Pursuing What You Love

December 4, 2008 at 5:42 am (Christianity, Confession, Expectations, Giving, God, Humility, Individuality, Jesus, Jobs, Poetry, Pride, Religion, Society)
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A bundle of appetites.  That’s what I am as a bodily entity.  This fleshly tent in which I abide is intent on and, unfortunately, often content with finding things that satisfy it, please it and make it feel comfy-cozy.  Any twinge of displeasure or dissatisfaction is immediately addressed sub-consciously with, “What can I do to alleviate this abomination?”  That thought arises no matter how small the discomfort may be.  Or even if it is not discomfort…even if it is just a thought like, “I want something pleasing at this moment,” which is actually often the follow-up to feeling discomfort in some area, though we may not connect it in such a way at the time, because often the pleasure we choose has no logical connection with the discomfort we are feeling.  This is a commonly known phenomenon.  For example, I may come home from work feeling tired and somewhat disgruntled, thinking my boss is unfair or my co-workers are untruthful, but instead of quitting my job or looking for a new one or trying to come to terms with the situation, I eat a package of M&Ms and watch a funny sitcom, ergo subconsciously trying to alleviate (or rather mask and ignore) one discomfort by allowing myself something that could, in a perfect world, be a good, simple pleasure.  Comfort foods, mind-numbing television…those are two of the most obvious choices.  They are the easiest to come by and the least associated with negative connotations.  Some people do choose alcohol or drugs or lasciviousness or something that happens to be more associated with what the Christian community would dub inherently to be “sin.”  But it all amounts to the same thing, and used in this manner, is itself inherently sinful.

 

The funny thing is that this appetite does not have to be so animalistic as I have painted it in the above paragraph.  It can seek deeper things, even lofty things, aspiring to greatness and achievement. 

 

So, what is one to do with this?  How does one cease constantly desiring and seeking to appease one’s appetite for comfort, for greatness, for recognition, for love?

 

I am not an expert.  I usually say this somewhere in my posts, so perhaps you are getting tired of hearing it, but I need everyone to know that I do not claim to do the things I discuss.  I claim to recognize the truth in the things that God shows me.  I am not always so good at living them.  But God did show me something a couple of months ago that I am attempting to keep in the forefront of my mind as I go through my days.

 

I will not go backwards into what my life has been like this year, but if you care to know the history, read previous posts or shoot me an e-mail.  I will start with the fact that I was in the process of interviewing for a new job.  It is a very regular job with regular hours and regular pay and regular dress codes, etc.  This has not been the reality for most of my life.  I have had very odd jobs, or even if it was somewhat regular, I have predominantly been in charge of my own schedule.  In fact, in looking back, there have only been about 3 years of my adult work history in which I did not control my own schedule.  So, while I was interviewing for this position, I started to get a little freaked out.  Only having two weeks of vacation, and even when I get that is somewhat managed and completely out of my hands??  Well, frankly, that sounds a little like hell to me.  I nearly backed out of the process altogether.  Then one morning I woke up and God spoke to me.  I was still in the hazy state, lying in my bed.  I was not thinking deep thoughts.  I was thinking nothing when these words appeared in my mind’s eye, “Only pursue what you love.”  Well, by the world’s standards of what that means, I have done a pretty good job of that in my life…rarely letting a job take away my freedom to do the things I actually enjoy doing, etc.  But in that moment, I knew that was not what it meant and my next thought was, “What am I supposed to love?”  And everything sort of fell into place for me.  I am supposed to love God and love people.  I am not supposed to LOVE writing or creating or singing, unless God sets those in front of me as ways to love Himself or other people.  And honestly, I have been pursuing those sorts of things in lieu of pursuing the love of God and people for most of my life.  OK, well, “in lieu” of might be an exaggeration.  I have pursued loving God and loving people, but not with such passion and vigor as I have pursued my own pleasure and my “dreams.”  At the very least, I was acting like not being able to pursue those things would inhibit my ability to love God or love other people, which is simply heresy.  First off, I had the order wrong.  I wanted to pursue the things I loved (yes, things) in order that I may better love God and love people.  I was waiting for some moment in the future when apparently, I would feel I had pursued it enough or gotten enough satisfaction from it to be able to start pouring that contentment out on others around me.  How ridiculous.  “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

 

I have always had the attitude that whatever job I had was evil and keeping me from doing whatever I was really supposed to be doing, i.e. anything important.  I have been realizing for a while now, even before this revelation from God, that this was a serious slight towards those I worked with.  The attitude that “anything important” is outside the sphere of whatever work I am doing negates the importance of every human being I came into contact with during the course of that workday!  It was a self-serving attitude that, at heart, believed “I am more important than these people and I should not have to join in these menial tasks with them.”  Definitely not the heart of a servant.  So, I confess and repent of that here to you now.

 

At the moment God spoke that to me, I knew I needed to get over myself.  I needed to get over my arrogance and let go of myself.  Let go of behaving like a child…as if I could only obey God’s commands to love if He gave me what I wanted first.

 

But let’s take it somewhere else as well and make sure that y’all know I am not saying that God is out to kill all of my fun and enjoyment of life.  Not in the slightest!!  My own selfish desires were fueled by societal training such as Nike’s “Just Do It!” and Barbie’s “We Girls Can Do Anything” philosophies.  I am not trying to negate pursuing excellence in things you enjoy; I AM trying to discourage pursuing those things as a fulfillment separate from those two most important commandments that Jesus spoke and that I am relentlessly repeating here: to love God and love people.  Pursuing or achieving excellence in something does not mean anything special if you are horrible to everyone on the way up, if you crush those who stand in your way or if you are unfeeling or negligent to those around you.  I may not have been horrible and I may not have been crushing people, but I have definitely been unfeeling and negligent.  And I am beginning to understand that pursuing the thing only creates more disenchantment and dissatisfaction, because no matter how hard you pursue something, you are still at the mercy of others to determine its worth.  A song I write only grants me so much fulfillment if no one else likes it.  And even if others do like it, it still only grants me a measure of fulfillment until it begins bringin’ in some cash, right?  All of the doing requires recognition of some sort in order to bring any feeling of satisfaction.

 

But guess what?  Loving God?  Self-fulfilling.  Because God is PERFECT.  He loves you as fully as you can ever imagine being loved.  I’m not saying you feel all warm and fuzzy all the time.  I’m just saying that when you forget yourself and you really are about loving something outside of yourself, there’s much less that will rattle you.  It’s not about, “What’s in it for me?”  It’s about, “What’s in it for God?” which can usually be answered in a much more satisfactory fashion.

 

And when you are really about loving others, the pressure is suddenly gone because you are not relying on their reactions.  You only want to love, to give.  It’s the one thing that you can do, though even that only through Christ’s strength because He has to act through us so that we do not let that bundle of appetites override our love.  It’s suddenly not about you anymore and the stress is off.  THAT is what I felt when God spoke to me.  It didn’t matter anymore if I only had two weeks of vacation or if I was at the whim of the not-so-esteemed corporate elite…they could not stop me from loving.  And loving was suddenly what mattered.  All of the other stuff was mere self-serving prattle…the modern heresy of “following your heart” and “chasing your dream,” which thought very little of others and therefore, by default, could not be thinking much of God.

 

I have spoken of similar things in previous posts and I will give the same disclaimer here:  I in no way believe that putting this into practice leads to that asceticism which denies its own needs or becomes an unhappy martyr.  If the manner in which this life is being led does not lead to joy, then there is still some heresy deep within.  I am still uncovering my deeper heresy, to be sure.  God calls us to this sort of life because He KNOWS us, and knows what our spirits, minds and bodies need.  I heartily believe that living life according to His guidelines will lead us into peace and joy and hope, and that fulfillment which we seek by doing such things as “chasing dreams” will be realized in Him and only in Him.  I do not mean externally; our world may be falling apart around us.  But our hearts will be wholly His and wholly, well, whole, and that bundle of appetites I spoke of at the beginning will not be so ravenous and insatiable.

 

I re-posted my title poem yesterday as a pre-cursor to this.  I did so because I would like people to read this post, and then continue down to read that poem through its lens.  I used to view it as more of an individualistic evangelism, stating that we should pursue our dreams.  Now I know that the idea of passionately pursuing those dreams is part of the mold the world and Satan would like to press us into in order to keep us focused internally, always looking for our own fulfillment and happiness instead of trusting it to God.  It is a road that will wind around into an interminable maze of confusion.  It is much easier to stay on a single path and actually arrive at a destination when I am not bowing to the constant caprices of my own will, instead trusting the Will of Someone all-powerful and all-knowing who will not lead me wrong. 

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Just Reiterating

December 3, 2008 at 11:13 pm (Poetry, Uncategorized)

A reminder of the origins of my blog title:

Taste the Sea

A glint, a gleam, the hint of a seam

Connecting, correcting the crack.

The ocean, the massive, rejecting the passive;

Accepting, protecting the cast—

The cast-away from the pre-staged play,

Refusing, profusely the role

Of body as puppet, of life as a muppet,

Confusing, abusing the soul.

Adventurous journey, tumultuous turning

To travel, unravel the myth—

Expose the mystery of imposing history—

The sameness, the lameness of this.

My fistful showing of wistful hoping,

The standard I’m handed, a fake.

You say it’s a dream, I’ll say what I mean.

This cistern, this fissure, this lake—

I think that it’s frosting, I think I’ll be crossing

To some shore to find more of me.

So, I’ll dare the fray, I’m more scared to stay.

You waste it; I’ll taste the sea.

 

There will be a folllow-up about why I wanted to re-post this.  Coming soon….

 

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Why I Did Not Vote

November 5, 2008 at 1:23 pm (Christianity, God, Government, Jesus, Politics, Religion, Society)
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OK, so I know I’m a little behind the game on talking politics.  That is because the whole thing makes me nauseated.  However, this week I have had several discussions with people asking me to explain the reason I was not voting.  I am sure that I will catch a lot of flack for this, but I am interested in people’s responses, whether you agree or not.  So, here goes:

 

My Political Manifesto

 

I did not vote because I believe that until the people who claim their lives belong to God rise up and act like it, this country’s morals and plans will continue to disintegrate and decline.  No amount of human strategy will rebuild the integrity that has been lost.  I do not believe that you can legislate morality, and even if you could successfully do so, whose morality are you going to legislate?  I know people of strong moral conviction and Christian substance who are virtually polar opposites when it comes to politics.  Legislating morality is only somewhat controlling the level that an activity is conducted publicly.  Any activity is going to continue in the shadows regardless, and unless there is individual change, corporate law is merely a label to make us feel better because we cannot see certain things done out in the open.  It is about comfort.  “I want to feel comfortable in my political and societal environment, so I want to see this happening and don’t want to see this happening.”  This is just hiding your eyes from what is really happening.

 

I did not vote because I believe the political system is almost wholly corrupt.  It is full of people grasping for power and pushing agenda.  The political system has very little to do with maintaining personal freedoms now, and is mostly about whose freedoms get upheld.  Instead of maintaining freedom for all, politicians choose whose freedoms are more important and pander to that crowd, often, I am convinced, with very little personal conviction about an issue or the actual freedoms themselves, but with care to who is going to give them the most political support and help them attain the most power.  In conjunction with this reason not to vote, I do not believe that God needs to work within a corrupt system to get His work done.  God does not need a bunch of legislators passing bills to police morality in order to become more powerful.  God needs individuals who are willing to give of themselves and love others unconditionally.  Until this happens, no amount of putting God in or taking God out of government will really make a difference.

 

I did not vote because the political system is almost wholly managed by fear.  The terror that each political party tries to force down the throats of their own supporters just to ensure their actions and votes is not of God.  “For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)  The fear that is constantly force-fed to people through political campaigns literally makes me sick to my stomach.  I cannot tell you how many people spoke to me during this campaign about how terrified they were about what would happen if their non-favored candidate was put into office…both sides.  Terrified.  This system creates and, in fact, counts on a lack of trust in God.  It says, in not so many words, “God cannot work if A is put into office.  YOU must control your own environment.”  Again, I believe the system gives rise to a corporate blame as opposed to an individual responsibility.  If individuals would act on the beliefs and convictions they claim to hold so dearly and so strongly, then it would not matter who was in power.  We CANNOT control our environment – God never says we are supposed to.  He talks about what we are supposed to do in our own lives.  People have their chosen institutions for who they get to point to when they say what they believe, whether that is a church or a political party or whatever…churches allow the same freedom from personal responsibility.  You can say, “I am affiliated with X church or X political party, therefore, I am doing my part,” when we sit back and, largely do nothing from our own resources or with our own time.  And going back to the verse I quoted above, the politics I see certainly does not give to rise to anything like a “sound mind.”  The irrationality and hatred (opposite of love as in the verse above as well) that politics brings about are NOT of God.  I have seen perfectly intelligent, highly peaceful and caring persons go nearly crazy with anger over politics and distort and demonize everyone who could have a different viewpoint.

 

I did not vote because I see no love in politics.  And this is the reversal of the last reason, being that it is almost wholly perpetrated by fear.  “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.  He that feareth is not made perfect in love.  We love him, because he first loved us.  If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he heath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?  And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.” (I John 4:18-21)  I touched on it above, but the hatred and slander that is spewed on both sides makes me want to have nothing to do with the system.  I cannot view one or the other party as a representative of Good when that is what I see.  Politics does not encourage, in any way, unity.  It promotes, in order to promote itself, difference, which manifests as antagonizing and stoking every issue necessary to stir people up against one another.  There is not even a common courtesy or respect in place.  It is a gloves off battle for power.

 

I did not vote because I do not believe God needs to “win.”  Jesus was not a political candidate when He was on the earth; He loved people and lived life with them.  THAT is how He effected change, and that is how I believe we, as God’s people, are called to effect change.  Politics, to me, is simply a distraction from living out His love…a tool that the devil has used to take our mind off of the real business of being Christians and caring for the orphan, the widow and the alien as true religion is described in the Bible.  Again, God never says, make sure everyone around you is doing what is necessary to care for the widow, the orphan and the alien.  He says YOU do it.  If we would all follow that instead of waiting for the government to make sure it happens in whatever manner we deem best, the politics would not even matter.

 

I did not vote because I believe that God is in control of individual lives, including mine, and THAT is how His will is going to be accomplished.  I choose not to put my “faith” in a political candidate or party.  I choose not to put my vote and stamp of approval behind the caustic nature of politics, whatever issue or agenda or faith they claim they are going to uphold.  If I do not see love and God and peace in their campaigns, why should I expect that in their terms in office?

 

Addendum: Lyrics to Derek Webb’s song, “A Savior on Capitol Hill”

 

I’m so tired of these mortal men
with their hands on their wallets and their hearts full of sin
scared of their enemies, scared of their friends
and always running for re-election
so come to DC if it be thy will
because we’ve never had a savior on Capitol Hill

you can always trust the devil or a politician
to be the devil or a politician
but beyond that friends you’d best beware
’cause at the Pentagon bar they’re an inseparable pair
and as long as the lobbyists are paying their bills
we’ll never have a savior on Capitol Hill

[Bridge]
all of our problems gonna disappear
when we can whisper right in that President’s ear
he could walk right across the reflection pool
in his combat boots and ten thousand dollar suit

you can render unto Caesar everything that’s his
you can trust in his power to come to your defense
it’s the way of the world, the way of the gun
it’s the trading of an evil for a lesser one
so don’t hold your breath or your vote until
you think you’ve finally found a savior up on Capitol Hill

 

 

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The Politics of Love

November 4, 2008 at 9:31 am (Christianity, Confession, Forgiveness, God, Government, Hypocrisy, Jesus, Politics, Religion, Responsibility, Uncategorized)
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A friend of mine received an e-mail forward that greatly grieved her.  I wrote a response below; original text in black, my response is in red.

(Forgive the poor formatting – wordpress does not like things pasted from Word!)

I’m The One You’re Talking About

 

With all of the hurt I recognize from those labeled “left-wingers,” I decided to respond to the following e-mail post in order to show that there is a difference in those who consider themselves Christians first and Republicans later and the reverse.

 

With all the vitriol I’ve been hearing from the right-wingers of late, I can’t help but recognize myself as the target of their obsessive hatred. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to out  

myself, just so they know who it is they’re spending so much time talking about.
Yes, I’m that American-hating broad who believes in life, liberty and equality for all Americans, not just those of a “socially acceptable” color, religion, address, pay scale or political affiliation.

 

 

And I am the Christian who wishes that I could make up for all of the anger, hatred and fear that is displayed in the name of Jesus Christ – all of the fanaticism that states that if you are not like me, you are not a worthwhile person.


I’m that baby-killer who thinks that every child should be a wanted child, and that the ultimate decision to give birth is the domain of the woman whose body is involved. I also believe that people who really care about saving babies might want to think about the ones who are already born – especially the ones born in places our government is currently blowing off the map, or might plan to in future.

 

And I am the Christian who believes that if more believers would put down their arms about an “issue” and take up the cause of the already fatherless, there would be far less of a need for abortion in the first place.  I am sad that Christians demonize the results of failing our duty to humanity.

I’m that godless whore who believes that if the government wants a say in how I conduct myself in my own bedroom, they’d better be prepared to lay down a lot of cold, hard cash – because if I’m going to screw according to someone else’s specifications, it’s only right that I be paid handsomely for satisfying the john.
 

 

And I am the Christian who believes that I am not God’s police.  The greatest of the commandments, from Christ’s own lips, is that we love God and love others.  We have failed to show anyone a reason to love God, and have no right to ask anyone to live up to standards that we ourselves cannot and have never been able to meet.
 

 

I’m that infamous anti-Christian who actually believes that I am my Brother’s Keeper – and that includes supporting social safety-nets that provide food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, care for the sick – you know, all that yadda-yadda stuff that Christ used to preach about back when people who called themselves Christians had a passing familiarity with his teachings. I also believe that just because Christ was tortured to death doesn’t mean he was promoting the idea as something we are free to do with his approval.

 

And I am the Christian who believes that the government has only to take up this responsibility because we largely fail to do it as the Body of Christ.  We were called to be an extension of His care, and have chosen instead the easy road of militant cause – lending us falsely free consciences when we turn our backs on those who we have decided are living “in sin.”

I’m that unscrupulous libertine, apparently devoid of any morals whatsoever, who has deluded myself into thinking that if the gay couple down the street get married, they’re not  going to destroy every heterosexual marriage in the neighborhood – and by the way, I’ve yet to hear a coherent argument as to how that would happen if they did.

 

 

And I am the Christian believes that we have destroyed marriage ourselves by treating it with such flippancy.  Marriage is about commitment and who are we Christians to bark about its sanctity when we divorce as often as those around us?

I’m that unpatriotic bitch who thinks that sporting a flag pin in your lapel doesn’t mean shit if you’re wearing it while supporting pay-cuts for the troops, or budget cuts to veterans’ care – or, for that matter, calling anyone and everyone who disagrees with you “unpatriotic” because you really have nothing of substance to say, but just love the sound of your own meaningless rhetoric blasted over the airwaves.

 

 

And I am the Christian who believes that disagreement does not equal hatred.  If we could re-learn to look beyond issues and labels and groups and see humans, perhaps we could learn that those humans have hearts.

I’m that blatant sexist who thinks that if someone like Sarah Palin has nothing more to offer than a pair of tits while seeking the office of the vice presidency, she’d damned well better have something more in her training bra than a wad of Kleenex – like actual knowledge of the responsibilities of the job, for starters.

 

 

And I am the Christian who wishes to apologize for our lack of faith in God – for the fact that we feel the need to press on everyone else and force them to fit in to our mold, like the school bully, instead of showing God’s love and trusting that He can work it out if we would just obey Him ourselves.

I’m that socialist commie who thinks people should reap the financial rewards of their own hard work while the CEOs of the corporations they toil for share the resulting profits, rather than pocket them all while throwing crumbs to those whose labor created those profits in the first place. Yup, that’s me – another anti-capitalist, spouting my big mouth off when oil companies earning record profits get tax subsidies, as though they don’t deserve them.
 

 

And I am the Christian who believes that capitalism is the life-blood of our economy, but for the fact that it has been hi-jacked and subsidized by a government seeking to attain its own ends and fill its own pockets.  The corporations receiving government payouts because they have run their companies into the ground with poor business practices are the same corporations that put Mom and Pop’s Hardware Store out of business, though they were possibly the most honest, hardest working people in the town.


I’m that big city chick, who couldn’t possibly share the same values of the kid from the suburbs, or the mid-western farmer, or the small-town librarian – or anyone who, unlike me, was raised in the right pocket of Americana – wherever that may be.

 

And I am the Christians who wishes we could do away with all references to “right” or “left” and learn to see the things that we hold in common – to protect the innocent, to bring hope to the weary and food to the hungry.  We are all in this together – who cares where the “pockets” are?

I’m that no-good Bush-basher who had the gall to notice that an idiot who couldn’t string two words together without getting both of them wrong would inevitably lead this country into an unwinnable war (or two), financial ruin, complete moral failure, and global disgrace.
 

 

And I am the Christian who does not turn a blind eye to disgraces from anyone just because they are in power, and I definitely do not make an exception just to make myself feel better about it if it is someone that I helped put there.


And while I’m at it, I may as well come completely clean – because, let’s face it, you’ve got me dead-to-rights: I’m also a tree-huggin’ environmentalist who believes in such outrageous ideas as upholding the Constitution, equal treatment under the law, and civil rights – and the hypocrisy of you people who call ME un-American makes me want to retch.

 

And I am the Christian who believes that our Constitution has been trampled on from persons of all political parties whenever it best suited their needs at the time, because politics is no longer “by the people, for the people,” but it is a selfish grasping for power and agenda.

So now that you know who I am, please feel free to rant about me all you want. I’m proud of who I am, what I believe in, and what I stand for – a feeling you’ll never know.

 

 

And now that I hope that you know we do not all hate you.  Some of us are saddened by the mis-use of our God’s name to try to manipulate the world around them so they can feel comfortable in a controlled moral environment instead of worrying about the hearts and souls of individuals.

But don’t be embarrassed by not recognizing me in a crowd – you see, there are tens of millions like me, and you know what they say: All those damned anti-Americans look alike.And we’re all about to vote alike – which means voting your asses out of office.

 

 

I hope that you also can see that I think it is completely irrelevant who is in office, because I believe in a God who loves – a God who is not threatened by man and our selfish, confused attempts at running a country, a business, a family or our own lives – a God who will be working in the hearts and lives of those who are seeking Him regardless of the political climate.  I am not threatened by political change, because my God is not a God of politics.  He is not trying to “win.”  He only wants to love.

See ya around, chumps. And the next time you think about calling me or anyone like me anti-American, you might want to look back at what this election has been all about – and who the REAL Americans truly are.

 

 

And along the same lines, I am not trying to be more American than you.  I do not want to compete with you.  I want all competition to be put aside so we can work together, live together…together, though not identical; in harmony, though not the same.

 

Thanks for taking the time to learn who we are, too.  We’re out there, I promise.

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Fasting and Dog Treats

October 5, 2008 at 4:12 pm (Christianity, Discipline, Failure, God, Humility, Jesus, Religion)
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As a Christian, I’ve kind of gone back and forth on the “fasting” issue.  It’s not that I thought it was bad; just that with my particular upbringing, it was not highlighted or explained or really even discussed at all.  When I was in my early 20’s, I had a friend (not a Christian) ask me what the point of it was.  She had a co-worker who was fasting during their lunch hour.  She said that he explained it as a time you were supposed to be more focused on God.  She stated that she could understand this if he had used the time to go away and pray or something, but he still hung out with everyone else during lunch; he just didn’t eat, so she didn’t see the point.

 

I found myself at a loss for explaining anything to her.  I was only moderately distressed by this as I didn’t see it as a big point of contention with the Gospel and had never really entertained fasting as a regular thing to do in life.  In short, I considered it an elective; “Hey, if it helps you with your walk with God, go ahead.”  That was my attitude.

 

As I’ve gotten older and (hopefully) learned a little bit more, I’ve come to see it as something more than an elective – not in a legalistic sense, but as a true method of allowing God more space in our lives to communicate with us and as a means to display our devotion to Him.  I’m not talking about asceticism to the point of bodily harm.  I mean fasting according to what the Holy Spirit calls.  And I also do not mean fasting only in the sense of food.  I think fasting has much more far-reaching implications than simply not eating.  During Lent people may say they are fasting from television or shopping or caffeine or whatever the Lord shows them is impeding their walk with Him or becoming something they depend on.  As I’ve come to see it as something that is an integral part of my walk with God and my spiritual growth, I’ve gone through several stages. 

 

The first stage was what I will call “deliberate fasting.”  (And here I am talking about food.)  I decided, at one point, that food fasting was good for you, soul and body (incidentally, I still believe it is), so I made it part of what I did.  I would fast one day a week, but my attitude about it was wrong.  I was doing it as a rote practice; just making it part of my religious regimen.  And not only that, I was doing it for selfish reasons as well – because I wanted to reap the rewards; not so much because I was hungry for God and what He was offering me.  Needless to say, like all things done simply because you feel you “ought” to do them, like diets, my “deliberate fasting” did not last for very long.  It did not mean anything, and my spirit felt that.

 

The second stage was “desperate fasting”.  This was done when I was so at a loss for what to do in my life that I felt like I had to do something in order to beg God for some direction.  Since I didn’t have any other methods of control to exert in my physical life, fasting became my means to reach God.  “If I only fast enough, He’ll see how serious I am about wanting His guidance.”  Though I do believe fasting in desperate times is called for and exhibited in the Bible, mine was never out of a sense of repentance or, again, out of a desperate hunger for God; it was out of a desperation for God to help me out with my life.  This only serves as an attempt to manipulate God, which is ridiculous for two reasons.  First, the idea that we can manipulate an omnipotent, omniscient God is just silly.  Second, the idea that we need to manipulate God in order to reap the best rewards indicates a complete lack of understanding about how much He loves us.  At least I knew God was the source and I employed prayer as well (which is never bad), but I was not seeking Him.  I was seeking what He could do.

 

And now we come to the third stage, which I think I am sort of in the midst of learning and I will call “deepening fasting.”  This is where the dog treats come in.  If you’ve followed my blog at all, you’ll sort of know that my life has sort of been turned upside down this year – at least in any practical sense.  A lot of it was through personal choice, so I am not going to pretend that external things just “happened” to me, but at the same time, it’s kind of to a level that I hadn’t expected or planned for.  Most of what makes a person feel secure is up in the air or has been rattled this year.  For example: housing, finances, jobs, relationships, health, church, pets (I know, I’m not sure pets count, but in my situation, my pet dying was yet another thing lost).  I don’t want to go into each story, though some you could trace bits of through past posts.  Let’s just say all of this has left me feeling pretty detached from anything except family, friends and God.  Don’t get me wrong – I am very grateful that I still have family, friends and God, as I would have always deemed those the most important, though not in that order.  Still, the others play key roles in most of our lives and whether we like it or not, they serve to provide some measure of security and validation.

 

I was talking to a friend of mine last night and she asked me what my life was like right now.  (Great question, by the way – much better than “How are you?”)  I told her that I felt like I was standing in the middle of an empty room, and though there was nothing really holding me there, I didn’t really feel any great motivation to walk outside of it either.  My answer kind of startled me, even though that seems silly since it came out my mouth.  However, it struck me as unnervingly profound, and I found myself analyzing it after my conversation with her ended and on into this morning.

 

At points in this period of detachment from the world that I’ve been going through, I’ve been completely at peace with it – accepting that it is only temporal and the eternal is what counts.  However, at other points, I’ve found myself grasping at the same worldly things I’ve been stripped of because I caught a glimpse of what looks like a good option.  This seems to recur – a regular pattern in my existence.  I don’t mean for it to, but my fleshly nature just keeps rising from the grave every time I think I’ve buried it.  (That’s probably part of my problem – taking my eyes off of God and trying to take care of it myself.)

 

I think God emptied my life of the peripheral things in it – the things that were not contributing to what He had for me.  And now He is asking me to stay there until He says otherwise.  Not because He necessarily expects me to remain in all of my present circumstances – but because He needs me to realign my motivation.  And so, I am in this empty room that I feel He has purposely emptied.  God wants to fill my life up with things that He has for me in order to live the abundant life He offered me and so that He can use me in the manner He has planned, which, for the record is the same thing (abundant life=allowing God to do with your life as He will).  So, at points in this journey, He has re-introduced things back into that room, bits of things that He may have for me or have for me to do at some point – good things.  But so far, I feel that I am failing when I am shown those glimpses of good things – that I am content to sit in the room and rely on Him whenever I see no way to exert my own effort and no way to pursue anything.  But that when He brings the glimpse of what He wants me to have or to do into my vision, I immediately stop relying on Him and say, in essence, “Oh!  That’s what you have for me, God?  Cool.  I’ll take it from here.  You’ve been a big help.”  And then I make the pursuit of the “thing” my focus instead of the pursuit of God who wants to give me the thing.  And so God empties the room again and says, “No.  You haven’t got it yet.”

 

OK, OK, I know you’re wondering where the dog treats are coming in.  Here goes: I was dog-sitting a couple of months ago, and the dog was a bit unruly.  I won’t name names.  In my frustration, for a few days, I tried to teach the dog to “stay.”  I gave up, although my efforts were working; the rewards of training someone else’s dog didn’t seem quite worth it.  Anyway, I don’t think this dog had been taught much of anything, and it definitely had not been taught, “Stay.”  So, I would take a treat and make the dog sit (it did seem to know that one).  Then I would say, “Stay,” and back up a step.  If the dog moved, I would make it go back to where it was sitting, and we would start the process all over again.  At first, I would just back up with the treat a short distance.  As the dog did better, I would walk further.  I actually got across the room a couple of times.  Whether the dog got the treat or not had to do with its priorities.  If obedience was its first priority and it was looking to me as its “master” for direction, it would get the treat, but if the treat was its first priority, it got nothing.  Granted, a clever dog could probably figure out where the treats are and break the container or tear open the bag or whatnot and get his own.  But a good dog really wants to please its master and knows this is not the way to do it.  Now, this dog, being in the initial training stages, did poorly if I held the treat up tantalizingly before him throughout the process.  If I didn’t show him the treat, he did somewhat better.

 

And this is where I’ve been, if we can pretend that I am a dog and God is my master.  God’s been trying to teach me to “stay.”  I do all right at it if I can’t see the “treat.”  There’s not much for me to run after.  I’m content to listen to Him telling me to stay.  But when He brings it out and shows me, my instinctual reaction is to run towards it immediately.  However, all that does is make God put me back in my initial place and say, “No, let’s try that again.  Wait until I call you.”

 

I don’t know how many false starts I will have to make before I learn the lesson.  I know I’ve made several already, and God keeps putting me back in that empty room.  It’s a peaceful empty room, not a scary one.  I know He wants to fill it up with His provisions.  I just need to stop looking at the provisions and start looking at HIM.

 

All right, so now you are wondering, what does that have to do with fasting???  Waiting on God to tell me I can come have the treat is like a period of fasting, in whatever area that waiting manifests.  What I realized today is that fasting is a way of life – fasting from all that God does not have for me; fasting from the world.  Usually when I think of a fast, I think of putting a time limit on how long I will abstain from something.  I am starting to look at fasting as simply not partaking of things until God gives me the go ahead – committing to not chase after the things of this world in order to satisfy my own needs and desires, but in all things seeking to please the Master first, trusting that He will provide for my needs.

 

I know that there are seasons of fasting as well, and God blesses it any time it is done out of a sense of hunger for HIM – times when the hunger we feel from a food fast is a welcome feeling because it is indicative of the desire we have for God.  I am definitely not trying to undermine fasting in that sense.  Just noting that a life following God will be constantly seeking Him and will never seek to satisfy the flesh without first looking to the Master’s wishes, like the dog that learns to look at its master before going for the treat.  And hopefully, the priorities begin to outline the motivation and we begin to obey not in order to receive the treat, but in order to please the Master.  Maybe this doesn’t even qualify as fasting; maybe that’s just living a Spirit-led life…but that’s how it struck me today.

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On a Bad Day…

September 19, 2008 at 1:01 pm (Kindness)
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OK, so most of the people who know me are aware that I am, ahem…forthright.  On a good day, this is generally an asset for me.  On a bad day, it sometimes gets me in trouble, i.e. my bluntness makes people mad at me, and thereby my bad day just gets worse.  But yesterday the opposite happened.

I was at deli with some friends, ordering a sandwich that was $6.35.  I’m thinking this is pretty expensive for a sandwich and I had already had a somewhat frustrating day.  So, after I ordered it, the following conversation ensued:

Me: “What comes with that?”

Deli Guy: “Chips and a pickle.”

Me: “Can I get something besides chips?”

Deli Guy: “Yes.  For 99 cents, you can get pasta…”

Me (interrupting): “What if I don’t want to pay 99 cents?” (You know, I’m already thinking I’m paying an awful lot for a sandwich.)

Deli Guy: “Then you get chips.”

Me: “What if I don’t want chips?”

Deli Guy: “Then I won’t give you chips.”

Me: “Am I still paying for the chips?”

Deli Guy: “Yes.”

Me: “So, I have to get the chips or I’m paying for nothing?”

Deli Guy: “Yes.”

Me: “Give me the chips.”  But before I moved on, I added, “I’m sorry.  I’m just grouchy.  It’s not your fault.”

So, we went and sat down and ate.  The deli had slowed down a bit by now and we were in conversation, when all of a sudden a hand appears in front of me with a bowl of fruit.  I look up, and it’s the deli guy.  He sets it down, and says, “I hope your day gets better,” and disappears.

And my day did get better, thanks to him.

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Chasing

September 17, 2008 at 3:24 pm (Christianity, God, Jesus, Poetry, Religion)

Sometimes in my ignorant rebellion,

I chase You away with chocolate and caffeine and television.

They numb the senses, soothe…no, smother the soul

With their indulgent decadence.

So seemingly innocuous,

Yet so addictive -

Like porn and liquor and heroine.

They are used in the same manner

To gain the same ends…

To gain the “I want” now

And lose the “I win” later.

So, instead, I lose a day, an hour, a year with You…

And slowly become a Christian vegetable.

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Need/Provision vs. Cause/Effect

August 18, 2008 at 12:17 pm (Christianity, God, Humility, Jesus, Religion)

I have been seeing a lot of things and being handed a lot of stuff on a silver platter, per se, that discusses what our relationship with God is supposed to look like.  Things that I should already know, but that somehow have not quite made it into the way I live out my Christian life.  And the difference is noted in my title.  I often still live life as if it is something I can control by cause/effect as opposed to an endless list of needs for God’s provision.  You may think that going with the second way seems to render one rather helpless.  Indeed, it does.  Because we are helpless.  We just like to pretend that we are not because it makes us feel better.

Now, to be truthful, the majority of the time cause/effect scenarios will hold true.  If we add 1+1, we get 2.  If we do A and B, we get C, pick your own situation.  However, there are more times than we like to admit that this is NOT the case – times when we did A and B perfectly, but instead got something like Q, and it rattles us.  We get shaken.  And if our faith is still built, even marginally, on the belief that some bit of our own efforts gives us certain rights, allows us some extra favor with God, then our faith is shaken with us.

We are uncomfortable, as a general rule, with accepting help for which we have no payment.  So, although we may take the initial step into God’s love and grace by accepting His forgiveness through the offering of Jesus as payment for our sins, it is all followed by an immediate act of will to clean ourselves up so that we will subsequently become acceptable to God.

I have a friend who recently sent me some amazing stuff that delves into this idea, so I just wanted to take a moment to say thanks.  You know who you are.

The common problem most of us have is that we do not recognize that all of our efforts to “do” Christianity within our own strength will be met with, at best, temporary success…or the illusion of temporary success – possibly even the illusion of continual success for those who have the energy to keep it up.  However, the man inside of us will always still be fumbling, floundering and feeling one of a few possible things: 1) that they wish they could get their inner man to catch up with the shiny exterior they have managed to portray; 2) that they cannot possibly keep this exterior up much longer because the inner man is so tired; 3) that they are greater and more disciplined than everyone around them who does not seem to be able to hold it together; or 4) guilty because they don’t even manage to keep the exterior looking very nice for a day. 

There are more Christian “do-ers” out there than there are any other kind, I would say.  They live life by whatever set of socially acceptable rules they have absorbed as their belief system, so to the world around them, they look very nice.  Perhaps I should not say “nice,” because they are not always nice people.  They look clean.  Like they don’t want to get messy.

Christianity is for those who know they are messy, and want to get cleaned up.  Jesus says so.  Mark 2:16&17: “When the teachers of the law [human effort] who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’  On hearing this, Jesus said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners.’”

We come to Jesus knowing that we need His help, and once we get our “shot” of salvation, we go away and try to heal ourselves.  It does not work.  I cannot say that I am the expert on exactly how we are supposed to get there, but I know that the abundant life Christ promises us in John 10:10 has never found me while I was following a list of man-made rules, but while I was living in complete humility because I understood my complete inability to offer anything worthy to God.

The Bible is very clear about our offerings of righteousness being pointless: Isaiah 64:6 says “all our righteousness is as filthy rags.”  And in Genesis 6:5 that “every inclination of the thoughts of his [man's] heart was only evil all the time.”  Those verses don’t leave us very much in the way of loopholes for trying to think much of our own righteousness.

So, if we cannot offer our works, our righteousness, our good deeds to God, then what are we to offer?  Psalm 51:17 answers: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”  No wonder Jesus had a problem with the Pharisees.

All of this comes from being able to die to ourselves - be crucified with Christ and raised up a new creation – not just spending all of our time trying to polish up the old creation.  Doing that is literally like trying to please God with an animated corpse…we were dead in sin, but instead of allowing Him to transform us into that new, living creation, we are trying to make the old corpse do what we, in our limited understanding, have decided He wants from us.  It is simply a revised version of the law given to us in the Old Testament.  The things we do determine (to us) whether we are a “good” Christian or not – though we have just proved from Scriptures that nothing “good” comes from our own efforts of achieving righteousness.

So, if cause (right living) and effect (God’s pleasure and rewards) are not the route for us to take, then what is?  We are back to that uncomfortable acceptance of something that we know we have no way of paying for.  The Bible says that God is love. (I John 4:8)  For this example, I’d like you to remember the word charity, which now means, in our culture, giving to someone who is poor or ill and cannot repay you.  It’s original meaning was the love of God or Christ for humankind.  I think it means more when we combine these meanings: charity – the love of God or Christ for humankind, which means He gives to us, knowing that we need and that we are unable to repay.

God is the plumber who fixes your sink when he knows have no money to pay his bill – the accountant who gets your finances in order when you have no clue about how to do it yourself, and then does not take his cut.  God is not the plumber who brings you a wrench and then tells you to fix it yourself, nor the accountant who brings you a calculator and expects that is going to put you on a budget.  It is rare to find God this way, through the actions of people.  Therefore, we think it impossible that God is actually this way.  He must want something from us.  He only wants our choice, our need for Him. 

I know some of you read the paragraph above, and were a little put off.  I’m sure you thought, “Yes, but doesn’t God give us the tools we need to live our lives according to His will?  What about ‘teaching a man to fish instead of just giving him one’?”  YES, God teaches us to “fish”.  He teaches us that our only true provision comes through Him, and that fishing in any other water is only going to lead to a different kind of poverty – and that includes the waters of our own abilities.  Have you ever noticed how often God works through people in the Bible out of their inabilities?  The resumes of Bible heroes would not read so good.

And now I would like to quote a few passages from a book by Madeleine L’Engle called “Walking on Water.”

“For the opposite of sin is faith and never virtue, and we live in a world which believes that self-control can make us virtuous.  But that’s not how it works.  How many men and women we have encountered, of great personal virtue and moral rectitude, convinced of their own righteousness, who have also been totally insensitive to the needs of others and sometimes downright cruel!…To quote H.A. Williams again, ‘When I attempt to make myself virtuous, the me I can thus organize and discipline is no more than the me of which I am aware.  And it is precisely the equation of my total self with this one small part of it which is the root cause of all sin.  This is the fundamental mistake often made in exhortations to repentance and amendment.  They attempt to confirm me in my lack of faith by getting me to organize the self I know against the self I do not know.’  …And Williams continues, ‘there is a sort of devilish perversity in this organizing me not to sin by means of the very thing  which ensures I shall [the flesh].  Faith, on the other hand, consists in the awareness that I am more than I know…such faith cannot be contrived.  If it were contrivable, if it were something I could create in myself by following some recipe or other, then it would not be faith.  It would be works – my organizing the self I know.  That faith can be only the gift of God emphasizes the scandal of our human condition – the scandal of our absolute dependence on Him.  I have to depend completely upon what very largely I do not know and cannot control…justification by faith means that I have nothing else on which to depend except my receptivity to what I can never own or manage.  And this very capacity to receive cannot be the result of effort.  Faith is something given, not achieved.  It is created by God’s word in Christ.’”

That was quite a quote, I know.  But the point is that most of us are trying to quell the sin of our flesh by using our flesh and that is just not possible.  We have to be given the grace of God’s spirit and the faith that God will guide us out of it, in spite of our flesh, not through its efforts.  To reiterate: “Self-control cannot make us virtuous.”  It can make us look virtuous, but is that what we are really after?  A life of appearances that must be kept up, when we are supposed to have lives of freedom?

And that is the wonder of all of this – living in the freedom of our own helplessness releases us from living lives of both terrible guilt and of terrible pride.  It brings us to a place of forgetting ourselves so that God can most effectively work through us, because we have stopped trying to work through Him.

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Quote #3

August 13, 2008 at 1:09 pm (Christianity, God, Jesus, Religion)

“To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, not even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery.  It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”

Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard

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Who’s Controlling Who?

August 8, 2008 at 11:08 am (Christianity, God, Jobs, Religion, prayer)

I think (really I know) that I’ve mentioned in the past how I have recognized when I get that desperate, grasping, panicking feeling about something, it is never from God.  It is always me stressing about making sure I am getting what I want or what I think I need, and not trusting God to do it.  So, as time goes on, I learn to recognize it more and more quickly, and back off when I’m pushing for something because of that feeling.  Well, that happened last week.

See, I’ve been pretty broke…yes, I know I live in a tent and all, but between the staph infection bills and having to get a new car (another story for another day) and the unexpected shortage of work I’ve been having, well, let’s just say I’m not really getting ahead.  I was “making it” before when I had rent, and now I’m “making it” without it.  So, God knew what He was doing because if I had rent right now, well, I’d be gettin’ kicked out for not paying it or going into major debt one of the two.

In response to this, I have been evaluating whether it might be time to get a “real” job instead of all of the random things I count on, especially since I cut out the nannying, which to be fair, is part of the reason (not all of it) for my shortage of work, and was a decision I made myself. 

But, in all of it, I have not felt out of God’s will.  At one point, I asked Him if He wanted me to be out pounding the pavement looking for work, and I got a “No.  Just keep doing what you’re doing.  I’ve got it.”  So, I’ve been doing a lot of writing that I felt was God-inspired, and, let’s be honest, a lot of relaxing.

So, a friend of mine brings up a job that is about to come open at the same place she works.  She said it’s a great environment, the same position she holds, just in a different department.  She works closely with them, and says that if she were looking for a job, she would want that one.  She asks if I would be interested, and I said, well, maybe.  She told the supervisor for that position (who she is good friends with) about me, and that girl seemed excited about the possibility & said she would keep a lookout for my application.  I’m thinking this is God’s provision and a great opportunity at this point. 

When the job posted, my friend sent me the link and the job code to apply online, but for over a week, I couldn’t get the website to come up.  So, after that week, I started to get panicky…did I mention I’m really broke…so I called my friend.  “Can you get the website to come up?”  She tries, and she can’t.  So, she said she’d call HR and see what the deal was, and I said OK.  She wasn’t at work yet.

But a couple of hours later, I realized that I was having that feeling I started telling you about…the one where I am graspy and stressed out about missing something I need.  The one I get when I am trying to control God instead of letting Him take charge of my life.  So, I let go.  I called my friend.  “Don’t call HR.  If I’m supposed to get it, it will work out.”  And she didn’t.

Two days later, she calls me – the supervisor for the position called her and was flipping out because she just found out that the HR website had been down since the job posted so as of yet, they had 0 applicants, and need to fill the position by a deadline.  So, the supervisor asked if I would forward my resume directly to her.

Haha.  Thanks, God.  When I let go, instead of me grasping for making sure I got my resume to these people, THEY were grasping for me to get it to them.  Now, this doesn’t mean I’m going to get the job.  But even if I don’t, it was a lesson of how letting God handle stuff instead of pushing because you’re scared is much more effective. 

As a disclaimer, I think that sometimes God wants us to push.  I’m just starting to recognize when I’m pushing because He wants me to and when I’m pushing out of fear and distrust that He can handle it.

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