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