Surprised by Oxford

by Carolyn Weber

Anything not done in submission to God, anything not done to the glory of God, is doomed to failure, frailty, and futility. This is the unholy trinity we humans fear most. And we should, for we entertain it all the time at the pain and expense of not knowing the real one.

The orientation movie was Chariots of Fire, which tells the story of two young British sprinters competing for fame in the 1924 Olympics. I was struck by the line spoken by the character Eric, a Scottish missionary, saying that when he runs, he feels “God’s pleasure.”

From where did this power come? Was it the presence—extension or workings or shadow—of something else in me? Or was it something else encouraging me to love through what I love? Whoa.

“What if everything operates by love?” I said to her. “I mean, what if this God presence that this runner guy feels is God moving through us and through everything we do? If so, why do we resist it? What if everything horrible that happens, from drive-by shootings to illness, is because we have broken this chain of love, and we don’t know how to put everything right again?” “You sound like John Lennon,” Linnea stated blankly.

“Why, exactly, is he ‘justifying these ways of God to men’? For whom is he writing? God doesn’t need justification. He certainly doesn’t need us. God doesn’t need anything.”

“Despair is the greatest sin,” Dr. Nuttham finally responded slowly. “It involves forgetting that God is there. Forgetting that He is good and that all He is and does extends from and works toward this perfect goodness. That doesn’t mean that He allows evil, or creates it, or perpetuates it. That’s our entwinement. Rather, He uses even our evil toward His good. We all need forms of remembering this first great love . . . writing, reading, creating, being.”

“That’s precisely where Jesus comes in. Christians believe that Jesus was who He said He was. That is, He was the Messiah, the perfect Son of God, who became man and died in our place to save us from sin so that our relationship with God could be restored.”

a Christian believes that the Bible is actually the revealed Word of God, true, inerrant, and thus ‘holy.’ God gave us the Scriptures because He wants us to know Him.

That is the bizarre thing about the good news: who knows how you will really hear it one day, but once you have heard it, I mean really heard it, you can never unhear it. Once you have read it, or spoken it, or thought it, even if it irritates you, even if you hate hearing it or cannot find it feasible, or try to dismiss it, you cannot unread it, or unspeak it, or unthink it.

Chesterton was right when he claimed that ‘the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.’”

“The more I discovered of the scientific world, the more it convinced me of the amazing interconnectedness and brilliancy of God’s design. People tend to think of science as being at odds with faith, but nothing could be further from the truth. The one only confirms the other; the one only illuminates its echo, and yet its limitations and dependence in the face of the other.”

In fact, I don’t know how one can go to medical school and not be in greater awe of a Creator than ever before.

“Please forgive my intruding, but I was curious as to your opinion, your being such a great scientist and all.” Dr. Sterling put his hand on the waiter’s shoulder. “Excellent question!” he marveled. “I’m a bit of a science-fiction buff,” the waiter admitted, “and I read all the science magazines. Always have. Before I had to quit school, science was my best subject,” he added proudly. Dr. Sterling nodded in praise. “Well, what a delight and an honor to meet a fellow with similar interests. Yes, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked such an excellent question.” The waiter beamed. “Love.”

“Life without faith is death. For life, as it was intended to be, is love. Start loving and you’ll really start living. There is no other force in the universe comparable to that.”

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came, and made My heart as dry as dust.1 —SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Do you believe this? An upstart love. A radical love. An uncontainable, indefinable, incomprehensible love. A love that invites and defies and eternally transforms.

“Prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best,” wrote C. S. Lewis.

John of Damascus: “God is infinite and incomprehensible, and all that is comprehensible about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility.”

“As Gandhi famously said, ‘I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.’ Who can blame him? I know I have often thought the same thing, and I’m sure most, if not all, of you have too.”

The kiss of life in the first garden. The kiss of betrayal in the second garden. The kiss of grace, of forgiveness, of restoration at last. The kiss returned in appreciation. Is this the difference between Eden and heaven?

It was then that I began to breathe more deeply. To breathe Him in, and to breathe me out. And then, I began, ever so slowly, to transform. I did not have to carry everything on my shoulders. I did not have to be everything to everyone. I did not have to know all the answers. Could it be that sometimes glorifying God involves negatives?

I began reading, and the more I read, the more I wanted to read. Once the Bible gets under your skin, in its powerfully charismatic way, if you pardon the pun, then we all have favorite passages, or perhaps a certain specific passage that particularly spoke to us at a significant moment. For me, as a lover of literature, and that particular night, it was the opening chapter of John. As I sat there in my tiny room with the slanted floor, the words started blurring on the page. Before I knew it, tears escaped my eyes. I tried blinking them away, but they kept coming. I blinked again. Hard. The words on the page came into sharp focus. Then everything all of a sudden became very, very clear. I knew that Jesus was who He said He was. Plain and simple and true and everlasting. I knew that I wanted to know Him. To know Him first, and then to know Him better. I knew that I had been an idiot, proud and imperfect, despite all my best efforts. I had been hard on myself and hard on others. Who would have guessed that when you really look at it, perfectionism (like anything else) can be a sin? Everywhere I turned in the labyrinth, I was met by an impenetrable wall. The only way out was to be lifted up, or a ladder out of my want. There existed no act, no achievement, nothing I could do. The only freedom was in faith. And then I knew what I did not want. I did not want to return home, wherever that may be, again and again in my life, to no one, and finally, to nothing of any importance....

And then, just like that, I was on the other side—the other end of the chasm. Through me, over me, beyond me. Safe. Saved. On that Eve of St. Valentine’s Day, I stepped out onto the sea and walked. I did not go under. Strangely, instead, even in my disbelief, through my ardent desire to believe, I was lifted up. The grace of it all poured out, like expensive perfume on weary feet, like soothing oil on a heavy head. I am sorry, God. I am sorry for all the ways I fall short, for all the ways I prefer myself to You. I am sorry that I have refused Your gift of freedom from the trappings of myself. Thank You for Your offer of real life through Christ. Please fill my hunger, please quench my thirst, please give me rest as I know only You can do. Please take me and leave only You. I am Yours.

Come away, my lover, And be like a gazelle Or like a young stag On the spice-laden mountains. (SONG OF SONGS 8:14) This is the ultimate Valentine. Dominus Illuminatio Mea. “The Lord is my Light.” Surprised by Oxford, the birthday of my life came. Yes, my Love came to me.

The unwilling bent entirely to the will of God—to the very letter—of promise, and law, and love. Dying to despair, dying for us in spite of despair, so that despair may die. I thought of how Brennan Manning imagined the Lord’s voice: “Have you forgotten that on Good Friday no angel intervened? That sacrifice was carried out, and it was My heart that was broken.”3 Suffering. Emotion. Love. Devotion. That passion could hold all these meanings in the confines of one word. And God would take my passions and use them as a means to fill me with His true passion. As He can and will do for all of us, if we allow Him.

“The point is, if you have your identity in any of these things, it’s surefire disappointment. Anything man-made—or woman-made, for that matter—will and does fail you. Having my identity in Christ first and foremost gives me the courage—yes, the courage—to live my life boldly, purposefully, in everything I do, no matter what that is.”

Don’t underestimate the power and importance of celebration. It should be our perpetual way of life—we shouldn’t be folks too rushed to say hello, or too beaten to bless, but a people recalling joy.”

“Churches are far from perfect, as fallible institutions, consisting of fallible people, in a fallible world,” Rachel conceded. “But when they do work, there is nothing like them. There is no greater high than experiencing the love of God in action among His people, for His people, and for the world.”

Church, it became clear, should “service” first and foremost one thing: Christ. It seemed to me that where we gather thus in Him, there fulfilling fellowship blooms.

She rightfully rants about her problem with the phrase used when someone dies of cancer, that he or she “lost the fight.” “Lost?” she replies vehemently. This is not about “failure” as the world tends to see it. How can anyone “lose,” fighting something as insidious as a disease, something so symptomatic of our fallen world? You might as well accuse someone of not dodging a bullet in time. From her strengthened identity in this God who works His grace even through cancer, she shows us that the ultimate coming home for those who believe in what this grace entails is far from “losing.” Lost, rather, is remaining ashamed in the persistently loving face of grace. Lost means not knowing your way home.

The really crazy thing was that these Christians loved doing this loving. L’amour de Dieu est folie. They derived joy from doing it. They conveyed joy in doing it.

I don’t know how anyone can live, let alone die, without faith.”

For now I see that being a thoughtful Christian has never been easy, nor has it been in vogue. I mean “thoughtful” in terms of both owning a compassionate faith that acts in consideration of others, and a faith that has been “examined”—that is, it has been both studied and tested. Made strong by seeing its wants. Tried and not found wanting.

From the eternal perspective of grace, I began to see everything with new eyes. Especially my relationships.