Men

These men.

I admire them because they lived and smiled. Their method of living involved deep thinking―a lot of it―and if anything, swimming there in the depths where most of us would get the bends, they uncovered more mysteries than they solved. True, their faith was never tested in concentration camps, but I think it's just as impressive that these men chose joy over despair, along with people who were subjected to bodily torture. Physical pain hurts because we remember the past and fear it's continuation in the future, making it more of a mental issue than anything else; so the line between mental and physical anguish is hard to draw, or at least takes a very light pencil.
I digress...

These men fought wars, started wars, knew darkness and sorrow inside and out―and yet they didn't succumb. So today we know them for their stories with happy endings, their superb logic, their significant contribution to the arts&sciences, and my favorite, their humor. Logic didn't rule these men, even though we define them by their logic. They thought, they searched, they sometimes found and sometimes didn't―and either way gave glory to a God they believed was much, much bigger than them.

These men smiled.

In the face of futility, brokenness, perversion and death, these men, full of faith, laughed at blind logic and, with open eyes, saw significance, healing, the sacred, and life. They worked and played and stayed alive and pointed to the Creator. For that I admire them.

Is this post a tribute? No. Am I putting them on a pedestal? I sure hope not. These men were sinners; hardcore sinners like you and me. Einstein may have never even made the quantum leap from the Old Testament to the New; God knows.

In my mind, this post is a little extension of Hebrews 11. When we are struggling to look ahead, God tells us to remember. To consider, but consider the right things. He wouldn't tell us to take our thoughts captive if they weren't naturally running around as wild, naked savages in a dark jungle.

These men were good at lots of things, but particularly at capturing thoughts and directing them towards the right object. Maybe I could do the same. So cheers to a year that's still new. Cheers to four weeks of break ending soon, and to four unpublished posts to which four men would say, "Girl, you could have used your mind in better ways."

Photo Credit
1. http://www.einsteinsoilery.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/albert-einstein-boise-meridian-garden-city-idaho-oil-change.jpg
2. http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/pictures/2008/07/25/chesterton460.jpg
3. http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02094/tolkien_2094126b.jpg
4. http://c4.nrostatic.com/sites/default/files/uploaded/pic_related_112213_SM_CS-Lewis-Why-All-the-Fuss_0.jpg