When That Which Calls You Wounds You

When That Which Calls You Wounds You

  James 1:2-4 (NRSV)

God is a God of promises. How many times have we heard that? How many of us can rest in it truly? I am the guy who when you tell me that will look for the proviso’s and the asterisks in the contract. Thank God, he is covenantal, not contractual.

What is less popular to say is that God will answer those promises in His time. If you are like me, I want it to be in my time. I am Chronos time – linear and if this then this will happen. God is Kairos time, He promised, and He will deliver. However, it will likely be in a manner we do not expect.

In 2005 God gave me a promise that I have held onto. I have worked towards it, laid a firm foundation, examined and re-examined my character and my heart and my life in preparation. But if I had my way, in 2005 that promise would have been fulfilled right then and there and I would be that which God has called me to be. The suck part of that is, I would not have the character needed to do that which he has said I would do. I would be a burned-up pile of rubble on the Roman road to their vision of progress. I would not even be a cog in a wheel on the stage coach using the road to progress. I would be a pile of ash the local farmers were using to fertilize the fields to empress the emperor as he rode by. Burned up, useless, a no-one.

The above scripture was given by James to the remnant of Israel that somehow survived the sacking of Jerusalem. In 70 A.D., the Romans had enough of the subversives and decided to be done with them. They did a remarkably precise job in breaking them down and demoralizing them to the point that some of those who survived just walked off a cliff to not need to deal with the consequences of Rome’s actions. And yet, here is James telling them to consider it to be joy. I would be reading this thinking James got himself some good reefer and was being ridiculous. Except, he was not. He was reminding them to endure, and the best way to endure is with joy in your heart.

Joy is an elusive concept because only you can decide for you if you are joyful. Only you can look at your life and say, “this is joy” – no one can or will define it for you. Joy is a slippery thing, and often the moment we say we have it, it gets slippery and tries to leave. We must continually and actively cultivate the heart of joy and gratitude. How do you cultivate joy while embracing the suck? I am not sure. I think contemplating eternity helps though.

I love reading about all the new discoveries we are finding in our galaxy. It is incredible to see what we are beginning to see and just begin to comprehend about the universe and our place in it. What I am learning more and more is just how old and how beautiful our universe is. God’s handiwork on display as the psalmist puts it. For me, this calms my soul. Knowing that God of the universe who has been creating for an eternity that we cannot even truly comprehend, made a covenant with me. Not a contract, no proviso’s, a covenant. God is for me always, and he will allow the pain to develop a covenantal Carl. One who will hold onto Him and His words, even when it does not make sense.

Israel has seen God’s faithfulness amid so much pain. Israel is still so much of God’s pleasure and He is creating a lover for Himself in them – but also in us. How cool is that? We are being shaped, molded, prodded, begged o change in character to be that which we are designed to be, all by the God of eternity.

I could go on and on, but I have an appointment under the stars with my creator. Want to come join me? Let us search His innumerable and incalculable universe together and talk about God’s promises to us.

~Selah

The Goodness of God

“Original blessing is simply what happens when God steadfastly decides to be in relationship with us. That relationship bestows goodness upon us, and also within us. We are steadfastly

And benevolently tethered to God”

Danielle Schroyer in Original Blessing: Putting Sin in Its Rightful Place

I have been adrift in the theological world as of late, allowing my mind to wander where God would have it to go and letting The Spirit speak to me in ways that it wishes. It is hard for me to do sometimes, it is a very contemplative exercise. I love and hate it. But God has met me every-single-time in some very unexpected ways. One thing that keeps coming to the forefront of my thoughts and prayers is the idea of Gods goodness and mercy. We talk about them all the time, but do we meditate on them much? Do we let that sink in?

The goodness of God is evident everywhere and all the time. Romans 2:4 states that it is God’s goodness (or kindness in some translations) that leads men unto repentance. God is good, and His goodness is what fulfills me every day, but can be a total terror for others. Goodness, like grace, abounds everywhere and for everyone. I did not make a grammatical error there, it is for everyone. Let that sink in….

When God hovered over the firmament in Genesis and was surveying all that He created He said, “it was very good…” Genesis 1:31 (NIV) God did not look at his creation and say aww nuts, fleas? I made fleas? He looked at them and declared they were good, just as He looks and you and I and declares we are good.

God’s relationship to His people and His creation did not change the moment we ate of the apple at the tree. The way man knew and related to God changed. God’s goodness did not stop in the garden, it continued, and continues to this day. What has changed is the way that we see God. Instead of seeing His benevolence and taking part in it freely, we see ourselves as flawed and unable to partake of His mercy and grace and love. Nothing could be further from the truth, He is still wooing us into a divine dance with Him. All we need to do is stop and listen to the rhythm and join in as he comes around the dance floor, and He is always dancing.

When I was in the 6^th grade, I went to my first school dance. As a young and hormone ridden kid (I would tell you I was a man back then because I had a deep voice) I had someone in mind to ask to dance. I was so nervous that I went into the bathroom and almost threw up. I begged a breath mint off a teacher to not offend the one I had set mine eyes upon. Once my head was clear, my resolve steady, and my breath as fresh as it would be – I dove in. I asked Darcy, the young woman I had been on the hunt for, to dance. I never was so nervous up to that point in my short life. I had imagined her answer from the moment I decided to ask her. She was going to say yes, tell me she had been waiting all night for me to ask, and we were going to be steady from that night into eternity. Instead I got the firm NO, a giggle, and a look from her friend that told me I was shopping in the upscale neighborhood, and I was a trailer park boy. I was crushed. How could she not want to be seen with me, a newly formed man well ahead of the pack in puberty?

I tell this story because the dance we are invited to with God is like the awkward first school dance. God is that kid who gets on the dance floor and just has a good time. He does not look to another to validate that he is cool and that he is the best dancer, he-just-dances. He sets the tone for the rest of the night. As he dances a young woman may come along and step into his rhythm, and then another, and then another. Those who are too shy to immediately ask a girl to dance get in there and the dance continues. Maybe you line dance, maybe you do The Electric Slide, maybe you just shake your butt and have a good time. The point is, the prime mover, that first person starts the whole thing. That first person is the goodness of God.  He makes it okay to step onto the dance floor, and he woo's you to join in the goodness. But He is a gentleman and He will not make you join the dance. However He will overwhelm you with the sense of joy and love and grace. You can sit on the outskirts of the dance floor, nurse your punch until you are so hopped up with sugar that you brain is about to bounce out of your ears, and you can even leave. But the joy of the dance, started by that one kid who had the guts to dance, will still beckon you.

So often we all sit on the side of the dance floor and recount all the reasons that we cannot or should not be a part of the dance. We list our sins, our faults, our responsibilities that keep us from partaking in the divine dance. We give every reason, all-the-while seething with jealousy for that one kid that started the rave. What we should remember is that the kid who started the dance does not care what is going on in your life, he just wants to dance. Dancing is more fun with others, and he wants you to join. This is why God created us, to be co-creators of love, goodness, kindness, mercy and grace. When we decide to dance, those problems, worries and barriers tend to melt away. 

Now get out there and dance in the goodness of God. GO, STOP READING THIS – DANCE you freak, DANCE!

-Selah

Is it a Journey, or an Immigration?

I have been thinking about the Jews as they walked toward Jerusalem and the temple a lot, and I really wonder what the mindset of a pilgrim would have been like. Was the trip to the temple an act of devotion? Or, was it an act of obedience that had to be sweated through and done because it is just "what we do?"

Most of the people travelling to Jerusalem would have been on foot. Those who were lucky enough to have livestock they could ride such as donkeys were the few. Even if a person of moderate wealth had livestock, it is likely the livestock was press-ganged into service on the homestead and could not be taken away for the journey. Sore feet and cranky dispositions would have likely been the biggest battle. Reciting the Psalms of Ascent was likely a way of fighting of fatigue, as well as focusing the mind and spirit during those times it would be easy to fall prey to bad attitude.

We love to think of life as a journey like the journey the Jews would take to the temple. So often though a journey is defined by a time frame. Can you imagine leaving for the temple and telling your family and friends that were not going that you would be going and not having any idea of when you will return? Most people would have at least a good idea of when they could get home. I cannot imagine leaving the house and telling my bride that I will be back whenever. I usually can give a close approximation of time. But here is the thing, our spiritual lives are an immigration. An immigration is different because you leave your place of comfort in hope of reaching a better place. The ticket you buy is a one way ticket with a general direction and no planned return. You intend to settle and begin conducting your affairs in a new place.

If we view our lives as believers as an immigration and not a journey, what would change in us? What would be the defining characteristics of our Christian lives? Immigration instead of journeying is permanent and as such a few things will be needed.

1) All of your essentials. You may get rid of many different things and cut down your supplies, but ultimately you are taking everything without plan to return.

2) Your family. In view of it being a permanent move, one cannot leave family behind.

3) Your ability to adapt. When you migrate you will be in a new culture, a new place, and often a whole new set of cultural assumptions and priorities. You must be willing and able to adapt.

These are just 3 of many things, but this sounds a lot like the Christian life does it not? While we are living in a culture, we live as aliens (Heb 11:13) with allegiance to the culture and country we are raised in, but with the ultimate allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth. While we are on this earth we are not journeying with the plan to return home (or to our old ways) - instead we look with faith at that which is ahead of us and never looking back. We live a life as an alien, we have left home and are on a Christian journey towards that which lays before us in faith.

When you are Immigrating it is so very easy to want to hold onto those things that defined you as a person before. Culture infers status and symbolism of importance. To leave your culture is to leave behind all that is familiar. In order to truly thrive in a new culture you must leave much of what you know behind. You may carry the wisdom of your elders and culture with you, but in order to adapt to a new culture you must be willing to leave much of it behind.

Jews who were travelling on a journey to the temple traveled with hope. They looked forward to the revelation of God and to being with God and one another on the journey. Hope was imbued in everything they did. They were "forward looking in their faith" as the book of Hebrews states. As Christians, can we follow their lead and have a forward looking faith? Can we look with optimism at the road before us with faithful knowledge that the road will eventually lead to the feet of the Temple?

I do not say this to be political, but if you are a Christian, you are an immigrant. You have one foot in the culture of today and are working in it as an exemplar of hard work, but you live with the understanding that your ultimate destination lies not in this culture or this world - it is greater, and oh so very worth the journey.

~Selah

Psalm of Ascent #2

"O LORD, my heart is not lifted up. 

my eyes are not raised to high;

I do not occupy myself with things to great and 

to marvelous for me. 

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned

child with it's mother; like a weaned child is my soul

within me. 

O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore."

Psalm 131 is a short but poignant reflection on the God of Israel. I can imagine a traveler on his way to Jerusalem beginning to work out the internal heart workings of worship and starting to address the humility needed in order to enter the temple properly and with respect. It is hard to genuflect if your heart is not in the right place. We are all great at lip service, most of us not always so great at having a heart to match the lip service. 

"My heart is not lifted up nor are my eyes raised to high." This is the pilgrim examining his heart and making sure he is not to proud of himself, nor that he feels he can look high and see and speak for God. He is preparing to hear God and praying the Psalm like it is a Psalm of examine. Stop and close your eyes for a minute and enter into the Psalmist shoes. You are dusty, dirty, tired and hungry. You likely have walked for days, or are preparing to walk for days. You are blistered, sore, yet fulfilled and energized by the thousands of pilgrims you are on the road with going where you are going. There are no strangers on this path, only fellow friends and pilgrims. 

"I do not occupy myself with things to great and marvelous for me." I cannot but think of the pilgrim clearing his mind and focusing only on that which is before him - a long road and the big unknown. The future is to great and marvelous, the past is already done. How often do we bind ourselves up with thoughts of the past holding us back, and the thought of an unknown future keeping us in fear? The Psalmist knows the long road can lead to much introspection, as it rightfully should. But he is clearing his mind of those things that so easily bind. He is calming his soul. 

Psalms of Ascent

I start this with an admission - I do not regularly participate in lent. I admire those who make a habit of it, and in time I may join. I just lack the intestinal fortitude to do so. However, I love the journey idea of lent. We are all on a journey, even if we do not acknowledge it as so. We are all growing and changing, with or without purposeful intent. 

Some of my favorite Psalms are in the Psalms of ascent. While scholars and teachers often vary in their views of what the Psalms purpose was for, most can agree that they were Psalms that were recited as Jews were travelling towards Jerusalem and the temple to worship. Psalm 130 starts:

"Out of the depths I cry to you; Lord. Lord hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy." While we have no empirical proof that these Psalms were recited in the order we have them in our Bible, I cannot think of a better way to start a meditation. I cannot imagine a better way to start lent for that matter. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. Out of the depths I cry...

As we pray, do we often ask God to listen? It is not that he would not be listening to us, but if you are like me I am afraid to get in the face of God and say "Be attentive and give me mercy". We have this notion that God is not pleased if we get in His face now and again. God actually favors those who are impetuous at times. Look at Jacob when he wrestled with God. Look at Moses when he said he would fast and pray until God remembered His blessing to Israel. One of my favorite stories in the New Testament is when the Samaritan woman was at the feet of Jesus and she boldly reminds God that even the dogs in the house of his master have enough food to eat. How bold these, and so many others were. The God we serve is not often delighted in the demure and dilettante. 

Impetuousness is an offense - if you are the one in power. Part of having power is having control. The impetuous person, when in pursuit of God, seeks to cut through the red tape and the pomp and the circumstance. To be impetuous in the house of God may offend the holders of power, but not the one seeking to commune with and have a relationship with He who gives that power. 

As we journey - Lenten or otherwise, boldness is a virtue in the eyes of He who sees you always. To seek His blessings and to bypass the gatekeepers who wish to keep it for themselves is an act of courage. Courage driven by the fact that "with you there is forgiveness Lord" (vs. 4) We can serve Him with reverence. We can approach Him ourselves. 

So often the voice in my head says "I cannot do..." or "God would not..." and I defeat myself before I even begin. Some of this is learned response from the authorities we have, and have had in our lives. What if we begin our prayer each day, our journey each day, with a healthy dose of impetuous strength before God? What would He say? 

So many thoughts...

~Selah  

Lions and Tigers and Bears, AMEN!

It is an act of courage to get up every morning and to face each day that we are given. We get up and we step out our door into our life which feel we control. We have a well ordered commute to work, we have regulated and mastered the environment of the car we drive, we know where all the usual traffic hang ups and pot holes are, we even can predict what music will play on our favorite radio station. It is only when something happens that is unpredictable that we get jarred out of our world of complacency, and into the world of grace. All of a sudden we go to step from one stone to the next while crossing the river of life, and our feet are taken out from under us. We do not like the bumps on the head and the gushing wounds that come from miss-stepping and falling.

We have a dislike and a distrust of anything that causes us to fear. Our monkey mind goes into full survival mode when we are in fear. This has served us well biologically speaking. We know when something causes our hearts to race and our mind to sharpen that it is for good reason, and we usually obey that biological cocktail that is telling us to get-the-hell out of here. This is all well and good, but it has done us no good spiritually. We were never meant to live in fear, but nor were we meant to live in dull and insipid complacency either.

Psalms 104 is quickly becoming one of my favorite passages of scripture. The verses are clear, the breadth of the pros is immense, and it all comes back to summation with "Praise the LORD, my soul. Praise the LORD." (NIV Psalm 104:35) The entire chapter is about wonder, and the immensity of what God has, and what God does. For me, the key to breaking the back of fear, as well as to beating back the complacency and spiritual torpor that so easily besets my soul, is to live in wonder. To live in soul enlivening, heart stopping wonder of all the things around me.

"The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment. He stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on the water. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind." (NIV Psalm 104: 2-3) How awesome to contemplate, how Brobdingnagian is God because of what he can do. His cosmos, his creation, is where he resides. You are his creation, and he resides with you while in his creation. He provides "wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts" (NIV Psalm 104:15) God is not only your provider of daily bread, he provides in liberality.

To sit with wonder...

A good story allows us to explore the intricacies and nuances of good - and of evil. The best stories ever told or written down are the ones that have us at the end of the movie or the book not with a fully resolved story line and a good always wins belief. The best stories are the ones where you come out and see both sides, and have mercy for the "good guy" and for the "bad guy". Stories tell a lot about the mind and heart of a person, and of a culture.

It is my firm belief that our western culture that is driven by facts and science and "empirical evidence" (whatever that is) is quickly eschewing these things, and turning towards the wisdom of story and story telling. It is not as if we are saying math is wrong, engineering is wrong and so forth, but we are learning to not put so much faith in them so as to say that they have all the answers to everything in life. Scientists have been working for years on quantum physics, the science of energy and of smaller things, and realizing that the smaller world just does not conform to, nor confirm, the findings of physics on a large scale. Some physicists who have tried to reconcile the two fields have been driven to fits of despair and rage - some have even gone to the mad house.

Science reveals mystery, stories reveal mystery, religion - in all its forms - reveals mystery. The way we have all grown up in the west is to believe that if something is a mystery it must, at all costs be deciphered. We just cannot abide with something being unknowable. What we do not realize, to our own detriment, is that mystery is what creates wonder within the heart and mind. Socrates is well known for saying "wisdom begins with wonder" and I believe he is very right. So to become wise is to acknowledge that there are some things that we do not really know, and then to be okay with it.

Mythology and folklore are birthed out of man's inability to make what seems incoherent into a coherent system. Man has always felt the need to find some order to his cosmos and some peace among the wreckage of his sometimes very, very unfortunate life. Myths, even today, are the ways we come to grips with evil, with relationships, with - love. How can the creator that I believe to exist also express his love to me among all this turmoil? He (or she) expresses himself through the stories of redemption, absolution and restoration that we write for ourselves over generations. He becomes that which we strive for - for a better life and a fundamental knowledge that all is, or will be, right with the world.

Christianity needs to come back to the roots of telling a story, a story of redemption. All our attempts at scientifically proving God, or scientifically proving that the stories of the patriarchs and the stories of Genesis must be absolutely scientifically accurate in every way are making us look the fool. The written word of God that we have today is a collection of stories told orally for generations. This does not make it less efficacious, this makes it all the more wonderful. As the world became more complex, and as wars and land grabs raged on and on, the story of God remained. The simple story of a God who set aside a nation so that they could be agents of hope and reconciliation for the world, how AWESOME is that! The story is still being written, the ink on the parchment is not yet dry. God is working to express himself through the stories of his people even today. While we use the bible to help us make sense of how God worked and is working, we aught not nail ourselves to one way of thinking and expect that it is exactly how God will work tomorrow. God is a living and dynamic and - dare I say - growing entity! His Holy Spirit is active everywhere, but we must be willing to say that some of what is being done is still a mystery. While the veil of the temple was torn, the veil was still there covering some of it. God, in his infinite mercy, has allowed us to still have mystery in our lives so that we will continue to pursue him, and continue to live in awe struck wonder at his feet.

My hope is to get out from under my own feet and get at the feet of Jesus. I long to sit at his feet as he tells the parable of the lost sheep, or of the prodigal son. I long to listen to the words of Jesus as he blesses the people he is with. I long to sit at the feet of a masterful storyteller who can weave the known, and the not so well known, into a new paradigm. Can we, the church, begin to focus on the story, and not the facts? Can we abide with mystery? Can we sit with mystery and not master it, rather let it beckon us to engagement? I think we can, and I think we must if we are to become a people that grows into the next generation, and who reaches out and disciples an entire generation of people.

~Selah

I AM that I AM...

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-Wendell Berry

The old man of anxiety has been showing his wrinkled and pockmarked face lately. For no apparent reason, at no apparently special time he tries to come for a visit lately. As much as I purge my thoughts, as much as I pray, as much as I know that it is my brain in overdrive, it-is-relentless. While my center is fully on the face of Christ and on the goodness there in, life gets in the way sometimes. 

I love the somewhat enigmatic statement that God makes to Moses when he inquires about who to say sent him. "I am that I am" is God's response. Moses, who undoubtedly was experiencing a moment on the threshold of anxiety and stress asked God for who He was. God answered. 

So often we get so caught up in the feeling that God is so high up there, so far from us that we dare not approach him. We dare not ask him anything because we are not worthy in our own estimation. Jesus came and reordered our universe so that we can indeed sit at the feet of Father God and ask him "Who are you", or better "Who am I Lord?"

When we approach God and come with our backs burdened and our neck kinked from the heavy labor of life, He reminds us to rest. Not just rest for rejuvenation, rest for rests sake. God created the universe, God created the Earth, and God saw fit to create you, his one in billions, unique in all your quirks and eccentricities. Rest in the goodness of God. 

God's I AM statements always get me because they are so good. Here they are;

1) I AM the bread of life (John 6:35). This is sustenance and care for our daily need. 

2) I AM the light of the world (John 8:12). This is direction for our feet and for our thoughts and actions. 

3) I AM the good shepherd (John 10:11). A shepherd provides discipline and correction to his flock, as well as provides nourishment and sustenance. 

4) I AM the resurrection and the life. (John 11:25) God is the prime source, and Jesus is the path, to life with God. His life and death and resurrection provide the "blessed assurance, Jesus is mine" as the old hymn goes. 

Anxiety will always come, and it will always go. Anxiety is time bound and specific, the Love of Christ eternal and for everything. Those things that cast anxiety on my soul today will provide strength for tomorrow. All that God allows to happen will grow, strengthen and develop you. God does not promise us happiness on earth, instead He promises wholeness (or holiness) 

~Selah 

On Learning

                I have been doing a lot of reading and receiving of information as of late. I have always loved to read, but God has been leading me down some interesting paths of reading lately. I have been confused though because I am one who likes to know that everything I am reading and doing is coming into a coherent pattern or way of belief. I am okay with reading in a scatter-shot manner if God wishes me to, but only if I get to define what that will mean. I know it is backwards; but there it is.

                As I continue down this journey of reading and following the rabbit trail that is before me, I feel as if God is preparing me to enter into the blogging community in a more intentional manner. Many of you know my former blog and what I once wrote. It was very formative for me spiritually, and for making me a writer. However, having gone back to graduate school and facing a personal spiritual journey that has taken me down some steep terrain knocked the wind out of the sails and I just have not gotten back to what I was doing. My ship now has a deeper rudder, the draft is shallow and the wind is picking up.

                The thing about my kind of writer’s life that is so maddening, yet engaging, is that nothing really is off limits for observation. I remember angry e-mails from readers telling me to “focus your thoughts” and “I cannot follow you because I cannot figure out your mind”. I am a philosopher, theologian, teacher, preacher and all around provocateur, and I intend to keep it that way. In this I may have more of a journalistic mind, but I do not want to write what is necessarily popular, or even right. My desire is to provoke thought, engage with that thought, and bring it out into the world and see how it plays out. I want to live in the tension of this life, this modern, post-modern, crazy-ass life. It will surely have the up’s and the downs, it will surely be boring, and once in a while fascinating. If it brings transformation, I have reached what I hope to do.  

                My hope in all of this is to bring coherence to my worldview, and hopefully be able to bring you along in that quest. I will try to post a few times a week. It may be simple links to good writing I have found, or it may be something more deep and personal. What it will be is a journey, and often times it is the journey that tells us the most about the destination we seek. Once we land at the location we seek we will hopefully be wiser and stronger than we were before. So let us begin as all good stories do. Once upon a time…

Meaning and Chaos...

It is a wonderful thing to be born, to see a life begin. I have had the pleasure of being with friends as new life has sprung forth, and I have seen life come to an end in dignified and honorable ways. 

Life, as it begins, is story telling. How much do we celebrate as a little one begins to take these random sounds and tidbits of information and transform them into syllables. Da, Ma, La...the list goes on, each one a little celebration of life, and the meaning that is being expressed by the little one gets more vehement and packed with meaning. Soon, the syllables turn to short words, then the short words to longer ones, the longer ones into sentences and so forth. Thus the world finds expression in the mind, heart and tongue of a precious, precocious and curious child. 

We have had a birth in our family today. I am now an Uncle for a beautiful young man whom I cannot wait to meet. I have prayed for his mom and I rejoiced as I got the call that all was well. Over the coming weeks and months he will begin to place meaning on things, and find his way forward. What will that way forward be?

I am watching as another person's life on this world comes to a close. One could easily say that it is tragic that her life is ending just as her kids life is beginning. I am sure that at times she might agree. But, she knows that her life is not her own, and that life is given, and life is taken away. I have also just been told a relative whom I adore is loosing his life by small degrees. Each day a new memory or function faces the reality that it could be lost. He is learning what we all should be living now that all is a gift, all is grace. Life is grace, not race. 

We spend so much time as humans trying to define what our world looks like. From the beginning we look at the world as a subject to be mastered. We look to ourselves, and other flawed humans to find meaning for those first syllables as we place them into words. We consider the world subjectively. God does not ask us to look at the world this way, He asks us to look at the world reflectively. The world we live in, the life we live, the people we meet are all reflections of our creator. Some people would say we are a pale reflection because we are "fallen". While this is true and worthy of discussion, I believe the reflection of the creator shines brighter than the sun in all of us. His presence and glory is felt in waking up in the morning, in going to bed at night. His presence is felt in the warm embrace of a sleepy puppy, or watching the sun rise over the mountains. He is felt, and reflected back to us, in every day life. 

Our life is a masterful story. We can choose to let our story tell of a subjective life...or we can allow our story to reflect the master weaver whom we love, and who loves us in such a fashion we can never fully fathom. As our life is weaved and our story is told, we impact the lives of others. We cannot life in this world and have no impact. What we say and what we do is one more piece of fiber for the life of another. 

Life is a seamless garment of praise. Where one life ends, another life begins. As one saint closes her eyes for a final time, a baby opens his for the first. Our role in life is to shepherd this great gift of life, and live with eyes wide open to the reflection of the Glory of God and His deep, passionate, love for His children. As Christians, our role in this world is not to build a church building and bid people come. Our role, is to be stewards and shepherds of the mystery that we call life. As life comes into the world we rejoice, and as a life leaves this world only to open their eyes into the life of eternity, we rejoice. The Christian life is a witness to hope and love. There are no other concepts, no other ideas worth even contemplating if we do not have these two things. 

~Selah

I am not O.K...

Moving sucks. There is no platitude or word that will make it easier to say, it just does. Amy and I have been moving from our apartment of six years to a home of our own. While home ownership is wonderful, moving the tchotchke and minutia of life is not fun.

I had brain surgery in this apartment. I lost something in this apartment, a part of my memory. I usually get around this, and it has gotten me out of many awkward conversations that begin "do you remember me..." It is a convenient excuse at times, and royal pain-in-the-ass many other times.

Last night I was going through some blankets and came across a children's blanket that was my son's at one time. It looked like one of the many pieces my mother could have made him and I asked my wife if it was indeed one of those items. It was not. The visible "what the hell" look on her face instantly led me to realize that this was one of those moments where my memory failed me miserably. Apparently I bought the blanket, and had it customized just for Jacob while in India in 2005. As hard as I have tried, I remember nothing about it.

Something that I have learned over the years, all-be-it painfully, is to admit that I am not O.K. all the time. I want to say I am O.K, I want to give you a trite platitude about "God knows" when I come across one of those moments where I loose track of my memory, but I will not. Life is to short for platitudes. I am hurting today. I mourn the loss of memory, I mourn the loss of some of my best times of life. I treasure what I have all the more, but I mourn none the less.

I have friends who would love to loose memories of certain pains in their life. Past decisions with present consequences, future plans sabotaged by the way they think today...the list is endless. Memory is a wonderful, yet vicious bitch. If this is a gift God, give me more, or less, depending on the day I suppose.

Moving to a space to call our own has been a wonderful experience. I had fun this last weekend showing it off to some good friends down from Denver. I even have enjoyed doing the little fix up things and learning from another friend how to do things around the house. But this part stinks, the part where every last thing I own has a memory ensconced within it. I may have bought it at a flea market on a sunny day, or gone across the world and brought it home...but it is memory; my memory.

I have been learning to spiritually try and live in the moment. This present moment, unencumbered by thoughts of the past, unencumbered by anxiety and fear of tomorrow. All I have is this moment, and it is a beautiful and holy moment. I guess lacking some of my memories is a good thing, but I do not think of it as such. I have to rest and realize that I am a child of a God who gives all good things, who works continually for the good of His creation and as a part of His creation it means He is crazy in love with me.

~Solo Deo Gloria