paradigm of nature:
"that through Christ all things were made;
without him nothingwas made that has been made."
and in wrestling through that conflict i cameto two realizations:
1) that creation and evolution are not conflictual
2) that there is a reason i love evolution.

i don't see anything in the "big bang theory"
that suggests against a loving God revealed to us in Christ Jesus.
nor do i see anything in evolution
that suggests against a loving God revealed to us in Christ Jesus.
i suspect God saw it all before it ever happened,
and reconciled the world to him
before anything in space or time ever took place,
when at the perfect moment,
WHAM-O
the universe stuck in the world of matter.
then as billions of years unfolded,
God
with bated breath
watching molecules of cold carbon and nitrogen gases mingle
anticipated the coming of his original idea:
a bride.

so then came light as the first hydrogen ions fused,
and matter related to matter and massive things started occuring.
one rock related well to a medium-sized star,
and in their relationship,
an earth,
a garden.
the clouds formed and water rained down and something
stirred in the ocean
and something stirred on land.
and a billion years later
when the coarse ape
was rather mindlessly grinding his rod into a stone to sharpen it,
after ages of his watching matter relate to matter
plant relate to plant
and animal relate to animal,
God was overwhelmed with affection for his dream,
and climaxing from billions of years of anticipation,
he breathed something different into the ape.
and the ape took on the likeness of God:
spiritual, profoundly self-aware, capable of language
and above all else,
capable of love.
these two features guided all things,
from the first atom
to the first adam
and guide us today:
relationship and mutability.
and when i think of evolution,
i think of God.
and when i hear again
that a new species has been discovered in thewater below the galapogos,
and i really ponder it,
i don't see a cold, lifeless work of physics,
but my faith instructs me
how the Lord has longed for his church,
his bride,
from eons past,
and how he has gave it all for her.

there is this dynamic i find in every physical thing,
and i suspect it may be present even in great heavenly things:
evolution.
babies grow from two cells that fuse into a zygote.
then as weeks turn into months,
they develop cognition and emotion.
they evolve from one zygote
into a complex thinking adult homo sapien.

and every system, organic and inorganic
has these features:
relating to all the things in it's setting
(nothing is an island in nothingness)
and change
(nothing can interact with its setting and not change).
it is in the blueprint of all that exists:
relating and changing.
developing. emerging. evolving.

i think it is not that God sits at the helm
and speciates;
it's not that he architects changes in dna
so to generate survival advantage in an organism;
instead,
we speciate because we are made by God,
we cannot avoid speciation,
because his nature is in all that exists.
we live as a reflection of the greatness of the living God.
and if there is anything that i want to understand,
i mean really grasp about it all, it is this:
that Christ is the image of the invisible God,
that he is the firstborn over all creation.
and that by him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things created by him and for him.
that he is before all things,and that in him all things hold together.
and that he is the head of the body,
the church;
that he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead,
so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
that God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven,
by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.
and to understand the word of God in its fullness --
the mystery that has been kept hidden
for ages and generations,
but is now disclosed to the saints --
which is Christ in us, the hope of glory.

thailand and back again

i'm taking advice of a friend and am posting some photos of thailand. thanks for the encouragement, bryan. erin and julia and i went to see the penningtons the first two weeks of april. a rejuvenating visit for us, and great fun. photos are of the beach in krabi (i never really thought much of beaches until krabi), elephants (not a particularly smooth ride, but awesome creatures), songkran (สงกรานต์, "water festival": the traditional thai new year celebration most noted for a ton of waterfights), and julie with julia.

also, i came away with a new enthusiasm about Jesus' kindom of love advancing in the world.

if you still haven't seen the pennington's blog, check it out here.

hunka-hunka baby twins

two agendas here:



one, to show off our daughter (and to delight in the Lord's goodness in so doing).





and two, to say how marvelous my sister ashlie is (did you know she's having twins?).







(oh, and this too. erin was clicking on one of the old links and was redirected to something of poor taste on the internet. so i've deleted many of the old links. and my most heartfelt apologies if you've spiraled into an addiction to internet pornography because of my blogging negligence).

christmassing with andre and m. night

on my friend kevin thompson's blog, i got reconnected with the thoughts of andre resner. resner is a pretty interesting guy. he taught my life and teaching of Jesus class at acu, was strict as hell, and blew my mind in a lot of ways. i lost track of him after i graduated, heard that he had gone through a divorce, and i wondered how a man so lessoned in theology and thought weathered such an experience. not addressed specifically as such, i suppose this excerpt from an essay published at this link in the blue rock review (full essay starting on page 87) is some sort of reply to that question...

"Though incarnated love has failed us again and again, we have yet experienced real love through these fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, children, husbands and wives. Did they ultimately fail to love us as we most needed to be loved, as we yearned to be loved? Yes, largely yes. Just as we failed them. But the answer is no, also. Because pure love sometimes got and gets in the mix too. We have been held in an embrace that took us out of time and space and made us aware of something much bigger than ourselves and our losses and our failures. We have known love, love that surprised us, thrilled us, validated us as human beings, love that evoked within us awe, praise and gratitude. We have seen in the eyes of another the look and gaze of understanding, care, and ultimate concern. Looking in those eyes that locked on us we were granted a portal to the Divine gaze, the Divine love, the Divine promises. We need a community of nurture, where love is allowed to breathe."

i recently saw m. night shyamalan's the village. in it there was a quote more profound than maybe any other bit of script from cinema. you probably remember it (did it move you like it did me?).

"the world moves for love; it kneels before it in awe."

Immanuel has come. thanks be to God.
hallelujah.

food for thought

some noteworthy points from an article from the economist, dec 9 2006; an article entitled "good food?".

people are being socially active in the grocery stores,
people like you and me.
buying organic to protect the earth from ugly pesticides,
and to help with richer soil and clear water supplies.
people are buying freetrade-stamped goods,
because it helps the poor farmers in third world countries.

this article points out, "shopping is the new politics... vote with your supermarket trolley..."

it's called "the ethical food movement."

here's the problem:
what the businesses that are selling "ethical foods" are suggesting, or at least what we are convincing ourselves will result from our purchasing "ethical foods", at best falls short of what we hope for, and at worst may be doing the very opposite. (editor's note: if you are content assuaging your guilt for being a white american making more than fourty thousand dollars a year, when half the world's population makes less than two dollars a day, by buying fairtrade foods, or if you are finding some solace from the excessive pollution and the empire of non-deteriorating rubbage that you (as a single human being!) have already generated in your two-to-three decades of life, then you may want to just stop here and keep buying your "ethical foods.")

organic food, grown without human-generated pesticides and fertilizers, depends on crop rotation, manure and compost instead of fertilizer. sound's good, 'eh? the deal is: all land cultivation disrupts the native habitat. since we decided it was too much work to pick berries and chase mountain goats in our loin cloths a few thousand years ago, we've been clearing land (heavily in the rain forrest areas, i might add), to cultivate farmland. without using our common method of augmenting the worldwide crop yield with factory-ready pesticides and fertilizers, we would need many times as much land as is presently used to provide the same agricultural output. in the words of the author, "there wouldn't be much room left for the rain forest." notably, grain yields have tripled -- without increasing the land requirement -- since current agricultural methods were put into place. and, unfortunately, there is not a surplus of farmland.

and the fairtrade notion is great... as a notion. the movement aims to give back to the poor farmer by increasing the price for the consumer. and we, being generally ethically-minded people, don't mind spending an extra forty cents on our bag of coffee beans for that cause, right? "by propping up the price, the fairtrade system encourages farmers to produce more commodities rather than diversifying into other crops and so depresses prices -- thus achieving, for most farmers, exactly the opposite of what the initiative is intended to do. and since only a small fraction of the mark-up on fairtrade foods actually goes to the farmer -- most goes to the retailer -- the system gives rich consumers an inflated impression of their largesse and makes alleviating poverty seem too easy."

my goodness, don't hear me wrong. i am not advocating a republican laissez-faire. my wife and i wash out every friggin' cranberry juice jug and cola can and pitch it in the blue bin. but i want to share how i was convicted reading this particluar article. i buy self-righteousness cheaply, without really ever examining or deeply caring about the mess i've made (and am making). and i ignore the issues that surround me in my city right here and now to feign interest in grand global problems. i'm certainly not willing to change if it means pain or sacrifice. i prefer "the inflated impression of [my] largesse." i'm the priest who crosses the street to avoid the robbed, beat-up traveller in order to get to my priestly duties on time.

heaven help us. really.

rip

By degrees, his awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage which he found had much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another; and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often, that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes--it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. "Surely," thought he, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with the keg of liquor--the mountain ravine--the wild retreat among the rocks--the woe-begone party at ninepins--the flagon--"Oh! that flagon! that wicked flagon!" he thought --"what excuse shall I make?"

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roysterers of the mountains had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him and shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen.

(special thanks to washington irving for his text above.)

pitching tents

my brother-in-law is staying with me this week
with my sister and their kids.
he let me know about this pearl.

check it out.
(not for older readers, i'm afraid).

Pitched His Tent

oh, man!
he told me about another one...
my sides are still hurting.
listen to this --

a guy calling in to his work sees a motor vehicle accident...

birds

new photos of julia (see sidebar at right). these were taken by life and light photography.

also, because you sat in traffic today, and that was a little emotionally draining, look at this brief video entitled "birds". it's therapeutic.

groan

here's to all of you who finished studying years and years ago. cheers.

this weekend, i studied.

despite the title of this particular post, i usually really enjoy studying -- it's the opportunity costs that i deplore. this weekend i spent far too much time digging through hematology notes and articles (hematology is the study of blood -- anemia, blood cancers, problems with platelets and clotting and bleeding -- that sort of thing). i'm planning on spending a good bit of february with a hematologist, so i'm trying to brush up some on things i've forgotten since med school. that way, i look real smart when i'm on rounds.

my idea, though, was to begin to post my notes on a blog, primarily so that i can access them wherever i have internet access -- but also for the benefit of other residents. i haven't figured out how to organize them well using blogspot, but i've got adam to help (nice new look, by the way, adam). if you really have a penchant for suffering, or if you just want to delight in the fact that you're done nosing through textbooks, my new site is to the right titled "griggsnotes" under the subject heading "others high in fiber".

and i updated julia's blog with a few photos. (is this blog thing getting way out of hand?)

ticker

this will take 173 seconds
but afterwards, and this comes with a no-fraud guarantee,
you'll feel right as rain.

first, look to the right -->

just under the "about me" drama
there's a new link.
photos of julia.
they zoom nicely when you click on them.

and while you're at it,
i added a link to a fantabulous advertisement
under "this madness downloadable"
toward the bottom of the side bar on the right.
it's called "need a good doctor?"
i'm going on watching it some seven or eight times now.

bouncing baby brown

congratulations justin and laurie!

baby blake brown
born in fort worth two weeks ago.

by Jesus all things were created;
all things were created by him and for him
and in him all things hold together.
in him we were chosen
in order that we might be for the praise of his glory.

may blake's life be for the praise of the glory of the Living God.

passing walgreens

i was driving down the road a couple of days ago
and it struck me like i'd never heard it before.
the King of Heaven has called me his friend.

enough of the stupid llama

should i feel GUILTY for not having blogged recently?
why do i feel OBLIGATED to the anonymous faces that may be reading my blog?
just had to cathart before starting.
i really am glad you dropped by, being there has been no activity here for ages.
the blog was featured in kevin thompson's christmas top 20 (which, if you don't get it, man, you're really out of the loop... you should be better friends with the thompsons... it pays off... the top 20 is where erin and i first got the recommendation for napoleon, long before it had the cult following and the fashionable clothing and button line) -- anyway, as i was saying about the top 10 thing -- it just added to the pressure: a "wow, now i've really got to make a good blog" sort of pressure. but my friend kevin is just screwing with me. he knows that, just like him, i've been fed a lot of bologna (pronounced b&-'lO-nE also -ny&, -n&) about achievement and self-esteem and such [enter favorite expletive acting as a noun]. okay, that was just a little more of the cathartage.
three weeks in abilene over christmas.
worked a very light schedule with tim martin, my brother-in-law and family doc in abilene for the last two weeks of december, then had the first week of january off. off and lovin' life. sweet sleep. reading books. rolling on the ground with julia. savory time off. the kind i dream about the rest of the year. now back in the saddle. where's the sabbath-rest that remains for the people of God? hebrews four says that anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his... and "let us then make every effort to enter that rest" ...hmmm. yeah, i'm not really tasting much of that rest back at work. pointers?

bath time is best. not for the resting, i mean. i don't really take baths any more. if i did, i bet they'd be restful, but in fact -- i can't recall the last bath i had. not that i don't bathe. forget it. what i meant was that my day is best at julia's bath time. at least since erin and i have gotten home from vacationing. check out this photo and you'll get it, blow it up big if you have to:

oh, and my friend justin brown and his wife laurie (who is also my friend by the way) had their first baby, a boy, blake harrold brown. no pics available yet. justin's one of the four high school friends (that includes my wife) that i've kept up with, an attorney in ft worth, and one of the most honest and straightforward people you'll meet. ask him what he thinks about your new hair style. he's the virgil earp of the crowd. while you're at it, try to get him to tell you the story about when laurie broke up with him the summer after our freshman year of college. it was a sight to behold.

addendum: the word used above, "cathartage", shortly after the pronunciation of bologna, is what i thought was a clever neologism, a playful and novel way of handling that idea derived from Greek katharsis, to cleanse, purge. amy brought my attention back to the word with her reply, and i think she is correct -- it just sounded like i didn't know the word. not that it's uncommon for me to use words incorrectly (see the use of the word expletive bracketed above, which is not used exactly correctly... and this was unintentional). sorry if any of it rubbed awry fine anonymous ears.