I've got so many thoughts swirling around today that I wish I could just put on a helmet that would keep them out, then deal with them one at a time, and find some peace. If you've noticed lately, (as many have, and thanks by the way) I've been blogging sermons. For those of you who get some sermon ideas from this site, have at it. I would tell a story were there any to tell. The problem with that statement is that there are always stories. They're everywhere, all around you, happening all the time. To be able to see them is the beautiful thing. If you haven't seen one lately, it's not because it's not there, but because you haven't been looking. Ok, I haven't been looking.

How do you see a story? Every story has a beginning, a body, and a conclusion. We get locked in with the beginning, journey through the body, and it's all to arrive at a conclusion which we can't wait for. The catch 22 is that the better the story is, the more we desire the end that we hate to see arrive. It is because of the end that we read on, for the end subconsciously claims to bring resolution to the situational conflict that locked us into the story in the first place. There's a promise that everything that's wrong with this story will be put right before the last page. Will Shakespeare identified the antithesis of the comedy with what came to be known as a tragedy. He would prepare his audience before hand (I would not have, but that's just me) by billing his plays as comedy or tragedy. In doing this he built a safeguard into the expectations of the audience that prepared them in advance for the state of the conclusion. Oh yes, things will come to and end, but hardly a pleasant one. Maybe that's what makes life so exciting. We are promised a conclusion to mortality yet, unlike Shakespeare's audience, we have not been told whether this is a comedy or a tragedy. Because of this, most people tend to gravitate toward one assumption or the other and this I've learned. That the two audiences offend one another by their approach based upon their assumption of the conclusion. Every tragedy includes comic elements and every comedy includes some air of tragedy. The tragic audience can't see the joy of the comedy and the comic audience sees the humor in tragedy. Each is highly offensive to the other.

To bring this rambling thought to a close, some days I wake up seeing life as a tragedy and praying for a comic end and some days I wake up seeing life as a comedy and praying that no tragedy casts a shadow this sunny state of things. Each has it's own anxiety and there's really only one cure for both audiences. Peace. Philippians 4 says "Don't worry about anything, pray about everything, tell God what you need, and be thankful for whatever He gives." I paraphrase, but that's the radical idea there. Now it goes on to say that if you do this, "the Peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus." Oh look, I just found a helmet.

Now the beauty of this is that, in Christ, the end of the story does not occur with the conclusion of life, but in fact continues on into the realm of the eternal state of communion with God. THIS is why Christians seem to live with a sense of joy even in the midst of life in this fallen world. Which, incidently, often looks an awful lot like a Shakespearian tragedy. It's not a flippant attitude toward the situational conflict that ignores the present circumstances, but a proclaimed realization that this tragedy will ultimately conclude with a reason to rejoice. Since the conclusion and not the elements determine the whole of the play, I guess Paul wasn't joking when he said to the Philippians, "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice." For a man whose earthly demise was a tragedy, that's an amazing statement. That's a man worth imitating. (1 Corinthians 11:1)