In case any one was wondering, I love what I do. Seriously.
Today, as always, was Mondo-Thursday, a day consisting of over 9 hours of classes, 2 hours of work, and a long day with little opportunity to stop, to rest, to breathe...and to eat. Yet, for some reason, my Thursdays leave me at 9 PM in some sort of weird ecstatic state of utter sufficient joy.
Amazing.
From translating Hesiod to analysis of Priority monist and Assertion to Phenomenology to the genius, and sometimes quasi-insanity, of the Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. I love it.
Is there any greater blessing than fulfilling the person God made you to be? I mean, I'm not saying that for some strange, prodigious reason I have a precise and minute grip on my entire being and I have nothing left in this world via self-reflection to unveil and reveal. But, in the enigma of identity, both the vulgar shallows and the rigorous depths, we are given glimpses in life of our God-created origins which are meant to be our guiding lights on paths less, or not, travelled. Who are we? We attempt our entire lives to figure that out and in the process of that self-discovery we run into gaping potholes which drastically and tragically hinder our voyage.
It's our fallenness. Our depraved human condition. It's this world constantly raped and scorned by the pain and birth pangs of our broken state. It's the holes, the darkness, the inner deeps in our very existence which no drink or drug, no kiss nor knick-knack, no trinket nor trade-off, can ever satisfy such a hole (no matter how hard we try).
Too often we bare witness to broken people. We witness wrecks who hammer and pound a boyfriend, a hobby, mass quantities of hedonism and intellectualism, in order to feel complete, whole, full. In Kierkegaard's Either/Or he presents the disillusioned picture of the Seducer Johannes, who in the seduction of Cordelia, pleasures himself not with the sex, nor the relationship, nor even the social aspect, but in the pure aspect of the chase in the avoidance of the dubious 'sin' of boredom. For the aesthetic, such as the Seducer, boredom is the deepest of flaws, so deep that the aesthetic pleasure and beauty seeker sacrifices history, memory, and even his very identity as a person, for the sake of avoiding feelings of triviality and the impending lack of novelty and excitement. For the Seducer it is better to forget everything, good and bad, pleasurable and uneventful, than to place one's self into the ruts of friendship, marriage, vocation, and structure of the ethical system. Let one's hair into the wind, admit the lack of concrete meaning in life, and, in the quoting of Hesiod's Theogony concerning the artful and pleasurable Muses;
For if someone has pain and newly scorned grief
he would shrivel dry, grievous in the heart, yet the singer,
the servant of the Muses, hymns songs of men of old
and of the blest gods who dwell atop Olympus,
and at once surely the suffering man forgets his anxiety
he does not remember any cares. (Theogony 98-102)
In sum, for the Seducer, the aesthetic, and the average joe and jane seeking to subdue their inner emptiness, the only way to temporarily avoid the pain via one's busyness and interest for the sake of forgetting the grievous hearts that rest there.
We cannot fill these empty chasims on our owns. In fact, though we cannot subdue the entirety of our wounds, we still are persons, children of God, created in His image.
And thus, we are people. Not individuals who self-decide who we are; we are people whose very identities are God created. To fulfil who God created us to be is to find our truest joy, to fit in our skin, to realize that our existence is not one of completion in this world. Our reality is not fulfiled until on that final day we exalt to the uttermost in our Lord and Savior. It is then our natures and truest meaning is made real. We become less spector and more angelic.
I love life. I love knowing I am inching towards the direct center that God is (tho I have far to go)
life is good
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Homecoming Tattoos
Who do we think we are?
Literally.
Our very inner personhood is dramatically masked behind our outer ego. We wear layers of fabric with fancy knick-knacks, brand names, and quasi-art. We place our language ahead of ourselves, verbs and adjectives, nouns and pronouns, articulate jargon and the vulgar tongue of our current period. In front of our language, we allow our feelings and anxieties to march along in proud lines, straight and attentive. Yet, behind it all, we have personhood, who God created us to be. And in the midst of the dark and dreary human condition of spiraling disappointment, despair, and deadly desires of our fallen and crooked world we lose that little piece of us still aligned with our creator. And thus, we hide from our very identity and whisper of it in the shadows, a dream that now seems too good to be true.
In spite of the horrid words we say, the silly and frivolous things we do, and the empty promises we make, there is, and will be, a heaven.
A heaven.
What is heaven? It's where our vulgar and veiling habits pale, they fade, their unreality becomes the shadows and specters that they truly are. And there, finally, we can become real, more real than we were before. Our inability to be as real as him floats away, falls off like scales and dust. We become less of our individuality and more like Christ-followers.
I thought about heaven driving yesterday, a place I've never been and want so dearly to be. How easy it is to be proud of where you want to be, and how hard it is when you're somewhere foreign or hostile to such an idea. Isn't that sad? Here I am, a proud citizen of my Lord and Savior's kingdom, and in the coming of battle or conflict I fade into oblivion our of sheer cowardice and suddenly realize my allegiance was never completely to Him, for I kept a piece of myself behind.
One always must preach with conviction, whether by method of life or by the words we say. It is by the grace and love of God that we carry on, but lest we forget our maker and His lifting of us, we must mark Him upon our hearts, wear Him upon our lips, and tattoo Him upon our very being, a marker of His territory upon our hearts.
I love Him. Just not very well. What a great Father to forgive a chump like me!
Even Elephants Forget
Love you all too! Sleep tite
Literally.
Our very inner personhood is dramatically masked behind our outer ego. We wear layers of fabric with fancy knick-knacks, brand names, and quasi-art. We place our language ahead of ourselves, verbs and adjectives, nouns and pronouns, articulate jargon and the vulgar tongue of our current period. In front of our language, we allow our feelings and anxieties to march along in proud lines, straight and attentive. Yet, behind it all, we have personhood, who God created us to be. And in the midst of the dark and dreary human condition of spiraling disappointment, despair, and deadly desires of our fallen and crooked world we lose that little piece of us still aligned with our creator. And thus, we hide from our very identity and whisper of it in the shadows, a dream that now seems too good to be true.
In spite of the horrid words we say, the silly and frivolous things we do, and the empty promises we make, there is, and will be, a heaven.
A heaven.
What is heaven? It's where our vulgar and veiling habits pale, they fade, their unreality becomes the shadows and specters that they truly are. And there, finally, we can become real, more real than we were before. Our inability to be as real as him floats away, falls off like scales and dust. We become less of our individuality and more like Christ-followers.
I thought about heaven driving yesterday, a place I've never been and want so dearly to be. How easy it is to be proud of where you want to be, and how hard it is when you're somewhere foreign or hostile to such an idea. Isn't that sad? Here I am, a proud citizen of my Lord and Savior's kingdom, and in the coming of battle or conflict I fade into oblivion our of sheer cowardice and suddenly realize my allegiance was never completely to Him, for I kept a piece of myself behind.
One always must preach with conviction, whether by method of life or by the words we say. It is by the grace and love of God that we carry on, but lest we forget our maker and His lifting of us, we must mark Him upon our hearts, wear Him upon our lips, and tattoo Him upon our very being, a marker of His territory upon our hearts.
I love Him. Just not very well. What a great Father to forgive a chump like me!
Even Elephants Forget
Love you all too! Sleep tite
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
A Second Leg
A person close to myself mentioned recently that my last post was...well...a bit harsh lets say. She insinuated that the language was sharp and the message somewhat bitter and brash. For the last couple days I've thought about that, pondered it, prayed about it, and somehow I've actually found the time to respond.
I stand by what I wrote. Completely. However, I stand behind it like a one-legged man stands besides a brick wall...one leggedly. In that sense I feel that my message did not fail, nor state something wrong or heretical (much less utterly honest) rather, it was incomplete, underfed, and...well...
one legged.
We have given ourselves to our idols; daily. Not merely our greed, our lust, and our "college culture morality" but also our facetiousness, our prejudice, and even our sloth. Everyday we succumb to mere animalistic pleasures, to our own poor inclinations, and the easy paths we pave across unstable grounds. The thing is, many of us have given up on our God via our methods and actions and have allowed these 'foreign deities' to become our objects of worship thru unholy sacraments of our many sins and trespasses. Still, I see others, some figments of the media, some close friends, and even the guy writing this garbage.
Yeah, me too.
None of us are acting like grace matters. We cry for comfort and rest, but what we really mean by that is that we want to be sedated, numbed, pumped full of anaesthesia and laughing gas in the fashion of a Houdini. We're Christians, not escapists. For how down-trodden and vapidly wretched this earth is, our catharsis will be (and is) very short lived if we are embracing our very limited (not to mention cheap and powerless) resources of hap and laugh. There's nothing wrong enjoying a beer or two, indulging upon a pizza, or wrapping one's arms around their beloved, but it is when we have exalted these goods to the highest of peaks that we have begun the construction of our own Mt. Olympus and it's precious, but shoddy, Parthenon of knick-knack gods, bubbly and empty-headed nymphs, and angels of dissension and disdain.
And that's why we need grace. That's why grace matters. Until we can accept His hands as our guide, and until we can honestly admit the dirt and filth we have not only swallowed but have considered a feast and have venerated as such, is just what it really is; until then we cannot accept grace whatsoever.
As for grace...what an amazing thing! John 10:10 states that the thief comes only to kill and steal, but that Christ comes that others may have life. That's the thing about these idols we have fallen to venerate; they don't come to us, we must come to them. Christ reverses this, in fact, he comes to us. He knocks at the door and beckons us to answer and let Him in. He asks us to set Him upon our highest place, to offer Him our praise and daily devotion. We cannot serve two masters, we cannot sing two songs, our hearts cannot be aligned to two polar opposites.
And thus we come back to heaven. We come back to the only thing that can truly satisfy our hearts. This is why I miss heaven. I'm sick of screwing up, I'm sick off worshiping mythological gods and goddesses and following their empty rituals. I hate our modern temples of capitalism, ambiguous lust, and empty evenings devoid of moral intentions. That's the other leg of it all.
What a great Savior!
I stand by what I wrote. Completely. However, I stand behind it like a one-legged man stands besides a brick wall...one leggedly. In that sense I feel that my message did not fail, nor state something wrong or heretical (much less utterly honest) rather, it was incomplete, underfed, and...well...
one legged.
We have given ourselves to our idols; daily. Not merely our greed, our lust, and our "college culture morality" but also our facetiousness, our prejudice, and even our sloth. Everyday we succumb to mere animalistic pleasures, to our own poor inclinations, and the easy paths we pave across unstable grounds. The thing is, many of us have given up on our God via our methods and actions and have allowed these 'foreign deities' to become our objects of worship thru unholy sacraments of our many sins and trespasses. Still, I see others, some figments of the media, some close friends, and even the guy writing this garbage.
Yeah, me too.
None of us are acting like grace matters. We cry for comfort and rest, but what we really mean by that is that we want to be sedated, numbed, pumped full of anaesthesia and laughing gas in the fashion of a Houdini. We're Christians, not escapists. For how down-trodden and vapidly wretched this earth is, our catharsis will be (and is) very short lived if we are embracing our very limited (not to mention cheap and powerless) resources of hap and laugh. There's nothing wrong enjoying a beer or two, indulging upon a pizza, or wrapping one's arms around their beloved, but it is when we have exalted these goods to the highest of peaks that we have begun the construction of our own Mt. Olympus and it's precious, but shoddy, Parthenon of knick-knack gods, bubbly and empty-headed nymphs, and angels of dissension and disdain.
And that's why we need grace. That's why grace matters. Until we can accept His hands as our guide, and until we can honestly admit the dirt and filth we have not only swallowed but have considered a feast and have venerated as such, is just what it really is; until then we cannot accept grace whatsoever.
As for grace...what an amazing thing! John 10:10 states that the thief comes only to kill and steal, but that Christ comes that others may have life. That's the thing about these idols we have fallen to venerate; they don't come to us, we must come to them. Christ reverses this, in fact, he comes to us. He knocks at the door and beckons us to answer and let Him in. He asks us to set Him upon our highest place, to offer Him our praise and daily devotion. We cannot serve two masters, we cannot sing two songs, our hearts cannot be aligned to two polar opposites.
And thus we come back to heaven. We come back to the only thing that can truly satisfy our hearts. This is why I miss heaven. I'm sick of screwing up, I'm sick off worshiping mythological gods and goddesses and following their empty rituals. I hate our modern temples of capitalism, ambiguous lust, and empty evenings devoid of moral intentions. That's the other leg of it all.
What a great Savior!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Eatting Our Own Filth
No one drives in construction.
I remember a few years ago, Melissa and I were driving down some back country roads in the Jamestown area. After going to visit a friend's newborn baby boy we said our goodbyes, got in my decrepit yet cozy 1986 duct-tape gray Taurus, and started heading out as the sun set behind the horizon, covering the grassy hills in total darkness. So, I was behind the wheel, talking together, paying little attention where we were actually going, after all, eventually we would find our way out. Suddenly, a road sign, an orange flash, a construction sign. She smiled and reassured me, hey, it's Michigan, they're always filling in a couple potholes, no big deal. As we drove my headlights shook as my tires hit a massive bump, THUD! The pavement road without warning became a vast, indiscernible stretch of mud, stones, and gravel, not an inch of concrete or asphalt in sight.
Not cool.
I leaned over the steering wheel, hunching over it and squinting in a desperate attempt to grasp any apparent obstacles in the road. She stared back at me, stating how bad an idea this was and how she really didn't trust my driving abilities. Confidence builder right there, folks. As she mentioned this as I attempted to shrug off the last remark we watched as a massive concrete pillar passed inches away from the hood of my car. Luckily, in the next mile we eventually got back on solid pavement with very few other close calls.
Next time, it would be wise to pay attention to bright orange signs on a dark, desolate country road. Lesson learned.
But we don't. It's kills me to see people driving into the dark places, all the while ignoring the hunter's orange warning we have in our very midst. Can our hearts and souls truly fly under the banner of His kingdom when our desires and misconceived conceptions of joys have blinded our better judgements to the graces of God.
We have satisfied our lives with the merest and most humble of trinkets and knick-nacks, plastic coins and counterfeits dollars, imitations and illusions. We have offered sacrifices to Bacchus and Aphrodite and have somehow asked their graces to justify the lust and devious lifestyles we choose to live. And we have made it alright, in fact, natural, based upon such a fickle allegiance. And each day we prove it. This world was not created by a loving God, no. We have affirmed time and time again by our midnight festivals of greed and excess and glorious antics that our world belongs to Eros and Dionysus, our actions are mere rituals to our pagan idols, our hearts are corrupted and pump their luxury to feed our longings, and our God is nothing more than a joke or, at best, a brand name of ideology which we have complete choice to remove, to hide, or to completely disown when necessary for our own selfish gain of status, of sex, of solution. We have profaned what is holy, we have taken God gifts and converted them and twisted them into weapons of scorn and disgrace. We live, we die, we hang desperately on every inch of sex, of pleasure, of anything we can certainly get our hands on, or at least envision and dream of such, in that process we have lost our God and when we cry out to him, we have realized the most horrible thing;
We forgot His very name.
I miss heaven. I have never been there, but I dearly miss it right now. I miss the lack of hedonism, I miss the open spaces, I miss the warm hearts and the loving eyes, I miss seeing Christ glow unheeded in every person by their every word and movement. I miss that feeling of waking up after a good night's sleep, feeling the covers wrapped around your legs as they stretch between lays of linen as the sun gently pushes itself through the thin blinds. Poison is flowing as freely as we breath and eat and sleep. We are ingesting our own filth and vermin, swimming in our feces and vomit, with the dreadful lack of realization that we can no longer live in the shadow of probity or morality; we enjoy the dark places better. We enjoy the muck and the grime, it has become our home and soon it comes...yes...that the simple pleasures of the underbelly push aside the grandest heavens and the most joyful promises of salvation, for the wallowing and the eating of trash is suddenly our feast. We have been offered a cash for clunkers deal and have turned it down, foolishly finding sentiment and enjoyment in our old, rusted rigs.
I'm sorry if I step on toes, or if I'm too straight-forward, or too old-fashioned and, dare I say, sectarian here, but here's what is killing me; we have so much need for sex and a drunken night and for lust and supposed love and our greed that we forget to ask the two main questions anyone should ask about any action...how and why is this fulfilling my personhood? Are we truly being fulfilled by such simple, clay vessels? Is this truly the glory of God, the emulation and actualization of such pagan idols we've grown so far of. Can the banner of God fly over such a dump as this?
Grace is prevalent, grace is perfect, grace will never forsake us, never let us down, never let us go. God will ALWAYS be there fore His children, who suffer through hardships, who miss their heavenly homes. Who struggle with numerous sufferings, who fear the possible affects of sickness and affliction, who have lost their income and are desperate to find a way to feed their families. God is there. Grace is there.
Sadly, I have seen the unthinkable. Christians don't want grace. Not the one's I've seen. They want Eros, they want Bacchus, they want wine and folly, sex and sensuality, hedonism and all the pleasure of the world. In the deplorable vulgar terms not uncommon, they want to be touched in everywhich place in the most sacred of ways, they want to be wasted beyond recognition and to wake with fuzzy memories which in some strange metaphysical way means that "joy was in this place". Christianity may be fading in many parts of the modern world, but on the contrary, the Bacchae, the wild priestesses and priests of Dionysus who roamed his realm in drunken rage, devouring raw animal flesh and tearing apart innocent bystanders, it is this cult who is growing and multiplying quite nicely in the bars and clubs across America. The classics departments may be dwindling at universities across the board, yet the pagan gods are living quite well and are as popular as ever if we would only take a second to look. Christians want these gods, non-Christains the same want these gods. These gods are ruling our realm with a satisfying fist, and we suddenly find grace stuffy and prudish, boring and predictable, a concept or fine memory of childish religious lore with no place in our weekends (though church may offer an hour and a half of happy memory).
We don't want grace. Sadly, warning signs are posted, hell is a pillar on a torn road away. If we miss such warning we will awake some morning to find that years of aliengence to the underworld and our pagan gods has suddenly left us in a vapid state, that our hedonism has, rather than fill us, indebted us to our own unquenchable desires, desires which we only meant to be quenched by a heavenly ambrosia straight from Christ Himself. And then, at that moment, our lives will hold no meaning nor point, our faith will be at the last stage of antrophy and we will wish for "the good ol' days" where the cross held meaning, when life seemed purposeful, when community was centered on more than the local drink and love was something found mostly outsides of one's bedroom door. And then, at that moment, we will try to sip from grace and find its taste pungent to our wine-coated lips, and at that moment a hard road awaits, and sadly most will divert, toss their vile of grace, and find their vodka and gin a much more suitable cocktail.
Pity those who miss grace.
If you thirst for something, if you desire for more than evenings of pleasure which ends in empty dreams, then you miss heaven too.
Miss it with me.
I hope to see you on this earth. I hope even more to see you soon in the higher realm.
Love you all
I remember a few years ago, Melissa and I were driving down some back country roads in the Jamestown area. After going to visit a friend's newborn baby boy we said our goodbyes, got in my decrepit yet cozy 1986 duct-tape gray Taurus, and started heading out as the sun set behind the horizon, covering the grassy hills in total darkness. So, I was behind the wheel, talking together, paying little attention where we were actually going, after all, eventually we would find our way out. Suddenly, a road sign, an orange flash, a construction sign. She smiled and reassured me, hey, it's Michigan, they're always filling in a couple potholes, no big deal. As we drove my headlights shook as my tires hit a massive bump, THUD! The pavement road without warning became a vast, indiscernible stretch of mud, stones, and gravel, not an inch of concrete or asphalt in sight.
Not cool.
I leaned over the steering wheel, hunching over it and squinting in a desperate attempt to grasp any apparent obstacles in the road. She stared back at me, stating how bad an idea this was and how she really didn't trust my driving abilities. Confidence builder right there, folks. As she mentioned this as I attempted to shrug off the last remark we watched as a massive concrete pillar passed inches away from the hood of my car. Luckily, in the next mile we eventually got back on solid pavement with very few other close calls.
Next time, it would be wise to pay attention to bright orange signs on a dark, desolate country road. Lesson learned.
But we don't. It's kills me to see people driving into the dark places, all the while ignoring the hunter's orange warning we have in our very midst. Can our hearts and souls truly fly under the banner of His kingdom when our desires and misconceived conceptions of joys have blinded our better judgements to the graces of God.
We have satisfied our lives with the merest and most humble of trinkets and knick-nacks, plastic coins and counterfeits dollars, imitations and illusions. We have offered sacrifices to Bacchus and Aphrodite and have somehow asked their graces to justify the lust and devious lifestyles we choose to live. And we have made it alright, in fact, natural, based upon such a fickle allegiance. And each day we prove it. This world was not created by a loving God, no. We have affirmed time and time again by our midnight festivals of greed and excess and glorious antics that our world belongs to Eros and Dionysus, our actions are mere rituals to our pagan idols, our hearts are corrupted and pump their luxury to feed our longings, and our God is nothing more than a joke or, at best, a brand name of ideology which we have complete choice to remove, to hide, or to completely disown when necessary for our own selfish gain of status, of sex, of solution. We have profaned what is holy, we have taken God gifts and converted them and twisted them into weapons of scorn and disgrace. We live, we die, we hang desperately on every inch of sex, of pleasure, of anything we can certainly get our hands on, or at least envision and dream of such, in that process we have lost our God and when we cry out to him, we have realized the most horrible thing;
We forgot His very name.
I miss heaven. I have never been there, but I dearly miss it right now. I miss the lack of hedonism, I miss the open spaces, I miss the warm hearts and the loving eyes, I miss seeing Christ glow unheeded in every person by their every word and movement. I miss that feeling of waking up after a good night's sleep, feeling the covers wrapped around your legs as they stretch between lays of linen as the sun gently pushes itself through the thin blinds. Poison is flowing as freely as we breath and eat and sleep. We are ingesting our own filth and vermin, swimming in our feces and vomit, with the dreadful lack of realization that we can no longer live in the shadow of probity or morality; we enjoy the dark places better. We enjoy the muck and the grime, it has become our home and soon it comes...yes...that the simple pleasures of the underbelly push aside the grandest heavens and the most joyful promises of salvation, for the wallowing and the eating of trash is suddenly our feast. We have been offered a cash for clunkers deal and have turned it down, foolishly finding sentiment and enjoyment in our old, rusted rigs.
I'm sorry if I step on toes, or if I'm too straight-forward, or too old-fashioned and, dare I say, sectarian here, but here's what is killing me; we have so much need for sex and a drunken night and for lust and supposed love and our greed that we forget to ask the two main questions anyone should ask about any action...how and why is this fulfilling my personhood? Are we truly being fulfilled by such simple, clay vessels? Is this truly the glory of God, the emulation and actualization of such pagan idols we've grown so far of. Can the banner of God fly over such a dump as this?
Grace is prevalent, grace is perfect, grace will never forsake us, never let us down, never let us go. God will ALWAYS be there fore His children, who suffer through hardships, who miss their heavenly homes. Who struggle with numerous sufferings, who fear the possible affects of sickness and affliction, who have lost their income and are desperate to find a way to feed their families. God is there. Grace is there.
Sadly, I have seen the unthinkable. Christians don't want grace. Not the one's I've seen. They want Eros, they want Bacchus, they want wine and folly, sex and sensuality, hedonism and all the pleasure of the world. In the deplorable vulgar terms not uncommon, they want to be touched in everywhich place in the most sacred of ways, they want to be wasted beyond recognition and to wake with fuzzy memories which in some strange metaphysical way means that "joy was in this place". Christianity may be fading in many parts of the modern world, but on the contrary, the Bacchae, the wild priestesses and priests of Dionysus who roamed his realm in drunken rage, devouring raw animal flesh and tearing apart innocent bystanders, it is this cult who is growing and multiplying quite nicely in the bars and clubs across America. The classics departments may be dwindling at universities across the board, yet the pagan gods are living quite well and are as popular as ever if we would only take a second to look. Christians want these gods, non-Christains the same want these gods. These gods are ruling our realm with a satisfying fist, and we suddenly find grace stuffy and prudish, boring and predictable, a concept or fine memory of childish religious lore with no place in our weekends (though church may offer an hour and a half of happy memory).
We don't want grace. Sadly, warning signs are posted, hell is a pillar on a torn road away. If we miss such warning we will awake some morning to find that years of aliengence to the underworld and our pagan gods has suddenly left us in a vapid state, that our hedonism has, rather than fill us, indebted us to our own unquenchable desires, desires which we only meant to be quenched by a heavenly ambrosia straight from Christ Himself. And then, at that moment, our lives will hold no meaning nor point, our faith will be at the last stage of antrophy and we will wish for "the good ol' days" where the cross held meaning, when life seemed purposeful, when community was centered on more than the local drink and love was something found mostly outsides of one's bedroom door. And then, at that moment, we will try to sip from grace and find its taste pungent to our wine-coated lips, and at that moment a hard road awaits, and sadly most will divert, toss their vile of grace, and find their vodka and gin a much more suitable cocktail.
Pity those who miss grace.
If you thirst for something, if you desire for more than evenings of pleasure which ends in empty dreams, then you miss heaven too.
Miss it with me.
I hope to see you on this earth. I hope even more to see you soon in the higher realm.
Love you all
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
In the Midst of Distraction
It's been a while...time flies when you're supposedly busy.
Christians are irking. Christians are easily distracted. It's no wonder the greater mass of philosophers have often looked at Christianity as a quasi-political, financial, or ignoramus social-structure whose assertion of power is only overshadowed by their ungrace and disgrace of those "sinners" who are so "different" from themselves. Sadly, there is a horrible and tradgic correlation often between one's adjective of Christianity and one's dilusion of purpose within the life of being a genuine, faith-driven Christ-follower. How easy it is to, despite our obvious commitment to adhere to God's Will and Word, to blind ourselves with self-agendas while we slowly alienate ourselves from the path Christ has called for us. In this way, we've become idol-worshipers whose concern is political and cultural (not that these do not have purpose) rather than primarily as a loyal citizen of God's kingdom. For example, abortion is never explicitly mentioned in the entire Bible yet often it becomes a halmark issue for the Christian community, we cry out "murder, murder" and create sarcastic phrases such as "How would you feel if you were aborted?" and such which only further divided the undecided and lost, the pregenant prostitute and the raped teenager. Yet, in the midst of such protest and petition, enraged speech and outright condemnation, have we yet realized that one of the most spoken topics in the entire Bible is in fact the horrors of the sin of greed? Yet, how often are we as Christians so happy to scream out the wrongs of abortion while our bank accounts are full and soon emptied on our own selfish desires rather than the world's suffering?
Here's the deal. We've destracted ourselves, we've let ourselves become totally blinded by our idealogies and have forgotten that our love and proclomation of the gospel, the "good news" (euangellos), is first and foremost concern in our lives rather than creating an earthly kingdom where we can remain comfortable. We are supposed to be proclaiming our savior in our schools, our jobs, our homes, and on our way throughout the world, as St. Francis says using words if our actions through our faith fail utterly. We are to proclaim. As Barth says in his Church Dogmatics;
"If the social work of the Church as such were to try to be proclamation, it could only become propaganda, and not very worthy propaganda at that. Genuine Christian love must always start back at the thought of pretending to proclamation of the love of Christ with it's only too human action." Church Dogmatics; Vol. 1, Sec. 3, pg. 50
Our social activism is meaningful and important, but in the midst of our political and cultural action, we cannot ignore the importance of our calling to truly bring Christ to the alienated and isolated. We cannot as Christ-followers continue to concern ourselves with our self-will and self-proclamation of our greatness and ideals while the gospel and love of Christ remains a dormant object, a resounding gong.
It doesn't matter what it is, if it is of this earth it is mere noise and racket unless such action proclames revelation to God and His perfect will. We have spent too much time complaining about political oppression, cultural shock, and even the supposed falling-short of our fellow Christians. In fact, we could fill sermon after sermon criticizing each other and our fallenness, and I am sure we would never come close to running out of material! But, is that what it means to be a Christ-follower? To proclaim something or someone other than Christ, His will, love, and work in us? Take a second. Think about it. In the midst of conforming to our Savior, we have tripped up again and in this way we have gone from abundance to decay and are now just realizing something is wrong with Christianity, and believe me, removing our educators, petitioning our government, or hiding our blasphemous greed is mere idolitry of this world rather than dedication to our Lord and Savior.
We must proclaim with our lives and our mouth first and foremost. Live your agendas and self-issues at the door. The truest servent of their Savior will let His Source flow living water through him or her rather than their own brilliance, arrogance, or proclamations.
Devote yourself to Him, He won't let you down.
Christians are irking. Christians are easily distracted. It's no wonder the greater mass of philosophers have often looked at Christianity as a quasi-political, financial, or ignoramus social-structure whose assertion of power is only overshadowed by their ungrace and disgrace of those "sinners" who are so "different" from themselves. Sadly, there is a horrible and tradgic correlation often between one's adjective of Christianity and one's dilusion of purpose within the life of being a genuine, faith-driven Christ-follower. How easy it is to, despite our obvious commitment to adhere to God's Will and Word, to blind ourselves with self-agendas while we slowly alienate ourselves from the path Christ has called for us. In this way, we've become idol-worshipers whose concern is political and cultural (not that these do not have purpose) rather than primarily as a loyal citizen of God's kingdom. For example, abortion is never explicitly mentioned in the entire Bible yet often it becomes a halmark issue for the Christian community, we cry out "murder, murder" and create sarcastic phrases such as "How would you feel if you were aborted?" and such which only further divided the undecided and lost, the pregenant prostitute and the raped teenager. Yet, in the midst of such protest and petition, enraged speech and outright condemnation, have we yet realized that one of the most spoken topics in the entire Bible is in fact the horrors of the sin of greed? Yet, how often are we as Christians so happy to scream out the wrongs of abortion while our bank accounts are full and soon emptied on our own selfish desires rather than the world's suffering?
Here's the deal. We've destracted ourselves, we've let ourselves become totally blinded by our idealogies and have forgotten that our love and proclomation of the gospel, the "good news" (euangellos), is first and foremost concern in our lives rather than creating an earthly kingdom where we can remain comfortable. We are supposed to be proclaiming our savior in our schools, our jobs, our homes, and on our way throughout the world, as St. Francis says using words if our actions through our faith fail utterly. We are to proclaim. As Barth says in his Church Dogmatics;
"If the social work of the Church as such were to try to be proclamation, it could only become propaganda, and not very worthy propaganda at that. Genuine Christian love must always start back at the thought of pretending to proclamation of the love of Christ with it's only too human action." Church Dogmatics; Vol. 1, Sec. 3, pg. 50
Our social activism is meaningful and important, but in the midst of our political and cultural action, we cannot ignore the importance of our calling to truly bring Christ to the alienated and isolated. We cannot as Christ-followers continue to concern ourselves with our self-will and self-proclamation of our greatness and ideals while the gospel and love of Christ remains a dormant object, a resounding gong.
It doesn't matter what it is, if it is of this earth it is mere noise and racket unless such action proclames revelation to God and His perfect will. We have spent too much time complaining about political oppression, cultural shock, and even the supposed falling-short of our fellow Christians. In fact, we could fill sermon after sermon criticizing each other and our fallenness, and I am sure we would never come close to running out of material! But, is that what it means to be a Christ-follower? To proclaim something or someone other than Christ, His will, love, and work in us? Take a second. Think about it. In the midst of conforming to our Savior, we have tripped up again and in this way we have gone from abundance to decay and are now just realizing something is wrong with Christianity, and believe me, removing our educators, petitioning our government, or hiding our blasphemous greed is mere idolitry of this world rather than dedication to our Lord and Savior.
We must proclaim with our lives and our mouth first and foremost. Live your agendas and self-issues at the door. The truest servent of their Savior will let His Source flow living water through him or her rather than their own brilliance, arrogance, or proclamations.
Devote yourself to Him, He won't let you down.
Friday, August 14, 2009
A Right to speak, A Right to life; A Right to take and a Right to Strife
"The teaching of the sermon on the mount is not 'Do your Duty' but is, in effect, "Do what is NOT your duty.' It is not your duty to go the second miles, or to turn the other cheek, but Jesus said that if we are His disciples, we will always do these things. We will not say 'oh well, I just can't do anymore, and I've been so misrepresented and misunderstood.' Everytime I insist on having my OWN rights, I hurt the Son of God, while in fact I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I will take the blow myself.
That is the real meaning of filling 'up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ...' (Colossians 1:24). A disciple realizes that it is his or her Lord's honor that is at stake in his life, NOT his or her OWN honor." -Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest July 14
One thing I have seen this summer is this; people always have rights (or at least think they do). People have come into to our church wishing to work their right to be married, and then their right to be married in THIS church at THIS time in THIS building. We have a right to life, liberty, and happiness. A right to buy our own cars and houses, to listen to our favorite bands and read any book we desire. We believe there is a right to free speech, to bearing arms, and to having individual opinions and beliefs. Some want more rights; the right to marry anyone of any gender, the right to abort their unborn children, the right to research stem cells or to have universal health care. And so we argue these rights, we debate on Capitol Hill, we fight and say why or why not something is right, wrong, or just plain gray. And in the end, if we are truly followers of Jesus Christ we need to affirm one thing, and one things only.
We have no rights.
Our rights are merely us emphasising us. It is a necessity in government to have rights in order to keep the weakerthans from complete and utter oppression, but in the end what is our right as a Christian? Are we not slaves and servants to our Savior rather than our own self-serving rights? We live in a society of hierarchies and principalities. We go to our city councils who adhere to our state governments, who adhere to our Capitol and we can keep going higher and higher but in the end, who is allegiance really to? America? Grand Rapids? Our family name or favorite sports team? No. It's to Him, Christ.
People presuppose their rights. In fact, it is one of the greatest duties of the church to break down such a misconceptions that we have such rights. People come to church, stating they have rights. A right not to tithe due to their lack of possessions. A right not to sing due to their right to have their praise music as they like it. A right to treat one's body as one's will desires, that gluttony of food and drink, drug and sex, lust and greed, is merely archaic law killing our joy and natural inclination towards enjoyment. A right to be angry at one's friends, parents, and brother because of their hurtful words, their malicious treatment, and their inability to look past our skin and bones to who we really are.
Is it no wonder that Christ asked that before we come to him in prayer, that we go forgive anyone whom has sinned against us before going to Him (Mark 11:25)? As Christ-Followers, NEVER did he make it a requirement that we turn our cheek to others, rather, He simply says that those who truly follow and have faith in Him will naturally, though maybe unwillingly, will do so. They will conform to the will of Christ rather than one's self right to be angry at their brother, sister, or friend. The Christian at his or her perfected state admits no rights to themselves or anything else; their possessions, friends, loves, and life are His, the world and all that is in it. This world is on-loan and until the Christian can accept this, they will only consistently and persistently break the heart of their Savior by asserting their rights and ownership over what is not theirs. We, in the process of placing our name and title upon our possessions, our friends, our family, our bodies, and our feelings of anger and pain, merely ignore the Creator of all while idolizing and worshiping the paintings and charcoal sketches of our Lord. Creation, gift that it be, is by no means the one who created it. A creation is to be marvelled, but it is it's Creator that we must love. To state that we have rights to anything in their cosmic piece of art is little else than to anchor ourselves in an imperfect world when what Christ called us to all along was to throw off our fetters and bonds of right and privilege in order to allow our wings to stretch and our hearts to soar to the one who calls them.
As C.S. Lewis writes "When God arrives (and only then) that the half-gods can remain" (The Four Loves) It is only when we accept that our rights to indignation and sympathy our meaningless that we can, for the first time, throw caution to the wind and allow the Spirit of God to come inside our torn and wretched bodies and hearts. And it is in that moment that we can truly accept that our lives and all that is in them is not a right fulfilled, but a gift given. And it is when we accept that this gift; a life we are not worthy of, colours and sounds fit for a king, and loved ones irreplaceable, that we can finally accept the gift of grace; Divine Love.
It is by this Divine Love that "...in man and woman, enables them to love what is naturally unlovable; lepers, criminals, enemies, morons, the sulky, the superior, and the sneering." (The Four Loves). Our only right in this world is a right to rebel, to be an individual, to sin and err and spew fallacy and hurt. Christianity is not a right, it is a sacrifice of worship holy and pleasing to our Lord (Romans 12:1-2), it is stating we are not our own but belong every inch and hair to our Savior, that we burn and refine away all that is not Him in order that what little remains is pure and perfect reflection of Him.
Have we let our own honor and individuality and rights to privilege come in our way on the path towards our utmost conformity to Christ? Are we drowning in pools of self-pity and remorse in aquatic pits and tanks we constructed around ourselves? Are we so busy screaming to the world that our rights and feeling have been hurt that we cannot hear the whispers of Christ desiring us to let go of such rights and control, that we can, in fact, be free from such petty and ugly bickering and hate?
Someday, when we pass from this earth, we will face those who we quarrelled with, bickered with, accepted tremendous and grievous hurt from, and in that Heavenly realm it will not be our store of bitter and snarky statements that we will remember, no, it will be our love that will be remembered. Even the greatest of enemies of war come to realize in the Heavenly Realms that their right to war and anger carries very little weight in a world where such hate and indignation is nothing more than the waste and feces of our new bodies.
It's all about grace. What is grace? It is that we have no outstanding right to.
Forgive your brother
Forgive your sister
Forgive your friends, your ex's, your deepest and darkest nemesis
Forgive yourself.
And give up your rights. Love. Simple as that.
Yet so hard...
Take care you all...will be home soon!!
That is the real meaning of filling 'up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ...' (Colossians 1:24). A disciple realizes that it is his or her Lord's honor that is at stake in his life, NOT his or her OWN honor." -Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest July 14
One thing I have seen this summer is this; people always have rights (or at least think they do). People have come into to our church wishing to work their right to be married, and then their right to be married in THIS church at THIS time in THIS building. We have a right to life, liberty, and happiness. A right to buy our own cars and houses, to listen to our favorite bands and read any book we desire. We believe there is a right to free speech, to bearing arms, and to having individual opinions and beliefs. Some want more rights; the right to marry anyone of any gender, the right to abort their unborn children, the right to research stem cells or to have universal health care. And so we argue these rights, we debate on Capitol Hill, we fight and say why or why not something is right, wrong, or just plain gray. And in the end, if we are truly followers of Jesus Christ we need to affirm one thing, and one things only.
We have no rights.
Our rights are merely us emphasising us. It is a necessity in government to have rights in order to keep the weakerthans from complete and utter oppression, but in the end what is our right as a Christian? Are we not slaves and servants to our Savior rather than our own self-serving rights? We live in a society of hierarchies and principalities. We go to our city councils who adhere to our state governments, who adhere to our Capitol and we can keep going higher and higher but in the end, who is allegiance really to? America? Grand Rapids? Our family name or favorite sports team? No. It's to Him, Christ.
People presuppose their rights. In fact, it is one of the greatest duties of the church to break down such a misconceptions that we have such rights. People come to church, stating they have rights. A right not to tithe due to their lack of possessions. A right not to sing due to their right to have their praise music as they like it. A right to treat one's body as one's will desires, that gluttony of food and drink, drug and sex, lust and greed, is merely archaic law killing our joy and natural inclination towards enjoyment. A right to be angry at one's friends, parents, and brother because of their hurtful words, their malicious treatment, and their inability to look past our skin and bones to who we really are.
Is it no wonder that Christ asked that before we come to him in prayer, that we go forgive anyone whom has sinned against us before going to Him (Mark 11:25)? As Christ-Followers, NEVER did he make it a requirement that we turn our cheek to others, rather, He simply says that those who truly follow and have faith in Him will naturally, though maybe unwillingly, will do so. They will conform to the will of Christ rather than one's self right to be angry at their brother, sister, or friend. The Christian at his or her perfected state admits no rights to themselves or anything else; their possessions, friends, loves, and life are His, the world and all that is in it. This world is on-loan and until the Christian can accept this, they will only consistently and persistently break the heart of their Savior by asserting their rights and ownership over what is not theirs. We, in the process of placing our name and title upon our possessions, our friends, our family, our bodies, and our feelings of anger and pain, merely ignore the Creator of all while idolizing and worshiping the paintings and charcoal sketches of our Lord. Creation, gift that it be, is by no means the one who created it. A creation is to be marvelled, but it is it's Creator that we must love. To state that we have rights to anything in their cosmic piece of art is little else than to anchor ourselves in an imperfect world when what Christ called us to all along was to throw off our fetters and bonds of right and privilege in order to allow our wings to stretch and our hearts to soar to the one who calls them.
As C.S. Lewis writes "When God arrives (and only then) that the half-gods can remain" (The Four Loves) It is only when we accept that our rights to indignation and sympathy our meaningless that we can, for the first time, throw caution to the wind and allow the Spirit of God to come inside our torn and wretched bodies and hearts. And it is in that moment that we can truly accept that our lives and all that is in them is not a right fulfilled, but a gift given. And it is when we accept that this gift; a life we are not worthy of, colours and sounds fit for a king, and loved ones irreplaceable, that we can finally accept the gift of grace; Divine Love.
It is by this Divine Love that "...in man and woman, enables them to love what is naturally unlovable; lepers, criminals, enemies, morons, the sulky, the superior, and the sneering." (The Four Loves). Our only right in this world is a right to rebel, to be an individual, to sin and err and spew fallacy and hurt. Christianity is not a right, it is a sacrifice of worship holy and pleasing to our Lord (Romans 12:1-2), it is stating we are not our own but belong every inch and hair to our Savior, that we burn and refine away all that is not Him in order that what little remains is pure and perfect reflection of Him.
Have we let our own honor and individuality and rights to privilege come in our way on the path towards our utmost conformity to Christ? Are we drowning in pools of self-pity and remorse in aquatic pits and tanks we constructed around ourselves? Are we so busy screaming to the world that our rights and feeling have been hurt that we cannot hear the whispers of Christ desiring us to let go of such rights and control, that we can, in fact, be free from such petty and ugly bickering and hate?
Someday, when we pass from this earth, we will face those who we quarrelled with, bickered with, accepted tremendous and grievous hurt from, and in that Heavenly realm it will not be our store of bitter and snarky statements that we will remember, no, it will be our love that will be remembered. Even the greatest of enemies of war come to realize in the Heavenly Realms that their right to war and anger carries very little weight in a world where such hate and indignation is nothing more than the waste and feces of our new bodies.
It's all about grace. What is grace? It is that we have no outstanding right to.
Forgive your brother
Forgive your sister
Forgive your friends, your ex's, your deepest and darkest nemesis
Forgive yourself.
And give up your rights. Love. Simple as that.
Yet so hard...
Take care you all...will be home soon!!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
A Quiet Tuesday
"Another Tuesday morning...
The usual, morning staff morning, prayer, reviewing new bulletin designs and so on and so forth. By now it's almost 11:30 and very little constructive work got done. Then again, what can you expect, after all, I have three and a half work days left here. All I could ever have asked for in a summer has been fulfilled. Any ministry experience I could ever need has been offered and has been treasured and pondered. Not to mention that at this point of the year we are at that standstill, the calm before the storm, the days between the end of summer and the beginning of the fall semester of the local schools. For a brief period our church is quiet. The halls are silent. Tom is off in Columbia for the day with his family, Lynda is with hers. Cliff is in his office as is Tricia. The only noises from my office? John's carpet cleaner is in the sanctuary and The Doors are playing off my computer speakers (I Can't See Your Face in My Mind to be exact off their "Strange Days" album...great song). Weird. So busy for so long, a summer of activity upon activity and then...
silence.
The music stops. Album over. Better find something to listen to...something more upbeat, acoustic, folksy...the Good Old War, that's what I want...yeah. "I'm going to Coney Island to have myself a dog, and reminisce how i still hate it here. It's all these people with their Cotton Candy eyes, it's so sweet now put the train in gear." Funny, I don't hate it here...I love it here in fact, I enjoy it to the very utmost. I love the people, their sincerity and honesty. It is too easy to talk with "Cotton Candy" eyes, offering sweets instead of substance, fluff instead of stuff, a muffled "fine" rather than a heavy sigh. I love the beach; the many late afternoon runs to the beach, walking across the silky yet sturdy sand during low tide while splashing along the shore during the high tide..."
Sorry, I was just interrupted. A church member looking for John, he commented on how he enjoyed my sermon Sunday, how comfortable I seemed and how it should reach to a younger generation. This summer Hana and I have talked often on the horrid task of accepting compliments, it's hard to say the least. After all, all we as Christians can desire it to be merely vessels...we call this humility. Yet, are we sufficiently accepting God's grace and glory when we constantly, without thought, divert positive re-enforcement and thanks from those around us towards Him without mention of ourselves? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Blake Jurgens deserves endless praise and worship...but aren't the Blake Jurgens, the Hana Smiths, the Nick Baas and Brandon Haans, the Nate Doors and the John Debraskys, the AJs, Jennas, and all those others, aren't they, body and soul, created to glorify their creator though their freedom to worship thru their abilities and talents? That's hard, to affirm God's grace while accepting the praise of our humanity; a much harder task to maintain God's work, our humility as vessels, and our autonomy as His creation. Does our conformity to Christ allow emphasis on our gifts and our role in His redemptive purposes? Can a child accept thanks for His father's work? Maybe our feeble scribbles and scratches are worth more than we realize, and just maybe, perhaps, our work in this world is more than just acting as a mere puppet, but rather a child, watching his or her ma or pa, picking up bit by bit the trade they passed onto them.
Back to typing. I like that here. Easy-going, patient, agendas and calenders are suggestion or emphasised suggestion, but never a solid, concrete barrier or restriction. It's Christ-like. After all, Jesus NEVER emphasised that his schedule was too busy to love, to full to heal, to complicated and exhausting to teach. Though he was always on His way to Jerusalem, He always watched the side of the road, searching for those who needed His love for no other reason than He loved them first. What if we, as Christians, put away our agenda and conceptions of our lives for just a few seconds and allowed ourselves to envision to roadsides, the leper colonies, the empty and distraught places and the driest of deserts. Is it too much to ask that Christianity be a religion based on relationship-spontaneity? That we, as Christians, throw aside our schedules and pick up our hearts out of our bags as we pull off our bluetooth headsets and turn our phones to vibrate. Is it possible that we have been sucked into the world and in the midst of worrying about adapting to a sick and depraved culture, worrying about music with naughty words and bad movies, political images and all that such, that we have become like the world in the sense that we are little more than consumers consuming rather than reformers always reforming? That we are, in the midst of the morning commute, the afternoon business meetings, and our social conformity, that we have become exactly what Christ warned us not to become, even as we, with near-unnecessary fervor, protest abortion, perverted sexuality, and other 'hot topics'?
I spilled melted butter on my pants this morning; slid right off my bagel. Drat. I tried warm water and no difference. The Lemon Pledge looked promising...and it was. The stains are gone. How simple it is to wash stains away when you use the right tools.
Is Christianity washing away the stains of Christ? Do we go through life not noticing that the very stains that set us free from bondage to sin are now the very stains we are trying to wash away? Humanity is wounded, imperfect, fallen. It is there, in those empty rotting wounds that Christ fits the best, He fills such space and will further when we close our eyes the final time. Why then are we trying to cover these wounds up with bandage and attempt limping through life screaming out in our pain "I'm fine, I swear!" Can it be true that to be most Christ-like is to be most-broken and ravaged with sin? Can being in conformity with Christ mean such freedom? We all want to be free; free from discrimination, free from laws and decrees, and often we say we want freedom from sin. We want freedom, or so we think...yet, when Christ offers such deep freedom we deny it. We never truly want such freedom, we do not care to be open with our deepest wounds and sin, and in that quick moment of isolation and individuality we instantly hide ourselves from His light, and we shackle ourselves.
Christians want freedom. Any Christian who asks for such freedom needs to know that this freedom is the hardest freedom you will ever have. It will force you to admit your stumbles, it will push you towards choices you would never care to make, it kick you to be open even in the most uncomfortable situations. This freedom will force you to share your home with the inhospitable, to hug those you could care less to hug, to forgive over and over for the same mistakes, and to admit the gaping holes within our cavities and hidden places to complete strangers. Did not Jesus, in his freedom, seek not a political kingdom, nor a society of monks, or even an army of hardened soldiers and dry and cracking hearts. No, in His freedom he marched towards a cross and the scorn of humanity. He disappointed men! He took dreams and visions of a political and religious Messiah and dashed them and did what a rebel and revolutionary should never do; he let himself be killed a sinner's death. In His freedom he allowed himself to be chained to the sufferings of the world and in that act he most freely loved us. Our freedom in Christ is only fulfilled when we chain ourselves to such acts of love, giving ourselves and our wounds in order to assist His lost children, wandering and searching for a place to call home.
Ok, time for lunch. Hopefully a run later on. Thanks for stopping by"
God is love.
Therefore, we must be so too.
Pray.
The usual, morning staff morning, prayer, reviewing new bulletin designs and so on and so forth. By now it's almost 11:30 and very little constructive work got done. Then again, what can you expect, after all, I have three and a half work days left here. All I could ever have asked for in a summer has been fulfilled. Any ministry experience I could ever need has been offered and has been treasured and pondered. Not to mention that at this point of the year we are at that standstill, the calm before the storm, the days between the end of summer and the beginning of the fall semester of the local schools. For a brief period our church is quiet. The halls are silent. Tom is off in Columbia for the day with his family, Lynda is with hers. Cliff is in his office as is Tricia. The only noises from my office? John's carpet cleaner is in the sanctuary and The Doors are playing off my computer speakers (I Can't See Your Face in My Mind to be exact off their "Strange Days" album...great song). Weird. So busy for so long, a summer of activity upon activity and then...
silence.
The music stops. Album over. Better find something to listen to...something more upbeat, acoustic, folksy...the Good Old War, that's what I want...yeah. "I'm going to Coney Island to have myself a dog, and reminisce how i still hate it here. It's all these people with their Cotton Candy eyes, it's so sweet now put the train in gear." Funny, I don't hate it here...I love it here in fact, I enjoy it to the very utmost. I love the people, their sincerity and honesty. It is too easy to talk with "Cotton Candy" eyes, offering sweets instead of substance, fluff instead of stuff, a muffled "fine" rather than a heavy sigh. I love the beach; the many late afternoon runs to the beach, walking across the silky yet sturdy sand during low tide while splashing along the shore during the high tide..."
Sorry, I was just interrupted. A church member looking for John, he commented on how he enjoyed my sermon Sunday, how comfortable I seemed and how it should reach to a younger generation. This summer Hana and I have talked often on the horrid task of accepting compliments, it's hard to say the least. After all, all we as Christians can desire it to be merely vessels...we call this humility. Yet, are we sufficiently accepting God's grace and glory when we constantly, without thought, divert positive re-enforcement and thanks from those around us towards Him without mention of ourselves? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Blake Jurgens deserves endless praise and worship...but aren't the Blake Jurgens, the Hana Smiths, the Nick Baas and Brandon Haans, the Nate Doors and the John Debraskys, the AJs, Jennas, and all those others, aren't they, body and soul, created to glorify their creator though their freedom to worship thru their abilities and talents? That's hard, to affirm God's grace while accepting the praise of our humanity; a much harder task to maintain God's work, our humility as vessels, and our autonomy as His creation. Does our conformity to Christ allow emphasis on our gifts and our role in His redemptive purposes? Can a child accept thanks for His father's work? Maybe our feeble scribbles and scratches are worth more than we realize, and just maybe, perhaps, our work in this world is more than just acting as a mere puppet, but rather a child, watching his or her ma or pa, picking up bit by bit the trade they passed onto them.
Back to typing. I like that here. Easy-going, patient, agendas and calenders are suggestion or emphasised suggestion, but never a solid, concrete barrier or restriction. It's Christ-like. After all, Jesus NEVER emphasised that his schedule was too busy to love, to full to heal, to complicated and exhausting to teach. Though he was always on His way to Jerusalem, He always watched the side of the road, searching for those who needed His love for no other reason than He loved them first. What if we, as Christians, put away our agenda and conceptions of our lives for just a few seconds and allowed ourselves to envision to roadsides, the leper colonies, the empty and distraught places and the driest of deserts. Is it too much to ask that Christianity be a religion based on relationship-spontaneity? That we, as Christians, throw aside our schedules and pick up our hearts out of our bags as we pull off our bluetooth headsets and turn our phones to vibrate. Is it possible that we have been sucked into the world and in the midst of worrying about adapting to a sick and depraved culture, worrying about music with naughty words and bad movies, political images and all that such, that we have become like the world in the sense that we are little more than consumers consuming rather than reformers always reforming? That we are, in the midst of the morning commute, the afternoon business meetings, and our social conformity, that we have become exactly what Christ warned us not to become, even as we, with near-unnecessary fervor, protest abortion, perverted sexuality, and other 'hot topics'?
I spilled melted butter on my pants this morning; slid right off my bagel. Drat. I tried warm water and no difference. The Lemon Pledge looked promising...and it was. The stains are gone. How simple it is to wash stains away when you use the right tools.
Is Christianity washing away the stains of Christ? Do we go through life not noticing that the very stains that set us free from bondage to sin are now the very stains we are trying to wash away? Humanity is wounded, imperfect, fallen. It is there, in those empty rotting wounds that Christ fits the best, He fills such space and will further when we close our eyes the final time. Why then are we trying to cover these wounds up with bandage and attempt limping through life screaming out in our pain "I'm fine, I swear!" Can it be true that to be most Christ-like is to be most-broken and ravaged with sin? Can being in conformity with Christ mean such freedom? We all want to be free; free from discrimination, free from laws and decrees, and often we say we want freedom from sin. We want freedom, or so we think...yet, when Christ offers such deep freedom we deny it. We never truly want such freedom, we do not care to be open with our deepest wounds and sin, and in that quick moment of isolation and individuality we instantly hide ourselves from His light, and we shackle ourselves.
Christians want freedom. Any Christian who asks for such freedom needs to know that this freedom is the hardest freedom you will ever have. It will force you to admit your stumbles, it will push you towards choices you would never care to make, it kick you to be open even in the most uncomfortable situations. This freedom will force you to share your home with the inhospitable, to hug those you could care less to hug, to forgive over and over for the same mistakes, and to admit the gaping holes within our cavities and hidden places to complete strangers. Did not Jesus, in his freedom, seek not a political kingdom, nor a society of monks, or even an army of hardened soldiers and dry and cracking hearts. No, in His freedom he marched towards a cross and the scorn of humanity. He disappointed men! He took dreams and visions of a political and religious Messiah and dashed them and did what a rebel and revolutionary should never do; he let himself be killed a sinner's death. In His freedom he allowed himself to be chained to the sufferings of the world and in that act he most freely loved us. Our freedom in Christ is only fulfilled when we chain ourselves to such acts of love, giving ourselves and our wounds in order to assist His lost children, wandering and searching for a place to call home.
Ok, time for lunch. Hopefully a run later on. Thanks for stopping by"
God is love.
Therefore, we must be so too.
Pray.
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