Chicago, The Lovely City?

You'll see it lovely. I never will. But it will be lovely."
       -Daniel Burnham on the roof of the Reliance Building looking out over the city of Chicago

Exactly 100 years ago today.

These words were spoken by the great architect of Chicago whose impact on America still ripples today, thanks largely to his success in directing the World's Fair of 1893.

I just finished reading The Devil in the White City and these words show up near the end of an amazing book as the author, Erik Larson, provides the falling effects of the pivotal characters in his novel and in history. Though in the epilogue, the words to me serve as a prologue to the 100 years since they were uttered. In fact, I believe they perpetuate one of Larson's major goals of the book as he himself states that

Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. In the end it is a story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black.

Last night I got to experience this lovely city while at the Taste of Chicago. In the heart of Grant Park, with the magnificent skyline surrounding me, I gathered with a group of friends to watch 4th of July fireworks bursting forth from the harbor. The small group I chilled with was one among hundreds of thousands of people resurrecting a faint remembrance of President Obama floated in the cool night air--the last time this many people were gathered there. This time people did not stop in harmonious awe for the historical election, yet the influence of exploding fire was mesmerizing for most of us. Afterward we had the freedom to prance on Michigan Ave.--which was designed by Burnham--without the hinderance of blasted cars or buses. Save some times where crowds prematurely started running at the sound of a pop, some ganja scents in the air, and some sirens for emergency--all of which are inevitable at something of this magnitude--the evening matched the loveliness Burnham dreamed of.

However, as I read Burnham's words myself I couldn't help feeling twinges of pain, knowing that for however lovely Chicago really is, for the moments that it seems to shine as brightly as the White City, the deep corruption, hyper-segregation, widespread violence, and profuse death still roar from the streets like a lion defending his territory. The Black City was not destroyed by the force of the World's Fair; instead it thrived as evidenced by Dr. H. H. Holmes, America's first mass murder. The roots of a glorious, yet dark, past have allowed Chicago to grow massively, but the growth--masked in many ways as a beautiful city--cannot hide how troubled it truly is.

As with the bid for the World's Fair, Chicago is now at center stage for the 2016 Olympics as the heavy favorite. The city will have much time to prepare, unlike Burnham and Co., but the process I'm sure will be eerily similar. Buildings and parks will be created for the event alone; jobs will be created only to be lost; money will be spent, but more will be made; stars will be born and their fame will carry them. Yet in the darkness, the true city will scurry about like a rat without being thought of or bothered. The figurative cliché may ring true: You could get away with murder.

I can't help but agree with Burnham in so many ways. I'm just beginning to learn how lovely Chicago really is. However I'm also learning that the problem is that it's just too easy to say it's lovely from a rooftop and much harder when staring The Black City right in the face.

Something's Sadly Wrong About This...

Another long day in traffic. Another extended period of time listening to NPR. This time it was a short opinion piece by Daniel Schorr on the now bizarre case of Gov. Mark Sanford and his cheating ways. The title--"Cover-Ups Hurt Cheating American Politicians"--explains the premise of the three-minute long segment I heard as he opined that cheating doesn't necessarily hurt politicians (see Silvio Berlusconi in Italy for example) but the fact that American politicians cover-up their cheating does (see Bill Clinton).

However Schorr ends his time by opening us up to his own bewilderment:

One is left to wonder what makes politicians like ex-Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Gary Hart of Colorado jeopardize promising careers by cheating on their wives. Henry Kissinger famously said, "Power is the great aphrodisiac."

First, if he is right, the career wouldn't necessarily be jeopardized if politicians in America were as forthright as Berlusconi. As much as we claim propriety in this nation, I have my doubts. However, I was immediately saddened by the priorities expressed in these words.

Does one really have to wonder so long to figure out what makes promising politicians cheat on their wives? Could it be that Schorr and men like Sanford and Edwards see the political career as jeopardized by cheating on their wives as opposed to their marriages being jeopardized by their pursuit of power? Schorr's quoting of Kissinger touches it somewhat, but what he communicates in his words is that marriage should serve the career advancement, thus if the marriage is in danger, the career is in danger. Therefore politicians must do whatever it takes to portray the image that the marriage is okay, even if it includes covering it up.

What a devastating, broken view of marriage.

I pray I do not see marriage in my life as something that advances my own personal cause or career. In a conversation tonight with my pastor I was reminded that I should see marriage as a main vehicle for mutual service, sacrifice and love that exalts Christ. I hope I see marriage as a beautiful, but incomplete picture of our relationship with Him--the Church as His Bride.

In doing so I trust my public service will be honest and full of integrity, giving as opposed to self-serving. Schorr, Kissinger, and countless others have power wrong. Power is not the great aphrodisiac. Real power is found in great sacrifice.

Nothing Like Sex With No String Attached, Right?

As I was driving to a meeting west of the city today, my fingers fumbled through the radio stations I listen to, one being NPR. Brenda Wilson was at the beginning of her piece entitled, Sex Without Intimacy: No Dating, No Relationships. She begins with the basic reality facing our society today:

The hookup — that meeting and mating ritual that started among high school and college students — is becoming a trend among young people who have entered the workaday world. For the many who are delaying the responsibilities of marriage and child-rearing, hooking up has virtually replaced dating.

This shouldn't be too surprising seeing as how many of us were brought up in small social enclaves that encouraged this, not by our parents of course, but in those late night "sleepovers," free summer days with no supervision, or studying, which was the great excuse for "going over to Johns for a party to get completely wasted and hookup with a wall because I'm so blitzed."

Yeah, hooking up has always had a loose definition as far as I know, especially when hearing of my friend's latest hookup, which could be anything from a long night to a long stare, a real girl or a fake story. One girl in report mentioned that, "For me, it's been anytime that I was attracted to a guy and we spent the night together. It has been sex; it has just been some sort of light making out. That's the beautiful thing about the phrase. Whatever happened is hooking up."

As I have heard of studies done on young people taking longer and longer to move out of their homes (this is prevalent in Italy), this seems like another way where people are postponing responsibility and commitment. As Wilson writes, "Marriage is often the last thing on the minds of young people leaving college today." The average age of marriage for both men and women is higher, where the gap is between college and that time not with dating, but with hooking up. I find it to be a paradoxical combination or frightened independence and heightened individualism--basically I don't want responsibility for anyone but myself and I don't want to be committed to anyone that's going to hinder that.

Wilson draws out powerfully the result of this hookup era, citing words from one of her interviews.

Today, Wilkerson says people hook up via the Internet and text messaging.

"What that means is that you have contact with many, many more people, but each of those relationships takes up a little bit less of your life. That fragmentation of the social world creates a lot of loneliness."

Fragmentation is the key word. The relationships take up just enough of your life for you to get what you want out of them and that's it. I believe this feeds into our highly self-protective culture where everything needs to safe and in so many ways hooking up is a lot safer than love. Why? Because love is vulnerable. Love is intimate.

This is the note that Wilson ends her article on: What do we do with intimacy?

Hooking up started before the Internet and social networks, but the technology is extending the lifestyle way beyond the campus. Deborah Roffman says no one is offering this generation guidance on how to manage what is essentially a new stage in life.

The dilemma for this generation is how to learn about intimacy, she says: "How am I going to have a series of relationships that are going to be healthy for me and others, and going to prepare me" for settling down with one person?

The dilemma for this generation is how to learn about intimacy. This coupled with the striking suggestion that "no one is offering this generation guidance" is the resounding call to the Church. For all our talk about the "close, personal relationship with Jesus Christ" have we neglected modeling what true intimacy looks like?

Fact is much is lost in the hookup culture, but it is just one of countless realities in our lives that contribute to who we are as Americans, or better yet human beings. We want to be the pampered rulers of our own, individual kingdoms. For us it's earplugs for our ears only, screens for our eyes only, and as this story points out, hookups for our pleasure only. But we are designed for so much more. If the Bible is true, the first point is that our God is a deeply intimate God, first within Himself as a Trinity, and then with us, as we are created in His image. Intimacy with our God is characterized by "love" and "abiding" in Him.

God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him (1 Jn 4:16).

We can only abide in him as we recognize that our shallow pursuits of hooking up leave us empty--pleasure with no joy, gratification with no gratitude, relationship with no intimacy. We are shells of who we are meant to be.

I am sure the definition of intimacy here differs from Brenda Wilson and Deborah Roffman and yours, but I would argue that it is the correct definition and is what we all truly desire. God has modeled it for us, showing that intimacy is found in self-sacrificing love:

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation of our sins. (1 Jn 4:9-10)

We are human. There are always strings attached, even if we, like the puppet, don't know that they are. They can be toyed around with by the puppet masters of this world or they can serve as a reminder and a call to true intimacy where we could be attached to the only One can provide it.

So Many Questions, Yet One Answer

Today I had a conversation with Bob (pseudonym) who asks for money on a corner near my apartment. He and I have established somewhat of a relationship over the past two months. Part of that relationship includes me getting food for him from time to time and us talking about Jesus. By this point he knows me well enough to say my name when we meet, ask me what I'm doing, and that I am praying he knows Jesus.

Bob is a smart man and extremely honest. He spends some of his time in the libraries around the city reading books on sociology and psychology and he has no shame telling me that if I were to give him money he would buy alcohol with it and that he doesn't really want to work because he can't give up drinking. In fact, he was in college, but dropped out because alcohol got the best of him. 30 years have passed since then--all on the streets. The addiction runs deep, but denial of it is not in Bob's vocabulary or demeanor. We have talked of freedom, not found in the system, but in Christ. However, like a job, Bob doesn't think he can give up alcohol for Him. I have tried to explain the beauty that we can never clean ourselves up in order to enter God's presence and know Christ. In fact, God does not even tell us to do that. We come as we are, sinners jacked up in countless ways, trusting that Jesus' blood washes us white as snow. His work, not ours. His glory, not ours. As I mentioned in the previous post, title to all our biographies should be "Sinners saved by grace."

This story may not resonate with anyone who reads this. Maybe for some, but for most you probably won't identify yourselves with Bob thinking there are no parallels in your lives with his. That may be the case situationally. You aren't on the streets; you aren't dealing with a serious addiction; you aren't alone in life. Instead you probably have a nice place to live, are eating well, and have plenty of friends. Life seems to be good. But that's where the relationship with Bob converges. He likes his life as it is. If you like it, why change it, right? But is it possible that people's lives here on earth can actually be content in shackles? Is freedom found in contentment or contentment found in freedom? For that matter how do we define freedom?

I end with questions as opposed to an answer because, like Bob, most people don't like the answer when the big questions are asked. I've given it before; I've given it here. The answer doesn't change, but the questions do remain.

Rough Reflection: Andrew=Sinner Saved By Grace

I am sinful. Sin is a serious--gravely serious--matter. Recall that Paul wrote of himself near the end of his life that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (1 Tim. 1:15). The immediate observation is that the words for himself are in the present tense; Paul continued to see himself as the "chief of sinners." Yet he writes in that same passage about God's grace coming to him. Paul received Christ's mercy (vv. 12-17). Credit is given where credit is due--Paul as a sinner, Christ as his Savior.

This is tough because we don't have much recorded about Paul's regular struggles. We see repentance at his encounter w/ Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9) and there may be one other instance in Romans 7, but besides that there really is no recording of Paul's "sins." However, Paul did not see himself as the foremost sinner merely because of past sins, nor was it because he was struggling with blatantly sinning, taking his salvation for granted and living some kind of outlandish lifestyle in complete opposition to God though claiming to be a Christian.

I believe Paul saw in his heart utter corruption beyond self-repair. He knew only Jesus could restore him, that Jesus was, is, and forever will be the only human being to ever walk the earth who was capable of changing his heart and all our hearts. Paul saw his life as an example of God's power, writing, "I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life" (v. 16).

What Paul knew, I must know. Like Paul, I do not lose my identity while I am on this earth. I am the one created in the image of God, who, marred by sin in every way, is known as "a sinner." This truth is coupled with the glorious reality that my identity is also completely wrapped up in Christ's life-saving, merciful, perfectly gracious work to where I am also one who is "saved by grace." So here and now, in every day that I walk on this earth, I am a person whose identity is found in sin, but more so in salvation from that sin because of Christ.

I am Andrew, a sinner saved by grace.

A Prayer For Panting

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
-Psalm 42:1-2

Two things I am convicted by as of late. The first is that the God I believe in is the living God. Admittedly this is sadly easy to forget when learning a dead language and when reading a bunch of dead guys' books. Easy still more when in constant conversation about concepts and ideas that truly are lifeless apart from the Person of God. Thanks be to Him that His Word is living and active (Heb. 4:12), which so beautifully leads me to repent and remember that my God is not dead--never was, never will be. He is the living God and God of the living (Lk 20:38).

Secondly I am convicted about my longing for God, my desperation for Him. I pray to be like the deer whose very life depends on the water. I pray to be like the author, who seemed to understand his immense need for God. I see how God is not like stagnant, murky waters, but is like fresh, flowing waters. He is not a God that I should just settle for and hope that I might live; He is the God Who is deeply desirable in Whom I know I do live! I pray for eternal panting of the neediest kind.

I understand that some of these words may make no sense to some people who read this. The categories I use may seem confusing. "Why even long for God at all like this?" you might ask. Well trust me, there are times, many times, where I ask the same question. Sometimes it just doesn't mean much. Sometimes they are just words on a piece of paper. But reality hurts wonderfully when I am smacked in the face with the power of Jesus Christ.

I am reminded of something many people call the gospel--the truth that this God actually entered into the world He created, the world that had turned away from Him, and He walked completely innocently among us all. He taught, he preached, he healed, he loved, he challenged, he rebuked. He called people out; he got angry at stubborn, arrogant people; he ate with the fringe shadows of culture. Eventually he gave himself over to the people who hated him. He allowed himself to be mocked, abused, beaten, laughed at, only to then be nailed to a cross and be put to death gruesomely.

Yet in that he conquered our rebellion, our hatred, our selfishness--my numbness and deadness--and rose from the dead to prove once and for all that he truly is God, the living God. His words resound today as he said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die" (Jn 11:25-26). He is calling everyone now to turn to him, to turn from death to life because we can only have life in him who lives forever.

I hope I have made myself more clear. Life is at stake.

By His Grace.

I Am A Sophomore

There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores.”
-Mortimer Adler, How to Read a Book, p. 12

I really think I can fall into this--a dangerous trap indeed. Thus I have started reading the book quoted above in hopes to change that.

Come alongside me as I seek to change.
Don't be a literate ignoramus.
Don't be a silly sophomore.

By His Grace.