Molting

Molting

I keep coming back to this well

And every time I find it dry

But I keep coming back

And I keep coming back

Empty

Empty 

Emptiness 

There seems to be no word association

With Emptiness

Because when there is nothing there

There is nothing to associate with

Just like everyone else’s search for eternal bliss

Mine seems to be sorting through laundry

Making car payments

Daily grinds

These thoughts that come forward to my mind

Are gut wrenching

But so Blase'

I think I’ll go and find a tray

Filled with bright hors’d oeuvres 

A sporty car to drive the curves

To navigate the way to nowhere

I sit here in the smoke and stare

Into this long and deep abyss

It is the clouds and skies I miss

They do make such a difference

I grow tired of this poetic inference 

That leads me to this same empty well

I’m ready to let go of this shell

Let my soft insides be revealed

I could be loved

I could be peeled

But at least I would be me

Specter

Specter

I am a specter of my former self

Holding joy at arm’s length

Often further

I do not understand it

When there is disease and poverty and hate and death

Dealt out with pain so harsh it steals one’s breath

Yet maybe joy is how I deal with it all

Laughing amongst the killing fields

A flower thrown in amongst the shields

Which defend all sorts of un-imaginables

These things, this lore, of what is not tangible

These things are so difficult to grasp

I have to open my hands, open my heart

Open my ears, accept the dart

Of tension and paradox and mystery

This is the way to jump into the fray

And still dance all along in the fury

I might just not be 

I might just not be done with this wonder

This is the seemingly torrid truth of it all

I never get to the answer

I always dive deeper into the question

I never dream, I never dance at the ball

So full circle I’ve come

Full circle I’ll go

Until the gravity fields pull me right out of my row

I have looked upon all this circumstance, 

and found

This is not where I dream, that is not where I dance

I must learn to be kinder to myself

I must learn to take hold of the unknown

Cuddle it like a puppy sleeping, safe in my arms

Knowing one day it could grow up and be vicious

But it could also grow up and be bold

Beautiful, warm…

If I’ll only love, if I’ll only love…

I’m not sure I am any longer a specter…

1/28/17

The Great Exchange

It has been a while since I have blogged because I frankly have been struggling with who I am and where I am and what I am supposed to be doing, and it is very difficult to write in the midst of a battle. It all started with a trip to a marriage conference with my wife, and as God is prone to do, He addressed way more than my marriage. He plunged into the depths of me and brought up what was there and I was none too proud of it all. In fact it made me mad because I thought all of that stuff was “under the blood of Jesus” and gone and forgotten. He quickly showed me how it was still affecting the way I act and think and respond to others (including my wife), and that even though Jesus had paid the price for its removal I had simply hidden it all away instead of allowing Him to take it away. In fact, I was lying to myself thinking it was gone when it manifested itself every day in the way I acted and lived. I then spent some time in sheer drudgery and in even more anger because I began to rehash through all of my old stuff, but I forgot that God is found in conversations and not in mere introspection, so that opened the door for the accuser to come in and just hammer me. Finally, God got my attention and gently reminded me that He is often found in the conversations of life, in the face-to-face interactions with others that I so rarely enter into and even more rarely seek out. He began to show me that if I would simply listen to what He has to say, that His truth was more than adequate to set me free. Even deeper than that was the fact that the truth was found in the seeking itself; that is, in my simply being present with Him and before Him, I am being transformed. In other words, I don’t have to work to be perfect anymore. I can actually be honest before Him and give Him all of my failure and heartache and loss and allow Him to give me Himself. WOW! It’s no wonder it is called “the great exchange!” So, that is the point today. I had to learn that God doesn’t want me to clean up before I can approach Him. Rather, He saw me off in the distance dirty and stinking and covered in pig filth, and He ran to me. And before I could even explain what had happened and what I had done, He was looking at me and saying, “Bring the best clothes, put the ring on his finger, and let’s have a big party! My boy is home!” THAT is God. That is how He responds to me right in the midst of my garbage. And that is how He responds to you, too.

Is being right better than having a relationship?

I don't like posting on things that I am currently wrestling with because I am the type of person who wants to have the answer perfectly in order before writing it down; however, I feel that these thoughts have to be released today. I have just finished "The Shack" by William Young and I am currently reading "Messy Spirituality" by Michael Yaconelli and there is a deep theme in both of those books that speaks of how God is much more interested in our relationship to Him than He is in us getting all the rules right. Now this really cuts against the grain of how I am shaped, but what fascinates me is how God is right now, every day, testing me in this same area. Am I going to yell at my child for breaking something, or am I going to offer forgiveness and love and establish a deeper relationship? Am I going to be determined to be right in front of my wife even if it means a heated argument, or am I going to forfeit that right and establish a deeper relationship? Am I going to condemn someone for falling short of God's law, or am I going to establish a relationship? Am I going to take God's place as judge, or am I going to take my place as a bridge helping people who are standing on one side of the chasm away from God and lead them to Him? Am I going to speak words of criticism and judgment, or am I going to speak words of hope and healing? I am not talking about "tolerance" here and I am not talking about condoning evil. I am talking about living like Jesus amongst evil and REDEEMING it (that word means to free something into life by the way) instead of bashing evil to death and in the process bashing people to death. The choice is simple: life or death? The power and the love it takes to choose life and relationship is the hard part, but only if I try and do that on my own. In fact, it is impossible to do that on my own. Jesus, let Your love flow through me and nothing else. Let Your truth flow, let Your life flow. It is only through Him that we can live this out.
One more thing that I have to say. I read one of the most profound things I have read in a long time last night. Mr. Yaconelli wrote, "People who pretend have pretend relationships." WOW. No wonder our world is full of people who feel hopeless. We live in a society (especially in church society) where we pretend to have it all together. My most hated question in church is "How are you doing" and the response "Fine". It is time for transparency because only in transparency are real relationships built. Only in transparency can the church finally become a people who actually ATTRACT others instead of repel them or, even worse, reject them. It is time. It is time. IT IS TIME.