I've been thinking about my Uncle Lou,
He's been good to me.
I've been staying a while with my Uncle Lou,
He's shown me his city.
Lou has taken me on the town,
His favorite nephew,
And sparing no expense,
Revealed the charm and the pretty.
I've gotten every advantage from Lou,
I've seen the place I want to be
Fill up with more like me,
All polishing up the worn and gritty.
Lou has provided a place for my children
Where there was none before.
I tell myself that everyone wins,
Even with so many outside the door.
I've started to question my Uncle Lou,
Past history and current secrets creep.
I see how he treats his own kids,
Blessing the stranger, cursing his own sheep.
I can't solve, but I can't ignore my Uncle Lou,
Can't take all the good,
With eyes shut to the bad.
I gotta do something more than knock on wood.
Sweet Uncle St. Lou,
Your sons and daughters are dying
And it's your fault.
And rage is building in ferocity.
None of us is blameless St. Lou,
The privileged, the looters and the crying.
We smiled while enduring hate,
We manicured the ruts of animosity.
I'm gonna say Jesus, Uncle Lou,
With hope fading, there is no more denying.
That great name is all we can claim.
Only Jesus saves those too guilty to pity.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Sunday, August 23, 2015
The Great Voice.
I think myself a good singer,
Not great but with a good voice.
Yet I am ever aware of my pitch and volume,
And careful about my song of choice.
Something happens when I hear a real talent,
I get intimidated and I shrink.
My volume and effort slowly fades,
I become a quiet drip in the sink.
Will I fade away completely?
Why do I crave to sing?
How will I handle my new position?
Outside of the inner ring?
Grace is the invitation in,
Grace is greatness inviting,
Grace is making the weak stronger,
Grace is unity in the igniting.
A great voice, The Great Voice,
invites us to sing when we can't carry a tune.
Christ takes our crackles and squeaks,
Takes our lifeless voice and makes it boom!
Unaware of our own selves, we find
Louder and louder our song goes soaring,
We become less and he becomes more,
We open our souls and he comes out roaring.
When my voice was my own, I was
Protected, Prideful and Afraid.
Now that my song has been accepted, I am
Accepted, Forever In Christ, never betrayed.
When Jesus found me,
I was self amplified and strained.
Now that I join the Great Choir of Heaven,
My heart sings his glory forever sustained.
Not great but with a good voice.
Yet I am ever aware of my pitch and volume,
And careful about my song of choice.
Something happens when I hear a real talent,
I get intimidated and I shrink.
My volume and effort slowly fades,
I become a quiet drip in the sink.
Will I fade away completely?
Why do I crave to sing?
How will I handle my new position?
Outside of the inner ring?
Grace is the invitation in,
Grace is greatness inviting,
Grace is making the weak stronger,
Grace is unity in the igniting.
A great voice, The Great Voice,
invites us to sing when we can't carry a tune.
Christ takes our crackles and squeaks,
Takes our lifeless voice and makes it boom!
Unaware of our own selves, we find
Louder and louder our song goes soaring,
We become less and he becomes more,
We open our souls and he comes out roaring.
When my voice was my own, I was
Protected, Prideful and Afraid.
Now that my song has been accepted, I am
Accepted, Forever In Christ, never betrayed.
When Jesus found me,
I was self amplified and strained.
Now that I join the Great Choir of Heaven,
My heart sings his glory forever sustained.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Face Melting.
At the end of the glorious movie Raider's of the Lost Ark, our hero Indiana Jones and his lady friend are the only survivors of a supernatural devastation that occurs when the bad guy opens the Old Testament Ark, which is said to contain the very power of God's wrath. As I think about this movie, it seems clear that Indiana Jones did not have an appropriate reaction to what he experienced. Being a historian and an archeologist, and knowing the Old Testament stories of the Ark of the Covenant, he should have experienced a dramatic life change after being in the presence of the Ark in action. An army was laid waste before him. Jones and Marion were the only survivors as a regiment of the Nazi's finest were melted away. But at the end of the movie, we only have Indiana lamenting to Marion about the government bureaucracy.
Marion: Hey, what happened? You don't look very happy.
Indiana: Fools. Bureaucratic fools!
Marion: What'd they say?
Indiana: They don't know what they've got there.
Marion: Well, I know what I've got here. Come on. I'll buy you a drink. You know, a drink?
The interesting thing is that while his reaction isn't what it should be: worship, awe and praise; it is a true human reaction. We are shown many signs and wonders in the course of our lives. The simplest things should amaze us. Consider that the very breath drawn into our lungs is somehow full of the very thing that gives life to our blood and that blood is pumped by a miraculous muscle into the nooks and crannies of our spectacular body and into the mind, even one that has all the necessary oxygen still doesn't take the time to contemplate what it would take for one small planet, alone in 14 billion years of unimaginable vastness to fall into the perfect temperate range x million miles from an appropriate sized star and amazingly achieve life with no explanation of why or how (at least not in scientific terms), not to mention the very playground of the Universe itself and where it may have come from. We experience the glory of the universe on a daily basis and then, somehow, move right along.
"Hey Marion, remember when we were captured by the Nazi's and they opened the Ark of the Covenant and the Angels of God came and removed the wicked from it's presence?"
"Yes, I remember that?"
"What was the name of the guy that opened it?"
"Beloc."
"Beloc, right. Wow, that was crazy huh?"
"So crazy. I still have nightmares."
"What time do you go in to work tomorrow?"
"Meeting Brody at 8am."
"Love you."
"Love you too, goodnight."
I spent my childhood praying for my own figurative opening of the Ark of the Covenant. Face-melting certainty was preferred over the gentle, lifelong mercy God had planned for me. Indeed, somewhere in my wiring is an irrational desire for destruction because of it's immediacy and undeniability. This is much preferred over the lengthy thoughtfulness and subtlety of patient accountability. But I really did want to believe. Numerous Sundays I went up, like many of my siblings, for alter call after alter call waiting for the bright light of Jesus to strike me blind. That would be something. That I couldn't ignore. But it never came and I processed my failure to receive revelation as a failure on my part. I think I held out that God loved me, but he didn't seem particularly interested in me. Maybe he was disappointed in how I was turning out. The divorce of my parents and the dissolution of my family played a big factor into how I perceived things.
So God still existed for me, out there somewhere. Maybe he was Jesus and Jesus was him, but I didn't spend too much time looking into it. Instead I spent a lot of time trying to poke holes in the validity of the Bible, Faith and certainly Organized Religion. I went on the offensive and tried not to have anything I needed to defend. Eventually, that approach wears on you. You have to believe in something, you just do. But even those who believe in nothing have to have a construct for which to believe in nothing, and then putting great faith in those constructs. Humans are built to believe, to worship. What we choose to worship varies greatly and indeed can be very destructive. If we worship that which is worthy of worship, we get joy. If we do not, we get depravity.
Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." I heard some one suggest recently that the phrasing may actually be "It will not depart from him." This second phrasing feels right for me, because I had certainly departed from the countless hours of Sunday School teaching I had been given and fully abandoned my family's legacy of great faith. It appears, though, that it did not abandon me. The Hound of Heaven, Jesus Christ himself, was after me and over time I could no longer out run his presence.
Francis Thompson - Hound of Heaven
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me'.
Unlike when I was a boy, I no longer wanted to believe, I sensed the great burden it would be. Fundamentally I knew that belief meant surrendering my spot on the throne. I still craved truth and authenticity and sincerity, these things mattered regardless of the subject. In this context, I put a premium on my own brain and assumed that becoming a Christian mean that I would have to surrender my brain along with truth, authenticity and sincerity. Also, I had convinced myself that all Christians were idiots. While I dismissed Christians, I gave great credit and deference to Jews, Buddhists, Hindu, Muslims and all others. They didn't demand anything of me, but Christ did. Into my twenties, whenever Christ got closer, I lit up my own Ark and tried to self-destruct. I tried to burn away the goodness that was after me. I knew it would bring change. But there was an even more powerful force: worthless-ness. As more goodness surrounded me, the more I knew I didn't deserve it.
Yet, in this stage of my life, I was still drawn to Christ. I would buy Jesus themed candles at the grocery store and line them up on the shelf, trying to be ironic I suppose. I was drawn to movies like The Last Temptation of Christ and Dan Brown's DaVinci Code. These were versions of Jesus I could deal with, these depictions contained a contained Jesus. They focused on the humanity of Jesus. I liked this very much. My growing family started to attend a Unitarian Church. I was sure my thirst for truth would be satiated there. They talked about things that mattered: truth, justice, compassion and a little bit of Jesus, what a great guy he was. But as we continued to attend there, and as I consumed more about the human Jesus, the divine Jesus began to reveal himself to me in a way I could receive. He became uncaged in my heart, and my heart began to ache as the human Jesus was touted and the divine Jesus was refuted. More and more it became clear that an only human Jesus was pointless. Many people claim to admire the human Jesus as a great teacher of Love, even as they dismiss his divinity. C.S. Lewis explores this contradiction best and I have quoted this many times.
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
This concept would eventually lead me to the heart of my faith, the moment when I could finally hear Christ's small still voice and it said, "Who do you say I am?"
So a human Jesus, what could a mere historical Jesus do for me? Nothing more than any historical figure, Ghandi or Hitler or Kennedy or Obama. I was getting close, but it would take disparity to drive me to the real, risen, divine Christ. If I wanted so badly to not believe, why then, did this emptiness of unbelief persist? The Divine Jesus, the Hound of Heaven, for reasons only he knows, would not let me be. There is so much more to this story, bears and car wrecks and broken necks and loss and treachery, and I will spare you that, but the point is NOT that I finally became worthy of God's love. The point is that Love is who God is. He just loves us and is relentless about it, pursuing his children, always. I am one of his children. I am a child of God. Realizing this is my Ark moment. It has taken a lifetime, but what is a lifetime to God? He could have opened up the heaven's and spoke to me when I was a boy, but much like the unphased Indiana Jones, I would have not allowed myself to be affected and changed but the power of God. That is the dilemma of Free Will. God's Glory is revealed at all times and for all times in the Word and in the World. He does not change, but it is our ability to receive and perceive that is what must change. For some it comes in a burst of light, for others it comes over the long haul of life. An open mind and a contrite heart are the requirements.
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught' (He said),
'And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited—Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!'
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
'Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.'
As a Footnote, the following link is the author's note from the book, Out of Egypt by Anne Rice. It is a fictional account of the boyhood of Jesus. What she found in her research of the historical Jesus is a story I very much identify with.
Anne Rice Route to Jesus.
If one really seeks the truth, they will find Jesus there waiting and undeniable. But often, we do not really want the truth. As Pilate says to Jesus, "What is Truth?"
Marion: Hey, what happened? You don't look very happy.
Indiana: Fools. Bureaucratic fools!
Marion: What'd they say?
Indiana: They don't know what they've got there.
Marion: Well, I know what I've got here. Come on. I'll buy you a drink. You know, a drink?
The interesting thing is that while his reaction isn't what it should be: worship, awe and praise; it is a true human reaction. We are shown many signs and wonders in the course of our lives. The simplest things should amaze us. Consider that the very breath drawn into our lungs is somehow full of the very thing that gives life to our blood and that blood is pumped by a miraculous muscle into the nooks and crannies of our spectacular body and into the mind, even one that has all the necessary oxygen still doesn't take the time to contemplate what it would take for one small planet, alone in 14 billion years of unimaginable vastness to fall into the perfect temperate range x million miles from an appropriate sized star and amazingly achieve life with no explanation of why or how (at least not in scientific terms), not to mention the very playground of the Universe itself and where it may have come from. We experience the glory of the universe on a daily basis and then, somehow, move right along.
"Hey Marion, remember when we were captured by the Nazi's and they opened the Ark of the Covenant and the Angels of God came and removed the wicked from it's presence?"
"Yes, I remember that?"
"What was the name of the guy that opened it?"
"Beloc."
"Beloc, right. Wow, that was crazy huh?"
"So crazy. I still have nightmares."
"What time do you go in to work tomorrow?"
"Meeting Brody at 8am."
"Love you."
"Love you too, goodnight."
I spent my childhood praying for my own figurative opening of the Ark of the Covenant. Face-melting certainty was preferred over the gentle, lifelong mercy God had planned for me. Indeed, somewhere in my wiring is an irrational desire for destruction because of it's immediacy and undeniability. This is much preferred over the lengthy thoughtfulness and subtlety of patient accountability. But I really did want to believe. Numerous Sundays I went up, like many of my siblings, for alter call after alter call waiting for the bright light of Jesus to strike me blind. That would be something. That I couldn't ignore. But it never came and I processed my failure to receive revelation as a failure on my part. I think I held out that God loved me, but he didn't seem particularly interested in me. Maybe he was disappointed in how I was turning out. The divorce of my parents and the dissolution of my family played a big factor into how I perceived things.
So God still existed for me, out there somewhere. Maybe he was Jesus and Jesus was him, but I didn't spend too much time looking into it. Instead I spent a lot of time trying to poke holes in the validity of the Bible, Faith and certainly Organized Religion. I went on the offensive and tried not to have anything I needed to defend. Eventually, that approach wears on you. You have to believe in something, you just do. But even those who believe in nothing have to have a construct for which to believe in nothing, and then putting great faith in those constructs. Humans are built to believe, to worship. What we choose to worship varies greatly and indeed can be very destructive. If we worship that which is worthy of worship, we get joy. If we do not, we get depravity.
Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." I heard some one suggest recently that the phrasing may actually be "It will not depart from him." This second phrasing feels right for me, because I had certainly departed from the countless hours of Sunday School teaching I had been given and fully abandoned my family's legacy of great faith. It appears, though, that it did not abandon me. The Hound of Heaven, Jesus Christ himself, was after me and over time I could no longer out run his presence.
Francis Thompson - Hound of Heaven
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me'.
Unlike when I was a boy, I no longer wanted to believe, I sensed the great burden it would be. Fundamentally I knew that belief meant surrendering my spot on the throne. I still craved truth and authenticity and sincerity, these things mattered regardless of the subject. In this context, I put a premium on my own brain and assumed that becoming a Christian mean that I would have to surrender my brain along with truth, authenticity and sincerity. Also, I had convinced myself that all Christians were idiots. While I dismissed Christians, I gave great credit and deference to Jews, Buddhists, Hindu, Muslims and all others. They didn't demand anything of me, but Christ did. Into my twenties, whenever Christ got closer, I lit up my own Ark and tried to self-destruct. I tried to burn away the goodness that was after me. I knew it would bring change. But there was an even more powerful force: worthless-ness. As more goodness surrounded me, the more I knew I didn't deserve it.
Yet, in this stage of my life, I was still drawn to Christ. I would buy Jesus themed candles at the grocery store and line them up on the shelf, trying to be ironic I suppose. I was drawn to movies like The Last Temptation of Christ and Dan Brown's DaVinci Code. These were versions of Jesus I could deal with, these depictions contained a contained Jesus. They focused on the humanity of Jesus. I liked this very much. My growing family started to attend a Unitarian Church. I was sure my thirst for truth would be satiated there. They talked about things that mattered: truth, justice, compassion and a little bit of Jesus, what a great guy he was. But as we continued to attend there, and as I consumed more about the human Jesus, the divine Jesus began to reveal himself to me in a way I could receive. He became uncaged in my heart, and my heart began to ache as the human Jesus was touted and the divine Jesus was refuted. More and more it became clear that an only human Jesus was pointless. Many people claim to admire the human Jesus as a great teacher of Love, even as they dismiss his divinity. C.S. Lewis explores this contradiction best and I have quoted this many times.
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
This concept would eventually lead me to the heart of my faith, the moment when I could finally hear Christ's small still voice and it said, "Who do you say I am?"
So a human Jesus, what could a mere historical Jesus do for me? Nothing more than any historical figure, Ghandi or Hitler or Kennedy or Obama. I was getting close, but it would take disparity to drive me to the real, risen, divine Christ. If I wanted so badly to not believe, why then, did this emptiness of unbelief persist? The Divine Jesus, the Hound of Heaven, for reasons only he knows, would not let me be. There is so much more to this story, bears and car wrecks and broken necks and loss and treachery, and I will spare you that, but the point is NOT that I finally became worthy of God's love. The point is that Love is who God is. He just loves us and is relentless about it, pursuing his children, always. I am one of his children. I am a child of God. Realizing this is my Ark moment. It has taken a lifetime, but what is a lifetime to God? He could have opened up the heaven's and spoke to me when I was a boy, but much like the unphased Indiana Jones, I would have not allowed myself to be affected and changed but the power of God. That is the dilemma of Free Will. God's Glory is revealed at all times and for all times in the Word and in the World. He does not change, but it is our ability to receive and perceive that is what must change. For some it comes in a burst of light, for others it comes over the long haul of life. An open mind and a contrite heart are the requirements.
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught' (He said),
'And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited—Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!'
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
'Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.'
As a Footnote, the following link is the author's note from the book, Out of Egypt by Anne Rice. It is a fictional account of the boyhood of Jesus. What she found in her research of the historical Jesus is a story I very much identify with.
Anne Rice Route to Jesus.
If one really seeks the truth, they will find Jesus there waiting and undeniable. But often, we do not really want the truth. As Pilate says to Jesus, "What is Truth?"
Monday, August 3, 2015
Brothers and Sisters.
It was a significant moment, the six of us standing alone in a room with our Mom. The realization of the rarity of the event hit each of us. In our 41 year history as a six sibling family, it has only been a handful of times that it was only the six of us. To have our Mother there, as we were celebrating her 75th, made it all the more powerful. We've been together lots of times with our glorious and growing tree of progeny and spouses, but only rarer than a Blue Moon (wink) have we found a poignant moment alone. We looked at each other, proud, humbled, joyful, grateful, taking a moment to crack wise and wipe away some tears. We basked in the wondrous love of our Mother and she beamed with pride for her children. She did have a significant, private message, but for me the moment was something even greater. As the youngest of six, I have had a unique and privileged view of this family. I grew up in awe of my siblings. They have provided me with so much more than I could ever repay: courage, encouragement, play mates, laughter, financial assistance, ethics, competition, parental lessons, parenting, wisdom, joy...so much joy and pride. As I have grown into an, ahem, adult I have quietly become an equal part in this great group of my personal heroes. I feel like I have crashed a party for VIP's I wasn't invited to and they decided to let me stay.
Standing there in that moment, those feelings of awe became even bigger. More than being in awe of my individual siblings, I was now in awe of the group we are. We are close, indescribably so. Each of us brings something different to group and the interpersonal individual relationships are fascinatingly varied and complicated. Three of us together yields something cohesive, no matter what the line-up or dynamic is. Two of us together, no matter the two, is something significant as well. Five of us together is really hard. Fun will be had, but there is a powerful longing for the absent sibling. Six, Six is glorious. And last night I got a glimpse of why it works.
The reason it works, is not surprisingly because of our parents. Now kids will always find a reason to resent their parents, that's just the way it works. And, well, our parents gave us plenty of opportunities in this category as well. But it is the environment of love and forgiveness my parents have fostered that makes it possible for us all to work through our own mistakes and their's and move these missteps into the category of comedic material. Whatever our parents have done, they have never failed to provide Love in ridiculous amounts. For that, we and everyone in our lives are blessed. I have now realized that I have given my Mother insufficient credit for how much I love my brother and sisters. It is her love that makes that love possible. And it is her patient and unwavering love that has always pointed to Christ. That's amazing. What sits underneath it all, at the foundation is Linda Jean's Grateful spirit. She is always proclaiming her blessings, no matter what is happening in her life. She can get overwhelmed by life, but never ceases to be thankful. It's no wonder that I always think of her when I hear the lyrics, "Count your blessings, count them one by one. Count your blessing, see what God has done."
Each of my siblings and I have a slightly different approach to our Faith, expressing it differently and with slight variations in our beliefs. However, I believe all of us put Jesus Christ at the center of our lives and we know that God is Good and has provided us with all we need. We are all likely to say that we are blessed in extraordinary ways. I hope this means I have been as grateful as my Mother has modeled to me. Her diligence and hard work have been multiplied because, more than anything, she is thankful and gives due Glory to God.
That moment was a powerful one. We stood, the Seven of us, in that hotel room while an impatient throng of Grandkids, Great Grandkids, Spouses, etc. waited for us to come back. We lingered, soaking up our special bond just a bit longer than we should have. I wish I could explain what it's like to be in this family, with these amazing people, but then again I'm kind of glad that I can't. It's a thing meant for just 6 to understand completely. But hopefully that also means that everyone around us gets to enjoy the bond as well, contributing and making stronger as each soul gets added to the party, by birth or by grace. It's not perfect, not by a long shot. We have all failed each other in one way or another, but perfection is not the point or the goal. Love, love is what it is all about. I pray our love for each other reflects God's perfect Love. In his perfect love is not only forgiveness, but salvation.
1 John 4
Standing there in that moment, those feelings of awe became even bigger. More than being in awe of my individual siblings, I was now in awe of the group we are. We are close, indescribably so. Each of us brings something different to group and the interpersonal individual relationships are fascinatingly varied and complicated. Three of us together yields something cohesive, no matter what the line-up or dynamic is. Two of us together, no matter the two, is something significant as well. Five of us together is really hard. Fun will be had, but there is a powerful longing for the absent sibling. Six, Six is glorious. And last night I got a glimpse of why it works.
The reason it works, is not surprisingly because of our parents. Now kids will always find a reason to resent their parents, that's just the way it works. And, well, our parents gave us plenty of opportunities in this category as well. But it is the environment of love and forgiveness my parents have fostered that makes it possible for us all to work through our own mistakes and their's and move these missteps into the category of comedic material. Whatever our parents have done, they have never failed to provide Love in ridiculous amounts. For that, we and everyone in our lives are blessed. I have now realized that I have given my Mother insufficient credit for how much I love my brother and sisters. It is her love that makes that love possible. And it is her patient and unwavering love that has always pointed to Christ. That's amazing. What sits underneath it all, at the foundation is Linda Jean's Grateful spirit. She is always proclaiming her blessings, no matter what is happening in her life. She can get overwhelmed by life, but never ceases to be thankful. It's no wonder that I always think of her when I hear the lyrics, "Count your blessings, count them one by one. Count your blessing, see what God has done."
Each of my siblings and I have a slightly different approach to our Faith, expressing it differently and with slight variations in our beliefs. However, I believe all of us put Jesus Christ at the center of our lives and we know that God is Good and has provided us with all we need. We are all likely to say that we are blessed in extraordinary ways. I hope this means I have been as grateful as my Mother has modeled to me. Her diligence and hard work have been multiplied because, more than anything, she is thankful and gives due Glory to God.
That moment was a powerful one. We stood, the Seven of us, in that hotel room while an impatient throng of Grandkids, Great Grandkids, Spouses, etc. waited for us to come back. We lingered, soaking up our special bond just a bit longer than we should have. I wish I could explain what it's like to be in this family, with these amazing people, but then again I'm kind of glad that I can't. It's a thing meant for just 6 to understand completely. But hopefully that also means that everyone around us gets to enjoy the bond as well, contributing and making stronger as each soul gets added to the party, by birth or by grace. It's not perfect, not by a long shot. We have all failed each other in one way or another, but perfection is not the point or the goal. Love, love is what it is all about. I pray our love for each other reflects God's perfect Love. In his perfect love is not only forgiveness, but salvation.
1 John 4
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
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, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Strong.
The survival of the fittest: Stronger, Faster, more Clever, and more Prolific. Progress is made, beasts get stronger, the prey more clever, the small more prolific and the brains of the upright, seemingly smarter and smarter. Evolution as a term carries so much weight that I'd rather not use it, but we are indeed heading some where, advancing and improving but not entirely in control. Whatever this progression is or is not, God takes the strongest, smartest, most clever and most prolific, while they careen out of control with only enough sense to perpetuate themselves, and puts them under his rule. Under his rule, if they do not submit they will be destroyed, or more likely they will destroy themselves. In a world where God is having his way, the strongest, most clever, most prolific and smartest will care for the weakest, most disabled, abused and most in need.
We see glimpses. We burn with a desire to care for others. But we also see great destruction. We feel the consequences of the fact that God has not asserted his will with the full force that he could (should). If he did, we would be no more. He is waiting in his mercy to bring his peace and his judgment. He has also decided to use his people as a tool for his will to be done.
In Isaiah 11,
The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together;
and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
If you were made strong, or smart, or clever, or prolific, you were made so under the authority of Jesus Christ. Both Evolution and the Bible would tell you to be fruitful and multiply. But in the beauty and grace of Christ you are also told care for the poor, the weak, the needy and the burdened. In our fantasies and in our hearts, we yearn for a Super Hero, someone strong to protect the weak. If survival of the fittest is the rule, where on earth did this powerful idea of benevolent sacrifice come from? It came from the Creator of all, who gave us the finest, truest example of complete Strength and complete Sacrifice. Only one deserves to be called Savior. Because he is strong and because he saves, in the end the first will be the last and the strong will give way to the meek. As much as this may mess with our current sensibilities, this is the way perfection and peace will reign.
From Matthew 5
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Friday, July 10, 2015
The Most.
If you discovered that the person that you Fear the most
Was the person that Loved you the most,
You would find the Power in Trusting that person the most.
The Fear would appropriately remain,
But with Love and Trust in place,
Awe and Wonder would rush in and make Joy the most.
Jesus Gave all, He made it all and gave it all away.
Though we deny him out of fear, sadness or pride,
The Truth remains that he Loves us The Most.
Was the person that Loved you the most,
You would find the Power in Trusting that person the most.
The Fear would appropriately remain,
But with Love and Trust in place,
Awe and Wonder would rush in and make Joy the most.
Jesus Gave all, He made it all and gave it all away.
Though we deny him out of fear, sadness or pride,
The Truth remains that he Loves us The Most.
Monday, May 18, 2015
It's not a tumor!
Sin is not a solid thing. It is not a mass to be identified and diagnosed and then carefully extracted. We can't place it in a jar of alcohol like a tumor and point to it and say, "This is what almost killed me! But I got it!" Sin is not a cancer that you can get, irradiating and starving it until it submits to you. No Sin is present in our very flesh. It is invasive and inextricable from our flesh. We don't work on Sin, no we must kill it, by killing the very flesh in which it lives. This sounds impossible harsh...and it is. We cannot submit parts of ourselves to God and hope to be cured. We must submit all of ourselves. We say to God, "This is what I will do for you, just rid me of this plague!" What we must say, with sincerity is "Jesus, I can do nothing, I surrender, please do with me what you will. Cure me and make me new, not for my comfort, but for your glory."
Romans
8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a]free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[c] And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
In Christ we are surrendered and made new. In the symbolism of baptism we have the old creature being covered in water, buried with Christ, to rise out of the water as a new creation in Christ. Total submersion, total submission is necessary.
2 Corinthians 5
As with almost every thing that is hard, our temptation is to stop short. We recognize sin and don't want it. Yet we find a way to blame God for it's existence, either in us or in the world. We say things like, "I sin because I feel unloved...and that's God's fault, not mine." Makes sense, right, he is in the power position. He made me this way! I don't want to be sinful! This state of mind becomes an impossible stumbling block. It's true, we do feel unloved. And because of that we seek out something to fill that void. We make the false assumption that if we feel unloved, then we must be unloved. That is not God's nature, though. His love is perfect and unending. Until we can surrender to him, we will always carry the seed of doubt. It's an all or nothing deal. It is sinful to want the help of Christ, without wanting Christ himself. But we do this all the time, begging for his mercy and guidance and healing and blessing, but failing to yearn for Christ himself.
A couple months ago, my 6 year old daughter was praying with my wife. She was making all sorts of demands of God, all the things she wanted. My wife lovingly stopped her and informed my dear daughter that "God is not a Genie, who just grants you everything you want, whenever you want." When they resumed prayer, my clever sinful daughter then asked God for a Genie. We know we need love, grace and healing, yet we don't know our part in receiving it.
Sin's claws remain in our flesh, even in apparent victory over it. When the symptomatic sins are removed, successfully cut off from the body, a deeper more insidious sin appears in it's place. And that sin is Pride. If I struggle with perfectionism (or any ism) and I come to understand that it is a sin, I may still remain secretly proud of it. It's as if being attractive were a sin and we decided to cover our face out of duty. Underneath nothing has changed, we would still know that we are beautiful. In secret we would still gaze into the mirror to make sure, never fully dealing with the problem. I say my perfectionism is a function of trying to please God, an attempt to earn his Love. This is probably true, but it's not all the way to the Cross true. If we are all the way convicted of our sin, we know it can only mean one thing: we have rejected Christ from his rightful Throne and placed ourselves there. We allow ourselves to think that our perfectionism, or control, or manipulations or our lust is about our weaknesses and attempts to deal with our feelings of unloved-ness. However, the scary root of this is that what we are actually saying is "Jesus, you are not enough. Savior, you are have fallen short. Lord, you are a disappointment. Almighty, I want your help, but I don't want you." If you've ever loved Jesus or anyone, this should be a crushing realization. It should sicken us and cause us to fall to our knees and beg for mercy. "Jesus I have sinned against you! Save me, save me, save me! I give you everything, I surrender all!" The conviction of this core sin should yield in us a desperate, urgent repentance. Don't stop short and settle for the process of repentance, like it is some training regimen to be mastered. Instead, run like and untrained fool, giving everything only to collapse at the finish. Save nothing for the present and save nothing for yourself. Make sure you have spent all your personal resources so that you are dependant solely on Christ himself.
Hebrews 12
12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Don't hid your light under a basket, don't save anything for yourself, don't hide your face, don't set your tumor in a jar and marvel at all you've overcome. Your Sin and your past may be relevant in your story, but don't let it be THE story. Don't make a scrapbook of who you used to be as your only witness to Jesus Christ. Let your current bold preaching of the Gospel in your current life be your testimony. Yes, he has done amazing things in you and me, but that is only an outworking of the glorious and amazing things his Love and Grace are.
Matthew 5
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Romans
8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a]free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[c] And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
In Christ we are surrendered and made new. In the symbolism of baptism we have the old creature being covered in water, buried with Christ, to rise out of the water as a new creation in Christ. Total submersion, total submission is necessary.
2 Corinthians 5
15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!
As with almost every thing that is hard, our temptation is to stop short. We recognize sin and don't want it. Yet we find a way to blame God for it's existence, either in us or in the world. We say things like, "I sin because I feel unloved...and that's God's fault, not mine." Makes sense, right, he is in the power position. He made me this way! I don't want to be sinful! This state of mind becomes an impossible stumbling block. It's true, we do feel unloved. And because of that we seek out something to fill that void. We make the false assumption that if we feel unloved, then we must be unloved. That is not God's nature, though. His love is perfect and unending. Until we can surrender to him, we will always carry the seed of doubt. It's an all or nothing deal. It is sinful to want the help of Christ, without wanting Christ himself. But we do this all the time, begging for his mercy and guidance and healing and blessing, but failing to yearn for Christ himself.
A couple months ago, my 6 year old daughter was praying with my wife. She was making all sorts of demands of God, all the things she wanted. My wife lovingly stopped her and informed my dear daughter that "God is not a Genie, who just grants you everything you want, whenever you want." When they resumed prayer, my clever sinful daughter then asked God for a Genie. We know we need love, grace and healing, yet we don't know our part in receiving it.
Sin's claws remain in our flesh, even in apparent victory over it. When the symptomatic sins are removed, successfully cut off from the body, a deeper more insidious sin appears in it's place. And that sin is Pride. If I struggle with perfectionism (or any ism) and I come to understand that it is a sin, I may still remain secretly proud of it. It's as if being attractive were a sin and we decided to cover our face out of duty. Underneath nothing has changed, we would still know that we are beautiful. In secret we would still gaze into the mirror to make sure, never fully dealing with the problem. I say my perfectionism is a function of trying to please God, an attempt to earn his Love. This is probably true, but it's not all the way to the Cross true. If we are all the way convicted of our sin, we know it can only mean one thing: we have rejected Christ from his rightful Throne and placed ourselves there. We allow ourselves to think that our perfectionism, or control, or manipulations or our lust is about our weaknesses and attempts to deal with our feelings of unloved-ness. However, the scary root of this is that what we are actually saying is "Jesus, you are not enough. Savior, you are have fallen short. Lord, you are a disappointment. Almighty, I want your help, but I don't want you." If you've ever loved Jesus or anyone, this should be a crushing realization. It should sicken us and cause us to fall to our knees and beg for mercy. "Jesus I have sinned against you! Save me, save me, save me! I give you everything, I surrender all!" The conviction of this core sin should yield in us a desperate, urgent repentance. Don't stop short and settle for the process of repentance, like it is some training regimen to be mastered. Instead, run like and untrained fool, giving everything only to collapse at the finish. Save nothing for the present and save nothing for yourself. Make sure you have spent all your personal resources so that you are dependant solely on Christ himself.
Hebrews 12
12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Don't hid your light under a basket, don't save anything for yourself, don't hide your face, don't set your tumor in a jar and marvel at all you've overcome. Your Sin and your past may be relevant in your story, but don't let it be THE story. Don't make a scrapbook of who you used to be as your only witness to Jesus Christ. Let your current bold preaching of the Gospel in your current life be your testimony. Yes, he has done amazing things in you and me, but that is only an outworking of the glorious and amazing things his Love and Grace are.
Matthew 5
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
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