An Explanation

I know that you care, but when you ask me how I’m doing, it’s one thing for you to ask me and then go about your day with minimal thought about my response: a shrug or an “I’m… okay.” But the thing is, for me, that question is much heavier than it used to be; that question causes me to take a mental stroll through the events and emotions of the weeks that have passed, and… I’d rather not.

As I Doubt Your Goodness

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express… Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8:26-39)

Not Talking To You Just Yet

But finding comfort in Your truth:

¹ May the LORD answer you when you are in distress;
may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.

² May he send you help from the sanctuary
and grant you support from Zion.

³ May he remember all your sacrifices
and accept your burnt offerings.
Selah

⁴ May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed.

⁵ We will shout for joy when you are victorious
and will lift up our banners in the name of our God.
May the LORD grant all your requests.

⁶ Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
he answers him from his holy heaven
with the saving power of his right hand.

⁷ Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

⁸ They are brought to their knees and fall,
but we rise up and stand firm.

⁹ O LORD, save the king!
Answer us when we call!

(Psalm 20)

On What It Feels Like to Break

You should have been at dinner tonight. You would have loved it. I made some dumb comments and you would have told me so. Like Jenn said, it hasn’t really hit home that I’m not going to see you again. Or hear you lead worship again.

I called you just to hear your voicemail prompt. I wish you’d made a longer one and that you’d laughed at the end. I’m so afraid I’m going to forget. I’d rather be in pain forever than forget.

This was not supposed to happen. We were supposed to walk this walk together forever. We were supposed to go to China together. What about all your dreams and all the prophetic words that were spoken over you? What about all those babies you were supposed to have with the man God prepared for you? Who else is going to light the fire under my butt and who else is going to go through exactly what I’m going through whenever I’m going through it? Who else is going to hate to love guys who are wrong for us with me? You should have been my maid of honor. Who else is going to take the Tai clan to Chuck-E-Cheese with me? There’s going to be four of them now…

I’m sorry I left you alone in Chicago. I’m sorry I didn’t think about how much you’d have to carry when I left for New York. But, you know, you did a much better job of juggling everything than you thought you did. So many people came out to see you these past few days. Last night I wanted to tell them to leave so that I could have some alone time with you, but I didn’t because I know you meant a lot to them too.

You are so very beautiful. You’re perfect.

On Comprehending Little

How could You be so very selfish??

Contracts

Excerpt from Absolutization of the Market by Bernard Barber:

In [market exchange] the values and norms prescribe that each of the role partners in the interaction must behave like what has been called homo economicus, that is, as an economizing, rationalizing individual – considering only price, buying cheap and selling dear, treating all buyers and sellers on the market impersonally and honestly. While there has sometimes been a tendency to psychologize this notion of homo economicus, to treat it as a class of motives, to assume that when Adam Smith spoke of “man’s propensity to truck, barter, and exchange,” he was imputing biological instincts or psychological motives rather than speaking merely descriptively, it is essential to understand that market exchange behavior in the relevant situations is prescribed by values and norms, regardless of motivation, and that it depends for its possibility on a definite set of institutional arrangements. Thus, the great sociologists from Durkheim forward have stressed the institution of contract, what Durkheim called the “non-contractual element in contract,” as an indispensable component of market exchange structures and processes. Market exchange woks only if honesty is institutionalized and further supported, if either confusion of understanding or deviance occur, by a whole institutionalized law of contract. Maine had hold of a central sociological fact when he asserted that previous societies had been societies of status and that the modern world was a world of contract. Status prescribes reciprocal and redistributive types of exchange; contract prescribes the market.