"Christians devour each other." This is a quote I once read in an article by a Christian who was quoting his athiest friend who was observing why he isn't a Christian. It's very true.
I feel poured out. Stretched at every point. People want things and they want more and more and more. Like my cup is draining faster than filling. And then some people ask for things they don't really want you to give them.
I do public work. So what I do isn't just inconsequential money-making tasks. It's things that enable most of you do your inconsequential money-making tasks, and I do them at a level that is involved in the decisions and planning. So it is not boasting to say that what I do affects all of you who live in the same area and has lasting impacts into the future. It's just so invisible to your daily lives that you don't even know it's going on. But I digress.
My point is that even in this, a coworker was saying today, "It's as if they ask us to make something better because they have to, but they really just want to keep doing the same old thing, so they make it something super difficult to actually accomplish with little resources, and when we figure out a way to do it anyway, they say, 'oh s***!, we never thought they'd actually do it!' So they have to make it artificially difficult."
So I get it from all sides. And in the place I should find rest and comfort, I find people saying, "well if your joy isn't complete you just have to..." It's all on my effort. Even if that effort is simply believing something, or thinking something, or seeing something differently. I don't know if these people are well-meaning candy-eyed types who have never really known darkness, or if they're just clones spitting whatever script they can access from a motivational poster, or if they are just as screwed up and think they need to mask it by saying the 'right' thing.
Well, I'm stepping out and saying that for some of us, it isn't that easy. If I were to hound you about running and tell you that you just need to run faster. You just need stronger muscles, a better heart, more endurance! You'd look at me and say, "easy for you to say." Well why is it any different with a mental or emotional condition. I can't help it! I know all the stuff you're saying. I just can't make it any different! Don't you think I've tried? I promise you I'm not one of those people who just want to play the victim. and even if I was, maybe I couldn't help that either!
Why are you so quick to explain and categorize and answer? You obviously don't get it, or you're a liar. Either way, you make it abundantly clear that I can't reveal this part of me to you. So you rob from me a place to find rest. You force a tired soul out into the night again because there's obviously no room in your inn for the likes of me.
Even still, for your sake, I hope God doesn't lay my blood on your hands because I don't think you know what you do. And I've been to hell, just went back for a visit actually. Trust me, you don't want to go.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Thursday, April 2, 2015
New Wine
Think of a world of goodness. A world of hope and happiness in which people are fulfilled and not wronged. A place where you are known for who you are and you can drop the masks of conformity and social acceptance. A place where things are as they should be.
Doesn't exist, right? Many people have promised it in one form or another. Many have sought it in one form or another. Many try to bluff us into believing it is in a certain system or organization. But our hearts know when it isn't there, right? Deep down, they can't lie and we know when we're being fooled.
I was taught that Jesus was the way to all those things. That it didn't exist in this world, but it would in the place called heaven where no bad thing could enter. That Jesus was the gatekeeper. That we had to follow him. That all we had to do was accept his free gift. Well, accept it and truly believe it. That, and stop doing bad things. Oh, and go to church, learn about him. Yeah, and memorize Bible verses, and not listen to music that was too wild...unless the band was Christian, but then only if they really acted like it because you know people say they are, but the proof is in their life. Which, while we're at it, let's talk about your clothes. Oh, and of course, you HAVE to witness. That's everyone's job because there's so many people out there going to hell because they don't believe right, which we can tell because they don't do all the things we do. Of course, we can't judge. Some of them could actually be saved. But definitely not those over there.
God help me! Is it any wonder I lost my mind? Who can keep that up? It's insidious and wicked to the core! It eats up those who spew it like stomach acid. So if that's what hope is, I can't have it. And without hope, there's only nihilism. A dry empty desert of never-ending grey. No direction, no purpose. Just blind existence. Nothing matters. Maybe I'll just die today and think, 'finally' as the life slips out of me and I release the curse of consciousness.
But in that place, something broke through in me. It was fresh and bright and full of energy. I didn't know what it was, but it appeared, when I could see it, with strong male arms and hands. Of course, I pretended it must be Jesus because that's what I had been taught, but I didn't really know. I was just glad to have breath. To see light. To see that the world was hopeless because the hope was outside of it. While I didn't know who or what that was, I was hooked. I didn't care, something inside was screaming that was what I needed.
If it ate me up, I didn't care. That was life and I needed it. Like heat migrates to cold, it was soaking into me and I didn't want it to stop.
It wasn't at all like the Jesus I had been taught. So I dropped what I knew like a broken toy. If Jesus and this light went two separate directions, I was following the light. How could I not! This thing was palpable. I couldn't go back to that death. But the weird thing is, the more I tried to shake off the Jesus I had been taught, the more I kept finding he wasn't really what I had been taught. When I read his words with my own fresh eyes, they didn't say what I had been taught they said. They said things that flared that light inside me. Things I didn't find anywhere else.
Now I've blogged enough about my darkness. That cloud in my flesh never really goes away. But deep inside, there's still this place of light that no one gets to see. And I mean that, no one. And from that place of freedom come all kinds of good things that make people look at me like I'm from some other planet.
But then, I keep trying to find others who share this understanding and in every church, in every group, I find sparks of it, that quickly get smothered by a heap of stinking wet leaves every time they flare! Why is it that people can't stop heaping their own death on the living fire?
Don't get me wrong, some have and we get along like the kindred spirits we are. But most of those that think they get it don't. They try to pull me in, they see something in me they can't place, but they like it, so they try to rein it into their system. But you can't!
I'm telling you all, you know who you are. You can't rein it in because it isn't in me. You can't rein me in because I'm in it. It's so much bigger. You touch it and then try to bottle it. But it can't be bottled, and I have to be true to that light and truth. I don't steer it, box, it, guide it. It guides me! It...or He as I have come to know Him guides me. In my deep place where He sits, I know what's right and what isn't.
See, even now, you're searching your mental scripts for a place to stick what I'm saying. You think you've got it. We'll, I'll help you out...it's in the Bible. "Stand at the door and knock", "Come in to him and make my home with him", you're hearing the songs from Sunday School about Jesus in your heart. Yeah, that's because they're describing this! It just isn't what you think it is!! If it was, you wouldn't look at me like you can't quite get me. You'd look at me like you know what I know. I can tell man! I know because I came to it from the outside. I couldn't see it from the inside either.
So you know what? I'm done with it. I'm shaking the dust off and going to those who aren't tainted. New wine skins for new wine, yeah?
The very images you use to leave people in the dust who disagree with you are what I'm using to part ways with you. But unlike your understanding, I don't think it means you aren't worth my time or are in error. We just don't speak the same language and therefore we can't communicate. You think we do, but we don't because when I try to make a point, you say, "Yeah! and then go totally the other direction."
But I will leave you with a sign post in the direction I'm heading. Because I know you'll come sooner or later. Whether your rules involve authorities and buildings, or annointings and movements, or doings and houses, they're still performance-based systems motivated out of ought and should and gotta. And if you think yours isn't, test it in this way: Refuse or challenge what some leader in your system says should happen. Do it to them directly...politely, but in no uncertain terms. See what happens. Dollars to doughnuts, their reaction is severe, possibly angry, and rooted in threat response. Because people who don't line up show the cracks in their boxes and what can't be controlled must be expelled. Don't believe me? Try it.
To everyone else, don't be afraid to follow that light and good you feel. Chase it down where you find it. That love won't lead you too far off. And if anything I've said has sparked that in you, come find me. I mean that. I'll help you carry your baggage and I don't need to see what's inside it. We'll follow that light until we find that place to rest.
Doesn't exist, right? Many people have promised it in one form or another. Many have sought it in one form or another. Many try to bluff us into believing it is in a certain system or organization. But our hearts know when it isn't there, right? Deep down, they can't lie and we know when we're being fooled.
I was taught that Jesus was the way to all those things. That it didn't exist in this world, but it would in the place called heaven where no bad thing could enter. That Jesus was the gatekeeper. That we had to follow him. That all we had to do was accept his free gift. Well, accept it and truly believe it. That, and stop doing bad things. Oh, and go to church, learn about him. Yeah, and memorize Bible verses, and not listen to music that was too wild...unless the band was Christian, but then only if they really acted like it because you know people say they are, but the proof is in their life. Which, while we're at it, let's talk about your clothes. Oh, and of course, you HAVE to witness. That's everyone's job because there's so many people out there going to hell because they don't believe right, which we can tell because they don't do all the things we do. Of course, we can't judge. Some of them could actually be saved. But definitely not those over there.
God help me! Is it any wonder I lost my mind? Who can keep that up? It's insidious and wicked to the core! It eats up those who spew it like stomach acid. So if that's what hope is, I can't have it. And without hope, there's only nihilism. A dry empty desert of never-ending grey. No direction, no purpose. Just blind existence. Nothing matters. Maybe I'll just die today and think, 'finally' as the life slips out of me and I release the curse of consciousness.
But in that place, something broke through in me. It was fresh and bright and full of energy. I didn't know what it was, but it appeared, when I could see it, with strong male arms and hands. Of course, I pretended it must be Jesus because that's what I had been taught, but I didn't really know. I was just glad to have breath. To see light. To see that the world was hopeless because the hope was outside of it. While I didn't know who or what that was, I was hooked. I didn't care, something inside was screaming that was what I needed.
If it ate me up, I didn't care. That was life and I needed it. Like heat migrates to cold, it was soaking into me and I didn't want it to stop.
It wasn't at all like the Jesus I had been taught. So I dropped what I knew like a broken toy. If Jesus and this light went two separate directions, I was following the light. How could I not! This thing was palpable. I couldn't go back to that death. But the weird thing is, the more I tried to shake off the Jesus I had been taught, the more I kept finding he wasn't really what I had been taught. When I read his words with my own fresh eyes, they didn't say what I had been taught they said. They said things that flared that light inside me. Things I didn't find anywhere else.
Now I've blogged enough about my darkness. That cloud in my flesh never really goes away. But deep inside, there's still this place of light that no one gets to see. And I mean that, no one. And from that place of freedom come all kinds of good things that make people look at me like I'm from some other planet.
But then, I keep trying to find others who share this understanding and in every church, in every group, I find sparks of it, that quickly get smothered by a heap of stinking wet leaves every time they flare! Why is it that people can't stop heaping their own death on the living fire?
Don't get me wrong, some have and we get along like the kindred spirits we are. But most of those that think they get it don't. They try to pull me in, they see something in me they can't place, but they like it, so they try to rein it into their system. But you can't!
I'm telling you all, you know who you are. You can't rein it in because it isn't in me. You can't rein me in because I'm in it. It's so much bigger. You touch it and then try to bottle it. But it can't be bottled, and I have to be true to that light and truth. I don't steer it, box, it, guide it. It guides me! It...or He as I have come to know Him guides me. In my deep place where He sits, I know what's right and what isn't.
See, even now, you're searching your mental scripts for a place to stick what I'm saying. You think you've got it. We'll, I'll help you out...it's in the Bible. "Stand at the door and knock", "Come in to him and make my home with him", you're hearing the songs from Sunday School about Jesus in your heart. Yeah, that's because they're describing this! It just isn't what you think it is!! If it was, you wouldn't look at me like you can't quite get me. You'd look at me like you know what I know. I can tell man! I know because I came to it from the outside. I couldn't see it from the inside either.
So you know what? I'm done with it. I'm shaking the dust off and going to those who aren't tainted. New wine skins for new wine, yeah?
The very images you use to leave people in the dust who disagree with you are what I'm using to part ways with you. But unlike your understanding, I don't think it means you aren't worth my time or are in error. We just don't speak the same language and therefore we can't communicate. You think we do, but we don't because when I try to make a point, you say, "Yeah! and then go totally the other direction."
But I will leave you with a sign post in the direction I'm heading. Because I know you'll come sooner or later. Whether your rules involve authorities and buildings, or annointings and movements, or doings and houses, they're still performance-based systems motivated out of ought and should and gotta. And if you think yours isn't, test it in this way: Refuse or challenge what some leader in your system says should happen. Do it to them directly...politely, but in no uncertain terms. See what happens. Dollars to doughnuts, their reaction is severe, possibly angry, and rooted in threat response. Because people who don't line up show the cracks in their boxes and what can't be controlled must be expelled. Don't believe me? Try it.
To everyone else, don't be afraid to follow that light and good you feel. Chase it down where you find it. That love won't lead you too far off. And if anything I've said has sparked that in you, come find me. I mean that. I'll help you carry your baggage and I don't need to see what's inside it. We'll follow that light until we find that place to rest.
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