Wounded

Surrounded by religion.
Hymns, written for another generation who's experience of worship looks nothing like mine, do nothing but quell the desire for the familiar in a strange place.
Liturgy that unites our voices, but leaves me feeling like the last kid picked for kickball.
A schedule that frustrates the hell out of me, because by the time I realize God's up to something, the moment is ushered away by our 'regularly scheduled programming'.

And it's just like God to do something so outside my scope of thinking:  He shows up anyway.

Like two men traveling down a road one third day, God shows up in their midst.

And they miss it.

You see, I am a blockhead.  Plagued by intellect and a stubborn pride, how often have I missed God in my midst.

I knew he was here when we worshipped; the unity of our voices would have drowned out a choir of angels, could have lifted the roof and let heaven pour in.  My chest began to quiver as I realized He was here.

Across the room, another voice recognizes Him.

I felt the weight of holiness, and froze in awe.

Everything in me wanted time to stop.  I was afraid to move, afraid to open my eyes, lest the invisible clock keep ticking.

Yet the schedule drove on, and the sound of the ticking clock was the sound of my heart breaking.

          ********************

We don't know what to do with words like "theology", or "discipleship".

We've equated the Christian life to "letting our light shine", grievously mistaking discipleship for witnessing, and the secret code of the churched - "God is good...all the time", "Thanks be to God", and prayers prayed in King James English.

I just might puke if I hear it one more time.

We look at the life of Jesus as an example to follow, a hero to emulate.

We think we've got the Ten Commandments down pat, and wonder why the the concept of grace seems so incredibly...ungraspable.

It's no wonder we've got a powerless church.

Sure, it looks like we can walk on water, but in actuality, the sea of our faith is merely a mud puddle; sticky, dirty, and making a mess.

           ********************

We build intricate, ornate, bigger and better and architecturally splendid buildings, so we can worship a God we can't understand on the surface of our lives.  Like He's an accessory, the shoes all the cool kids are wearing.

We'll address the budget, we'll address traditions.  We'll even admit that, quite possibly, the God we don't understand may or may have something to do with the job we're doing well at, or the health and success of our children.

But we fail to address the Wound.

The Wound is eons old, as old as time is to us.
It leaves no scar, but penetrates deeper than we can comprehend.
It's been so long since we've felt the freshness of the pain inflicted by the Wound in the beginning, all that remains is an ache...
     an ache of longing for restoration.

It's the Wound that steals our identity.
It's the Wound that drives our lives, the Wound we don't know we hide: who we REALLY are.
The wound goes so deep, so far back, that it wrecks us the moment we encounter holiness.  Our shame cripples us, and just like in the garden, we hide.

It's the wound that keeps us seeking; driving us to places we think will address the ache.
When the ache isn't soothed, when our eyes aren't opened to the Truth of WHY, when we're deceived and mis-taught,  this leaves us with rooms full of women who claim to be walking with Jesus, yet weep mainly because they don't know their identity.

Now we have churches full of people, here to get their weekly band-aid for the scab that life, so cruelly and yet appropriately, yanks off; wondering why it's not healing.

We have therapy rooms, doctor's offices, small groups and churches full of people who can't seem to get to the bottom of the issues in their lives, don't even know it's possible.
Who can't find peace.

It might, just might, have something to do with the spiritual atmosphere of today.  Our desire to grow outward, leaves us starving in the deeps.  The religious atmosphere of the day has the spiritual depth of a bologna sandwich.  And I say a bologna sandwich, because at one point in time, the pig had breath in it's lungs.


Life is more than skin deep.
     Love is more than skin deep.
          God is... so... much... more... than skin deep.


Rip the scab off, and do it quick.  The pain fades faster.
Poke at the wound.
Pick at the edges, see how deep it goes.
Examine the extent of the damage.

Where did the wound come from?

And more importantly, why aren't we asking this question??

Early morning rant.

I don't even know if I'm going to share this with anyone, at least on Twitter or Facebook.  Just a couple thoughts that are troubling me; irking me, and usually when that happens, words are the LAST thing that comes...

Scrolling through Facebook this morning, I see a suggested page for Relevant magazine.  So I click on it, and if I'm going to "like" something, I need to see what it's all about.

Needless to say, now I'm kinda pissed.  So I'm going to try not to be sarcastic or snarky...
No promises...

I can see why there's a publication that caters to the newer, younger generation. And even the name of it screams to what people in their 20's and 30's are sooo hungry for: relevance.
A renewed hunger for all things God, discussions on the cultural differences between the Christian who can sit in a bar and the Christian who calls every single thing under the sun sin "sin", ahem.
Sorry, clearing my throat.

And the worst thing is, I'm a comment reader.  I KNOW nothing gets me stirred up like comments... yet I scroll through them like a glutton for punishment.
Comment after comment,
Article after article,
Page after page.
My disgust growing, I soon close the page without clicking the "Like" button.

I fight the effects of "religion" enough in my daily life; "religion" being the imposing of my (or your)  interpretation of scripture onto your (or my) life.
Your rules, no matter how accurately scriptural, do not supersede my relationships with Christ.
     For example.  I smoke.  I get barraged frequently about how it's a sin....You know what, I don't even have time to get into this right now.  But until me and Jesus hash out why I smoke, no matter how many times you tell me it's a sin, I'm not quitting.  My relationship with Him trumps your lack of understanding of my heart.  Period.

My job isn't to shove the Bible down people's throat, I've alienated enough people with that.
My job is to let Jesus do, through me, in His divine perspective, whatever He sees fit in the situation.
Grace is awesome.

The younger church calls out the older church for being stuck in too many rules and traditions, yet falls into the same traps by not educating themselves on the scriptures they quote to make their case.
(I actually read an article on scriptural discrepancies... SERIOUSLY.)
This new generation of Christians is bound to repeat the waywardness, dare I call it "sins", of our fathers if we don't open our eyes to the real problem:  religion.

I get so aggravated when we miss the point.  Especially when I'm right there, realizing I'm to the left, the right, or underneath the target, along with everyone else.

Grrrrr.

I'm going to work.  >:-(

Empty

I had the "opportunity" to run into the nearest mega-store this morning to pick up a couple of shirts I needed for work.

My mindset hasn't changed much since coming into the season of dual-incomes; my mindset still remains one that 6 years of self-employment taught:  extremely frugal.  EXTREMELY.

Flashback to those few years; we never knew when the next paycheck was going to come in.
     It was a period of time when the world would dictate that I worry, stress and completely freak out about when the bills would be paid.  (Never mind what we wanted, we're talking basic needs.)
     Despite what the world dictated, God was teaching us something completely opposite, upside-down from the norm.
     He was teaching us a few of the basics of faith.  To trust Him.  He'll supply our needs.

And repeatedly, He proved the truth in His word.  Over and over again, month after month, year after year.
 
So much so, that there was absolutely no elevation in the blood pressure whatsoever when the electric company would show up to turn off power for nom-payment.  I knew that I knew we'd have a check in the mail that day.

Once I started grasping hold of the remote possibility of truth in His word, my eyes were opened to each and every time He provided.
Right when we needed it.


Fast forward to this morning:
I write the check for my purchase, gather my bags, and head for the parking lot mindlessly.

As the door closes is my car, I have a sickening realization, which begins a brief but powerful conversation.

Me:  "This is what normal people do.  Everyday."

     : "Yep.  How'd it feel?"

Me:  .........."Empty..."

I wondered. I thought.  I prayed, and I listened.

I recalled my mindset as I speed-shopped; frugal, minimal.

I recalled my thought process as I whipped out my wallet; easy-breezy.  Not a care in the world, because gone were the days I'd be praying for the money to be in the account when it was time to pay.

I realized my thoughts as I walked to the car were somewhere along the lines of, "Ah, so that's what it's like..."

All of them, empty; self-centered, and god-less.

All of a sudden I understood why my family was moved to where it was.
I understood why we both had to work.

Not just the immediate, surface, bill-paying reasons, but the deep down, 'what's-your-purpose-in-this,-God' reason.

We knew what it was like to live that life, a long time ago.  Back then I had no idea that my interaction with God could be anything other than, "Sure, I believe...?"

In the stripping away that happened the next couple years, when we lost every physical possession we ever wanted and worked hard for, it was then that we gained the most valuable relationship.

And life became very deep.  Not because of what we were going through, but because of the WHO we were going through it with.

Faith established, new standards and new levels of understanding of Truth became the norm in my life. Character refined, and healing occurred.

******
For a while now, I've associated the season of our worldly struggles with the place we'd be closest to God, so I was jarred a bit when our station in life changed rapidly.
We live in a neighborhood now, with awesome neighbors, fantastic jobs that have been, without a doubt, tailor-made for each of us.

Very...Normal...

and yet, I cringed; like something was very wrong.  Things were so different than they used to be, I began to wait for the other shoe to drop.
     It hasn't come.

{I always fought "normal."
One of my favorite sayings in "Normal is boring."  I always wanted to be juuuust a bit different than everyone else.  Not to gather attention, but to NOT be one of the mindless masses.
So when we were in our season of hardships, during the stripping away, I didn't see this happening to anyone else, so I knew this wasn't "normal".  But the strengthening relationship with God gave me peace in all of it.}

But week by week, another piece of the puzzle is laid before me.
     Nowhere close to revealing the big picture in it's entirety, but each piece, put together with the previous pieces, makes more sense to my part in all of it.

******

So, without being able to piece this all together as eloquently as I hoped, I think that's why I felt so empty after shopping this morning.

I used to live my every day that way, without any need for the divine.
Without any holy, bigger-than-me connection.
Without a hunger for truth.

And yet, here I am, in the same situation that led me down the road to change that perspective.
Back into the life that led me to step away from the ordinary.
Back into the life that brought me no peace, but now with a growing perspective of life lived outside the ordinary box.

Without jumping to conclusions, I believe there just might be something huge in this...

New Seasons

The date on the calendar isn't lining up with the sounds and the moisture coming out of the predawn hours.

I still think it's summer, drummed further into my brain by the cadence of the rain dripping off the roof.  

This change in seasons is screwing me up.  My season of life changed in the middle of a calendar season, so only a few months in, I'm fighting the natural rhythms to change with the weather.

I have to get it through my brain that my season isn't changing; it's just coming forth.  The "changing" of the season isn't complete yet.  

Just like in nature, it doesn't happen overnight; it's a process.

For me, this is going to be a big one.  I can sense definition on the horizon.  Clarity.  A calling, perhaps, of something bigger, more purposeful.  And it's not just for me.

My new geographical location has given me new insights into my heart, as well as a view that stretches for miles.  

I believe that the new perspective is crucial for this next season, for what's coming... to be able to see further into the distance than ever before.

There are hints of what's coming; just as with the change from winter to spring, or summer into fall.  

The rush of color is always what catches my eyes.  The beauty in the variations, the surprises; they never fail to mesmerize me.

An awareness of a new appreciation, a new understanding, a new level of comprehension.

Seeing that autumn is fighting so hard to get here, I'm anticipating the cool down. 

And with that, I call it the "re-emergence", from hiding indoors all summer to escape the oppressive heat.

In the cool down, I always look forward to the fresh air, the new opportunities to be outdoors, and the reinvigorated desire to go.  

Go be with friends, go be with people, to try new things...

...the possibilities are always endless at the beginning of a new season.