Enough

OK.  Enough is enough.  Something has got to change.  Something in me.  Something in the world.  Something surrounding the world I see.

I don't have it figured out.  I don't know what it is.  I don't know how to start.  But God you won't let me stop thinking about it.

There is something missing.  It can't be filled by any made up group.  It crosses any category I place it in.  It scares me to death and yet it's totally necessary.

Take me out of myself.  I can't sort it out any more than Isaiah could describe what he saw, but You look at me with those piercing eyes and I scream, "Here I am, send me!"  Ruin my life, my self conception, my image of my self.  Only take me where I should go.

Kill what inhibits You in me.  For all my sins and flaws and insecurities, I still want to go. The metanoia is approaching.  When I have turned, fire me off in the direction I should go.

I have the skills to fill the void.  I will speak for them, give them a place and an identity.  Give me your eyes and burn up my pretense.  Help me to live true and open.  Help me to free the beast.  Send me to those who need me and bring alongside those I need, those you've prepared for this work.

There are lost ones all out there.  I have caught the scent of the ones I am to find.  I'm straining at the leash.  Let me loose and I will fly straight into the jaws of hell to bring them back.

Beast

This is likely going to be a dangerous post.  We'll see if it even gets published.  It might end up deleted.

Sometimes I feel an urge rise in me to tear things up.  To jump up and rip my way free from the invisible chains, the padded cell of office, house.  I know it probably wouldn't last long once the pain from that endeavor started to set in...it's harder to seriously break stuff than it seems.  But the urge is there.

I've never acted on it and my reasons quickly stills the beast and switches my attention elsewhere.  But sometimes I wonder what would happen.  How would life be different.

I've seen the beast flare to the surface on occasion.  When someone turned against the traffic light and I had to jump back from being hit, close enough to hit his window, which I slapped with all the force I could get in a split second reaction, and then he had the gall to stop and yell at me!  I was charging him down.  Even in business attire and with coworkers.  They pulled me away.

Another time someone punched through my apartment window.  When I ran out to see what happened I saw who I thought was a drunk boyfriend retaliating for our making his girlfriend pay for our car window which she had broken, I charged him down with true murder in my mind.  I was going to throw him off the balcony.  Fortunately there, my neighbor came out at the same moment and saw my intent.  He was closer and beat me to him.  He pulled his delirious and bleeding friend into a full nelson and positioned himself between me and him yelling that he was drunk and didn't mean to do it.  That quickly calmed and resolved as well.

But these were provoked reactions that I bet many men would have.  What I don't know about are the swells in the midst of other activities.  No doubt, my wildness trying to get out.  Pulling at the chain, shaking the bars.  Do others feel this?

I know I need wildness.  I need my time of pain and wearing down in the woods.  It is the physical expression of my spiritual discipline.  It keeps me sane.  But ow normal is this?  How do I give voice to it in healthy ways?  Will there be a time when it has a rightful place...my moment on Perelandra where I learn what this is truly for?  do all men feel it?  Is our mask of civility so thin?  Are we lying to ourselves and others when we pretend to not have these aspects?  Or do I contain a wild beast in the iron bars of my will and reason?

Behind

We often react to situations based on our emotion or perception.  Is it possible to step back and withhold reaction until we know more?  Can we take the time to step inside someone's head and see what motivates them?  Perhaps it would enlighten us greatly.  Perhaps we wouldn't be so quick to take offence or to come to our own defence.

Maybe we would see what makes another person take the shape and tone they do.  Maybe then we could regulate our reaction to be appropriate.  If we could see inside people we could perhaps bypass the outward and seemingly magically speak to the real issues.

Today I watched this happen.  I saw someone melt down over a very frustrating issue.  We had both been tense over these things beyond our control, but not with each other.  I had been reacting in my usual way...perhaps a little more loosely since I consider this person a friend.  But in this moment, the frustration turned on me.  I was not sure where it was coming from but I could see several things.  My friend's facial muscles were giving away the depth of his emotion as he tried to assert control over me.  I realized it as an attempt to grab control over something in a situation that had overwhelmed him.

I thought of reacting in defence, but forestalled it miraculously.  Instead we retreated to a private place and talked.  Apparently, he had been taking my verbal expression of frustration as personal attack.  This surprised me since it had never even crossed my mind that these things were his fault.  I had never even directed comments at him.  in fact they had all been calm and rational comments to the effect of, "I wish we had a different way to do this.  I hate being locked into a single path and dependent on ___ conditions."

So again, I could react with anger, point out his wrongs, or I could dissuade his frustration.  To my surprise I found myself doing the latter.  He calmed and we worked it out.  He even seeing that he had taken things too personally.

But then I began thinking of how he had arrived at that moment in the first place.  I tried to further understand his perspective, using the facts I knew.  Gradually a picture is forming.  I'm beginning to see how to communicate with him.  How to shape my flow to his in an edifying way.  To come alongside and build up as we move forward.

But this requires that I step outside myself and find the truth behind this facade.  In how many other ways can I do this?  What will be the effect?  Can I become as collected and cool as Card's Speaker for the Dead?  Knowing how to speak truth into any situation and gently manipulate myself for the betterment of the people I interact with?  To shape people and situations by reshaping myself?

I think this is possible.  In yielding there is strength.  In gentleness there is power.  It's not the same as slimy kowtowing or political manipulation.  It's a fresh wind, a folding brook.  It's the essence of the Spirit Lord.

Real Act

I just read an article citing statistical characteristics of kids who grow up in church and don't leave it when they get older.  This is a huge phenomenon, if you don't know.  Kids grow up going to church, doing good things, then leave either quietly or not so much, or fall into problems that most Christians think they should have been insulated against such as drugs, pregnancy, atheism, etc.

This article cited three main characteristics of those that stay. 1. they have had a conversion experience. Makes sense because those who simply grow up there can talk it and walk it, but it isn't necessarily a real thing for them.  So can they truly be called Christians in the first place?  As the Supertones said, "if you say you used to be a Christian, then you never were."

2. they are equipped to deal with life and not just entertained.  Again makes sense because most contemporary protestant churches and probably many of the nonprotestant bent focus so much on drawing them in that they lose all but the merest shred of content and become nothing more than "clean" social clubs. Which apparently aren't that clean either given the ways in which so many I've known have fallen out.  There's an infamous case (which could be rumor, though I don't doubt it could well be true) where a girl got pregnant in the church I grew up in while playing a youth group game...it resulted in a ban on any games that left us out of sight for more than like 5 minutes...which interestingly enough didn't stop any of those who fell out in my day from doing so...hmmm.

3. they are taught at home.  Again makes sense.  If a family is leaving their children's spiritual education up to professionals and volunteers who see them maybe 3 hours a week...c'mon.  But even still this is not fool-proof and I know several very stable families who did everything right to no avail.

This struck me.  I don't disagree with the article.  Makes sense, right?  But still doesn't seem to hit the nail on the head.  So how many will read that article and try to engineer these traits?  The thing is, I can point to many of my own friends who have had a so-called conversion experience who now reject the faith utterly, even those who came and left it far after their teens.  I know people with advanced religious education who have done the same.  These ought to be "equipped", yeah?  And as I pointed out, even the best families can't control everything.  I've seen the controlling ones who drive kids away and the more moderate who lose them still.

I don't know the answers here.  But I do know I am one of those kids who didn't leave, and I know why.  I did hit a wall in my faith as a teen.  I shouldn't say wall...it was more like a desert.  I had the so-called conversion.  I had the equipping and the family training in the form of hours of formal discipleship and biblical training as well as the fortunate gift of logical training and reason.  But it still all just seemed pointless.  As my questions deepened and broadened, the answers I was getting were mostly insufficient because people who were teaching me didn't understand or couldn't articulate themselves.  I naturally began to explore other things after my own peculiar flavor of poison.  But in my case, God pursued me.  He broke through my reality in seen and unseen ways.  He brought notable people who would speak powerful lasers of truth into me...sometimes just one statement at a critical time.  He sent me dreams...vivid visions.  And he allowed me to break myself so that I would be receptive when he stepped in for a greater revelation.

That was when real conversion happened.  Oh yes, it happened.  But it isn't something that can be engineered in a building with lights and music and retreats.  It is a deeply personal, tragic, painful sort of conversion in which I had nothing left and was given a new hope...a new life.  This is why I say like CS Lewis, I was drug in kicking and screaming.  In reality, I was more carried in after I had passed out and given up, but I was kicking and screaming up to that point in that I would accept nothing less than reality, Truth.

A few years after this, a mentor of mine posed this question that reveals for me how I felt prior and after.  He said, "If you came to a fork in the road and Truth went one way and Jesus went the other, which way would you go?"  My answer was a resounding "Truth".  But here's the trick of the question:  I've found that every time I perceive this dichotomy, it's because I have a false conception of...Jesus.  (I bet you thought I was going to say Truth.  If so, you need to stop drinking your evangelical koolaid.)  You see, every time I went toward what I saw as Truth and left Jesus behind, I'd find a clearer, brighter, realer Jesus standing right around the bend.  I couldn't get away from the guy!  And Thank God!  Because when I was utterly undone, he brought me back.

You see, it isn't a choice.  It isn't a point of decision...though I guess that exists somewhere or for some people.  It's an acceptance of what is.  A giving up to what I couldn't change.  The point of decision for me, has come multiple times after that as I am forced to decide whether my experiences are real or if I was/am psychotic.  But when I think about it, I can't choose otherwise.  There is nihilism, the nothing of no meaning, no caring, no feeling, emptiness of unrequited existence, or there is God who has revealed himself to me in the man Jesus.  Psychotic or not, I'm not going back in the pit...probably couldn't if I tried.  He'd just pull me back out again.

So, is Calvin right?  Am I just Elect and these kids, men, women are not?  I'm not building theology, here, just asking a legitimate question.  Or are they just not at the point yet?

Really, this question isn't what we should focus on.  Rather, what are we going to do about it.  If Calvinistic, we don't know who is elected and have a duty to relieve the suffering of all anyway.  If Evangelical, they're just not ready and no amount of coercing or engineering will change that.  So I suggest we start with one thing.  Be real.

Shed the pomp and hoohah.  Cut the bright lights and fancy marketing tactics. Get off the rockstar pedestals and deeply search.  Find out what's real.  I'll help you.  Come talk to me one on one, I promise I won't pull any punches.  You'll walk away questioning things you never thought you could.  Then, once we're gates of hell, standing in the burning pyre, flayed alive sure of what we believe, we simply act.  In the moment, in the real, act.  Feed, clothe, pray, comfort, support, help, encourage, love, bleed, cry, die in proportion to the faith we each have.

This is Jesus, by the book, man.

Jesus Prayer

It's been a long time since I've blogged.  This is because I've entered the busiest season for me.  This one was made more busy by a certain conglomeration of circumstances: family, work, illness  Not the least of which was surgery on myself.

But now I am back.  I'm still in the throes of activity, but find a spare moment.  Honestly, there's not much to tell, since I've been preoccupied there hasn't been much time for examination.  Perhaps this is a good thing.

Two things I have noticed.  One, I'm developing a fondness for Canada caused by a long spell of recovery in which I became fascinated with Canadian TV.  While this is silly, it's worth noting since I previously viewed it as pretty much a frozen wilderness with a fringe of basically American culture.  While obviously TV isn't a full or necessarily accurate picture, it is a window, and a careful observer (which I consider myself) can pick out elements that transcend the showbiz of even educational TV.  This is what has led to the fondness.

The second thing of note is the Jesus Prayer.  As usual, I won't quote it, go look it up (can't make it that easy; knowledge without even 30 seconds of effort is devoid of value.)  It's basically one line, packed full of meaning, said repeatedly as a means of focusing our attention.

I've tried various forms of discipline in the past. They work for a bit, and then the newness wears off and they become hollow.  Some people may find them more valuable, but for me they fade in favor of ever more real interaction.  But lately, this prayer has been good.  It has helped me stave off wandering thoughts, and quiet my mind.  This is a big problem for someone like me whose mind wanders leagues afield and at the pace of an overstimulated ferret.

But most notable is that while I was prepping for surgery in which they would essentially hollow out my face from the inside...not a pretty prospect...I kept saying this prayer.  It was easy enough to remember and pick right back up after an interruption.  As I was being put under, it was my last thought...I wonder if it might have even become audible as I was fading.  But then most astonishing to me was that it was my first thought upon regaining the slightest bit of consciousness.  Almost as if it had been rolling through my subconscious mind the entire time. 

Of course I can't say that to be the case as I was totally unaware of it.  But I was happy to find that my thoughts were not of monkeys wildly gesticulating behind the nurses or other such half-dreamed impressions.  Instead it was this one solid line of truth echoing through my reality.  Even when I could least control my mind, this razor sharp prayer cut through and remained strong.

Thank God, and thank all the saints who crowd around me whispering this line from across the centuries.

Speak

Today as I was reading George MacDonald, a scene leapt off the page and pierced me right through.  I could quote it, but it wouldn't possibly have the same effect as when it happened, so I won't bother.

Let me start at the beginning.  I'm reading At the Back of the North Wind.  From the very first, the description of the North Wind was remarkably like a sort of person I envisioned in a story I was writing once before.  It was not so much a story, but a vision that seemed to want telling.  Sort of like CS Lewis' image of Aslan that sparked the Narnia series.  Of course I didn't know about Aslan and Narnia at the time. 

Anyway, I tried to write a story about it, but the story wouldn't carry.  It was really just this impression of a person.  It's uncanny that more than a hundred years before, George MacDonald wrote a story about a character who looks nearly exactly as the one I saw.  But muses and all...

So today I read a scene where North Wind says something that I very nearly said verbatim last year.  Lest you think it's a common phrase that would naturally repeat, I'll tell you more.  In the book, North Wind is leading Diamond (the child) across the high ledges of a cathedral.  He's afraid he'll fall and she chastises him for not trusting her.  He tells her he's not trusting because he may falter.  And she replies that even if he fell and she lost her grip, she'd be after him such that she'd catch him before he hit the ground.  And last year as my Goddaughter was afraid of falling out of a boat, I assured her that if she began to fall out, I'd be in the water before she got wet.

But this is only the precursor.  A sign post that had me taking notice so I wouldn't miss what was coming.  In this same scene, the words then jumped out as Diamond and North Wind talked of previously being higher and unafraid, but now being afraid of falling into the deep empty church.  The lines were as if spoken to me.  I know what they mean and it is beyond the story.  This is exactly my apprehension of late.

But then North Wind leaves Diamond to make his way on his own, saying "Come after me".  He is afraid, but then she blows a gentle puff in his face and he draws strength and moves forward.  The blowing increases always gentle, but fortified with strength, and steadily infuses him as he moves.  Right here is where it pierced like an icicle of light right into my brain.  My eyes welled and overflowed.  God was speaking these familiar words directly to me in that moment.  I know the voice.  I know the reaction.  Call it crazy if you want, but it happened.  It's not the first time.

This can be confirmed because it is timely.  As I face trepidating circumstances, struggles with my place in the Kingdom, concerns over being alone, comes this necessary and direct comfort speaking to all of them perfectly and deeply.  I don't expect you to understand, and I don't seek your approval or acknowledgement.  Call me heretic even.  This was for me.  God speaks.  Not just through some systematized list of methods, not even through one collection of writings.  He speaks whenever and however He chooses, to whomever He chooses.  And His voice is unmistakable. 

I go no further than this.  But no less far.

I don't know where or how, but I am linked to George and Jack and Henry and Theresa and Francesco.  And I hear you God.  I am coming after you across the buttresses and ledges and spires.  I won't fear falling, nor the empty church below.  My place is in your wind, whipping full around me.  Help me never forget.

Tribal Christianity

If you read this blog, you'll know that I often refer to the natural grouping of humanity as the tribe.  This is not my idea.  It's documented.  Birds form flocks, wolves form packs, humans form tribes.

Like anything, tribal tendencies can be perverted and have been blamed for many of the conflicts in Africa.  So much so that many have called for conscious abandonment of tribalism.  As an aside, I think this is a mistake.  We can't deny what we were made to be.  The conflicts come because the tribal balance was artificially disrupted by the European colonization of these places which drew national lines right through ancient tribal holdings irrespective of their boundaries and told all the people to grow up and be Western.  But that's not my point.

My point is that Christianity is a restoration of things.  As such, it is inherently tribal.  The lifestyle of Jesus and the organization of the early church are very much tribal.  People are given an identity, which is permanent and personal.  They aren't members of...they ARE something.  Membership implies that you join and therefore can unjoin.  It's an affiliation that one chooses.  Tribal belonging is who you are.  You ARE this thing.  It is part of you and you are part of it.  It is less what it is without you, and you are not all you are without it.

It has an identity.  The tribe is about something.  People of that tribe look a certain way, live a certain way, and believe certain things about themselves and the world because they are of that tribe.  Yet the tribe is formed because the people share these things.  The identity is the lifestyle, and the reverse.  (Are you catching the organic bidirectional synergy here?)

They both have the same type of government.  Christianity is organized under leaders who both have a divine appointment, and are confirmed by the community.  This may not be your understanding from your version of Christianity, but research the descriptions of the early church in the Bible and you'll see.  "elders" (your translation may say "Bishops", but that term implies a meaning not in the original) are people God has given an ability to lead, usually experienced and older than the headstrong young.  But they aren't self-appointed.  The tribe selects and confirms them through their natural respect of these people.  Those who are elders will be and those who are not will not be.  No one campaigns for it.  See the synergy again?  A council of elders helps guide the group and everyone participates in the government of the group as they have ability.

Many tribes are run the same way.  Often even calling them elders!  You may have romanticized ideas of tribal kings and chiefs and such, but this is far less the fact than the council of guiders.  Plus in root tribal society, there are usually no laws as we know them.  People are guided by what is "right" and "wrongness" is rejected.  They don't need laws because they all know naturally.  In cases of dispute there are procedures to resolve it, or a split may occur.  Which leads to the next way Christianity is tribal.

Tribes are not always homogeneous.  Within tribes there are bands, within bands, families.  Tribes themselves may sit within nations of related or federated tribes.  Examples include the Iroquois, the Five Civilized Tribes, and the Sioux Nation...to name a few from the US (which I'm most familiar with).  Incidentally, the US governmental system of states and congress was largely patterned after the Iroquois who consulted at the Continental Congress, albeit Westernized with Greek and Roman ideas which the Iroquois were against.  Really...look it up.

So it is no surprise that there might be 41,000 versions of Christianity across the world.  One nation/faith with many tribes/denominations which are full of bands/local churches.  Each may vary in their customs, style, and coping strategies, but they are part of the one nation of God.

I could go on and on about how there is allowance in tribes for geographic and environmental adaptation just as Christianity has diverged and adapted to various cultures and situations, how typical roles in the tribe equate to spiritual gifts described in the Bible, how even the conflicts among Christian groups and other faiths mirror tribal conflicts.  But this is enough to chew on for now.

I encourage you to look it up.  Research the organization of ancient Israel, American tribes, and other tribal societies.  Also check the organization of the early church.  Read the Biblical sources, check the Greek, look at extra-Biblical writings from the same period as the Bible, compare anthropological evidence. Use credible sources and get a diversity of opinions.  I bet you'll come to the same conclusion.

And that makes perfect sense if Christianity is a restoration of the way things were intended to be.  The closer people live to how things were originally intended, the more they should look similar, right?

The next question is of course, what should this understanding mean to us?  But I'll save that for later.