Desperation

There are things in this world not seen and things in this not wanting to be seen. What happens when we allow God to turn our world upside down? What will we see? Will the actual people we are fall out of the masks and the bodies we hold onto to float in a strange progression to our actual feet? Will we be able to see people struggling to let go of their confused masks and bodies? Will we be able to help them be free of the emptiness of an incomplete existence?

I don't know. I don't know what it will look like when the world literally turns upside down. Maybe because I have the faith that is so small I can't see it. More likely I'm afraid of what I'll look like without my masks and my armor of a body. I'm afraid of who everyone will see, I guess I maybe afraid of what my reflection will look like in a still cup of water. Why am I afraid?

I've been f-ing convinced that I am ugly, I am weak. I have been told for years that all that I care about is nothing important. I hate that voice that pounds against my imagination like the ocean against a cliff.

It was a night ago when I heard that voice escape from an actual mouth, a real person voiced all the things I have been afraid of. "You are a chump for believing that your life could have any affect on the world. You are an imbecile to believe that you can rescue children from slavery. YOU ARE NOTHING."

F that! F that!

I've seen demons, my own and others. I've seen angels. I've seen a real God do real things. I have seen a real God reach into my life and wrestle to the point of death for me. I've been the prodigal son, I've seen pain, personal and others. I am not nothing because MY GOD IS EVERYTHING.

What happens when God turns our world upside down? We get to live the hardest and real existence to be experienced.

I met a man who saw nothing but the worst in the world, he was so concerned with expressing how horrible it all was that nothing else existed. I was so mad at him! I was pissed. Part of my was pissed because the of the hate and the racism. Although I was also pissed because he didn't allow me to speak. He retorted to any type of objection with 'blah, blah, blah.' I was pissed because he didn't respect me enough to listen to what I had to say.

Who am I? Who am I to assume that I have anything worth saying? I know I am an adopted son of God.

But does that give me the right to assume that everyone has to listen when I speak? No. It means He has given LOVE and grace. But it doesn't mean I am in any way more than the man who I was so angry with. No. Me being an adopted son of God means I'm forgiven. FORGIVEN.

Words, words, and more words. How can I ever assume to explain this in words. I can't.

But watch. The pain of a life. Ugly, ripping, horrific pain. The pain of life. Some inflicted on me, more because of me. A giant fog, dense fog, you can't see a hand in front of you. You begin to question if your eyes actually work. You begin to question if you ever exist in this world. The fog is so thick that everything you are seems to be lost in it. Then, you look up, to the right behind your shoulder. A faint change in color. Is it really there? Only the whispered hope of still being able to breathe convinces you that possibly something could really be there. You turn slowly, the change in coloring is a faint yellow. As you ponder this new existence beyond yourself you realize that it could be what everyone has always called light. A deep sense of desire comes over you. A desire different from what you would later realize was only lust. A desire to be, not to have. A desire to actually see something. To actually SEE something!

You begin to feel your feet leave the ground, you slowly feel the fog around you become less heavy. A moment later you begin to realize that the fog is lightening. You are leaving the fog! The moment your eyes break through the fog you are overwhelmed by a warmth never known in the fog. You can see! The world stretches before you! The world is beautiful! Amazing! All things are possible, not only possible but capable as well!

You look toward that light that had sought you out and realize that it hangs low in the sky, it actually seems to emanating from the top of a large mountain. As if all the fire's in Zues' castle were burning, only much brighter, making Zues' castle look like a glint off a fly.

Words, words, and more words! How can it ever be written, the GLORY OF OUR GOD!!

So I've stood and been in awe. I only saw a distant hill where God may reside, distant, farther than any type of algorithm could equate. Yet it was more personal and perfect than any detailed study of a hand.

How can I, a man lost in a fog for more than 4/5th of his life assume that I personally have the strength of character and will to break this mans hatred and cynicism? How can a fog born man like myself assume that others must listen to my great wisdom? I really shouldn't but I do.

What would it look like if my world was turned upside down? What would it look like if I allowed the world to be turned upside down? Where I spent my time allowing the bright wisdom of God to flow through me? Words, words, and more words? What would it look like if I washed the feet of the bigot? Made supper for the sex offender? Denied anything that would desert another to misery? What would a world look like where the assumption was that people were loved? What would it look like if I actually cared enough about those around me to forgo what I think is best for them and truly discover what is best for them.

Now to deal with the fear.

Aw fuck it, forget about the fear. Courage my brothers! Into the breach once again!

(I wouldn't recommend loving people if you want an easy life.) (I highly recommend loving people if you want a real life.)

Forgiveness, the past, and Grace

I read a post by my good friend Jeremiah today. (www.humblevision.wordpress.com) It has really got me thinking.

I have had a strange painful past, I have had deep a seated worldview that expressed God as either indifferent or not fully the God he claims to be. Either way, it was pretty much a wound that had closed yet closed with some shit in it. This situation, an open wound gets shit in it, then starts to partially heal. Basically a tree enveloping a barbwire fence. That was it. I was no longer bleeding but I was sick.

I was sick. Then I was given the choice and power to let go of the pain, the shit, the pride of being someone.

I grew up with a certain type of pride, I grew up with a deep sense of sexuality, a sick sense of sexuality. The issue that Jeremiah raises is that there is sometimes too much emphasis put on past pain in order to gain freedom. That somehow the fact that I being molested at 4 or 5 is the reason for the shitty choices I make now. That somehow God failed me and therefore I have a right to tell him off and do whatever I want? Right? This pain caused me to do bad things growing up.

Thats bullshit.

I don't mean to say that a persons childhood pain is simple or inadequate, what I say bullshit to, is the fact that I have for a long time defined my worth by that pain, I spent years building up this person that could seen as either martyred or deeply wounded. Somehow thinking that if could be that Christian who was either good or that Christian who was bad then became good I would have the respect and love of those around me. I used my past to measure my present. I said, "I used to do that, I don't anymore." Or I have said, "even though I do this, I don't do that."

The interesting thing is.

Pain sucks. It really sucks, being sick blows! There is nothing in this world to compare with being in pain or sick. Its everywhere I know, but its unique in that it is the direct opposite than how God created the body. It is the everpresent evidence that we are dying, that we are sick, that we are sinful. We? I am sinful! I have sinned! This is what is important, I HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN. So being that I have been forgiven, made whole, pure, righteous, am I still sick? Am I still in pain? In an emotional, mental, physical way, I suppose I am. My body is still gonna die. I am still angry when I shouldn't be, I still lust when I shouldn't. (I just had the urge to say "I lust less than I used to.") I still think about things I shouldn't I still connive, plot, and build conspiracies against those I profess to love. I still and fucking full of myself. So yeah, I'm still sick, and I'm still in pain.

Yet I am not.

Its as if I have gone from being my past and continually building on that, its like I've been taken to the middle of the ocean (and I can walk on water) and all the shitty things I do and say and pursue are the building blocks of a life moving away from God. So I tell my roommate to get bent for not loving me more. I set that on top of the water, laying the foundation for a nice little fortress where he will never be able to touch me with hate or love, nor I him. As I turn to parents and ignore their wanting to show me love and set down that little bit of foundation I notice the roommate piece has sunk. Huh.

So, I'm still sick, I'm still in pain, yet my sin, the sin that I committed, sins that would probably have been committed in one way or another despite my injured heart. That sin, all of the sin just keeps floating to the bottom of the ocean to be crushed and never seen again.

Then again, I think there is a difference between setting down the foundation of sin and holding it, never expressing to anyone how you're drowning because I can't seem to let go. I know full well that life at the bottom of the ocean isn't really that great. In fact it fucking sucks, I still hold on. Building walls around me as I sink twenty thousand leagues.

So I am sick and I am in pain, yet I have been made buoyant, some kind of breath has been breathed in the soul of me. I think the breath was something like this: Yah-weh. So its not so much that I have a past thats painful, its that I have a life that can be painful and I can choose to not sin, choose to let go of my underwater construction projects and float to the open air, float to where the sun will never stop shinning, and if it does it is only to give its sister moon a chance to perform on that beautifully decorated stage.

Jeremiah, I think I maybe more in agreement with you than I had thought, maybe more than you are yourself.