Spirit and Body

We are always in constant battle for the rights to ourselves.  We fight for the rights of our bodies and we fight for the rights of our spirits.  From a Materialists point of view, the body and it's machinations are all that matter.  Anything resembling a spirit or soul is merely an evolutionary illusion.  The Gnostics, then and now shun the material world, seeing the physical being as mere extra weight to be shed to get to the real self.  These are two worldviews on opposite ends of the spectrum and I have oversimplified them both.  But I do so to express how glorious and comprehensive Christianity is.  More specific, it is Christ himself that makes the world, that makes us whole.  Christ, existing in the heavenly realm, became a man to exist in the earthly realm...on Earth as it is in heaven.  Materialism invites you to escape to your physical comforts.  Gnosticism invites you to discard the concerns of your body, because you are in fact a spirit.  Christ promises something more and something real, that your Spirit exists now and for all time and it has a body and that body, like the whole Earth will be made new.  You only need to believe and upon believing invite the living and breathing Christ to rescue you from an eternity of decay.

Philippians 3
 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹ Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

We can shed neither the Body or the Spirit we can only (attempt) to surrender.  And we mustn't hold back one or the other, but both belong to God and in his hands we can be as he intended: Perfect.  And even when we stray far from that perfection, we can still claim the perfection of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. ² Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, ³ because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴ For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵ Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

GO!

As I was praying tonight, struggling to pray for what God wanted me to pray for.  It began to sink in that I don't really know God, not as well as I suggest I do.  Whatever understanding I have of him now, true as it may be, it pails in comparison to all he really is. Then I was reminded of that scene in a zillion movies, at the climactic moment when one guy rushes up to another and says, "Go tell so and so, such and such." There is minimal information, but the situation is colossally important, like maybe the bad Transformers (Decepticons) weakness is in their power train warranty or something.  Any way it's urgent and dangerous and the receiver of the new information has to decide if he is going to carry on the message.  He looks at the other guy, short of breath and deadly serious.  Will he trust him, Will he believe, Will he sacrifice his own safety to deliver the message?   There's no time get the full story, to vet the information, it's do or die. 

Though Christ has given me very little details, he has given me important information, life saving, and asked me to pass it on.  Do I believe him? Do I trust him? Will I sacrifice my own safety? 
Lord my prayer is that I can deliver the good news you have given me to the ears of those desperate to here it.  We don't get to know everything, but the important things have been made abundantly clear. 

You need a savior, GOD is that savior, he loves you...give yourself to him and do his will.

The Book of Mormon

Recently I went on a trip for work.  We were staying in a hotel and ever since I was a boy, whenever I go to a hotel, the first thing I check is to see if there is a Gideons Bible in the drawer.  It's more ritual than anything, but I can't help but to feel comforted every time I open that drawer and I see the Bible.  It makes me feel like I am protected.  It's not entirely rational, but few rituals are.  This time when I opened the hotel room drawer the Holy Bible was sharing space with The Book of Mormon.  Like a stranger showing up to an intimate gathering, this intruder disrupted my peace.  I held the drawer open for a bit, looking perplexed, feeling like there was something to be done, but eventually I just slowly closed the drawer and began to unpack.  The image hung with me, though.  I decided to take a picture and maybe later figure out what was going on in my head and in my heart.

Beyond the initial disruption of the intruder, I began to wrestle with something even more uncomfortable.  If I were to remove my faith, I would have a hard time explaining why one book was true and one was nonsense.  I already have long standing fight with God over how crazy his book is and how irrational his ways seem.  He has shown incredible patience with my rebelliousness.  This leaves me in a pickle, both for myself and defending my faith: I don't have any quick, succinct solvent for why the Bible is the true and inerrant word of God and the Book of Mormon is koo koo.  When folks set out to debunk the Bible, they quickly find hard to take stories of genocide, fathers killing sons and supernatural events to make their point.  And thus, it's easy to lump all religions into the koo koo bin, requiring either irrational faith or intentional blindness to make it work. So if the Bible is koo koo and The Book of Mormon is koo koo, why do I believe?  Why and how can anyone believe?  Good question.

We were built to believe.  We worship.  Go to a rock concert or a Tony Robbins convention or a Fortune 500 boardroom or some dude's man cave.  We all put our energy into something, making our work or our play or even our family the ultimate thing in our lives.  Some of us worship ourselves.  Even a confident and comfortable Atheist can't get around the need to surrender to something, or perhaps the urge to be a part of something.  For me, this clearly points to how God has created us.  We are built to worship and anything we worship will fall short of complete satisfaction until we worship that which we were built to worship, the one true God.  For those who don't believe, this inherent desire to worship is easily explained in the chemical and scientific terms of an evolutionary need for community as a means of survival.  Intellectually, I am fine with the Bible, I have accepted it.  However, although I have sound arguments on the rationality of belief, equally rational arguments for not believing (though not completely satisfying) leave me feeling just a bit short.  There must be a bit more.  It must be a bit personal. 

Do you have a hero?  An idol or an icon?  Who would you like to be around if given the choice?  The Pope, Bono, Obama, Trump, T. Swift?  I have a hard time, at my age, getting excited about celebrities.  If I could drive around in a 911 with Seinfeld, that would be a dream come true.  I suppose I'd be pretty excited to spend the day with Eddie Vedder.  I imagine me and Pearl Jam hanging out, singing harmonies and picking guitars to all their songs, drinking cheap wine.  Or if they wanted to play basketball, that would be pretty amazing.   The point is that it wouldn't really matter where you were.  Whatever we were doing would be incidental, it's the contact with someone you admire that makes the difference.  Maybe it's a loved one that is gone that you would choose.  You wouldn't really care what the context was, you would just want to see them again.  When we think of Heaven, we get caught up on our own flesh or the conditions of the soil, if there will be mosquitos and if we can eat.  However great we can imagine the perfect conditions to be, the reality is that Heaven is only heaven because Jesus is there.  The reason people don't care about Heaven is because they don't really know who Jesus is.  I make this point to stress that it is a personal relationship with Christ that defines faith.  Faith is only as strong as the object of that Faith.  Religion says victory is won if you have the firm conviction and strength to always have faith.  Christ, who transcends religion, is the only one who says believe in me totally because I am worthy.  The strength of your faith matters little, it is the object of your faith that delivers.  It's not what you do, it is what he has done.  Every other religion, Mormonism being a prime example, says that with enough effort you can get to God, and in fact you may become a God.  The Bible only makes sense, can only be accepted and digested under the understanding of who Jesus Christ is.  I didn't read the Bible to get to God.  God accepted me and revealed who he really was through the Word. 

So, that leaves we with all there has ever been.  After all the mind numbing arguments with myself, after all the attempts to run from what I have felt and then tried to dismiss rational thought because it was uncomfortable, I am left with a Person that stands at the core of my faith.  We are changed not by ideas, but by people that make ideas live.  Movements aren't started by Manifestos, they are started by the stirring of another soul.  Man will use influence in many different ways, but it is always the personal relationship that makes the mark.  In Christ we have access to the most tender, intimate, soul quenching relationship possible.  He made us, he knows what we need and he is calling us home.

Ember.

Knowledge and Wisdom seem so very different the more attempts I make at each. They are not interchangeable.  One serves the other.  You can gain knowledge without gaining wisdom, and it seems that you can possess wisdom in spite of lacking knowledge.  The wise put knowledge to good use.  The knowledgeable are only interested in knowledge.  How can we be so smart and yet perceive nothing?
 
Mark 8. Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? ¹⁸ Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?

There was a time when I tried very hard to separate the things in my heart from mingling with the things in my head.  When I felt like it, I pursued my heart and declared that creative passions were all that mattered.  And when that was tiresome, I called myself an intellect, yet I only pursued things that fell in line with what I already wanted to be true.  I wasn't much of an intellect, closed minded and self serving.  I've quoted this often as I think back on those years of searching for something meaningful: 

“Meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain. Meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure.” G.K. Chesterton   
 
There comes a point, once you've accepted that life is meaningless and love is an illusion, that you know you have to do something about it.  You can't just go on half-assing your own destruction.  You need to make a move to fully extract yourself from those people whose "love" you can't shake.  From here some people go off, in fact, to productive lives, sterile logical and clean.  Some go off to their end, take the last exit, seeing the end and not waiting for it they take matters into their own hands.  The meaninglessness is too real and too much of a disappointment. Some add fuel to their own fire, engaging their own passions, because why not?  These people, like Solomon, deny themselves nothing. 
 
Ecclesiastes 2. 
I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
    I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
    and this was the reward for all my toil.
¹¹ Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
    and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
    nothing was gained under the sun.
 
 There is a naiveté in the people who think themselves wise and worldly.  There is an absence of humility that is almost embarrassing.  When we think of the earlier versions of ourselves, we can feel this embarrassment.  The skeptics , I suppose, would say the same of those that have Faith in the unseen. Those who mock and who are careless with the concepts of good and evil, can never really be good and give great power to evil and as Chesterton says, they cannot see things how they really are: "things of that extreme evil which seem innocent to the uninitiate".  That was me, making a joke of my very ruin.

Some, like me, after attempting little bits of each of these, find that nothing will suffice.  The dissatisfaction that prompted me to leave, now brought me back.  When I found that I was most empty and had shunned all things "good" as a sham, yet I could not help but to still ache for it.  What was it then that persisted, this want of good? 

"The shame that sent me off from the God I once loved, was the one that sent me into your arms." Mumford and Sons   

Here in the empty unsatisfying pit of my own existence, some dim ember was found. In the cold empty space I begged for God to be real and if he was, I needed him.  The door to the cold room of my heart cracked open and the ember caught fire from the rush of fresh air.  From that moment on I began, so very slowly, to see the world as it really was.  Full of fear and real evil, but also joy and beauty.  God began to reclaim all the senses and gifts that I had previously used for gimmicks. They were now becoming super sensitive and being sharpened to be put too proper use. Love is real and so is truth.  Both are unshakable no matter what means we may try to remove them.  Christ found me.  Before he did, I was a fully functioning human on the outside, but crumbling and hopeless on the inside.  He made me new, and all that was good in me from before remained.  This good was nurtured and was given new life by his power.  All that was rotten has been torn out and burned clean (though I still try to bring old garbage back into this new being from time to time)

A house rehabber sometimes has to take a home down to it's barest of bones, foundations and frames.  But it is still a home and still has a purpose.  Sometimes God uses life and our own destructive tendencies, our hideous strength, to strip us down bare, clearing out the rot and the mold and exposing the blueprint of his intentions.  There is something about us that is not us.  We can try to kill it or claim it but we cannot rid ourselves of it.  God will not relinquish his claim on us, yet it is up to us to surrender this right of ourselves, to him.  For me, this could not happen until I was on the verge of losing everything.  Yet it was a battle that was mostly within me.  I wish I understood it well enough to write something concise and comprehendible, but I cannot.  I guess that is why the simplest of hymns are the best.  "Oh Lord my God, When I In Awesome Wonder, look upon the world thy hands have made..."  Or  "I surrender all!!!"  or simpler yet, "I once was lost, but now am found."

St. Stephen of Mar Sabas: Art Thou Weary?

(It takes some effort to get through the language, but this old hymn lays out perfectly...so beautiful.  The translation by John Mason Neale gets much of the credit.  Here's a modern update by Jon Yerby.  http://music.thejourney.org/track/art-thou-weary )

Art thou weary, art thou languid,
Art thou sore distress'd?
"Come to me," saith One, "and, coming,
Be at rest."

Hath he marks to lead me to him,
If he be my Guide?
"In his feet and hands are wound-prints,
And his side."

Is there diadem, as Monarch,
That his brow adorns?
"Yea, a crown, in very surety,
But of thorns."

If I find him, if I follow,
What his guerdon here?
"Many a sorrow, many a labor,
Many a tear."

If I still hold closely to him,
What hath he at last?
"Sorrow vanquished, labor ended,
Jordan passed."

If I ask him to receive me,
Will he say me nay?
"Not till earth and not till heaven
Pass away."

Finding, following, keeping, struggling,
Is he sure to bless?
"Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs
Answer, 'Yes.'"

Uncle Lou.

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.

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.