The Bestowing.

My God, grant me:

A heart like David’s, showing,

A mind like Solomon‘s, knowing,

A faith like Abraham’s, growing, 

And a face like Moses‘, glowing.

With the ease of thy yoke, I delight in my work, 

Sweet Jesus reaping what I am sowing.

Generational.

By the light of Heaven!
How can we crave what we cannot see?
Without an authentic Absolute,
Why is it that we ache for authenticity?

Each generation is a reaction to the one that previously came to be.
I can't remember if I go boom or  X, Y, Z.
I do remember that I depended on dependency.
I felt good in fear.
I felt good with walls too big to scale
In a corrupt system too big to fail.
I felt good with consumables marketed and packaged well.
Bad things that tasted convenient,
Convenience tasted good as hell.

The sleek, the clever, the ease,
Were confirmation that I could do what I please.
There was comfort in the layers:
The distance between me and the source.
The bureaucracy insulated from fault,
The retailer protected from remorse.
It was all (intentionally) too much to take on.
Hope might have made me act, but I felt too far gone.
I felt like a boy in a grown up plastic suit:
Fully loaded, yet not equipped,
Fully endowed, yet destitute.
I put layers between the creator and me
And the world aided.
Feeling felt too scary to feel,
And I wanted the feel faded.

So my generations time is fading gone.
Yes, please let's move on.
 Now to the new perennial,
To the Z and to the Millennial.
What can a generation do when there is no one left to trust?
They take things into their own hands,
Though crumbling, they believe in rust.
No preservatives, no packaging, just unmarketable dirt,
Fair trade belt and hand made shirt.

The fuzzy crackle of the vinyl doesn't feel like a loss of fidelity.
Sweet analog truth, absent of digital reconstitution,
Gladly suffer lack of clarity to avoid the prostitution.
His pickles come from his cucumbers grown in his soil.
Vintage vinegar, rooftop dill,
His strained oil, his free range boil.
His pie cools on his window sill.
He knows the whiskey because he reaps the rye,
Imported Indian ink paints his own sky.

When I was a boy and had a bike, 10 speeds was the best you could do.
Now one fixed gear is the standard,
The oldest ideas made shiny and new.
And now why isn't it better,
Better to be more?
Because more breeds layers,
And layers numb the core.

Get to it, remove the layers.
Let transparency awaken.
Lift up the grungy
Redeem the forsaken.
Sincerity through Irony, in it's poetic, abstract best,
Is an attempt to get the over-indulged completely undressed.
Peel all the layers back,
Get to the root.
Will you find a god of your own construction?
One you built to suit?

Almost there now, one layer more to get to the real.
One big wound left to open, to get to the heal.
Our souls ache for the most basic deal,
We want it to be in our own hands,
Preferring decay to the hermetic seal.
But our efforts only take us so far,
You can't quite keep from depending on dependency
And sooner or later everyone lets you down.
Nobility gives way to the petty,
Compulsion pushes out the steady.

Everyone is soon to be distrusted.
"Are the farmer's hands dirt encrusted?
Does my coffee maker roast his own?
Are my strawberries really organically grown?
Is my wheat ground by stone?
Do my chickens have a lovely home?
Is my bag conscientiously sown?
Can I even trust the flesh of my bone?
Am I authentic?
Am I to be trusted with my beliefs?
Shall I bash myself onto the sharpness of religious coral reefs?"
Belief, Religion, so many layers to comply,
Good Lord, they obscure what they labor to magnify:
A great scaffolding making truth hard to see,
Beyond the priests, pastors, rules and liturgy.

I hunger to be sustained.
And was malnourished by what I had kneaded.
On my own, it's never enough
"More!" my soul pleaded.
"What will it take, how can I atone?"
"You tell me I can't live by bread alone!"
Yes I need something bolder, something richer,
Something that I can't quite express,
Has it always been there in this Pilgrim's Progress?
How can surrender be the answer?
How can sacrifice be true?
They are the only things that remain
Irreducible whether by passion or by fool.

Jesus.
Jesus Remains.

He was there when the world was new,
The time that our hearts remember and crave.
He was there to show us Love in sacrifice,
Victory in the grave.
He will be there again, when all Hope seems gone
And we finally cry out to a savior that has been there all along.

Marriage 2.

There is a  tightrope to be walked of protecting your spouse from the world, while still exposing the dangers of your own collective hearts.  In the Power of Christ we can overcome our desire to keep each other comfortable and instead plunge in to the dark places in order to shed light.  We willingly dig up the mess knowing we can't clean it up ourselves.  This is dependency, this is a marriage surrendered to Jesus.  Broken and beautiful, his power made perfect in our weakness.  It may not sound appealing, but it is a glorious thing to be a part of, to be witness to watching Christ pull the person you cherish and love up and to himself.

Pieces.

Pieces.  

In the cold darkness of a poorly lit room,

You seem a perfect, porcelain, purity.

Truth and beauty are real within this vessel.

But, things aren’t what they seem.

The harsh light of the world pours in,

And upon closer examination we can see the cracks.

Pits and holes, repairs

And countless imperfections,

Breaks and mends and breaks and mends.

Awkward bonding of once solid walls

Create an asymmetrical pattern.

But the beauty remains.

The harsh light fades and darkness falls.

The light of Christ sparks

And begins to burn from within.

The dim room shrinks

And the Shadows fade,

Being chased by the ever brighter light,

Finding no rest in any corner until,

Gone.

The light is piercing.

It blazes through the cracks.

The pits and holes and repairs serve to magnify.

Breaks and mends and breaks and mends,

Bends.

Jesus Christs Loving Light,

Blazes from within.

It escapes through the broken bits.

The perfect piece:

Crushed, recovered, repaired and redeemed

Makes a Mosaic, Kaleidoscopic display.

It is now the Prince’s Prism,

Refracting and reflecting,

But not distorting his beam.

Left in tact, the perfect piece could not do what you do.

It is the weakness that means beauty.

It is his Love that makes it possible.

It is my Joy to witness.

The delicate little heart of yours is fueled by and burns for Our Savior,

Jesus, For the whole world to see.

Law.

What if Moses on the mountaintop had stopped short and failed to bring down those tablets?  Would there still be the Law?  What if Newton had decided to become a farmer instead of pursuing his scientific career?  Would Gravity cease to be?  Like the laws of physics, the law of God remains truth whether or not it has been discovered or not.  That which the 10 commandments points to and reveals remain true inspite of their discovery and whether or not an observer accepts them or not.

“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.” 
― Isaac Newton

The Law of God is in fact, written on our hearts.  And while Thou Shall not Kill is an easy one to agree on, Honor thy Mother and Father becomes a little less clear, and Not making graven images seems almost ridiculous.  However, these Commandments live together in reality and in our hearts and cannot be separated.  In fact, if you do away with the 1st Commandment, Thou shall have no other Gods, none of the other Commandments have any relevance.  If there is no giver of the Law, there is no argument for it...not killing (and not dying) is a mere matter of preference without the existence of God.  

God's nature and his law, he gives for our discovery and for our betterment.  Gravity was just a mere observation of reality until Isaac Newton, among others, sought to understand it.  Then it became proclaimed as Law, although it had always been true.  In Moses, we have him giving the concrete expression of what the Israelites already knew to be true.  The difference maker is accountability.  

Gravity is a merely a novelty without the passion for discovery that ordinary men and scientists have lavished on it over the centuries.  It is impossible to understate how much we now understand that came from a simple curiosity: an apple falling from a tree, as the story goes.  Though we have come so far, the initial simple law remains true.  And now though our culture has advanced, and our understanding of human nature has expounded, we still cannot escape the heartbreak and broken-ness that comes from breaking God's Law.  Think of how much we know, how powerful the human race has become, how much wealth there is and yet the world groans and aches with all the suffering.  Not following the Law in it's entirety leads us to disorder.  Simply "Not Killing, Not Stealing" is not enough.  We need the fullness of the Law.  The Law of our hearts remains harsh and seemingly unlivable in it's entirety.  We, indeed, need another level of understanding to make it possible.

If Moses gives us The Law in specific revelation, Jesus is the Power to fulfill the Law.  Moses is the observation of the apple, Jesus is the Gravity.  Jesus is the reality.  

The Law is in a way the structure, and Jesus is the illumination of that structure to give it relevance.  In the Cross we have a symbol of the Old Testament Law, standing as a consequence rigid and unwavering.  Jesus allowed himself to be fused to the Cross, pierced, beaten, impaled and bound to the Cross by his blood, flesh and pain.  Previously the Cross was something to be broken upon,  Now in Christ's sacrifice it is something to be saved by.  The Law didn't change, it was just given to it's fullness of purpose.  And because he rose from the dead, manipulating the Laws of Physics that he himself had set into motion, he proclaimed his truth to all of creation in a very personal way.  All of history, the past and the future hinge on this event, the universe set in motion in all of it's vastness to give us Jesus, the reason for everything.  We humans, the pinnacle of creation, the observers, are not the reason for existence.  Yet we are called to bear witness and get the privilege of being saved.  We get to live, because he loves.  His Law and His Love are the mechanisms by which everything exists, for he is the purpose for everything. 

Colossians 1

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of^g your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

Losing my religion.

"I have lost my faith in humanity." is a phrase I've heard numerous times over the proceeding months, right after someone has relayed a recent news story.  Sometimes it's in a half joke, sometimes it's conveyed with a deep sorrow.  But here's the truth: Faith in humanity is an illusion.  In good times or in bad, the only hope for humanity remains in Jesus.  Waiting for some prophet or politician to come along and set things right is an almost ridiculous proposition.  To have faith in FDR or Reagan or Obama has proven to be extremely short-lived.  Germany was full of hope at the rising of Hitler, he restored the prominence of that nation and gave hope.  We are a world that can't help but Hope!  It is a feature written in our DNA, put there by the creator himself.  Ah, but while we may acknowledge and respond to this desire, we frequently fall short of putting our Hope in the only being that deserves it.  Like the fools that we are, we tend to stop short and put our Hope in everything except the one that can actually deliver.  It is not our Hope itself that matters, but the object of our Hope.  Our Hope in Jesus resides on the eternal, just and loving nature of our savior, The Savior.  Hope springs eternal...your damn right it does!

So whether it's Ferguson, Ebola, ISIS or our abusive neighbor, our Hope remains the same.  Do I want peace in Ferguson and Shaw for my own convenience, or because I want Jesus to live in the hearts of those around me?  We must not stop short!  Why do I want the Middle East to have peace?  Because extremism will always be the best option when Hope has died.  Why do I want to help my neighbor?  Because the condition of my own soul is at stake...Did I do everything I could to give to others the Hope I have in Jesus?  Not for my own comfort (relationships in fact are all kinds of discomfort), but because he Loves me.

Rage! Against the Dying of the Light OR This Little Light of Mine

I've always been a little dark.  For all my goofiness and for all my manic episodes, quite predictably there have been many dark days.  And that has been the arc of my story: the fight against the dark.  My identity has been one tainted by sadness.  As a boy, and I was a happy boy, I always felt haunted by a feeling of ache or emptiness.  I think it was partially guilt, both legitimate and also religiously induced.  But there was something more.  I was and am sensitive to the world.  I have a high capacity for empathy and what my heart has always whispered to me is that things just aren't how they are supposed to be.  

Without guidance, an emotional boy gets easily confused.  The world becomes too much, too much hurt, too much disappointment so you do what you can to make it go away.  To everyone else, you're a fun guy, but in the quiet moments alone when there is no escape from your own thoughts, the ache creeps in.  It's an emptiness that sits in the pit of your being and bids you to jump in.  This is The Fall.  This is the corruption of the Earth.  This is Sin, that compassion for others can wander down a dark road to self destruction.  The Love for my neighbor that God built into me got reprogrammed to a search to meet my own needs and to make a giving boy into a selfish man.  

So in my journey back to Jesus, there has been a lot of deprogramming the years of reprogramming.  In most cases the wires and the hardware and back up drives have all been ripped out, leaving things very basic and very sensitive.  I have become a raw tangle of emotion at times.  When Jesus comes for you, he doesn't come to make you comfortable.  He comes to make you his own.  To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, you had ideas for a few general improvements, maybe a fix here and there, but Jesus is coming in to you and wrecking the place to make a suitable residence for he himself to live.  I get easily overwhelmed by my emotions now and I have to be okay with that.  I have to trust the work he is doing.  I have to let myself be his.  It has led to a lot of Joy, even in the very midst of Pain.  

In church on Sunday, a thought eased into my heart and passed over my whole being, leaving me in a state of wonder.  I can't remember the sequence of thoughts that led me to the revelation but this may very well be a turning point in my understanding of who I am in Christ.  You see, my path back to Jesus has been one plagued by the fight against the darkness in me.  All though I have tried to surrender my complete identity in Jesus, I have still had the notion that I was by nature, Dark.  And while philosophically this can remain true as I am indeed a sinner, that mustn't and needn't remain my default.  I've thought myself a dark soul struggling and searching to be healed by the light.  But I have now realized that I am actually Light by nature struggling to be revealed, to be shone.  I am a Child of Light, I am a Child of God.  It is a fruitless battle to try to beat back the dark down in to the pit of your soul.  But in the Power of Jesus, he ignites a fire from within, a light that drives the dark out completely.  

1 John 4

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear

My Grandma Hodges used to look at me and talk to me in a way that suggested that I was a "Good Boy."  Scotty Angel she called me.  It made me sick.  It made me feel guilty.  It made me feel like she didn't know the real me.  This feeling was indicative of every relationship I would have throughout my adult life.  I always felt like, "If this person knew what I was like on the inside, they would be horrified."  But maybe she saw that little light inside me and she was doing her best to coax it out.  It is a great Joy of my life that I got to express to her how much I had come to love Jesus and nothing could have made her happier.

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity