How to make a liar

I haven't posted in a while.  I tried but couldn't.  I've been through one of the worst dark periods I've had ever.  I don't want to go into it, but it's been rough.  I'm doing better now.

I don't know what the purpose of it is, but it has revealed my weakness, my baseness, my violence, and my selfishness.  Maybe that is the purpose.  I just know it is not fun and not pretty.  It's also not made up and I can't help it.  If you've never been there, you won't understand and that's ok.  Don't seek it.

I have said it before, but it is clearer to me than ever that whatever is good in me is not from me.  I know you'll deny that and think it's just the darkness talking, and that's fine.  I hope you never see that side of me.

But I'm trying to keep seeing it.  I don't want to live in it, but I don't want to forget it either.  I tend toward hubris and self-confidence without it.  Even the humility you think you know in me is a form of self-pride.  I'm not kidding.

People lead the question all the time.  Christians are the worst about it.  What do you think will happen if you constantly keep telling people how to be?  Anyone with half a brain will quickly learn how to pretend at it.  Put on the actions and even self-deceive that they have achieved it.  I've done it.  I habitually do it.  And you reward the better liars.

I have a ready bunch of scripts to throw up in any given situation.  I watch carefully.  I have fakes backstopping fakes and will say whatever works to get the reaction I need.

And what I really need is a safe place to let those things slowly fall off.  People who are not impressed by it.  People who want me to thoroughly be good rather than merely seem good.  You condemn yourselves in me!  And I condemn myself!

Understand me, I am not saying this from a place of despair.  Quite the opposite.  When I was despairing, I hid from you because then I can't keep up the masks, can't keep the demons in their chains.  But right now I'm in that hazy space between the nightmare and the bright day and soon I'll be fully dressed and presentable again.God forbid!

I need a savior.  I am fully reminded that if there is any hope for me it is in Jesus.  Not knowledge about him, but in the real living him.  I am not claiming to know grand mystical things.  If I did, I doubt them now.  He didn't even show up in some nonmiraculous way to rescue me.  But I don't care.  My heart leaps when I think about him, when I read about him.  I understand the meaning of hoping in him.  I didn't choose this.  If I did it was rigged.  I am not in control.  So if he doesn't have me, if I do not eventually arrive in a place of peace and perfection and learn that he was there when I couldn't see it or know it, then I would rather rush headlong into the void now.  It isn't about this world.  It isn't about the surface things you spend so much time talking about as if we could just decide to be something else.  Even if you can, I CAN'T!  I don't know how.  It doesn't work.  Whether that's brain chemistry, spiritual sense, slavery, karma, grace, whatever you want to call it.  What I can do is lie about it though!

You'd rather me be presentable, disfigure my feelings into acceptable packages, even though you THINK you want me to let it out.  Which is the most insidious part!  Your words say one thing and your actions say another in the same breath.  Your words are a trap.  A demon maw yawns behind your fair and hopeful words, you whitewashed tombs!  Damn you satans in a hollow christ's image!  I've never yet found anyone who really meant it when they say it's safe to let it out and let it go.  Maybe one or two people come closer than others.  But if I have ever let the depth of it peak out, people take pains...no give pains to shut it in again.

So keep teaching behaviors.  Keep focusing on outwards before inwards.  Keep modeling the plastic masks.  Keep grinding out budding faith with your two faces.  Keep making liars.  I don't want to be one anymore.

Charlie

Here we are at holiday season again in the U.S.  It starts with Thanksgiving.  Which is a day to give thanks for all that we have through the year.  It is based in our earliest history as a nation.  Really, one of the founding events for Americans as a people...the merging of Native American and European cultures.

But in reality, it has become nothing more than a day to party.  Just like every other popular holiday here.  And American party means noise, alcohol, and a general excuse to act rude and slightly debauched in the name of "good cheer".  People have already started buying enough food to feed a developing village for a week.  Some are having dinners tonight.  Tomorrow the real feasting will occur.  Some people going to 3 or 4 feasts.

Then Friday following has become a day to consume yet even more as people flock to stores and fight to buy all the bait and switch deals.  I have never been to a store on "Black Friday" but I did go to one on Sunday after, last year.  Things were literally thrown around like a riot had occurred.  This is "celebrating".

And I'll have to go to some obligatory feast of my own (I'll only do one)...deciding which family group will feel most slighted if I don't go.  I'll see people I don't know and don't have anything in common with, other than some tenuous genetic connections.  I'll smile and be cordial and make polite excuses for not eating foods I can't eat and probably get sick from eating some things just to shut people up.

Christmas specials have already started in stores, on TV, everywhere telling me what I am supposed to do and feel and most having no concept of what the holiday really is...or rather no concept of what that means...I'm sure most actually know what it is about.

So now starts my least favorite time of year.  I wish I could just not participate at all.  The favorite holiday season of my life was the one I spent in Japan where most didn't know about my holidays and fewer cared.  I was able to keep them in my own way, sharing  peaceful and enjoyable time with my family and a few friends we shared our traditions with.  But unfortunately, here that is impossible.

I'll try not to be obviously negative so as not to ruin it for others...but maybe it's worth ruining.  Am I doing those I care for a disservice by not expressing what is hollow and wrong?

I have made certain stands, but they are to little avail against the tide of prescribed consumption and obligatory "cheer".

So if you see me through this season, give me a little nod that you understand.  I know I'm not alone.  And if you disagree, that's fine.  You keep it your way and leave me to keep it mine.  You've got the whole culture with you.  The least you could do is give me a little space to salvage what good I can scrounge out of it without judgement or pressure.

Piercing

The description of this blog is that it is real and raw and unfiltered.  It is an attempt to process things I see, think about, encounter, etc.  As such it isn't really a good read, will never be popular.  But sometimes I look back at what I wrote and can see how it was prophetic...this doesn't mean predicts the future, but illustrates what God is doing.

For instance, I haven't blogged in a while because stuff has been going on.  I cycle through nonexpressive times.  but that doesn't mean all is well or bad.  Just nothing to process in this way.  So today an idea hits me and I sit down to write it.  Before doing it I read the last entry, which I had honestly forgotten about.  Wow!  what I intended to write is the further progression of what I was writing about then.  If there's any doubt that my life is guided by an intelligence other than myself, this is it.  I didn't even remember writing it, so I obviously didn't self-fulfill.

Anyway, I get tired sometimes.  Like brain spirit tired.  I just can't go on.  I want to curl up and sink into nothing.  I'm in one of those times now.  Ironically, it's in these times of not caring so much that I can reveal deeper truths about myself.  For instance the seething hatred for those who try to motivate and seminar Christianity.  I have friends who actually do recognize what Christianity should be, but they go about trying to implement it through motivational seminars, trainings, book jacket facebook posts, etc.  One went so far as to tell the reader to "man up" which meant sign up for the seminar.  Forgive me if you ever read this my friend.  It's not personal, I know you have a good heart and are working the best you know how.  But that just bends me the wrong way.  Since when does manhood, masculinity, toughness, denial of self, or whatever else the term "man up" could mean have anything to do with signing up for some stupid presentation!  That's what Jesus did, sure.  Walked around passing out flyers and getting people to go meet him on the hillside for "two hours that will change your life"..."are you man enough to show up?"  Howl and tear my clothes, man!

Who are these people trying to reach?  Unless there's a group of self-help junkie guys who are insecure in their own manhood, who else is going to get anything real out of that?! You certainly won't get the gay 20 year old who was abused by his father and keeps posting pics of big ol' **** on his facebook page!  Or the kid sitting in his closet slicing his arms with a pocket knife...yeah they just need to "man up"!

I'm just picking on this example because it was the steel striking my flint right now.  But there are countless others.  I've heard many pastors give a great sermon about using your talents, finding what God wants you to do, only to ruin it by ending with, "that means you need to stop by the sign-up table out in the lobby and fill out an interest card."  F***in' cereal box Christians!  I want to go turn the table over like Jesus in the temple.  And if a bleeped out word from a Christian blogger throws you off, what are you gonna do with the lady who sleeps with your pastor to get closer to God!

Ironically, I had someone come very seriously to ask me if I would lead a home group for her kids since she had seen how together my son was and she couldn't think of anyone she'd rather have teaching her kids.  I must be doing something right.  Wow would she be in for a shock.  How do you let someone like that down easy?  I just had to say I'd consider it and hope a convenient excuse comes up before she asks again.  What else was I to say?  Sure, I'll lead the group.  First thing I'll tell them is the best person to teach kids is THEIR PARENTS!  Then I'd tell them to read their own Bible and question everything anyone ever tells them about it.  I'll tell them to stand on their own, that they were strong and powerful and could take down cities if God told them to.  I'd tell them to get into fights if that's what it takes to defend the defenseless.  To give up everything including life itself to meet a need laid before them.  I could keep going.  She'd run for the hills!

If my kid is any indication of my parenting, I can tell you it's by the grace of God and not my own skill.  But, just recently two kids got off his bus in the neighborhood and one swung on the other.  A fight started.  He dropped his stuff and ran back to break them up.  Jumped right in the middle.  The next day a parent came and asked who had stepped in.  My son admitted to it.  Next thing the principal of the school called him in to give him accommodation and tell everyone they need more people like him.

Which brings me to my intended point.  We have become a nation of sheep, passively walking in line, not stepping on the grass, wearing our bike helmets and getting out of the water when thunder is heard.  All great safety tips, right?  Sure if you want to manage a huge populace...make them milquetoasts, make it seem morally honorable to follow the letter of the rules.  I even saw a PSA that said kids should wear life vests and water shoes even if walking near the water...just NEAR it!  How about toughing their feet by running barefoot and learning to walk carefully, swim well enough to save not just yourself, but someone else!

Climb the trees, walk in the grass, get dirty, and do something real.  How can we expect Christians to do amazing things when we train them to be model linewalkers!  That's what God wants...good little do-bees who sign the papers, and sing, but not too loudly, wave their arms, but not really let loose.

You are what you practice being.  Are you willing to get dirty?  Do you even know what that means?  Here's a paralell: you run in the gym, maybe on the paved trail...I'm sitting here covered in bits of leaves and spiderwebs stinging from splinters and scratches.  The difference between those two is a comparison of the distance between your seminar Christianity and the real needs.  You wouldn't know what to do with the people if they started showing up!  Do you know what the Wiccan Rede is?  Ever read the Koran?  Had coffee with the lady who runs a non profit to promote sex-worker rights against "those Christian organizations" who force them from "an ancient and esteemed traditional role into menial factory jobs"?

I'm tired of not speaking out about this.  You decide who you want to be.  If you want to break the norm, you have to break the norm.  That means taking some real risks.  If you're faithful in small you'll be faithful in much.

You know, you may not ever be equipped to deal with the kind of people I've described.  That's ok.  Young upwardly mobile preppy types give me shivers, myself.  But know for every type, there are people who can meet their needs.  Just get rid of your delusions that you have the answer for everyone and stop making it harder for those who are willing and capable to go where you can't.