Only twelve days to go

It's settled (I just now got my flight itinerary!): I'm coming home July 2, which means I have but twelve days left here in Turkey! Every day I'm hit with the reality that my time here is all but over, and the memories and my enjoyment of my time here leaves me with a nearly overwhelming feeling of bittersweet. I've been trying to see as many friends and say goodbyes, shoot as many photos, eat as much Turkish food, do as much shopping, and wander around the streets as much as I can. Forget sleep.

In the meantime, I'm continuing with little success to find a Stateside teaching job. A few possibilities lie in Stafford and Henrico Counties (Virginia), charter schools in Charlotte and Chicago, and a smattering of high schools around Michigan. I have tons of applications out, but I never hear back from any schools. We'll see. I'm not necessarily worried at all about not finding a job, but I just don't want it to be a last-minute thing where I have only two weeks to move to a new city (or even a new state), adjust to life in a new area, prepare my classroom, and plan at least two subjects' worth of lessons.

Two questions keep popping up in all this decision making: (1) Which is more important: the school where I'm teaching, or the city where I'll live? I want to teach high school biology in a mixed-race school if at all possible, but usually one of the two isn't an option (usually the former). A few interesting openings have popped up, but in less than desirable locations, chiefly in the boonies somewhere with few good churches or social activities. I really want to live somewhere I can meet people my age who share my faith in Christ.

(2) Should I aim for teaching in an urban area? Normally I would want to have easy access to open country roads for cycling and forests for hiking and mountain biking. Without nature, I go nuts. Yet urban schools often get the short end of the stick when it comes to dedicated, talented teachers, and I think it could be a unique way to trust God with the next few years of my life to live in a lower-income area and continue learning to work "cross-culturally"--after all, I'm about as Suburbian White Boy as you can get.

Walking in newness of life

1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:1-11)

On Easter, of all days, I was thinking about baptism (and not because it was apparently a practice within some ancient churches to culminate a lengthy period of catechesis [Christian teaching] with Easter baptisms), chiefly because this remarkable passage loomed in my mind.*

Finding myself falling into--nay, willfully stepping into--into old patterns of sin in my life that have come back with a vengeance (Is this a Die Hard movie?), it suddenly clicked: The life of Jesus that is manifest in each one of us is his resurrection life, a life that is now lived after death. We are initiated into the eschatological glory of the risen Jesus through the death and rising of our baptism that joins us to him (Romans 6:4, 8-9). But the process of our transformation into his glory also involves earthly sanctification, what the apostle Paul calls "Christ . . . formed in you" (Galatians 4:19). This process of sharing in his glory (2 Corinthians 3:18) is not separate from the glory of the risen Lord. Rather, it is precisely his resurrection that makes all the difference--for resurrection can only happen when there has been a death.

The raw reality is that if I want the life of Christ to be formed in me at any given point of my life--hospitality, sexuality, stewardship of my finances and gifts, relationships with family and friends, whatever--it is going to be the life of his resurrection. And therefore there must be putting to death of my old ways. Like a Norse funeral, they need to be bound to a ship, set aflame, and sailed off into the distance, ne'er to return.

Of course, the problem is that "nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh" (Romans 7:18), and I will continually sin. Life is a battle of continually putting to death my sin through confessing it not only to God (the easy part), but also to brothers (the hard part), and through repenting of my old ways, stepping out of them and onto new paths, "that we might walk in newness of life."
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*Props to Peter Leithart for these insightful words regarding Romans 6.

Grrrrrreat!

Justin Verlander of my beloved Tigers threw a no-hitter against the Brewers in Motown on Tuesday! "Poise beyond his age," wrote ESPN's Jerry Crasnick. The 2006 American League Rookie of the Year's fastball still clocked 101 mph in the ninth inning, and his sick curveball and hit-the-brakes changeup eluded batters all night. You can watch all 27 outs here.

The final line: 9 innings pitched, 112 pitches, 0 hits, 0 earned runs, 12 strikeouts, 4 walks. Now if that's not a reason to enjoy a cold one with your buddies, I don't know what is.

And through this happy grave, to rise . . .

I wanted to pass along this latest and final baptismal poem of John Piper's, written for his daughter Talitha. Though it marginally reflects Piper's credobaptist theology, to which I do not subscribe, like much of his other poetry I find it of such beauty, eloquence, and God-exalting grace that it's well worth passing along.


For Talitha at Her Baptism
May 16, 2007

The Lord himself once stood
With John the Baptist in the river, just
The way you stand with me
Tonight, the Son of Man with perfect trust,

Fulfilling everything
Required of us, as if a spotless Lamb
Should there repent, as if,
Immersed and hushed, the great I AM

Could choose to sink in death
And bury there alone in the abyss
Our sin, a parable
Of love and hope and suffering—and this.

And now you stand with me
Tonight in these strange waters, full of death,
And put your hand in mine
To lay you down, as if in sleep, one breath

Away from heaven’s gate,
As I have done three thousand times, since you
Were eight weeks old. But now
To signify not sleep but death, and through

This happy grave, to rise
Not this time into one more fading day,
But everlasting life.
And so tonight, dear Talitha, I pray:

God grant that you would live
Forever in the faith that makes you one
With Jesus Christ, and takes
You into death with him, and life, where none

Can pluck you from his hand
Or undo what the risen Lord has done.
And when the time should come
That I, though he has called me precious son,

Must once more be immersed
In death, fear not, this is no final threat
To me or you, but take
My hand in hope, as you do now, and let

Me draw my final breath,
And enter heaven’s gate assured of this:
That you will follow me
Someday and greet me with a holy kiss.

Droppin' the update situa-tas*

So . . . I have Internet access (for a few minutes, at least)! Just like a good sermon from Pastor Kevin at URC, I have three points of interest:

1. The job hunt is, well, slower than traffic on the Lodge (M-10) in Detroit right now. A school in NC canceled my interview the day of--and didn't bother to tell me, and a school in Chicago asked to set up an interview for May 31 but never returned any of my calls or e-mails to confirm it. Needless to say, May 31 has come and gone without any news--except some news I didn't want to hear: I was not offered either of the two positions near Lansing I interviewed for that I really wanted. I now have some eight pages, single-spaced, of schools I've sought out as far as jobs, with little luck so far. Whee.

2. On Thursday night while groovin' to some hits from the '90s at what became a post-Coffee House dance party, someone mentioned, "Isn't it funny how we never forget song lyrics? I can't believe I still know the words to [some song by Third Eye Blind]!" The thought popped in my head about how, while newer worship songs do emphasize the facet of the Psalms involving personal response, they fail pretty miserably as teaching tools. What I mean is that for centuries people didn't have ready access to the Scriptures, but they did have the sung liturgies and hymns of their church worship. Singing or chanting of God's character and saving acts in words given rhythm, melody, and rhyme give us truth that sticks in our heads and hearts. (Is it any surprise that much of the Old Testament, especially the Prophets, is in "rhyming" poetry?) Even the best of us cannot memorize scriptural prose as well as we know song lyrics. Three cheers for hymns old and new richer in words of God's saving grace than in words of lying and failing promises to love God alone and surrender myself to him.


3. I'm really going to miss Istanbul. The more I open my eyes, the more in awe I am at how this really is the best city in the world. My favorite thing is to see the Bosphorus at night, especially while crossing the southernmost bridge. Unlike the daily chaos, everything seems so calm as countless warm dots of light glimmer unto the horizons among the hills. I could probably talk and write for hours or days about how darn sweet this place is. I've been all over--Rome, Prague, Sevilla, Berlin, Munich, Fez--and Istanbul smokes 'em all, hands-down. Four more weeks.

*Props to my boy Jose for that one