Shannon Warren.com

The following is a short essay I wrote about “High Moral Character” for a scholarship application back in March. Even though I didn’t get the scholarship, I really like this essay.

In case you’ve seen it before, sorry for the repeat.  You are one of the very few who noticed it.  I hope that it will be more accessible over here with the posts.

How would you consider yourself of high moral character?

Speaking of oneself as a person of “high moral character” should be enough to disqualify that person from the designation. In the words of Chuck Swindoll, “pride is the only disease known to humans that makes everyone sick except the one who has it.” Nonetheless, I believe high moral character can be defined and sought after. Generally, a person of high moral character is someone who responds honestly and tenderly to the issues (both micro and macro) in his community and world.

Contrary to our highest secular hopes, our world is caught in a war on terror perpetuated by religious zealotry. To dey the significance of that war’s roots would be foolish and dangerous. Rather, a person of high moral character knows that it is a nation’s idea of God which defines its actions; i.e., “[t]he history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man�??s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy 1 (1961).

Therefore, it is the role of a person of high moral character to seek peace through the elevation of the world’s concept of God by serving the poor and outcast. History’s great religious teachers agree. The Koran says, “righteousness is this: that one should�?� give away wealth out of love�?� to orphans and the needy�?� and for the emancipation of the captives.” 2.177. Judeo Christian scripture says, “bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring forth, then your Lord will be your rear guard.” Isaiah 58. Jesus told his followers to be like a Good Samaritan who shows mercy toward everyone, even his enemy, who is in need. Luke 10:37.

As a follower of Jesus, I believe that any nation or person who shows mercy toward the marginalized is a person of high moral character.

My efforts to live up to this standard are insufficient but are, nonetheless, earnest. I try and live a simple life of charity by giving time and money to noble causes. I personally supported many friends and missionaries in Southeast Asia during their tsunami relief efforts. After Hurricane Katrina, I volunteered at the Astrodome as the New Orleans evacuees arrived. Currently, I financially support the fight against A.I.D.S. in Africa, poverty in the dumps of Nicaragua, and illiteracy worldwide. To the homeless in Houston, I frequently reach out a helping hand by supporting homeless shelters, distribution centers, and service organizations.

Our communities and world can live as one. But to do so we must see God as a God of peace and charity. Though our battles in Afghanistan & Iraq seem to serve a short term purpose, I believe that the war on terror will not be won by warfare. Rather, peace and stability must be found in acts of kindness.

Finally, we must do more than simply talk about such acts of kindness. When discussing the Good Samaritan, Jesus asked his audience which person lived up the Jewish ideal to “love your neighbor as yourself”. His listeners were forced to reply that it had been their enemy, the Samaritan, who showed mercy toward the man who fell into the robbers’ hands. Jesus replied, “go and do the same.” Id. at 10:27-37.

It seems like the first day of a vacation should be marked by anticipation. As a child, vacations were a fantastic joy.

I was seven or eight years old the first time I went to California, my family took a vacation to Disneyland that summer. Something about this seemed overwhelming & wonderful to me. Maybe it was the years of hype which a child is exposed to or the satisfaction of having been somewhere which others had spoken so highly. Whatever it was that excited me, it worked.

I could hardly sleep the night before the trip. In retrospect, this is really odd since we were going to travel (standby) all day long the next day to California. But I could not see the path for the destination, so sleep was a bit scare.

When dad came to wake me up the next morning, he snuck into the room & leaned over to get my attention. Little did he know that I had dreamt about the Disneyland all night long, and in my hurry to get to the Magic Kingdom I sprung up from flat on my back, simultaneously head-butting him in the nose. Dad was understandably caught of guard, “Shannon, what are you doing?!”

“Are we going to Disneyland?”

“Yes, but why’d you jump out of bed like that?”

“Sorry�?� When do get to Disneyland?”

That day went on & on. We were bumped from flights & bounced from Lubbock to Albuquerque to Phoenix to the moon to LA. The planes were hot & crowded; when the flight attendant called our family’s name to be bumped one last time my heart was broken. We had to collect our things & leave the plane while everyone watched us.

“I’m never going to get to Disneyland.”

When we finally arrived in California it was too late to do anything productive (like go hang out with Goofy). I’m pretty sure we went to a neat restaurant, but not even that could distract me; I still had only one place on my mind.

The next morning we got up & walked to the front gate. Since we had a hotel across the street from the park we did not have to bother with parking. Instead we walked what seemed like an hour just to get to the ticket booth.

I remember that the main entrance has an obstructed view into the park. From the gate, all one could see was an embankment of bright flowers. I had no particular interest in flowers at the time, except even now I can remember looking at them. There was something about the California sun and those bright colors which made me feel loose & free. Like I was about to go into a place full of life.

Now here’s the most important part. Standing there, at the gate & behind the embankment, the finest moment of the trip was about to pass. Anticipation was about to expire. Whether the park lived up to the hype or not would no longer matter because my eyes would be opened to the reality of the place.

By the time we become adults we realize that Disneyland is nothing more than a well marketed amusement park with mediocre rides & over priced soft drinks. But a child still knows how to expect, to long for something. A child has not been broken of the belief that just around the embankment there lies a joy worth waiting for.

As the years have gone by I have hedged my expectations a bit. For example, when I go to Colorado Springs I know that there will be cool clean air & Pikes Peak, but I do not expect that my life will be changed by them.

Somehow — despite our expectations — these places do manage to change us. The difference, however, between the child and the adult is that of expectations not personal transformation. The child expects something unreasonable (lifelong happiness from an amusement park), and the adult is unwilling to expect anything for fear of disappointment.

In this way, adulthood seems to be more like a skill than a stage in life. Where the best “adults” are able to hide their emotions so as to not appear disappointed at any time. A well trained adult avoids the exposure of their thoughts to prevent the publicity of their naiveté.

Life in Houston has been rewarding of late. I work hard & play hard at school & church. I have friends & family that love me. My first house looks to be appreciating. Nonetheless, life is more that food, drink & shelter. It is more than academic progress & respect of peers.

When I moved to Houston in 1994 I had a Texas-sized chip on my shoulder. This boy from Lubbock was going to overcome my small-town past & conquer the big city. I left the wide open sky of West Texas for the pine trees & billboards of America’s third coast.

I guess that chip hasn’t ever come off my shoulder. Actually, I think I’ve become accustomed to having it around. The only thing is that somewhere along the line I became a third coast kid. I aggressively eliminated my small town accent & decided that a skyline was well served by a few skyscrapers.

Garrison Keller says that people from small towns work harder to pronounce French words correctly. Well, I do not know about French, but I took great joy that even the people in London could not tell what part of the U.S. I was from.

Tonight on my way to Waco I managed to come upon the crest of a hill at sunset. There were no clouds in the sky, no wild colors, no particular trick of lighting, but I was deeply moved at this new vista. I could see the full horizon at dusk and it made my heart sing.

Remember this, dusk is a sacred time for anyone from West Texas.

Ironically the very thing which draws criticism to the Great Plains, viz. flatness, is much loved by her residents. Flat open spaces make for a big sky. At dusk in West Texas you know your smallness. Looking around, the great dome presses down and nothing blocks your eyes from seeing into infinity.

Tonight, at the top of my hill, I could see the full horizon in every direction. Something about this very nearly brought me to tears. I was a child again, the sky was open.

This week I set out for the Rocky Mountains. Day one has taken me to Waco to see Jon & Christi Osborne at their new home. They have greeted me with joy and open arms and I suppose that if the whole trip were only to see that sunset & these friends it would have been worth it. But the path is much longer than that.

Day one is about remembering that life is not best lived inside the boundaries of safe expectations. In my case it would be safe to expect cultural richness in Santa Fe & world class snowboarding in Vail, but even these will fail me if I expect too much of them.

Rich Mullins said that if we look to our friendships for meaning and fulfillment we will ultimately destroy them. No human relationship can contain the breadth of life in even one human heart. Neither can a voyage.

But in Christ we come up against something which is entirely “other” from those things which disappoint. He is at one in the same time the answer to our questions and the questions themselves. In him we are free not to hedge our expectations.

Christ invites us to yearn deeper, to beg for more. He does not criticize us for expecting too much but, rather, too little. Or, that we’ve wanted things which will not satisfy.

When we open up our stories to His we experience life & that to the full. Not just “fire insurance” from Hell for ourselves or more balanced social justice for others, but a better life in the spirit of all the redeemed today.

So I’m called to open my story and trust that the well is deep enough for my greatest expectations. Christ will satisfy where others have failed.

Two days ago I posted “Desktop Potential” bragging on Google’s new desktop search technologies, but I was unable to express all the joy this little program brings.

While data searching has been available for some time, Google’s utility does more than look for key words on a hard drive. Rather, it pulls together information which before had no logical order or recall-ability. In my case, the files on my hard drive chronicle virtually every part of my life. Whereas I am probably more digitized than the average computer user, the revolution of desktop search will effect all of us.

After my posting the other day, I remembered hearing a radio spot on The Engines of Our Ingenuity which addressed the importance of the information age.

In 1945 Vannevar Bush, a futurist, saw that our present day breakthroughs with stunning clarity. He predicted the information age would be the event that moved humanity forward, not the travel or power production which others were predicting.

Keep in mind it was 1945 when Bush said,

[Man] has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion [without being bogged down by] his limited memory. [He must] reacquire the privilege of forgetting [all the] things he does not need …, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.

Google didn’t invent data searching, neither is it alone in providing desktop search utilities. But in my testing, Google’s utility is the first to cleanly pull everything together. Their utility brings the promise of the information age to our milieu; i.e. our emails, photos, journals, research papers, schedules, task lists, eBooks, and even scanned documents are now indexed and at our fingertips.

I’ve been geeked-out all week!

So, kudos to you, Google, for your part in moving humanity forward.

This was behind the pulpit at Stephen’s church this morning. Both Tim & I really like it. It may be hard to tell, but people of every walk & area of life are following Christ.

I especially like the fact that a traditional congregation would put up a modern piece. Which is something I’ve seen done a few other places over the last couple years.

I wonder if art will become the new mark of a progressive church.

I don’t mind if it does, anything which gets us away from those poorly arranged modern songs is a welcome change. Of course, we will probably end up with churches full of bad art and music if this becomes a trend.

O boy, something to look forward to.

In the meantime, kudos to Fairfax Church on the excellent painting.

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson is the only thing worth watching after 11:30pm.

Like the Daily Show, the Late Late Show was started by a different Craig, Craig Kilborn. I used to be a big fan of Kilborn�??s, but I never got past the feeling that he was a huge jerk. Nonetheless, he has worked on some cool stuff; e.g. Sports Center, Old School, etc.

As for the Late Late Show, the new Craig is brilliant. I do hope that America can get past (or grow to like) his Scottish accent. If they do, I believe Mr. Ferguson has a bright future on American T.V.

If you have a TiVo, record the show and tell me what you think.

I heard this poem (see below) on the way to work this morning. It reminds me of a book by John Eldridge, The Journey of Desire, which says, �??absolutely nothing of human greatness is ever accomplished without [desire].�?� The point being we must rise above disappointment and desire to live again.

“the cynical survive with,
their world so safely small.”

Despite what we may believe about it, sarcasm is rarely endearing. Most often it is used to keep people at bay or to hurt them. When we embrace cynicism we isolate ourselves from the joys found in sharing life with other people, what Eldridge called �??human greatness.�?�

Desire

I remember how it used to be
at noon, springtime, the city streets
full of office workers like myself
let loose from the cold
glass buildings on Park and Lex,
the dull swaddling of winter cast off,
almost everyone wanting
everyone else. It was amazing
how most of us contained ourselves,
bringing desire back up
to the office where it existed anyway,
quiet, like a good engine.
I’d linger a bit
with the receptionist,
knock on someone else’s open door,
ease myself, by increments,
into the seriousness they paid me for.
Desire was everywhere those years,
so enormous it couldn’t be reduced
one person at a time.
I don’t remember when it was,
though closer to now than then,
I walked the streets desireless,
my eyes fixed on destination alone.
The beautiful person across from me
on the bus or train
looked like effort, work.
I translated her into pain.
For months I had the clarity
the cynical survive with,
their world so safely small.
Today, walking 57th toward 3rd,
it’s all come back,
the interesting, the various,
the conjured life suggested by a glance.
I praise how the body heals itself.
I praise how, finally, it never learns.

Poem: “Desire” by Stephen Dunn from. New and Selected Poems 1974�??1994. © W.W. Norton, 1994.

Last month I raved about Springsteen�??s Devils & Dust album & included the lyrics to my favorite song on it, Jesus Was An Only Son.

In response to that post Janet left these critical comments:

First �?� if one is referring to His being God�??s only Son, then yes, He was an only Son. However his earthly family included other siblings, children of Mary and Joseph.

Second, and most important, the words �??A destination that can never be reached�?? are so mistaken. �?� He came to die on a cross to take the sins of the world �?�as the only way for us to be forgiven and not have to suffer the punishment we deserve for all that we do that is outside of God�??s will.

While I appreciate Janet�??s zeal for Christ�??s sacrifice & our forgiveness, she needs to spend more time with the lyrics of the song.

While Mary & Joseph certainly had children together, and Jesus grew up with them as an elder brother, there is still a sense in which Jesus was an only son. Forgive me for how this sounds, but He was the only son Mary had with his Father; i.e. Jesus had a different dad than her other children.

But that doesn�??t seem to quite say it; Jesus wasn�??t just different from the other kids, He was better. Mary�??s love of Him can hardly be understood by even the most loving of moms. She had the perfect son, who often times confused her, but showed her who God is. He brought her notoriety and shame, fullness and vacancy. He showed her what love looks like and how faith preservers when pushed to the edge of the abyss.

So, consider the song as written from Mary�??s perspective. Her most beloved son, born in such a peculiar way, had the shadow the cross over Him every day of His life. Despite her instinct to protect Him from His destiny she must trust that the Spirit which made this Miracle Child will not allow Him to be killed before His time.

She, like us, pinned her hopes & identity on Jesus.

Modern believers see the cross as God�??s triumph over death, but standing at the foot of the cross Mary could only see the blood and life drain from her child.

Think of it for a moment. Mary�??s delight, her hope, her beloved son, dead.

Now, consider these lyrics in the context of Mary�??s loss:

Now there�??s a loss that can never be replaced,
A destination that can never be reached,
A light you�??ll never find in another�??s face,
A sea whose distance cannot be breached

These lyrics are to be considered in the context of Mary’s expectation of loss; i.e. Mary is dealing with the anticipated grief of those three dark days between death and resurrection. Only, to the best of our knowledge, she did not know that He would be raised on third day.

With this in mind the song�??s conclusion says something profound about Christ.

Well Jesus kissed his mother�??s hands
Whispered, �??Mother, still your tears,
For remember the soul of the universe
Willed a world and it appeared.�?�

Jesus may one day speak these words to you or me, “I am going to walk you into seasons of grief, but take heart; your Father in heaven spoke and the earth was formed.”

Today my favorite news source, The Wall Street Journal, has a feature article on the mayor of our fair city, Houston, on its front page.

Aparently our Safe-Clear program continues to be a controversy. Enough to gain national attention.

The WSJ article does all things well. This article is no exception; it is fair & to the point.

As a Houstonian I have been hearing about this controversy for nearly a month. Talk radio has been caterwauling about the injustice of the Safe-Clear program since New Year’s Day. Despite my enthusiasm for conservative talk radio I find that I disagree with them on nearly every major metropolitan issue, including this one.

Mayor White has instated the first truly innovative traffic solution since the Park & Ride system. I applaud & stand by his decision to tow all cars, including my own, when broken down on our freeways.

Let�??s be realistic. How much would we spend on constructing traffic lanes to gain the equal benefit as getting broken down cars out of the way immediately? How else can we delegate that cost to the very people that are causing the problem?

I say tow first, ask questions later.

Key quote from the WSJ:

PAGE ONE
Effort to Curb Traffic
On Houston Freeways
Has Mayor in a Jam

Mandatory Towing Program
And Fees Anger Drivers;
Mr. Rivera Flees on a Flat
By THADDEUS HERRICK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 9, 2005; Page A1

…

“Nobody ought to be able to use the shoulder of the road as their auto-repair shop,” responds Mayor Bill White.

…

But in a city with inadequate public transportation, Mr. White is determined to get more cars through existing freeways.

“You can’t just build your way out of traffic congestion,” says Mr. White.

That the experiment is playing out in Houston is curious. “A city built by developers on behalf of the automobile,” says Stephen Klineberg, a sociologist at Rice University, Houston is the nation’s largest city without zoning — and a monument to unfettered growth. The metro area, with a population of more than four million, now rivals Los Angeles for the worst air and has legendary traffic jams.

…

Last year, the city’s pilot program didn’t raise hackles. But the first weeks of the citywide program, which charged all stranded motorists needing to be towed $75, resulted in a tremendous outcry. One resident warned the mayor and city council that he would go for his 9mm pistol should the city try to tow his pickup. Others bemoaned the impact on the poor, who would have their cars impounded if they couldn’t come up with the tow money.

“What commandment prohibits helping motorists in distress?” wondered the Houston Chronicle, in an editorial.

…

Garfield has found a way to confess a mistake and mock his accuser at the same time. I love it.

The moral seems to be “You fool, I’m a cat! Don’t you know we cats cannot help but claw at things.”

In the same way as we spiritually mature we need to have a sense of humor/grace toward our own imperfections. A turning point in grace comes when we realize that the accuser isn’t interested in our sanctification but destruction.

God isn�??t surprised when we �??claw the couch�?�, nor does he still feel thorns every time we mess up. Such manufactured imagery only creates guilt. To be sure He does not want us to sin, but grace is grace precisely because it frees us from guilt.

Remember, �??It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.�?� (Galatians 5:1)

When we make a mistake, it is at that moment when God�??s mercy & compassion are most readily available. Do not allow the accuser to defeat you and again subjugate you to a yoke of guilt.

Garfield�??s prideful confession is not the model for Christian confession, but I infer an understanding of his carnal impulses. �??I�??m a cat!�?� In the same way, you are a new creation with an old nature to overcome. �??I�??m a new man in an old body�?�.

Bottom line: Live like a new creation and don�??t get worked over by guilt when you mess up. Confess. Move on. Smile.

Grace is sufficient.

After winning in OT last week, my high school alma mater is making history & stands ready for Katy this weekend.

I work in Katy. Katy is flat, mostly tree-less, crowded, poorly designed, full of screaming children, and just plain ugly (”tell us how you really feel”). Despite Katy’s incredible football team I can feel a big Clear Lake victory coming on, call it the “MY-TOWN-IS-BETTER-THAN-YOUR-TOWN” factor.

Of course if the MTIBTYT Factor held true all the time, Hawaii University’s surf team would win the Stanley Cup every year. Well, every year but this one.

Nonetheless, I’m compelled that Clear Lake is due for another history making playoff win. If they do, it might be a good time to ask me for a loan as I will be in a very good mood.

Go Falcons!