The Puzzle of Life

"That won't fit there!"
"Does anyone see any more pieces with Chewbacca fur on them?"
"Oh, here's some more of Yoda's head."
That was just some of the strange conversation in our house last night. Rachel, my oldest daughter, got a really cool Star Wars puzzle as a gift for her birthday two weeks ago. After two weeks of, "Daddy/Mommy, can we do my birthday puzzle?" did my wife begrudgingly set up a card table in a corner of our, all ready too small, front room. The pieces didn't sit out long before ten hands were feverishly trying to put a 500 piece DarthVader shaped head in some prearranged order.

Those of you who enjoy working puzzles know that having the finished picture before you aids greatly in getting the puzzle completed. Without the big picture, the small random pieces don't make much sense. Oh, some of the pieces share the same color patterns and therefore might fit together, but where in the larger picture should they go? Up toward the top, down at the bottom, left, right? Who knows? Yet, if you get a small piece, one of those with a spade shaped corner on the left and a really obtuse open side on the right - no matter how sadistic the puzzle cutter was - if you have the big picture then you can see where that one small piece goes. And it is imperative that you have all those small pieces. It is all the small pieces that make up the whole. What most puzzle "putter-togethers" love is that no matter how large the puzzle, you can always figure out how the pieces fit. I wish it were the same with life.

Life is like, and unlike, a puzzle. Life is like a puzzle in that it too is made up of many small pieces, or episodes. A new friend, the loss of an old friend, a new baby, the loss of a job, unexpected money, cancer, they are small periods of existence that somehow make up this grand picture we call "life." But life is unlike a puzzle, in that, I don't completely see how all the disconnected pieces fit together. Where does my grandfather's compulsive gambling and alcoholism fit? Where does my military experience go? How about the piece that is my mother's accidental death when I was eight? Or, my inability to find a job now? I don't have that big technicolor picture in front of me, depicting and reassuring me how each episode of existence coalesces into a grander scheme.

From my perspective I can't see the finished product (you probably can't either). I really don't know where/how God is working in all this stuff. I suppose they call that faith. But to be honest, I know that faith can't be sustained on my own will power. I've tried. Believe me, I've tried. Attempting to be "right," attempting to be "faithful," attempting to "place my own pieces," ended up with me looking through the bottom of a bottle of Rum, most days. I need more than to just say, "I believe." I can't make it through the pain, doubt, and shame of the puzzle of my life on statements.

Frederick Buechner says what I feel in his book, The Magnificent Defeat,
"For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists, not just that beyond the steely brightness of the star there is a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going, but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself in the stars but in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world. It is not objective proof of God's existence that we (I) want but the experience of God's presence. That is the miracle we are really after, and that is also, I think the miracle that we really get."

The screwed up pieces of my life can't be put together in any coherent way by me, on my own. And the tangled edges of my faith can't be smoothed out in a way of fitting "nicely" just because I say, "I believe." I need more. I need the presence of God. I need the hand of the Father to gingerly pick up the mis-shapened piece of a failed career and place it carefully among the other pieces of life's puzzle. I need Him to discern how the piece of a marred marriage can seamlessly snuggle down with other pieces to form a picture that isn't hideous, but instead reflects a life redeemed by the Cross. I need more than just a proclamation. I need the miracle of God's power at work in and around me. Beuchner thinks that is the miracle that we really get. And right now, in the "muck and misery and marvel" that is the puzzle of my life, I can't agree more.

Ahhh, Narnia!

We have a rock solid tradition in our family. At least a half an hour before the light goes off, prayers get said, heads plop down, and eyes shut tight, we read. Over the years our reading has taken in a number of authors, subjects, and genres. We've sailed with Capt. Nemo on the Nautilus, we've teseract-ed with Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Which, we've partied with Willy Wonka, and rhymed with Shel Silverstein. However, one of the greatest adventures (at least the one Rachel and I took, on and off, over about an 18 mth period) was through the wardrobe and into Narnia. Whenever Rachel and I would end a volume, or begin a new one, Abbie (the second in line) begged me to read them to her.

"When your old enough, I promise we'll read them all," I'd say.
"Do you promise?"
"I promise."
"When will that be, Daddy?"
"Oh...not long, sweetie."

After two years, the time arrived. (I think I'm the more excited of the two.)

I said all that to say this: A few nights ago, we read my favorite line in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and my heart sang. If you don't know much about the Chronicles of Narnia series, most of it revolves around 4 children and a hero/savior. By some mystical happenstance the 4 children find themselves in a foreign, and often hostile, world. (Sounds a lot like me...can you identify?) Not understanding their purpose, or goal, the children resign themselves to the guidance of a friendly beaver, who tells them of their enemy (the White Witch - who likes to turn things to stone) and an elusive rescuer (Aslan). Sitting around a fire after dinner, the beaver attempts to explain to the children who Aslan is.

"Is-is he a man?" asked Lucy.
"Aslan a man!" said the Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion - the Lion, the great Lion."
"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."
"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good...."

I love that line. Of course he isn't safe! Safe? Safe? No way! Now, what makes that line so appealing to me is that C.S. Lewis was a Christian, and the Aslan character in the Chronicles is a Christ figure. When the Beaver talks about Aslan, Lewis is really speaking of Christ. Safe? "'Course he isn't safe." How true that is. Just read the first few chapters of Revelation. Voice like thunder, eyes like fire, a sword coming out of his mouth...there is nothing in that description that sounds "safe." As a matter of fact, the description of Christ there sounds a bit more terrifying, a bit more "knee-knocking," than safe. Yet, as frightening, or "unsafe," as Christ can be, the rest of the description also holds true.

"'Course he isn't safe.....BUT HE'S GOOD." Jesus' words in John ring in my head, "I'm the good shepherd." Or Peter's admonition, "...now that you have tasted that the Lord is good." Or the prayer before the Temple - at least as the Chronicler remembered it - "He is good; his love endures forever." And He is good, and His goodness is my lifeline. As Jenn and I struggle with each other, with the hurt that I've caused her and my family, with anger at many things, with our direction-lessness, with our questions, with our this and our that...as our situation seems desperate and ineffective, as we've turned our circumstances over to this "unsafe" Christ, I have to remember, this basic and important lesson from Narnia. Despite how things seem, He is good. Yes, He is good.