Shadows

I am in the shadows.  I walked out into the light recently and it was good for a time, but higher heights bring deeper depths.  I don't feel to have changed, nor that I did anything wrong, but circumstances have once again confirmed for me that my place is the shadows.  I must be terrifying.

I don't mean this in the horror sense.  But that I am probably too raw, too intense, too literal.  Most people aren't able to cope with it.  Is it a holiness reflected through me or my own depravity that shows?  Maybe it's both.  A sort of terrible holiness amidst a dead thing...a thing which knows full well the depths from which it existed.  A Frankenstein's monster of life and death rolled together in one.

I don't want to veil it.  I've lived that way too long.  But it hurts to constantly see the same reactions.  To have truth taken for lies.  Do I speak the same language as others?  Do I see too deeply into them?  I can't see this myself.  Am I that delusional that I could be so aversive and not see it?  Or am I hyper sensitive, finding deeper meaning in what is really nothing?

I don't know.  I can't tell.  So in these times, recount the facts.  I desire to do good.  I believe in a living relational God who is active in human life.  I take fairly literally the promises and exhortations in the Bible, taken with a sound logic and historical context...I'm not dancing with rattle snakes here.  I will and do act for good in practical ways.  I do not value my life, future, possessions too highly.  I am often misunderstood.  I don't have many friends and find it hard to keep them.  I am often lonely.  I want to belong.  I want a few people who understand me or at least do not reject me no matter what.  I want to see grace in human action, even for me.

But I don't honestly believe I'll find it.  I think my lot is that of David, Elijah, John the Baptist, Henry Suso.  To dwell apart, sometimes respected, sometimes valued, but never held too closely, always a little feared...always in the shadows.

Wow, this sounds whiny.  God forgive me.

How Could You

I don't usually post this kind of thing, but I think I need to get it off my chest. It hits me time and again and I have never been able to come to terms with it.

I once knew a group of people that changed my life. I learned from them, they helped form me into the adult I am, though they probably didn't realize the impact they were having. Truthfully, it wasn't all the people, but the context of the group. We shared a faith that was a breath of fresh air to me. Having been raised in a much more stifled religious community and questioning it, I met these people who lived what I wanted. Faith was central, but conformance was not. What was sacred was, what wasn't was disregarded. Tradition for its own sake was abandoned. We lived and shared many things together. Over a few years people came and went and the group ran its course as they all tend to do. I was even one of the advocates to let it go once the end was apparent. This is all good and I take no issue with it.

What I do take issue with is something which I have never been able to convey, partly because I am too passionate about it to control my emotions, even more than a decade later, and partly because I don't want to hurt anyone, and partly because I am always afraid I am wrong. This is the fact that so many have forgotten their first love. They have turned away from that free and beautiful faith that defined us into all manner of apostasies and even perversions of varying degrees.

Those about whom I write (should they ever read this [which is highly unlikely]) know that I mean these terms literally and not with the usual religious connotations. So that apostasy is a falling away from what they once believed and perversion is any twisting of truth. I say this because I want to be very clear that the cultural lines this group recognized were not the same as most of popular Christianity, though theologically we were very orthodox.

How could you do this? How could you express so tearfully your pains and your hope? How could you plead so passionately for God's will? How could you speak so boldly about the truth? And then reject it.

We all have doubts. We all have seasons of warm and cold, wet and dry, mountain and valley. But you yourselves claimed and proclaimed this and that God is big enough to handle it.

I would think this a season, but to see such utter rejection is too much! You make light of God's mercy and forbearance. To completely think it false?! To reject even his very existence?

If you are hurt because something went bad for you and you did not receive the help you expected, admit it and we can move on; God's arms and mine are waiting wide for you. If you believed wrongly and think differently because of some reasoning, we can work through it. But don't throw out the baby, the tub, and the bathroom with it! If you believed it once there is something to it still. Perhaps the sticking point you have is valid and your old belief system needed to be razed. But the One that drew you is still there. He is real. Don't you remember? Don't you feel the longing in your soul? Or if life has hardened you so much, do you not at least remember the feeling of longing and the satisfaction of feeling His presence?

Or were you just such a good liar? Did you fool me and others into thinking your words, motives, and actions were real? Perhaps you think that is the truth...but I don't believe it. While you might think you are so good at lying, I know from my own experience that we rarely are as good at it as we think. I saw through you. I knew what was real and what was put on more than you think. Chances are many of us did. And there is something lovely and fragile and light in your heart of hearts. This thing is the spark of the real you.

Don't forget it. I stand here waiting, praying for you. It was real. I was there. Even if you doubt it now, I was there and stand here to confirm that it was not a sham. I was there when God spoke through you all. I saw glimpses of your true self. You are the Forgiven. There is nothing to hide from, nothing rejecting you. I am standing here waiting for you and I'm not alone.