thinking and stuff – Page 5 – A Work in Progress

Stream of Early Morning Consciousness

You are everything I will ever need
to complete everything you are asking of me
So I lay it all down for the sake of
Your name
Here I am, God, use me, set me aflame…

It’s so interesting the times God chooses to communicate something to a person. It’s 0440 and I want to be asleep. Lord knows I should be. Yet here I lie, thinking the above song lyric.

Why now, God?

What do I have to offer that you need, or can use? I can’t even manage to sleep…my mind keeps spitting out praise lyrics, like some demented late night Wurlitzer…

you are my all in all

And I wish I could praise you with my own words, but I keep coming back to the words of others, perhaps because my words are not enough

if I had no voice, if I had no tongue, I would dance for you like the rising sun

If I could say what I really meant I would say something to thank you for pulling me from the quicksand that was my life and making a man out of me.

I would thank you for coming to me in my weakness and not my strength, and for showing me it was ok to grieve and be broken.

I would thank you for holding my patchwork heart in your hands, and loving me even when I feel like a ****up. I would thank you for the beautiful and Godly woman who sleeps behind me as I thumb type this, who makes me want to be better.

If I had more words, better words, I’d thank you for showing me my gifts, and bringing me to this smallish town and bringing people like Ken, and Paul, and Jeff, and Zeb and Alan into my life–Godly men who love you and are helping me to pull something out of myself I didn’t know existed.

If I had the words, I would thank you for your Word, and your words, that bring life, that

wake me up inside

And here’s the other thing, maybe the last thing for now. Maybe there are people I know who will read this who do not believe. They might give a little sigh of exasperation because here I go again.

Well, so what.

I may not be the best writer or speaker or teacher or husband or whatever. But I am learning, all the time, and I am realizing that

we were meant to live for so much more

I know this and feel it in my heart. My words might not properly represent you at times before others, maybe even most times. But I know what you’ve done in my life, and nothing anyone says or believes about me can change that.

So I offer you my service, such as it is.

here I am God, use me

I Wonder

Let me begin by saying I am no pastor. I am not a theologian, or apologist of any particular skill. I am just a man who believes, and I am a member of a congregation. As such, I’ve began to wonder a few things about “the church” as a collective body, not just the place I worship a couple times a week.

I wonder if sometimes we forget why we enter those doors, or why they’re even there in the first place?

I wonder if sometimes we sit in judgment on the people who walk through those doors, as if the things that bother us about them matter at all to God?

I wonder if sometimes we think so much about who signs the most checks in the offering plate we forget about the people who have no checks to sign that are right outside our doors?

I wonder if giving people what they expect from church can sometimes supersede giving Jesus what he deserves?

I wonder if we can change–as people and the body–to actually reach the people in our own backyards who are so broken and so jaded and hurt by the world they have no idea who Jesus is?

I wonder if we can ever grasp that while Jesus is the way, truth, and life, the worship methodologies we’ve grown accustomed to are not necessarily the only ones that can bring the proper measure of praise to God?

I wonder if we will ever understand the vernacular of our youth in such a way that we can acknowledge they can actually say something to God with it?

I wonder if we will realize that our preferred level of spiritual reverence is not the only one that exists?

I wonder if we can truly learn to love the sometimes unloveable?

I wonder if we can ever really be the hands and feet of Jesus if we don’t stop trying to please people and start trying to please God?

I wonder if we can remember that in a sense, we are all leaders in our respective churches?

That’s the real trick, at least it is for me. I represent the church, and not just my own church. I represent Jesus before people who have never heard the truth about him. Like it or not, I am a leader in the church. And as Northpoint Pastor Andy Stanley said, as leaders “we are not responsible for filling anyone else’s cup, we are responsible for emptying ours…”

I think if we all just focus on emptying our cups in worship and praise we will be on our way toward living in the fullness of Christ.

I wonder what would happen if we did that?

This young man here is emptying his cup…

Back on the Couch

It has taken me several days to process Friday’s events in Connecticut enough to get to a place in my head and my heart where I could write about it. I was in The Big Swirl frozen yogurt shop with John when I saw something on Twitter about a shooting.

Just then John tried to go behind the counter so we took off and headed over to GameStop to look for some Xbox accessories for David. John decided that would be a great place for a power dump, and it wasn’t until after I changed him that I sat in my car and read the story in full.

The magnitude of the tragedy was simply breathtaking, and I struggled to get my mind around it. What could have happened in this young, young man’s head that he could murder a class full of first graders?

In my mind I saw their faces as he came through the door, probably looking up in curiosity. As a parent my mind immediately went to my own third grade son sitting in his classroom, and two the toddler I’d just buckled into his car seat.

I wanted to be angry at the boy (because that’s really what he was) who had done this evil (because that’s it was), and I even expected to be mad at God for allowing it to happen but all I could feel to this very cold Sunday morning is a sadness so profound it coils in my guts like sickness. I think CS Lewis had it right when he said “no one ever told me grief felt so much like fear…”

I feel a grief of a level I haven’t felt since I was a teenager when I lost my parents and a good friend in my 16th, 17th, and 18th years. I didn’t know how to grieve that loss, and I don’t know how to grieve this one.

Clearly I didn’t know any of those children, but I grieve for them just the same. I grieve for their families. I grieve for what could have been. I grieve for the loss of so much innocence all at once.

I grieve for the teachers and faculty who died trying (some successfully and some not) to protect their students. I grieve for their families.

I grieve for the family of the murderer as well. The love they felt for the killer is no different than what the parents of the murdered children feel. Plus, this young man’s father has to live with what his son did and wonder where he fell short for the rest of his life.

I grieve for the country I love as well, because I feel this tragedy will not pull us together but further apart. It will be gun control vs gun owners and it will not stop.

I grieve because I know something like this will happen again.

I don’t blame the gun, or the killer’s mother for owning the ones used that morning. I don’t blame God or anyone else. God didn’t pull the trigger so many times Friday; a man did. I’m not going to get into the gun control debate today and maybe not at all, but I will say this (and I grieve the loss of my own innocence as well):

I own a gun. I bought it to shoot at targets. I have no plans to shoot any living thing.

But I would put a hundred bullets into the young man who did this thing to protect even a single child and I would be able to live with myself.

I read an excellent post by Morgan Freeman (find it on the Internet) which apportioned blame to media influenced sensationalism and I think that’s true, but not the only truth.

I think we’re failing our kids on a regular basis. So many have lost the idea that life is precious, and what binds us to it is little more than gossamer thread. Violence and violent imagery is ubiquitous. We expose our kids to it and we expose ourselves to it. It makes me despair for people. It makes me think there’s nothing to be done for the world. It makes me think there’s nothing anyone can do, the world is speeding to a sad and inevitable end.

It makes me think there is no hope.

There is hope, and that hope came to earth two millennia ago in a humble and quiet manner.

The hope for humanity is in the form of an obscure Nazarene carpenter who wore humanity for 33 years before dying for it. Our hope is not in a victory that can be achieved by strength of arms, though it is by blood.

We can’t change the hearts of our children, but we can tell them about who can. We can teach them to love like Jesus did. We can teach them every single life means something. We can teach them of the quiet heroism of school teachers and janitors.

I think if we just pour love into our kids then maybe we have a chance against this sort of thing.

Back to this morning. John woke up at 0600, and I brought him out to the couch. I skimmed through Twitter and Facebook, reading news stories about the shooting and people’s status updates about their lives, which carried on. Mine will, too.

Then I saw a picture, and it just wrecked me. It was a painting, really, on a post that was a poem with the rhyme structure and meter of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.’

In the painting, Jesus sat in a classroom surrounded by children, and a teacher was reading to her students from a children’s book.

There will be more pictures in the days to come. Many words will be spoken and written, and not all of them will be loving.

I think the thing to remember is that everyone grieves differently, and we should allow them that. Some will cry, some will pray, some will be angry. Some will curse God or call for the weapons of all gun owners.

We need to let people process their grief in their own way, and then we can move on.

We need to talk about a lot of things.

Finding Our Night-Night Place

Here I am again on the couch. John woke up at 430, exactly when I did–maybe he heard my alarm. I get up that early so I have time to have breakfast, and throw lunch together or take a shower. More importantly, that’s my morning devo time.

Well, trying to get a semi-fussy toddler back to sleep precludes all but the last of those things. And so it was that I ended up in my spot with a baby on my shoulder, and talking to God.

I spoke softly, but I did pray aloud, and it wasn’t until he heard the sound of my voice that John stopped squirming and started going back to sleep.

I think we do that, too. Sometimes life makes us squirm–life, in all its messiness with all its pitfalls and all its pain.

We get so caught up in whatever is going on it’s hard to calm down. This morning John needed a few things to calm him down and get him back to his “night-night” place. Sometimes we need that, too.

I think most of all, it was the sound of a calming voice (I prayed over him and sang softly into his ear) and the feeling of comfort that comes from feeling daddy’s arms.

That’s what we need, too, sometimes. We need to hear daddy’s voice and feel his love.

I think that looks and feels a little different for everyone. With some people, that love manifests through reading scripture. For others, it comes from hearing his voice through song, or from the gentle breeze of his voice through prayer, or maybe some other way.

It’s different for everyone.

The world and our troubles can fall away when we allow ourselves to hear from our abba, however he speaks to us.

So amazing when that happens. This morning, it happened for John, and for me through a fussy baby. The night before, I got to carry David back to his bed (won’t be able to do that much longer!). Anyway, I won’t get back to my night-night place until after practice tonight, unfortunately.

My Alabaster Jar

I woke up this morning (way too early, thanks to John), and I was still thinking about church last night. Specifically, the music. Perhaps it was that in conjunction with a video I watched earlier in the day:

(Zeb posted this a month or so ago. It inspired me then and inspires me now)

I watched that again yesterday afternoon while Jen was getting her toes did, and I was still thinking about it when we got to church and Jorge sang this song during communion:

I started thinking about truly dedicating my life to something, and what that actually meant.

here I am, take me…

When I got married, I dedicated the rest of my life to being with my wife in all circumstances, forsaking all others. I think it is very much like that when you offer yourself and your service (such as it may be) to Jesus.

I suppose that’s why the church is often referred to as “the bride of Christ.”

I tell myself that my natural affinities would not be useful to Jesus, and that he would never be able to use me for anything of consequence. This morning I realized Jesus doesn’t much care for our natural affinities. If we ask him to use us, he will.

A single lyric from this song popped into my head when that last sentence ran through my mind:

here I am, God, use me, set me aflame

I don’t have much to offer. I don’t have anything of worth. I’m no preacher, no evangelist. I’m getting a little long in the tooth, and lots of things hurt in the morning.

But I don’t want to waste another second of my life taking salvation for granted and serving my own ends first.

here I am, take me…

Better Questions

I started writing a blog post this morning and then decided to scrap it and just see what people thought instead. Several questions have been occurring to me lately:

1. Provided the Gospel is rightly presented, do we have to “do church” the way it’s always been done?

2. If we do church the way it’s always been done has that placed more emphasis on liturgy and less on the prompting of the holy spirit?

3. Can we do church differently and still represent God properly?

4. Can we shift our emphasis from trying to please people to trying to reach people?

5. Can we go places we haven’t gone and do things we haven’t done in the interest of bringing the Good News to people that haven’t heard it?

6. Is our corporate “packaging” of the Gospel turning people away from it?

7. If it is, can we change the packaging but not the gift?

8. Can we worship (musically) with different instruments than we normally do?

9. Can we play non-traditional music and still worship?

10. What does proper worship look like?

11. What would happen if we stopped doing church and started being church?

12. What if everything Jesus said was true?

13. What if we loved people as they were and stopped trying to change them and instead let God do it?

14. What if we let go of our inhibitions about how we worship and just started worshipping?

15. What if we taught our kids how to live by teaching them how to love?

I could keep going forever, but I think John is ready to be awake, which means I’m going to need both my hands to start cleaning up messes and putting out fires.

What are the answers to all my questions? I think that would be different for everyone. Personally, I have better questions than I have answers, but I’d welcome hearing yours. Dialogue is a good thing. I’ll leave you with a picture of John doing what he does best: little boy mischief.

Imago Dei

This morning I had what an alcoholic might call a moment of clarity. It’s so interesting how God chooses to speak to us sometimes, and how our minds, and hearts and souls are awakened to his truth.

This is what happened today.

I was nearly out of gas, so I stopped at the Circle K on 24th Street and Avenue B to gas up and get my daily dose of caffeine (in the form of a 44-ounce Coke Zero). While I was walking from the gas pumps to the door, a beat up little Toyota hatchback pulled up right in front of the doors and two men got out.m

They were wearing some kind of coveralls, but looked like they came straight out of the exercise yard at Chino. Both men were extremely muscular and had braids halfway down their backs. They had tattoos peeking out of their sleeves and collars, and definitely had the intimidating look down perfectly.

One of the men went directly inside, and the other just sort of stood out front. He gave me a barely perceptible nod as I walked past him to go in. I immediately thought they were going to rob the place.

I went over to the soda machine and there was convict number one. He was filling a 44 ounce cup to the very brim with Blue Raspberry Icee.

He paid his .88 cents right before I did, then the two men got in the beat up Toyota and went on their way.

On my way to work I heard this song:

A line from the chorus stuck in my head: there could never be a more beautiful you.

What occurred to me was those
men at the Circle K were beautiful to God. With their tattoos and muscles and braids, they were beautiful to God.

Then these things occurred to me:

1. If they were beautiful to God, that meant I was beautiful to him, too. Even with my scars, and messed up skin, and pelt of hair I am beautiful to God.

2. I was made in his image, according to Genesis. So were the guys at Circle K.

3. Just because I do not always see beauty in things does not mean it isn’t there.

What does it mean to be made in the image of Christ? As usual, I went online and I found this definition:

“…The term Imago Dei (Latin for Image of God) refers most fundamentally to two things: first, God’s own self-actualization through humankind; and second, God’s care for humankind. To say that humans are in the image of God is to recognize the special qualities of human nature which allow God to be made manifest in humans…”

To me that suggests that our outer image really doesn’t matter that much, at least not to the extent we think it does. Certainly not to the extent by which we judge others, and judge beauty.

With that in mind, I think how we treat others–least of these or otherwise–is how we reflect either our image of God or our image of ourselves.

Put another way, If we treat people like crap it’s often because we feel that we ourselves are worthy of the same. Consequently we judge people based on our image of ourselves whether it be negative or positive, and we treat them according to our self-based perception.

I thought the men at Circle K were thugs because they fit into a thug-shaped box in my tiny little brain. Maybe some people see me and feel I fit into a box, too?

I was wrong, and they’re wrong, too.

I can’t say that I’ve ever felt like a standard bearer for Christ. It doesn’t matter. If I bear his name then I bear his image, too.

I need to pray for clearer vision, and truth in my perception of others. I need to act with imago Dei in mind, not imago Tom.

Casual Blasphemy

I figured something out today.

The President is not the anti-christ. He’s not the savior, either. He’s just a man. He gets up in the morning, and he goes to bed at night. By all accounts he loves his family in the same way you love yours. He eats, drinks, and goes to the bathroom.

He’s a man.

I think that’s part of the problem. The President is so beloved by the largely liberally slanted media and the Hollywood “lobby” that he’s been almost deified, in a sense. He was elected because his promises appealed to more people than the other guy. Twice. This is the way of elections. President Obama won fair and square both times. Move on.

When I saw this clip on YouTube:

of Jamie Foxx calling the President “our Lord and savior,” I wasn’t particularly offended as a believer because I recognized the statement for what it was: a clearly misspoken and probably taken out of context remark that was likely meant with at least some irony by mssr Foxx. At least I hope so. It’s difficult to imagine anyone actually believing President Obama is anyone’s savior. Yet I do think Foxx’s words, spoken casually, are symptomatic of a larger problem.

This morning I saw a representation of this painting online, called “The Truth.”

The artist, Michael D’Antuono, has said his intent with the painting was to provoke political dialogue and that he meant to display the painting in a mock voting booth.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but to me this isn’t so much about the artist having the constitutional right to say whatever he wants: he has that right. I think he knew exactly the kind of reaction a painting of this nature would provoke in the “religious right,” and painted it with that in mind. He got the reaction he wanted, along with a large bowl of controversy. I’d imagine he probably sold a few tickets to art exhibits as well.

Back to my original point: President Obama is a man. He’s not the savior. He’d certainly acknowledge that himself. He’s not a hero, either. Most people aren’t. His election (both times) was certainly ground-breaking and showed how far our country has come.

Yet as I mentioned earlier, The President was elected based on what he said he would do. He was also elected based on who he was and what he represented.

The media and Hollywood has created this…cult of personality around him. We allowed that to happen. We encouraged it. We still do.

He’s a man, people. A smart and gifted one, but he can’t fly or lift cars over his head. He can’t save anyone, maybe not even the country. Salvation (and deliverance) lies elsewhere, and we as a people have to be careful of the burdens and expectations we place on our public servants.

Still, I look at the crown of thorns in D’Antuono’s painting and what I feel is not so much outrage as sorrow. He clearly does not understand what it represents. I wonder if he truly understands what his painting represents?

It’s not just oil and pigment. If there are actually people out there who believe the President to be something he is not (such as a savior), they are worshipping at an altar they want no real part of.

Just because the constitution gives people the right to say (and paint) stupid things does not mean they should. Casual blasphemy is still blasphemy, and whether or not you believe it does not matter. Think of the outrage if Muhammed had been ~~mocked~~ depicted instead of Jesus.

Then again, no one really thinks twice about offending Christians.

John 15:18 says, “remember if the world hates you that it hated me first.”

I read this commentary about the above verse, and I thought it was interesting:

If the world hates you – As the followers of Christ were to be exposed to the hatred of the world, it was no small consolation to them to know that that hatred would be only in proportion to their faith and holiness; and that, consequently, instead of being troubled at the prospect of persecution, they should rejoice, because that should always be a proof to them that they were in the very path in which Jesus himself had trod. Dr. Lardner thinks that πρωτον is a substantive, or at least an adjective used substantively, and this clause of the text should be translated thus: If the world hate you, know that it hated me, your Chief. It is no wonder that the world should hate you, when it hated me, your Lord and Master, whose lips were without guile, and whose conduct was irreproachable….

I think we need to expect mockery, and much worse. I think the world is changing, and quite obviously turning away from God.

It makes me sad, but also resolved. There is much work to do, and we as believers have much responsibility.

Politics and the rhetoric that comes with them really don’t matter in the end.

Jesus does, and what we do with Him.

Throwing Fits

Earlier today, John really wanted a cookie (he calls them cakies). I informed him he needed to eat his food first, and then he could have dessert when we came home. He proceeded to have a pretty good meltdown, complete with a healthy portion of tears and carrying on.

He wanted that cookie right then and was pissed when he didn’t get it.

Around the same time, my older son wanted to go for a bike ride with his grandpa (we were hanging out over there). That didn’t work out, either, and he went into a class III pout/sulk. This is an 8 year-old version of throwing a fit, and not much different from what his little brother was doing.

He wanted to go for that ride, and he was pissed when he didn’t get to.

I was thinking about the whole thing tonight when we got home and it occurred to me how much like that we are with God. We go to him with entreaties for what we think we need to have or want to do and we throw fits if it doesn’t happen on our timetables.

We want our cookies now, and sometimes there are other things we need to do first, or go through first.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone. There was a time a few years before I met my wife when I was convinced I’d met the person I was “supposed” to be with. I remember praying that God would help that situation work out in my favor. I was convinced that if it happened with us, every other messed up thing about my life and myself would suddenly make sense.

It did work out, for a time, and I was happy enough. But not really. I knew she was pulling me away from God, but I didn’t care. I told myself I had things under control.

I don’t think it surprised anyone when things imploded in a spectacular fashion that messed me up for years, until a beautiful young woman from Yuma sent me a message on MySpace.

After things ended, I was furious with God. I resolved not to ever share that part of myself with anyone again, even though I desperately wanted to. With that resolution, I was also withholding part of me from God. It wasn’t just the matter of denying my company to the ladies, but also rejecting the part of me God created to know him best.

I was throwing a fit, because I wanted to be with this woman and God knew better than I what I actually needed.

Maybe it’s like that with you, or has been. You want something from God or someone else, and you want it now.

Maybe you won’t get it. I don’t know how you respond to that, but for me it made me want to turn away from God rather than toward him. It made me take my toys and leave the sandbox for a while, metaphorically speaking.

It didn’t help at all.

So how do you handle it when God doesn’t give you what you want? Do you throw a fit? Do you sulk? Do you run toward God or away from him?

From There to Here

I’ve been trying to organize a bunch of my thoughts over the past year or so into something a little more cohesive. I wanted to share with people a bit more about where I was, and how I got here from there. My final result ended up looking like this. For better or worse, it’s done. Check it out if you have a chance. You can post your comments here if you want to let me know what you think.