Aha!

A while ago I mentioned briefly this feeling I've had at times in churches when I try to let go.  There's two reactions: uncontrollable crying and desire to tear the place up.  This happens when I try to open up to God in the service.  Not every time, but a lot of the time.  See usually, I sit quietly, but feel a bit like I have to strap myself in the seat...restrain myself you could say.  So I have various techniques for doing it.  Over the years they've become habitual and I don't really think about them that much.  This lets me get through the service without making some kind of scene. But when I decide to see if God is doing something; open myself up to whatever He has in that moment.  These are often the reactions I get.  I have never known why.

In the last post that mentioned it, I ended up going off in another direction and never explored it.  But then today, I tried again as I watched all these people doing similar behaviors, one arm raised, head to the side, swaying to the music, hands clutched to chest, etc.  I was thinking, is this just mimicry picked up from watching others and assuming that's what it looks like to have a spiritual experience of worship, or is it something universally real that I am missing?  So I opened myself and asked God to tell me what He was doing.  I felt the old desire to tear the place up!  So I quickly shut it down...but not before the thought hit me in connection with a recent Facebook post I made which quoted a modern adaptation of Isaiah 1:11-17.  I had posted it after reading it because it affected me so dramatically at the moment.  This connection was fleeting, but lingered long enough to make me question...am I really connecting with God's heart here?

Is my desire to tear up the place coming from His sorrow and frustration at the facade of religion that obscures who He is?  This is not unfounded.  Jesus tore up the temple courts in Jerusalem for the same reason.  There are many verses in the Bible where God expresses his displeasure at this very thing and the destruction it would cause.  Could the tears also be the other side of that coin?  Anger is just an expression of hurt, as is sorrow.  We feel both at the same time on many occasions.  Since our image is God's it follows that He feels it the same way.

So I delved a little deeper into that feeling and discovered that there isn't any malice in it.  I don't want to hurt people; I don't even have any ill will.  I just want to tear out the facade.  So I thought, what would I say if I did it?  This is what I discovered:

I would charge the stage, take the mic and as I set about tearing apart the decorations and apparati, I'd ask everyone if God was real to them.  Is He really real to them?  Is this all they expect?  Wake up and for once follow their hearts fully!  Let's see God really show up then and there!  I'd jump across the rows of chairs toward any person who responded, climb the light fixtures and rafters and bring the place into chaos.

No doubt most people would be terrified and I'd probably be tackled and drug out screaming...but if God did show up, there would be a moment like Pentacost...the real deal, not the equally fakey occurrences that happen weekly amongst groups of the pentacostal bent.

Has this ever happened to you?  Have you ever longed for something so real and hated the falsity of anything less?  Have you felt things inside you that you aren't sure where they come from?  If so, don't settle. You're not alone and perhaps even less alone than you think.

Deep Cuts

I feel like something is happening deep inside me.  My perceptions are changing, my reactions too.  Emotions surface at strange times and in strange ways.  It's almost like someone is rooting around deep inside and trying to sort things out.  Which may very well be what is happening.  Sometimes what comes up is not pleasant.  Mostly it isn't I guess.  Things I never even new about myself will just pop up from deep down and I am taken aback.

Also pains will surface in ways and about things I didn't even know hurt me.  I'm finding that I often react in anger to what is truly a fear.  I've seen this before in people and I don't think it's that odd.  But I never knew I was doing it.

It isn't all bad.  Sometimes great joys surface and I find a very unshakable peace and confidence in many things.  But just as quickly a new circumstance or stray comment or sometimes just out of nowhere, I'll be hit with something else.

Last night I was restless again...which has occurred for the past few nights.  It's partly some things I understand: physical, circumstantial, manageable.  But then last night it just wouldn't quit.  I kept calling out to God in my dreams.  I could see Jesus standing a distance away but couldn't keep my focus on him.  Then I'd slip into another fitful dream.  Then this morning as dawn came I woke enough to prayed verbally about some things that were on my mind.  Then I started crying and couldn't stop for about an hour.  Then it was over.  I'm not even sure what it was that upset me other than it felt like I had my heart uprooted all night.

I can only imagine how much more intense this must have been for Jesus when he was living on this earth.  He has been described by third party historians as somber and quiet.  No doubt looking at the world from God's perspective has great joys, but also many pains as he saw the hardness of hearts and confusion of minds.  The general lostness of the all those around him.  I'm having enough trouble being confronted with my own and the occasional glance into those he places close to me.

Expansion

I am so blessed.  This is a phrase that is hard to say with any real meaning since it is so cleche.  But I refuse to let it be stolen from all usage.  I am blessed.  My household is expanding.  Even as I shed the last vestiges of the American Dream.  Prayers are being answered.  God is meeting my needs in very real and close personal ways.  This is also cleche, but I'm beginning to understand it.

My family has expanded and improved...been touched by glory, even.  My wife is more beautiful to me than ever before.  More desirable and more satisfying.  I mean that.  She is a total package of internal and external beauty.  I find myself staring at her and even notice that the intentionally titillating stuff on TV and movies has no real appeal to me compared to her.  I'm not making this up.  I'm human and do not lie that I have been attracted by this kind of thing.  But recently, I find it holds nothing for me compared to her.

My son is growing and learning to adapt to his new life.  I've always had a hard time connecting with him, but I think we are making progress there.  He might finally be learning to see the real goals of my training and discipline.  And I am ready to be more honest with him about it.  I never thought much good could come from hiding things, even small things like why we tell him to do certain things, or how we budget our money, etc.  And I think he is responding.

I have a beautiful goddaughter whom I love dearly.  She is not merely the kid that I stood next to in some ceremony.  She was imprinted on my heart by God himself.  She is truly beautiful, as she begins to grow up and I can see that she will be a stunning picture of physical beauty, but her heart is tender and sweet.  she thinks often of others first and will be a model for what God intends for a woman to be.  She is beginning to trust this relationship and see her own real value beyond the cheesy self-esteem stuff.  She is lovely and lovable and she is learning how to live in that.

Her mom is starting to accept us as family as well.  We are learning to communicate and help each other in real ways and my hope is that this will continue to grow into an increasingly permanent bond of family.

And lastly, we just recently became godparents to her other daughter!  A brilliantly smart and beautiful teenager who quickly understands situations in a very insightful way.  She is equally modest about her successes and strengths.  Which is so appealing in this age of boasting and self-aggrandizing.  She is physically and emotionally beautiful and so smart, making for a very appealing woman.  My hope is that she will come to understand her value as her sister is learning to.

She was recently added to our family because God started to point her out to us.  We have loved her for a long time now, but finally the time was right to ask her if we could be her family and she was so happy.  As am I.  I have long believed that family is found more in the intentional relation of people than in any other form.  The saying is only part true.  Blood may be thicker than water, but spirit is the strongest bond of all.  I have also long felt a hole in myself that bit by bit, I learned was cut for this very thing.

I don't know how long things last.  I'm sure trials and troubles will come again.  But I also feel confident that I am not in the same place I was before.  God has raised me up.  He has expanded my territory.  Not just my family, but my work, my friends, my finances, my health, everything is now bearing a light of power and glory.  I know that whatever comes, I shall not be forsaken and my God is my strength and my hope.  I hope my reach as Legatus Regni continues to expand to reveal God's glory in this world.  And regardless of that, I will stand by those God has given me as long as I live.

To them I say that they have nothing to fear.  God has answered their prayers.  They may not see it or know it yet.  But I am just the advance runner bringing news of what is to come.  Just wait and see.  And I will be there with you and for you all through everything to come.  This is not my promise.  This is God's promise to you.  I am made for this, so it is pure joy and fulfilment for me to be this gift to you.  In short, I love you.

Capitalized

Our minds are not as secure as we like to think.  No...I will phrase that personally since I don't know anything about anyone else's mind.  My mind is not as secure as I like to think.  It doesn't help to live with someone who has an uncanny and reproducible ESP.  But that isn't what I mean either.

I mean the ability for Satan (yes I wrote it finally) to use my mind against me.  I'm sure there is a deep sanctuary somewhere that no but me and God have access to...perhaps a place even I don't have access to.  But then there are the surface activities of my mind which are only slightly less public than spoken words.  These are the thoughts that are available to ESPers and other beings with the appropriate senses to perceive them.

But this is a given for me.  What brought me to this blog entry is the recent occurrence of very good objects of my thoughts being capitalized upon to make me miserable.  Of course I could just be doing this to myself, but there is no way to tell the difference so it really doesn't matter.  The fact is things which I care about are easy prey for my fears.  It doesn't take much to turn a beautiful thing into a misery of anxiety.  I have been facing this all week.

I am hoping to stop it now.  Just by recognizing it for what it is and refusing to be victim to it, I can gain ground.  I also have to focus on what is true and what is outside of my mind.  Inside is a terrible mine field of shifting unrealities.  I must focus on that which is not me.  That which exists whether I will it, know it, or understand it.

This is a great value in the structure of Christianity.  So many other religions focus inward.  But I know God as other, as beyond.  His most vivid revelation of himself was not in me, but in the physical world.  If it was in me, how could I be sure it was real?  No, I will recount facts and will trust in Him who is not me, who is other than me, yet permeates me as well.  I need to hear the voice of the real to see things as they are and to trust Him for what I can't see.  The alternative is to forever have my joys and victories usurped and capitalized upon for my undoing.

No more.

Rabbit

Last night I dreamed of a rabbit.  It was nothing special.  A typical brown Florida rabbit hopping unexpectedly into the scene of the dream from a place that rabbits might live.  It was not even part of the storyline of the dream.  It just occurred as a moment in the dream.  It didn't do anything magical or strange.  Just looked at me and then hopped on about it's business.  This is common for me with dream symbols and I've learned to pay attention to them when they occur.

Truthfully, I didn't even think much about it until my wife mentioned a rabbit today and the recollection of the dream flooded back.  But then she said she also dreamed of a rabbit last night, though in a different form.  That really made me start thinking.

Now, I'm wont to over think everything, so this in itself may be the meaning of the symbol, but since understanding a dream is more about understanding how the dreamer reacted to the symbol and what it means to that person, I thought to write it out and see what occurs.

I looked up typical meanings of rabbits in dreams, in myths, in folklore.  There's a lot there about magic and innocence, and helplessness, and fertility, and cunning, but it really has more to do with the associations I give rabbits, so I wasn't settled on any one thing.

So how do I view rabbits?  I think most of Br'er Rabbit.  They are smart, cunning, elusive, mischievous.  While they can be seen as innocent and helpless, I don't view them that way.  In fact, I'm more apt to see them as kind of mean.  This comes from experiences with real rabbits.  Their cute looks bely teeth and claws.  They fight with each other, bite, and even abandon their young.  But this is part of their nature and secondary in my mind.  We are all of us made up of pleasant and not so pleasant aspects that form a synergistic whole. 

So for me, rabbits are uncatchable without weapons.  Not needing to eat them, I see them as fellow creatures sharing a space.  They are relatively untameable, adaptable.  We find them existing in close proximity to us and often not even known.  Unlike other commensal species, they keep their distance and do relatively little nuisance to us.

I once had an experience with a rabbit as part of a school project to experience 'place'.  I had to visit the same place for a set duration for a set period of time and record anything of note both internal and external.  Then cap it off with a presentation expressing what I had learned of the place.

My place was a little grove where a rabbit just like the one in the dream kept appearing as well.  It would come out and lounge and I began to try to take a picture of it up close.  But this required some stalking with my old disposable camera.  This sparked a silent game in which I would wait for it, then stalk, only to be foiled at the moment of the shutter click when it would bounce away.  By the end of the project I had given up and decided to say my goodbyes and admit defeat.  That very last day, the rabbit appeared again and this time brought out several little ones in tow.  This mother allowed me to see them this once, showed me to them, and quickly herded them back into their lair.  It was truly a moment of understanding for us both.  She had been playing with me all along, protecting her young which were no doubt watching from the brush.

I was reminded of Br'er Rabbit.  The stories I had grown up on told of this tricky cunning nature.  So I capped my project by sketching my rabbit friend as Br'er Rabbit.  And to this day, I always greet rabbits kindly and respectfully when I see them.  This is my primary association with the animal.

But another aspect of understanding a dream is how the image in the dream was perceived in the dream.  What emotions and thoughts did it arouse?  This is difficult and I won't blog all the details since they are complex and very personal.  There is a bit of a revelatory or capstone nature to it.  Sort of cementing or confirming the effects of some good changes that have happened in my life.  And there is a bit of the fear representation element, though it is a subtle care more than a real fear, like the fear of breaking something delicate.  Then there is the aspect of fertility, though not my own or my wife's that is at issue. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly is the aspect of intuition.  The rabbit looked at me and a moment of understanding passed.  Since rabbits can represent intuition, I am confirmed in thinking that it might have been a message to let go of my rationality in certain situations of my life and go with my intuition.  My logic doubts it, but perhaps this dream was telling me to trust it.

The symbol is so complex, but it all rolls into one cloudy sort of point at one particular complex thing in my waking life.  I am becoming more settled on this as I write.  If I dream it again that could confirm or change it.  But either way, time will tell.

Affirmative

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the nature of love and my reactions to certain things in my life.  Overall, things are not bad, and I feel I am now able to take a few steps toward living the life I am made to live.  But this life is increasingly uncertain in that there is not a clear path or plan.  It is an increasingly day by day, moment by moment existence where I am constantly evaluating my circumstances, looking and listening for God's direction.

I am totally happy to be in this place, but at the same time it offers unexpected challenges.  Namely, I find myself subject to many doubts.  Since I have no clear path immediately before me, I am open to self-criticism.  I have been learning how to deal with this, but one thing I feel a need to do is to affirm what I know to be true about myself.  A friend and mentor once told me that we must forever recount the goodness of God in our lives.  Keep the truth forever before our eyes lest we forget and despair in the moment.  So in that vein, I am writing this.  I hope that it will not seem pretentious or proud.  But considering that only one or two people will ever read this, I don't think that will be a big problem.  Here's what I know:

I am Cav.  I am a child of God.  A sinner saved by unmerited favor.  I did not choose Him, He chose me, chased me, rescued me from my own destruction.  As such I am bound to Him by love and duty.  I am His come flames of hell or glories of pleasure.  I can not be otherwise.

I was born under the vow of Hanna, like Samuel, given over to God before my very conception.  I had nothing to do with it.

I died.  I was given life and forfeit it, despising the gift, unworthy of it.  I gave it up and it was snatched up by my God.  I do not own it.  I am Aragh the wolf, living dead that I might not fear for my life and can exist with abandon.

I am a wild child made for and shaped by the natural world.  I understand it, feel at home in it.  It is a part of my being.  Untamable, infinitely adaptable, unity in diversity, diversity in unity, dangerous and gentle, life-giving and life-taking.

I am a Sheepdog, helping my Shepherd handle the sheep.  Loyal, commandable, responsive, intuitive, brave, self-sacrificing, unassuming, unseeking of glory.  I desire only to hear my master's praise and feel his hand upon my head.  I will not lose one with whom I am charged.  I will give my life for them and in the service of the Shepherd without a second thought.  They are as safe with me as they are with Him, though anyone who would harm them will feel my savage bite.

I am a seer, able to understand and interpret things as they are in Truth, as the Spirit gives me clarity.  This is not a magic power.  This is not a self-aggrandizing thing.  In fact, it is quite the opposite, it comes with a burden.  I will forever be outcast, misunderstood, misaligned with those around me.  Camel hair and locusts are my lot.  This is a fallen world, so seeing more means I cannot ignore pain, I feel the ache of God's heart for his lost children, their pain and sin hurts me and I long to gather them up under His sheltering wings.  Sadly, this is too often rejected as we strive to be well on our own.  Too unfamiliar to people.  This is my burden.  Yet, I will love openly, live openly, speak openly, poor myself out and take in the pain and rejection as Jesus himself was rejected.  I know that though I may suffer, others will see God's love because it does not return void.

I am all of this and more.  Imperfect, broken, punk to the world because I am of a different stuff, for a different world.  And I will accomplish all that He has for me, not in my own strength but because He is my portion and He will not be forsworn.  So help me God.

God did it

I've been saving this up until the entire deal was over and I could safely say so.  Now I believe it is true.  Here's the story.

We bought our house at the tail end of the housing peak.  We were smart enough to avoid the pitfall mortgages and to buy a house that we could afford.  We bought it under value, did lots of work to it, and in a year had it reappraised.  We had gained significant equity which we thought would preserve us during the inevitable crash that everyone with a brain saw coming.  But it didn't.  The values fell so far that we not only lost the equity but the house was valued at less than half what we paid for it.

Now things were still good in that we could afford it.  But the neighborhood, which was not the best in the first place began to slip and we could not sell or refinance.  We were locked into the payment for thirty years.  At the rate of recovery there was no way we could ever make back the money and certainly not within a time frame which we needed to move.

So we debated several things and investigated options and ultimately sat on it until the time seemed right.  Earlier this year, that time hit.  We decided we needed to get out.  Trouble at my son's school, new neighbor issues, the huge albatross of a home investment, family issues all pointed to one thing.  But we knew we had no options before.  but we also know that God is all powerful and works in the world today.  So I asked him to take care of this some way or other.

I called the bank to ask about options, knowing there weren't many for people who were smart enough to afford their homes...why would a bank help someone who could pay?  But they said there were programs for our case.  So I needed a realtor.  My wife knew one who turned out to specialize in short sales, so we signed up with her.  She gave us details about programs and processes and we were in for the haul, expecting this could take nearly a year and cost us money in the end.

But then the bank told us they had a program that was essentially a "no doc" short sale.  We say we need to sell and they work with us to do it.  No financial record search, no haggling, etc.  Our realtor had never had something like this before.  Even her other short sales with far more hardship were slow and painful.

We listed the house and had a buyer in less than a week.  The bank told us how much we needed to get and we had more than that.  It took a few months to work out all the paperwork, etc, but this month we closed the sale, had the balance of debt written off, and even came a way with a nice relocation incentive.  All told about 4 months.

We even found a nice house to rent in a good area with more square footage and for less than our mortgage payment.  I know no one who has had it this easy.  Our realtor doesn't either.  I know others in the process who are struggling through in the typical fashion or through other similar relief options.

I did nothing to make this happen.  I have no special knowledge of real estate, and I am not a holy man.  There is only one explanation for this entire process:  I asked God to do it and he did.  I don't know why he might not do it for other people.  I'm not going to start making theological premises out of it.  Suffice to say it is not by works of righteousness which I have done.  But the credit must go to my God who claims to know and control all things and who promises to give us good things, and he did.