Love

A wise grandfather warned his grandchildren about falling in love. "You don't fall in love," he'd say. "You fall in ditches. You fall down stairs. You fall overboard. But you should plan your love life and choose carefully the person you are going to marry.

-from Parenting is Heart Work, Turansky and Miller, pg. 80

It should come as no surprise that our society takes a passive view on love. After all, we have nearly mastered the passing of responsibility, even to inanimate objects at times.  For a society that is so averse to the belief that there is a God who directs the activities of man, we so readily relinquish control of major decision to "fate" or some other ethereal force beyond our control. (Man innately recognizes his lack of control, and denial of God leads to desperate existentialism.)

Here, in matters of the heart, our society has elevated “the moment” and spontaneity to dangerous levels of irresponsibility, not taming our hearts to follow God's principles. Our culture cannot accept that someone can plan to love. In the world's eyes, love is a feeling that must by nature be uncontrollable. Nothing could be further from the truth! Does this not obviously lead to the lack of commitment in marriage that is so prevalent among us.  The love that comes as it pleases, goes as it pleases. This is not love! It is lust! It is based on a weak foundation of circumstances, no matter our strong the feelings of the moment.

This does not mean that love cannot have strong feelings and deep moments. On the contrary, true love is boundless. While some moments may be marked by the mental assent to the commitment, others are bursting with the deepest and most meaningful feelings of overwhelming love that find no match in the relatively simple feeling of lust.

The ultimate demonstration of love that is planned yet profound is that of Christ for the church. It is no accident that God uses the analogy of marriage to describe this relationship. No love has been more planned, no love is deeper, no love has cost more, no love has expressed such profound commitment as Christ's love for the church.

In light of the art and expressions of our culture of a false and diminutive love, we must give our young people examples of this love. We must strive to demonstrate it ever more to prove its worth in our marriages and relationships with friends and family. 

Wisdom

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

-James 3:13-18 (ESV)

I read a letter from a friend today.  A "real letter."  One of those things that is now a vague memory to me, something that takes days to arrive, and something that must be physically placed in my mailbox, which is a small receptacle outside of my house and not "in the cloud."

On to the point.  I read this letter, and while I have a great deal of respect and admiration for what she does for a living, I am not sure that I could do it.  You may think this a banal observation, but I once thought that I could do what she does.

This was the revelation: I find it increasingly easier to note the things that I cannot do, could not do, and am very glad to not be doing.  To be clear, I am thrilled that someone else does those things, and I feel blessed to be doing something that I love doing.  Some may not be in that position, but I love what I do for a living.  As one of my mentors oft remarked, "And to think that they actually pay us to do this!"

Call it growing up, maturing, wisdom, or come up with your own description, but my days of being able to do anything and everything seem even more vague a memory than actual letters.  That attitude put me in some precarious positions in the past.  It is quite nice to be able to simply admit to yourself, "I can't do that."  It streamlines your pursuits in life.  It is actually quite liberating.  I am free to do what I can do.

Freedom in limitation.  That sounds familiar...the Apostle Paul paints a nice picture of our freedom in Christ, to whom we are bondservants - free from sin, slaves to righteousness.

Check-in kiosk

If the airline representative is just checking me in on the 'check yourself in' kiosk. What are they getting paid for and what did they do before that I can't do myself.

Piety

I don't hear the word "piety" much anymore, unless it is the rare occasion that I get to read something non-medical.  The word, at least formerly, carried a positive connotation about a devoutly religious person and seems to have generally referred to a sincere person.  I am not sure that this is case any longer, fair or not.

I have been confronted on multiple occasions with a very anti-religious viewpoint.  Maybe the most surprising encounters have come from those within the church and those sympathetic to Christianity.  Let me explain further, there is a very real movement away from religious acts and toward spiritual being.  While they are elements of Christianity (called sacraments) that I believe are necessary to practice regularly (by definition, religious), I have also found that there is a something to learn in this idea, and it relates to humility and sincerity.

Again, I am not advocating rejection of the sacraments, but I do believe that the church in America has too often attached a Pharisaical set of ideals, rules, and/or expectations to the gospel and thus presented a stumbling block.

A list of rules to follow so often leads to a sense of religious pride, the idea that by accomplishing that list, we are better than we were, or better than someone else.  However, we know that the Law was given to us for the opposite reason.  Law is to show us our utter insufficiency, not proficiency.

There are certainly principles of conduct that are divinely right and true - love, justice, purity, sincerity - to name a few.  Jesus taught us that simple rules like "do not commit adultery" and "do not kill" are not enough for true obedience or conformation to God's character because when we lust or hate, we are guilty all the same.

So, what's my point?  My point is that piety, adherence to religion, can lead to pride.  Pride is the enemy of  sincerity in our lives, and pride and piety (in this sense) undermine the gospel.  To promote obedience as any kind of measure is to undermine the grace of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ.

This, I believe, has led to the current sense of repulsion by many in America to religion and the move among Christians for spirituality.  This is a cry for sincerity and humility.

Paul states of his ministry, "For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ."

A peddler has something that you can have for a price; we are ambassadors for one who offers a free gift.  Those to whom we preach do not deserve the gift, and as "men of sincerity," we know that neither do we.

An Update

It is a rainy Sunday in Cincinnati.  Sounds a bit like the start to a dime novel.  Nevertheless, it seems like a good day to update the old blog and tell everyone about my plans for the next few years.

I finished general surgery residency in South Carolina this last June.  Now, I am in Cincinnati at the Colorectal Center for Children (see 'My Work' in the links to the right).  I will be here for the remainder of this academic year, then on to Columbus, OH for pediatric surgical critical care.  Right now, I am also applying to pediatric surgery.  I hope to start that fellowship the year after Columbus.  In the meantime, I can beat anyone in a contest of "potty talk."  (Not dirty talk, but the kind of potty talk that any parent knows all too well, the kind that happens from infancy to potty training.)

In case anyone is keeping count, that's 4 years med school, 5 years of general surgery residency, 1 year of pediatric colorectal fellowship, 1 year of pediatric surgical critical care fellowship, and 2 years of pediatric surgery fellowship.  I can add as well as you can, so there's no need to tell me how long this is taking.  Besides, I learned some time ago to enjoy the process because it's too long to try to look past.

It's hard to see much further down the road than all of that, but you know that I don't hesitate to tell anyone that asks about my plans.  There will still be some school debt left to pay, but I do plan to get back to Africa on a mission trip as soon as I can.  I actually have not been back to Africa since I began surgery residency.  It will be a lot of fun to actually be a surgeon the next time I go.

Angela is now doing PRN physical therapy.  Although, she plans to quit that when we move to Columbus.  Instead, she wants to focus on taking care of our new baby.  Yeah, we're pregnant.  It's still early, but we can't keep it quiet.  We still haven't told everyone, so I'm sorry if this is the first you are hearing of it.  We love to tell people in person.

Well, that's the bulk of the updating.  I periodically get my hopes up about having some consistency to this blog, but so many things get in the way of that vision.  We'll see what happens...