A Blog By Any Other Name...

OK, quiz time. Notice anything different about my blog? Look closely. Very good. You are most observant. Yes, the title has changed. Allow me to explain.

When I use the Latin phrase carpe diem, roughly translated seize the day, I am thinking of something completely different than its evidently more universal meaning amongst the literati of past generations right up to our present time, including the fictional Professor John Keating in Dead Poet's Society, whom I had quoted in my preamble.

What I mean by "seize the day", is, don't waste one precious day that you have on this earth by God's grace. Use it to make a difference, to do something of eternal significance. Of course, given my last post, I am obviously not always a devout follower of my own principles. So maybe that is a secondary reason for changing the title, to reduce the hypocrisy factor. Just thought of that, but perhaps it has some validity.

But what really brought about this name change was G.K. Chesterton. For those not familiar with Chesterton, he was credited by C.S. Lewis himself as being instrumental in his conversion to Christianity:

"Then I read Chesterton's The Everlasting Man and for the first time saw the whole Christian outline of history set out in a form that seemed to me to make sense."

C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, p. 223

I am sure if you were to ask Chesterton today, were he alive, he would say that getting my blog name changed ranks right up there as a close second to the C.S. Lewis deal. Well, as it happens, I am not reading The Everlasting Man, but rather Heretics, on my bus ride home everyday, where I came upon the following passage:

"Walter Pater said that we were all under sentence of death, and the only course was to enjoy exquisite moments simply for those moments' sake. The same lesson was taught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde. It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joy does not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw. Great joy has in it the sense of immortality..."

G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, p. 107

So whatever I think carpe diem means, to the world-at-large, it means "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." And that is not the message I want to convey. Indeed it is the very antithesis of the message I want to convey. Paul said it long before Oscar Wilde or Walter Pater:

"If the dead are not raised,
"Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die."

-1 Corinthians 15:32b

But does Paul answer that "if" in the affirmative? Read on...

"When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

-1 Corinthians 15:54-57

So there is life after death, so what? Again, read on...

"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."

-1 Corinthians 15:58

Hmmm..."Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord"...or, like I said at the beginning, "seize the day!" Now didn't that all come together nicely?

I'm Baaack...

Hi. Remember me? Yes, I have been gone for awhile. There are two directions I could go by way of explanation. I could tell the truth, or I could tell a candy-coated lie. I think I owe it to my loyal readers, both of you, to tell the truth. The truth is, I went through a period the last few weeks where I just didn't care. And if you don't care, there is a fighting chance you don't blog.

I think it started as a physical ailment. I had a terrible cold, and it hung on for nearly two weeks, longer than your normal cold, and I even came to the point of believing I might have some sort of bronchitis or pneumonia, where I was nearly ready to consult a physician. And even though my dad was a physician, and I respect them tremendously, it is usually a last resort for me to pay a visit to one.

A side effect of this cold, besides the stuffy head and hacking cough, was to sap my motivation. I no longer cared to do anything mentally strenuous, such as reading or blogging. I basically took the path of least resistance, which was to sit down on the couch with a clicker and click through 73 channels watching nothing in particular. Now if anyone can think of a bigger waste of time than sitting on the couch clicking through 73 channels watching nothing in particular, I would certainly like to hear about it. And yet that is what I did, night after night after night.

A quick aside, I did find a couple diamonds in the rough in the midst of my clicking.

• "The Deadliest Catch" on the Discovery Channel, about crab fishing in the Bering Sea. These guys are risking (and sometimes losing) their lives in an effort to catch 175,000 pounds of crab in a season, for which they are paid 83 cents per pound. In fact, I just caught the season finale last night. So the next time I order up a plate of $19.99/lb. crab legs (quite a markup), as I have been known to do on occasion, I will think of these guys.


• "CSI" - somehow I managed to make it through six seasons of CSI without ever seeing an original episode. But partly through the enthusiasm of my daughter Kacie, I have discovered this show in reruns, currently playing several times a day on Spike TV. I enjoy the geeky science of it, and I like to try and solve the crime before they do. Doesn't happen often.

OK, back to the serious business at hand. So here I sit on the couch, watching TV, as my brain is telling me I am too sick and tired to do anything else, while all the time my mind is telling me that I am a lazy good-for-nothing so-and-so who could be making better use of my time.

This brain vs. mind dichotomy is something of which I have been aware of for a long time, and it is certainly not original with me. Your brain controls your bodily functions, and basically does whatever it takes to get you safely through your day (that stove is hot, I shouldn't touch it...that light is red, I shouldn't go through it...), but your mind controls your will. There is more of a moral, or an "ought" aspect to the mind. So my brain tells me I need to rest, I deserve to rest, while my mind tells me I should be reading a book.

The Scriptures even talk of this brain vs. mind dichotomy. Consider one of my several hundred life verses - 2 Corinthians 10:5 - "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." Think about that a moment - with your brain or your mind, I don't care.

"...we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." What does that mean? Where is the thought coming from, where is it going, and who or what is taking it captive? If we can take it captive, then it must be something external to ourselves. In my example, if my mind knows I should be doing something else, then where does the thought come from that says I can just sit here and watch TV? And why am I not taking it captive?

The way I interpret this verse is as follows; as we encounter thoughts entering our brain (from outside? from who? from where?), we need to take them captive with our mind and make them obedient to the will of Christ, so that our brain makes our body do the right thing, as in my example, to get up off the couch and go upstairs and open my Bible, or sit down at this computer and write a blog.

The classic example, which may have already occurred to some, is Paul's description of his struggle in Romans 7:15ff;

15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

So I think Paul has answered my earlier questions about where these unhelpful thoughts come from - "...it is sin that lives in me that does it." But I cut it off at verse 24 for a reason - "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

Because I want to leave you with Paul's answer to his own question (emphasis mine):

25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

My prayer for you is that your mind would be sharp and always on guard to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.

I pray that I might do the same, and make my way back here very soon to set free some more of my own captive thoughts.