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| So what I'm about to write may seem totally ambiguous, a little crazy, or just plain frightening, but hold on...I think in awhile I'll be onto something. I titled this almost alive, because there's this song I just happened to hear by the undeserving....called "almost alive" and i think that's what this blog is all coming down to, maybe not right at present, but eventually a few months, maybe years down the road...all I know is that I feel like I'm seeing something for the first time. Maybe everyone is smarter than me and already knows what I feel I'm just discovering....So here you go...do what you will with the following:
I feel so absolutely betrayed by society, by America maybe, at least the media anyway. All the world builds a fortress of freedom and I disdain it. I truly understand its false hopes, its clatter of cliches; perhaps the American Dream. I was a fool to believe its "truth" in the first place. "They", the infamous, tell you there's no truth, no foundation to build yourself upon, ot identify yourserlf by. Whatever "yourself" means. So "they" get together to proclaim they have it, this answer to "the question" it's the heroism of individuality. Hands clap and the crowd goes wild in any movie, in any story, in any novel or poetry, when the person has found themself. Hah! I laugh at it now, well maybe lament it is more like it. Really, that's it...everything I've been headed towards is this redicuouls journey of finding myself..is that it? Is that the best you got, is that really all there is to life? Hardly. What you've really done is shot my theology--which may or may not be a bad thing right now. No, it's not quite dead, but maybe it needs to die. Maybe that's whats wrong with me; my fake hollow theology. How could I have ever believed in something that is such a farce, not even a farce because therein lies some truth. No it's mostly a huge letdown, to quote a singer, " A beautiful letdown" No, I'm not necessarily talking about Jesus Christ theology. I'm talking about my theology. I'm finally starting to see exactly that I am an alien, alienated from the grand fortress of dissappointed, shallow, hollow, empty, grevious freedom. It's like, as this fool--I'm suddenly aware, I've been searching for the truth here...here on earth. I've come to the end and at the moment I've lost my taste for books, literature, movies, jargon, sermons, and a host of other propaganda that leads me to "finding myself" and "finding truth." How could I have ever though that it would lead me to these things? I've come to the end: nothingness, not a solid thing. I guess I feel so betrayed becasue I believed in you! I believed in you--this world of ideas. I believed you could offer me a new place here, a home, some comfort, some reward for all of my wandering and vagabond thoughts that I hoped would lead me to the truth...I thought that if I traveled far enough, I would find something to stake my hope in; low and behold, nothing.
So now there is this matter: Jesus Christ. He claimed something you've only weakly insinuated. He has claimed to have, hold, possess, even BE the truth. What a bold claim. He says that if I stake my hope in him I will never be dissappointed. Yet again, something you frailey, quietly, akwardly insinuated, through your televsion programming, your foolish novels, silly axioms and theories. You are full of insinuations aren't you, but never any proof. How many others out ther have you trapped? Yet I go back again to say: I'm so sad that I was such a fool to believe I could believe in you! I am the biggest fool of all. I am sad that I placed my trust in your ideas: myself, the world, the media, and society. So i digress and release my condemnation upon you. Why? Because you are just as lost as I am...you do not need to hold the full weight--only part-- of my blame...that's my fault...You too cope the only way you know how.
So here I am again this place, just like Pontus Pilate, who had to decide what to do with the incarnation of truth: Jesus Christ. Him, his word, the Bible, I do not question. However, I am back at square one...since this is the truth...what does that mean: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. There it is: TRUTH in its most unadulterated form...yet I'm not sure I know it...and more imporantly, though it is true...do I believe it for myself...I mean really believe it with every fiber of my being...that God created? That is why I say I belive that I am finally almost alive, for the first time... | | |
| Spying though my dreaming eye
a tampering unlocking pry
Stalking though the dark hall
Up each step unshaken without a fall
I saw you coming or there you saw me
Reading a book I named my memory
It's then you took a chance to let me discover
My mess, my redemption, my recover
Take this old book of mine
Give me something new to sign
Here's your wish, the end of a new book
Urging me gently, take a look
The pages contain nothing, no ink, no word
As if to say here's the story yet unheard,
Don't you worry when your eyes get blurred
It's a gift to write, about what you dare with tears
About time sadly sung, how you stooped in broken years
Forget not to write too
About when, before time, I knew you
How I whispered a seed of hope so deep
Into your soul how it settled to sleep
When your weeping finally bid it rise
Through the seeping sadness and sopping lies
You'll raise back to life what you thought was dead
Understand this: your pen will write what has been unsaid | | |
| Sometimes, I just look at the world, look at my life, and its as if we were raped by a hurricane. I see nothing but devastation. Houses T-boned into each other, cars blocking the road, roofs caving in, rot and mold, water damage and garbage everywhere...and I wonder how will this mess ever get cleaned up and how long will it take? All of us seek redemption. We all mourn the mistakes, the sin, the failings, the brokenness, and the "not-quite-what-I wanted" in our lives. We look at the mess and we so desprately want for everything to be made right. We want that shroud that covers our lives to be removed. We want to see the glorious, illuminating day when sorrows are forgotten and love no longer hides in the shadows. Where brothers and sisters could not get anymore close, where Fathers return, longing to hold their children agaisnt their chest. Where Mothers stand unbroken and arms wide open. Where friends are brought home to the hearts of each other. Freely discussing the depths of their souls. Where lovers are no longer inhibited by fear and selfishness, but welded together for the first time with the strongest alloy: love. Is there such a moment in a line of time? Is there ever such a place to find? I guess that it starts with losing pride...pride being that lying, overestimation of the self, the false assumptions of who we think we are. I want the truth of myself, the good, the bad, the amazing, the beautiful, the contemptible, the destitute, the needing, the sad, the ugly...just so that I might for a moment be humble, so maybe I could really see the hearts of men and not their outward appearance...and somehow wedge real love through the door of devastation. | | |
| Okay...so I was supposed to read this book when I lived in Texas...but never got around to it...but now I'm reading it and now it's a different book than I expected. I'm starting a blog series on my personal reflections on each or several chapters. Here are my thoughts on Ch. 1...by all means read this if you are interested.
We have a desparate need not for intelligent of gifted people, but for DEEP people. --Robert Foster
I guess my reflections, after letting the chapter sink in, are that it's so easy to get off track and lose what you know you were made for i.e. Compassion can so easily turn into criticism. I'm made to love people and for some time now all I've done is hate them, but I'm remembering, like a dream, how I was. So many of the things I would do for others came from the deepest humility and affections in the heart God created in me. It was and is a "divine" love, as the book would say, because no human is capable alone of complete and true love. Everything I've been doing has merely been a stimulated response to what I know to do and how does that REALLY make a difference. Sure people might get the idea that your cool, spiritual, and good at what you do, but that is shallow and fleeting. I'm not understanding how or why I veered off but I did. Now though, God has so graciously rescued me from the treacherous side roads. I'm beginning to see that pride and love cannot go together. Pride only speaks the language of flattering, superficial, self-manipulating love. Humility drags you down deep into the hearts of men and women, so that in each heart you see the truthfulness of their lives, you also see reflections of yourself. Humility summons only the divine love that Christ offered the world. That humility, that divine love are what breaks hard hearts, consoles those inconsolable, quiets the mockers, heals the hurting, brings life to dry and thirsty spirits and all this not just in others, but also in the self. Humility and Divine Love.
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| A page could be filled with all the things I'll find myself getting angry at...the way people drive, the someone doesn't put soemthing back, lack of relational communication, having to work, moving, myself failing, God, dropping something, the list goes on...but lately I've realized something, or a few things if you will. One that I spend a lot of energy needlessly...I could better expend my energy doing somethig else...i.e. try forgiveness, letting go, breathing, futher I realized through an aritcle I read that my anger is so graceless....If I spend so much time not extending grace to others that distances us, hinders the relationships I could have with them....futher it distances me from grace. If I can't offer grace, it's that much harder to not only get things done in the natrual world, but also with God, I make it difficult on myself to love him through my obedience. And if you've been on the end of my graceless anger...please do forgive me...and lets make a toast, a toast to the one who created me, to the one who has the deepest, strongest, and purest love I know, and to the one who never rests but is always holding the people of the world in his hand...never stopping always loving always just. | | |
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