Broken Trajectory

            A lone bullet shell lies at the center of the open space in my room.  It is detached completely from any sort of narrative, any before and after, or beginning and end.  I do not know why it is there, but I do know that I hadn’t seen it there the night before.  Perhaps it fell out of my sweatshirt pocket, the one I wore at the shooting range on the beach a few months prior.  I ignore the fact that I’ve worn the sweatshirt multiple times since, deciding that it must have rested unnoticed in the one of the front pockets.  I instinctively pick it up and hold it over the trashcan in my room, before placing in a box where I store important items that act as tokens for memories I don’t want to forget.  I decide that it is important enough to keep, but not important enough for me to think about any further at the time, or even add to my own narrative.  Perhaps this is because it makes little sense to me.  I move on.

•  

“Every bullet tells a story.”  I imagine a grim-faced actor with a slight smirk wearing a designer rain jacket meant to look like something you’d find at a yard sale.  This is a quote I’m sure I’ve heard stated multiple times on multiple different television shows and movies, but as is often reflected in the obscure connections in Real Life, I have no anchor to tie to this quote, no fictional name to attribute it to more than an archetype protagonist grinning at his own clever statement, just 42 minutes shy of solving that particular bullet’s story.  He will neatly tie together that story after a series of red herrings and false alarms, unless, of course, there’s a “To Be Continued,” in which case it will take at least another 42 minutes or so to follow the winding trajectory of this bullet’s sordid past.

I’ve had little occasion to trace the story of a bullet, and aside from one hunting experience, I’ve failed completely.  I once shot a gopher in the head and felt bad for it, until my hunting buddy told me that it was “vermin” and a “pest,” and that I potentially saved some plants with my heroic deed.  If following the bullet’s backwards path from out of the head of that gopher who was someone’s friend, someone’s son or daughter, you’d find a young man who was trying to relate to the likes of Hemingway, rather than a hunter who felt empowered by the feel of a steel trigger.  In the end, the gopher wasn’t a lion, but it was dead and I had decided its fate, and was finally justified by my friend’s harsh eulogy that summed up the destructive life of that slender rodent.  And by the end of that adventure, a bullet represented something tangible, a story with a linear path that could be traced back to a beginning, and whose end meant very little.

I can’t remember if it was before or after the death of my dad that I found the lone bullet shell on the floor of my room.  I did not own a gun, nor did I notice the shell lying in the center of my floor before I woke up that morning.  The only explanation I could offer, and one that I immediately accepted, was the aforementioned trip to the shooting range.  That allowed a plausible structure, something I realized I had always craved and even expected.  I quickly dismissed any misgivings I had about the phantom shell, but kept it as a memory of something that had no origin, no story, no anchor to tie meaning to despite its potential knack for destruction.

As a bullet nears its final destination, I imagine that it either fragments or condenses.  The whole breaks up into parts, and those parts lodge into their separate places and cause enough disorder to make the whole seem immune to unity.  Or perhaps the bullet remains intact and everything smashes together.   In that scenario, something that was once whole remains whole, but in a different form.  Either way, despite the bullet’s trajectory, the object itself changes.  Were a television stereotype sent to discover its story, the pieces of the puzzle would have to be put together with the deformed bullet, reshaped in such a way that figuring out its meaning would be a more difficult task than just 42 minutes would allow.  That episode would remain unsolved in the hopes that the show wouldn’t be cancelled before the mystery of the deformed, possibly fragmented bullet, was solved.  The broken pieces would remain that way until someone swept them up and made sense of them, if that could even be accomplished.

 

I’ve always wanted to tell stories, always been fascinated by the telling of them, and perhaps this is because I’ve imagined myself as part of one.  Perhaps the motive was as simple as wanting to fit in, allowing myself to be attached to narrative, telling stories to entertain but also to remind myself and contribute to a structure that felt controlled.  I recall roaming the playgrounds alone in order to re-enact scenes from various stories I’d imagined during class, which usually involved giant spiders taking over the earth and I, the one who owned tarantulas as pets, was the only boy who could rescue the school from the dangerous creatures that society simply didn’t understand.  “No, Carrie,” as I place my hand on her quivering lip, “They’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”  These stories generally involved me saving a girl from the monster or the more human monsters that we deemed “bullies,” ironically mimicking the very situation that I hoped would take place in order for my practiced and potential bravery to become something more kinetic.

In order to respond to my Mom’s calling to organize the massive amount of sentimental junk I had hoarded in her garage for almost three decades, I recently unearthed multiple boxes consisting of treasures the family had refused to part with before individually sorting first.  The goal was to decide what to keep and what to throw away, to determine which memories were worth saving for my storyline and which ones weren’t.  In this mass of bug-infested relics, I found drawings and journals from childhood on, outlining stories I had wanted to write but never had.  One of them was a sketch of a movie cover with a large spider outline placed neatly in the center.  Above it, the title: 8 LEGS.  Below it: STARRING Tommy Lee Jones and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.  Other relics indicated a fascination with more age-appropriate movie stars: a flashlight I used to carry around my house in order to find E.T., and a toy jeep I would have used to determine my preferred methods of escape as a T-Rex attempted to eat my sister and I.  Whether creating them on paper, or imagining myself in them, story was my sport and though I couldn’t throw a ball to save my life, I could write myself into any situation and win.

There were also dozens of sketches for a theme park I had created in which my guests could live out the stories I would develop for them.  There were standard lands consisting of holiday themes (who wouldn’t want to live out Christmas all year long?), prehistoric worlds, and even a Space Mountain knockoff, all located around a giant sandcastle entrance to the park that everyone would enter by way of a large boardwalk.  It was designed so that guests felt as though they were exiting the world for a Narnia-like walk into a magical reality, leaving their cares behind.  I thought this escape an interesting concept at the time, though only one ticket was ever created, and that for a Doubting Thomas who verbally stomped on my dream during lunch.  The ticket I created for him is not redeemable for cash, but for one fond memory of what life was like before Reality, the academic synonym for Pessimism.

The memories reminded me that I once lived in a world of endless possibility.  Nothing concrete ever happened.  No life-changing choices were made, so there were always opportunities for new ones.  Difficulties in life remained ones that consisted of difficult decisions regarding which college to attend, which girl to date, or whether I should read my Bible or do homework in the morning.  Story was always possible, because even my greatest actions kept me internal, watching life from the inside of a barrel as it revealed various directions I could go, various outcomes that I could be a part of.  As the years passed by, I knew I still had choices and a future that was as bright, exotic or exciting as my imagination would allow.

 

 

Faith in God has lent itself heavily to feeling as though I am part of something much bigger, something planned, something pre-ordained.  Those concepts always acted, on some subconscious level at the very least, as synonyms for structure and order.  No matter what happened to me, there was a story arc consisting of exposition, rising and falling action, a climax and a denouement.  Every act in life, whether good or bad, lent itself to the massive collection of tales that made up who I was.

My stories always consisted of good triumphing over evil, and to the extent that I crafted various protagonists triumphing over some very immediate and thwarting sort of evil, that was what I not-so-subconsciously expected out of life.  My faith added to this controlled order: I was a priest, a warrior, a sufferer of injustice who would triumph in the end through Christ.  Suffering and pain were given meaning and direction.  Chaos was given honor, while any action of mine considered contrary to what was Right was given pardon.  The more I invested in this faith, and the more I invested in creativity and story, the more I expected the same out of my own life.

The Bible stories I grew up with were often depicted on flannel graphs in Sunday School.  A fuzzy Elephant and his wife, both smiling, make their way up the gangplank of Noah’s Ark, humming their way past the drip-drip-drip of the raindrops that begin their descent in order to drown the whole world.  A happy Daniel, renamed Balteshazzar by the Babylonians who had conquered and displaced him and his people, gleefully praises God as he is tossed in a den of hungry lions.  Joseph, sporting a colorful coat, accepts the actions of his murderous brothers and the lies of Potiphar’s wife, while visions of authority and power reside in his distant future. The backgrounds of these various stories consisted of pastels, soothing colors to calm the sugar-rushed nerves of our childhood veins.

What these didn’t give credit to was the lack of outcome these heroes of the Bible possessed in the moment.  Even now, I take the great faith of Abraham for granted, knowing that he set out on a seemingly fruitless journey with little knowledge of where he was going or why.  I excuse the sins of David, who suffered severe consequences but continued the line of Christ by his affair with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband.  I forget that even the greatest stories of the Bible are made up of men who are grappling with various hardships, and whose wavering faiths eventually led them to the stories we know today.  Even Hananiah, Meshael, and Azariah (renamed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego by the Babylonians) didn’t know the outcome of the their fate at the fiery furnace as they were being tossed into it: “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (ESV, Daniel 3:17-18)  The great Job, often hailed as simply faithful in the midst of the worst trials, spent thirty-four chapters questioning why he was even born, not knowing, in the middle of his story, why his fate seemed to be so bleak.  Whether considered True, true, or simply Fiction, what we don’t spend time considering while listening to these profoundly influential stories, is that these people did not know what we know now.  Even many of the prophets did not seem to know where their personal narrative was headed until it had already happened to them.  They were in the midst of story, but felt disconnected from it, not always knowing how their situations fit into the larger order of life.

 

 

I was sitting on the steps of our two-story home reading a book while my mom and brother were out running errands.  It was at night, and not long after they left, the doorbell rang.  I reasoned that it must have been one of my brother’s friends from the neighborhood, as none of mine would show up unannounced.  The bell rang, but I continued my story, entranced by the mystery of what the next few pages would hold.  After a few moments, the knocking stopped and I was able to continue on unhindered, probably holding the amount of pages I had left to finish the chapter I was on, a compulsive habit I’m still slave to today.

The knocking started up again, but this time louder.  I decided to get up and check the door, but by the time I approached the peephole, the knocker was gone.  Given my obsession with horror, my darker sensibilities replaced my instinct, and my imagination kicked in.  I reminded myself that this instinct had been proven wrong time and time again, so I sat on the stairs and reasoned with myself.  My mind filled the empty silence with the slamming of the door as a serial killer kicked it open with a chainsaw, sucking up all the potential energy that led to that moment in a mad, kinetic shrieking that meant my imminent death.  And then I reprimanded my foolish expectations, reminding myself that it was most likely the little, harmless blonde boy from down the street trying to reach my brother in order to play street hockey.  It wasn’t him.

The doorbell began ringing over and over again, while someone beat the door rapidly and violently.  I didn’t move, and the sound eventually stopped.  To describe how I felt would be a list of clichés one could find in any amateur beach read suspense novel, but it wasn’t long before my imagination grew to fruition and the side gate rattled.  Moments later, the beating that had previously taken place on my front porch was dealt out to my back door.

I ran upstairs to my dad’s closet.  Not knowing anything about guns, I took a shotgun out, glanced at the box of bullets on the top shelf, and hoped that one had already been loaded in the weapon I carried.  I called 911, frantically told them my address before abandoning the phone, and looked out of our second story window at an unrecognizable SUV parked in the driveway.  “These guys aren’t subtle,” I thought.  I wondered if perhaps my dad had more secrets than I knew, and if maybe some angry associate was here to collect.  I had never been clear about what he did for a living, and whenever asked, I would simply revert to mumbling words like mortgages, loans, speaking, manager, and travels a lot.  His job wasn’t simple like Fireman, Cop, Lawyer, Doctor, or Preacher.  His role in life was erratic, undefined, always changing, never satisfied.  This is why we moved so often, even if it was local.

I decided to hide in the back of my parent’s closet.  Gun in hand, I waited as the outsider attempted to break in.  I remember the blinding fear of knowing that my story may end sooner than expected.  I chastised myself for running upstairs like the doomed protagonists in the films I loved.  I remember making deals with God that I would never watch horror movies again, somehow making up for the few things I counted as sins up until then.  I wondered if I should run downstairs and confront the outsider with the shotgun I held, hoping he or she or they wouldn’t call my bluff.  Hoping they wouldn’t see my hands shaking and notice the inexperienced manner in which I held the gun.  Hoping that they would not figure out that the magazine was empty, and that my story was in fact theirs to determine.

The back door suddenly stopped moving.  Feeling like I was underwater, I waited to hear footsteps on the stairs.  I slowly moved the barrel to a position that faced the entrance of the closet, but no sound emitted from anywhere in the house.  Standing up, I fought the instinct to hope, believing it to be a snare in this sort of situation, a trap that allowed for foolish mistakes just before the protagonist was caught and brutally killed.  I allowed myself to catch my breath, to quietly stand, to move out of the closet, and to look through the window only to see a man talking to the police.

It was my dad.

I had felt foolish afterwards, but allowed myself some leeway, since I hadn’t seen my dad’s rental car prior to that night and hadn’t known he was coming home from his business trip so soon.  Of course, he felt terrible, so I apologized for the string of obscenities I had let out in relief as I came outside to explain the situation to the police.  His impatience had severely threatened my view of story, and had I known more about guns, could have prematurely ended his.

That night, crisis averted, I met my friends to go watch the re-make of Psycho.

 

 

My dad loved to fish.  He used to take me to the mountains and show me how to double up the worm at the end of a hook in order to make sure it stayed in place while floating in the water, slowly succumbing to its purpose, its sacrifice, its story.  I used to love fishing because it was the sort of sport that allowed multiple possibilities, both in result of the catch and in the aftermath of fires, food and fellowship.  Given his love for the sport, this was also a method of relating to my dad.

The older I got, however, the more I felt bad for the fish.  Sure, according to the Bible, they were meant for food.  But holding my breath for even thirty seconds was painful, and I couldn’t imagine what these fish must have suffered during their tormented minutes of writhing.  After all, every fish was someone’s friend, someone’s son or daughter.

So one fish, the last fish, I decided to have mercy on.  I caught it, took its hook out and let it writhe in the sand.  I knew we needed something to eat that night, so I decided that this one wasn’t going back in the water.  I quickly fished my Swiss Army knife out of my pocket and pulled out the largest blade of the many options I had.  It was now or never.

Like a human guillotine, I brought down the tiny blade again and again, surmising that a fish instantly without a head would be a happier fish than one without breath for an extended period of time.  Over and over again, I stabbed at the neck, realizing that I had never factored in the slippery scales and the undulating movement of a fish that now most likely would have preferred to be gasping for air than suffering its bloody fate under I, the Grand Inquisitor of fish.

After a few minutes, it was finished.  We ate, but I stopped fishing for good.

Twenty years later, on his deathbed, my dad said that the first thing he would do when he beat cancer would be to go fishing on a quiet lake.  No statement during that time affected me more than that.  I regretted the years of not fishing, of not spending more quality time with the man whom I was made after.  I watched him slowly writhe in pain for months before he decided to take his own life with one single bullet, performing the mercy killing for himself that nobody else could accomplish even if any of us had given up hope.  He was someone’s son.  He was my dad.

 

I met my friend Caleb for lunch two days before it happened.  I don’t remember how we ended the conversation, but I do remember telling him that I felt like the potential energy of my story was coming to an end, like an event was coming that would change me.  I told him that every unique incident that year had felt different somehow, like God was building me up to the climax of my personal story.  We talked about how my younger cousin had passed away exactly a year before, and how my dad had been given the news that he had contracted cancer only three months before.  Given these facts, my hindsight clairvoyance isn’t something to marvel at, but it is something to take note of.

My dad had already had brain surgery, lung surgery, and radiation treatment. He had been a motivational speaker, a leader in the local church, and an athlete.  Before the first surgery, he was upbeat and positive, open about his nerves but certain of his trust in God, in good, in story.  If he was to die, it would be God’s will, His plan.  It would leave, in the place of tragedy, something to be gained that would contribute to a triumphant denouement.  Even on the day I was at lunch discussing my fate, doctors said, despite the overabundance of conflicting medication and the lack of response and motor skills that now defined my dad’s condition, that he would make it.  They said things were “hopeful.”

On my way home that day, I decided to go out of my way to my parent’s house, where my dad was on bed rest, and drop off some paperwork that I had planned on delivering at the end of the week.  It wasn’t guilt or love that drove me to running this particular errand, but being task-oriented, I simply wanted to check this off of a list of things to do.  I remember very little about this visit, but I do remember that I hugged him and said, “Love you too, Dad,” before walking away.  Those were my last words to him.

Even though we told people it was cancer and still believe it was to a certain extent, a bullet was what ultimately ended my dad’s life.  This bullet’s story came unannounced, unexpected and in the quiet and stillness of the night.  Nobody heard it, but three hours later, its result began to spread like wildfire, cutting not only into its target destination, but directly through the storylines of all those affected.  When its potential was reached, the kinetic energy attained and its story revealed, its shell lay on the floor of my dad’s room that smelled of sickness.  That one, and the gun that discharged it, reside in bags in Downtown Fresno, waiting until their time expires and they are to be recycled, forgotten, dispersed.  It is perhaps this lack of tangible closure that led me to keep the lone bullet shell that was found on my floor, a morbid and almost sacrilegious reminder that story isn’t always east to interpret or organize into categories.  Story isn’t something you can list and manage easily, and if it is, perhaps it isn’t finished yet, or perhaps there’s little Truth to it.

 

 

Were it personified, a bullet can do all it wants in vain to push itself forward, and by lack of perspective, it can surely convince itself that perhaps it is making some progress towards the window it sees through all of its life.  Through one long, narrow passage, it sees a view that is and always has been its reality, and that reality can move.  Through a periscope of new images, it learns and grows in the context of the jacket it resides in until Something Greater moves it forward.  It can define the Something Greater in various ways, and will perhaps even be set in motion to justify its Greater.  At any rate, whether it is simply meant for a paper target or something more alive, and even if it misses, it has purpose.  And even if the wait from design to final destination is long, its story ends quickly once it is set in motion.

I imagine that when a bullet enters the human brain at close range, it doesn’t fragment, but condenses.  Of course, the outcome depends on the weight of the jacket, the length of the bullet, the length of the gun’s shaft, and the velocity and distance from target, but for the purpose of imagination, and for the lack of details I have or want to have, this is what I must know for the sake of understanding that which cannot be understood.  So everything smashes together but the bullet remains whole, though in a different form than it had been in when it remained in a position of potential energy.  When it becomes kinetic, it shows itself for what it is, its purpose made known, though perhaps not to it.  That bullet would travel, compelled by Something Greater, to leave one long, narrow passage for another.  One is cold, the other warm.  One could have aimed any direction, the other revealed all only by looking behind, as the potential has passed and the reality of life’s effect becomes evident in its journey.

 

Spoken Word Poem: Dad’s Funeral 09/06/2011

There aren’t many things I understand and I guess I never will, but understanding has little worth when one’s heart is simply stilled, a flesh that failed which was so close to my own, grown to do great things and then simply gone, lost to the Creator and though I know it’s better were he’s at, I also know he’s not here. 

But he ran a race with perseverance, lost to us for now but found having assured us that he no longer struggles with the pain of life’s endurance.  I’m sure of this and I’m left with memories of how much he loved us, because he followed God’s call to constantly confirm to us that his love represented something bigger and, like Christ, he was willing to die for us everyday.  My thoughts don’t have to stray far to remember the good: scary movies, fishing trips, teaching me how to throw a ball and even though that lesson never really stuck (cause I’m terrible at sports), I’m in luck that I had a dad who loved his family so much.

Even in our weaknesses, he would never forget to say that he loved us and would support us in all that we do, even when his own heart struggled against what he wanted to do and what he didn’t, like Peter he would always be impulsive but jump in the waters of God’s grace and make sure that you knew it, an example of great grace because God knew what he was doing in calling him out from a barren city to a place that he could call home, revolving his life around a Son who brought light where there was dark, a spark of hope set in motion that will continue to grow into an ocean of grace wherever he’s remembered, reminding those whose portion are in this life that they can be satisfied only by Christ and only as a gift, if only Dad were still here to see this completed.  God began something in him, but it was time to take him home and he will no longer roam where troubles lie nearby in wait.

So, in the end, I leave understanding up to God, but in the meantime know I will be stalled whenever I pick up the phone to call up my Dad.  Uncertain of how Heaven’s switchboard works, I will kneel and pray to my father in heaven and hope that he can transfer a line or even a few to the Dad I once knew and still do, an image for me of the  truth which flies in the face of what lies beneath every surface we see and now he sees even better than we ever will until we reach him.

Someday we will come up out of Egypt to a land that is only a mirror image of the country that’s to come, And our faces will shine brighter as we run to the Son with faces unveiled, graces pouring out from the source of His costs, sprinkling us with freedom and a sure hope that unites His lost with our lost, back from the wild to the home we belong to, orphans whose hearts are filled with something to hold on to.  And we know Dad will be there will a joke and a cackle, trading his harp for a football and yelling, “Go for the tackle!”

Spoken Word Poem: Larrin and Christina’s Wedding 06/10/2011

You came out of my mother’s womb and right away i felt doomed, “who is this crampin my style?!”  while all the while i know deep down he’s cuter than me, blows spit bubbles through his baby teeth, can’t say his r’s or his l’s (so let’s name is larrin!), little “ayin” crawling around like he owns the place, so I’m like, wait… hold up… maybe if i jump out of closets to scare him, stick a pencil in his eye, you know, make him cry, then I can reclaim the throne I own in this castle that once was mine.  But as divine fate would have it, apparently brothers are supposed to fight, so once that became clear, i eventually steered clear of all that would fit the stereotype and later in life, I began to see that indeed, this kid had become something special- mainly because he could say his own name, but also other letters and even phrases that stood out in my mind as things a man of God would say, all the prayers I prayed for him and God did more than just save this guy who now walks in his will, dreams big, loves others and still keeps going even when times get tough.

And wouldn’t you know it, but God had more in store for him when along came a lady who wasn’t quite as shady as what I would’ve expected from a film major from hollywood.  so good, in fact, that she was faithful to the Lord and upon the foundation of His Word, they traveled a path that stood the test of five years of ups and down, AND no kissing?!, but I guess they weren’t missing anything they wouldn’t have the rest of their lives to work on. 

So here’s a toast to a couple who seek God first and who set an example for the few willing to learn that God has in store something greater than anything we can imagine.  Though the I DO is a mirror of what’s to come, this is clearer and clearer as light dawns and we run into the arms of our Savior, but until later, please… just kiss already.

forgiveness: a parable

“Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.”
-Jonathan Edwards

I was furious, or so I thought.  Maybe it’s a form of love or a response to it or something, but those thoughts didn’t matter at the moment.  I wanted to defend my cause and for the Other to know I was right.  Words had become poisoned and continued to echo in ways that masked their original meaning; and all because of something that seemed objectively inaccurate.

I sat and thought about this and how right I was.  And about how those I saw as foolish people would never understand truth or order or justice, and would continue to twist words to their own advantage.

Then something came to me.  A thought.  A whisper that wasn’t in any sort of order, but said all at once; information instantly pressed upon my brain in such a way that it didn’t give me time to choose not to listen.
What if my phone rang and the person on the other end told me that the Other was in the ICU at the hospital?  “There has been a terrible accident,” the caller said.  “We’re not sure… but it’s bad.” 
How would I respond, even in my anger? How would I respond, if it were six years from now and I had had no contact at all with this Other?
I would drop everything.  I would sprint, if my car couldn’t get me there faster, to the hospital where the Other resided. I would take the stairs because the elevator would take too long.  I would knock unconscious any doctor who stood in my way.  I would go to the Other, reach out to that person, and say with no reservation, with no agenda or guilt or lack of conviction: “I wish it had been me.  I’m sorry for everything.  I will stay and do anything necessary.”
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
It occurred to me that we are all dying, and no matter how much we deny it and spend our time and effort trying to disprove this with our successes, our lives here on Earth are rapidly coming to a close. 
A sort of chaotic, reckless clarity comes in the greatest moments of crisis.  Vision become clear because there is little else to distract but what is True, boiled down to the simple elements of life and death.  And this image of someone who I looked at as so righteous in their own eyes, and foolish in mine; this unwished-for image of that person in a state of frailty and weakness… made all else seem foolish. 
Everyone is in the ICU, and in the end, very little that I had been dwelling on mattered.  They were mere thorns and brambles in a burning field.  But life was in that field and love was in that field, and only the fearless and the simple could see it properly.

And then another thought occurred and this, not all at once.  It seeped slowly into my conscience as I, mostly unconsciously, fought it off.
What if it was I who was in the hospital and a formerly bitter Other rushed up to see me, exclaiming his or her sympathy?  What if that person dropped everything and sprinted to me because the car wouldn’t be fast enough?  What if the Other would take the stairs because the elevator would take too long?  What if that person said to me, with no reservation, with no agenda or guilt or lack of conviction: “I wish it had been me.  I’m sorry for everything.  I will stay and do anything necessary.”
Would it be received? 
Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me.  
When directed at me, there are very few words more humbling than: “I forgive you.”
What if it was I who was sick?  Then it would be the Other who might forgive.  And what if that person didn’t? 
Either way, it was I who was at their mercy and it was implied in their actions that it was I who had also been in the wrong.

So to forgive was easier than I supposed, though it required a daily reminder of what was important.

To receive it, however, was almost impossible to comprehend,
because it put me in my own deathbed.

the garden

I watched as a woman held the hand of a crippled man, her husband, and I began to think of the purity and simplicity of love. 
When was it corrupted?  Why do we allow so much of the world to crowd in and influence it? 
We are eternal wanderers in a world that is fading away, pulsing to life and then degrading bit by bit.  We are redeemed people, meant to settle in a temporary promised land and told not to let it change us as are meant to change it.  To be able to love someone is a gift; without preference, prejudice and most of all, without selfishness.  Despite potential outcomes, it shouldn’t be biased.  Despite brokenness of its subject, it shouldn’t be lessened.  Despite circumstances, it shouldn’t be adjusted or withheld.  It should be promoted constantly, willing to outlive and outlast anything that comes its way.  It shouldn’t be circumstantial because, if we let it, it will change others despite what they do in response to it.  Its subject is not the self, but another.  Its example is Christ, who died at the hands of sinners in order to save them.  No matter what the outcome, it doesn’t cling to expectations that have their foundation on Earth, but waits in eager anticipation for the glory of its subject as one day they will be presented pure to Christ.  Now we only know love in part, but it is still the greatest quality we can bear.  The part we know needs to encouraged; when expressed and felt selflessly, it shapes us and others. It wipes away, sometimes like fire and sometimes like water, the qualities in us that are selfish.  It shapes us and others to become more like Him.  Don’t allow it to be crowded out and corrupted; or, if you do (when I do), stop calling it love because it has become crowded out so much as to become almost unrecognizable.
Where did it become corrupted?  Who listened to the voice that told us we could be in control?  Who knew that maybe love wasn’t about having answers, but about being one.

Sanctification

I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. -2 cor 11

We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me. -Col 1

The idea of presenting our lives and others pure to Christ requires exposing and understanding anything that takes away from this— these could be called our idols.  The things we think of as “sins” promote finding affirmation in success, power, money, others, etc., thus distracting from an uninhibited view of God.  We must re-orient, remember, believe deeper and increase faith; and in order to do that, we must fix our eyes on Christ, the author and perfector of our faith, and promote that fixation in others; trusting Him all the while to open our hearts and lead us on paths that will draw us nearer to Himself.   We must set our hearts and minds on things above rather than earthly things (Col 3:1-3).  We must remove the idols that act as mirrors and cause us to see and become what we think we need to be, and tell us we must own what we think we need to own to be accepted.  Help open peoples’ eyes to what they were made for and what the longing in their hearts points to.  All longing is a shadow that cannot be fulfilled by sex (longing for oneness), money (longing for security), success (being a part of an “inner circle”, to be unique) and even family (unconditional love and fellowship).  These things, when used properly, represent great things but outside of Christ, their proper meaning is distorted and they are useless in fulfilling who we are.  They should, in proper context, point up and be means of worshipping our heart’s true desire—God. 

Imagine, by the way, that you could be jealous with a Godly jealousy that longs for people to be Christ’s alone.  Imagine if those feelings of wanting someone to be yours alone were diverted and you wholly wanted others to belong to Christ alone rather than the things that make them lose hope when they attain them and realize they are empty.  This is the jealousy Paul is speaking of in 2 Cor 11.

The Church

“Be shepherds of the church of God, which He bought with His own blood.” Acts 20:28

“And let us spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are n the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Heb 10:24-25

Sermon through Rap: LeCrae’s The Bride lyrics:

She’s a building of beings being constructed,
Christ is the cornerstone, foundation build on another and you’s a goner holmes.
She’ built on em, supported by him, conformed to him, now she’s a body of bodies who transform through him.  A temple that breathes; we are the halls,
we are the floor board, or more, we are the walls.
Manifold wisdom of God no longer a mystery.
The church pinnacle of our salvific history
One flesh union, the Tri-union, is glorified through our corporatized communion.
Still the present reality is that she was born a casualty, though she’s made alive
she’s still affected by depravity.
Once lived in sin and enslaved by her lust,
folks catch her slippin and they turn away disgusted.
She’s a work in progress but Christ is the head of her,
and He washes her clean with the words that he said to her.
She’s already pretty but she’s really not dressed and sometimes she look silly but she’s far from a mess.
Yes, please so don’t be dissin cause Jesus done paid a grip.
And if you didn’t then should, call her her Misses— I’m talking bout the church

Yeah she may look gritty,
But when her man come back she gone look so pretty – She the Church
You might see her acting crazy, be patient with her though, cause she still God’s baby – She the Church
Before you dis her get to know her, Jesus got a thing for her and He died just to show her – She the Church
She ain’t bricks and buildings, she’s all of God’s people: Men, women and children – We the church

Her name is ecclesia meaning the assembly,
Bows to the Trinity, No other Divinity.
A body, family and community— she is all one, but on earth you see her in congregational small ones.  A microcosm or a small scale example, but it is the church even though its just a sample: invisible, spiritual, physical, visible, not a brick temple (never that simple).  This a not a building and she is not bricks; she’s a world changer, but ain’t bout getting rich.  Perpetrating fakes cause a lot of folks to hate, plus her hands get dirty and her feet get scraped.  Sometimes her body parts start acting out of place, legs trying to be arms, arms thinking they the face.  But she’ll never be replaced with a one man band or a small Taliban with no body in command.

Some don’t get it so they hate; they say she’s on a paper chase, they say she’s really fake.
So they go start a ministry so they can do the work, but they don’t understand how Jesus feel about His church.  And yeah they make disciples and got plenty conversions; they take care of the widows and the orphans they be workin.  But none of them are churchin’, no church structure; no elders and no discipline, they have no conductor. And so they don’t submit, but quite a few of them get baptized.  People how I pray that you’d look at this thing from God’s eyes and take responsibility inside the whole council— not just the area where you might have a mouthful.  Who should folks submit to?  Who will conduct the discipline?  If excommunicated what body will they be missing then?  Look at Ephesians 4 where Paul gets practical, 1st timothy and Titus if you thinking I’m irrational.

Lead of Love

I’m learning that it’s in times of difficulty that God wants me to seek Him most.  I mean the times when I feel nothing, where everything I do feels pointless.  The times when everything I seem to believe and think about gets in the way of God and seems to come to no end.  The times when despite what I know, my feelings drag me down into a smaller, weaker perspective that causes me to question my view of Truth.  It is these times that I must proclaim the promises of God.  It is these times that I must cry out to what can feel like empty space, “God, you are still God!  God, you have a purpose for me!”  It is not the next wave of felt Truth that I must live on, seeking the next spiritual high or the next enlightened lesson.  It is parched and starved in the middle of a desert when I must seek Him relentlessly despite my surroundings.  The more I seek Him while despairing about anything, the more He can bring peace to a situation that even at its worst, is honest.  It is through these weaknesses that He can truly be seen for the perfect God He is.  It is in this forced lack of reliance on self that we begin to understand what it means to rely on a sovereign God.  Though our flesh and hearts may fail, He is the strength of our hearts and our portion forever.  Though we are struck down , we are not destroyed!  Though we are perplexed and often do not know where we are going in this temporary life, we are not in despair.  “Let the bones you have broken rejoice!”  “May you become greater, and I become less!”  “Thy will be done!” Do we ask, Father, will you save us from this hour?  No.  As a child of God you are here, in this hour, for a purpose.  “Father, glorify your name!” 

And when we do this, we zoom out a little on the map of our predestined, called out, justified lives and see that God’s given us more perspective through it, more wisdom, more discernment.  We see that He has been using us and feeding us because even though we felt next to nothing, we are rooted in Him.  By the grace we were saved by, we are also sustained.    

“Looking back You know You had to bring me through,
All that I was so afraid of,
Though I questioned the sky, now I see why.
Had to walk the rocks to see the mountain view,
Looking back I see the lead of love.”

-Caedmon’s Call, “Lead of Love”

 

understanding

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding… -Proverbs 3:5

For the truth is that God in his wisdom, to make and keep us humble and to teach us to walk by faith, has hidden from us almost everything that we should like to know about the providential purposes which he is working out in the churches and in our own lives. -JI Packer, Knowing God 

To think that not only might the story of some heroic person be epical but also that of any man, and that the way to Heaven is not outside the world, but through it. -Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club

Who can straighten what he has made crooked?  When times are good, be happy, but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.  Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future. -Ecclesiastes 7:13-14

Come, O Lord! -1 Cor 16:22

Christ tells his disciples that “this sickness will not end in death” in reference to Lazarus.  Though he was awakened from death, Christ said this before Lazarus died.  This leads me to believe that he was not talking about death on earth that could be avoided, as it obviously cannot.  He was speaking of death eternal, the death he’s saved us from.  I sometimes think this sickness he means is our life here, which oftentimes makes no sense.  We are crewman of a large ship, and our ears only sometimes catch the still small voice of the ship’s captain.  We are, in our sinful nature, not to know anything beyond what he allows us to as we make an effort, depending completely on God, to discern what that voice is crying out to us through the torrents of wind and rain: repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!  “But God, what of this or that?!”  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!  Trust me, stay the course, throw off what hinders and look ahead!”   And those whose hearts are made for it hope that the kingdom is nearer everyday as things fall apart and the little that remains intact begins to show itself for what it is: a lie.  All we knew was not as it seemed and we distrust ourselves less and less as the storm barges on.  And as we distrust ourselves, our minds are renewed with the things he tells us and as we trust more and more in these things, the light begins to dawn.  Though there is rain, we endure.  Though there is wind, we stand unshaken, rooted in the truth that even if we are thrown off of the ship, broken, the only thing lying at the bottom of the sea will be the part of us that couldn’t hear the ship’s captain in the first place.  We will be with the Lord forever.  We will one day hear his voice and see the map that only the captain saw.  We will praise him, even for that.  We will understand that to the extent that we didn’t understand tragedy was the extent we didn’t understand how great His love for us truly was, for we see but a reflection as in a mirror.  But for now, let righteousness be our portion and the Word of God our map as we work together in a difficult life to run the race and endure; to run the race and restore.

Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ’Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this very reason that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!  -John 12 

Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. -2 Cor 1

Relentless Forgiveness

Christ has died once for all!  Those who are in debt for their sins respond to this one of three ways: resentment and denial/doing all one can to live up to this and pay it back to feel a sense of self-accomplishment or to put oneself on par with the Forgiver/respond in obedience and love.  The latter will feel like a raging fire at times as we carry around this death of Christ in us, taking our sins to the cross and being forgiven; when such forgiveness is comprehended, it is as hot coals thrown on our hearts.  Yes, we have separated ourselves from God and yes, blood is shed for it.  But Christ’s blood is sufficient.  On His grace we not only die, but we live and He makes us stand, unshaken, as we also carry Christ’s resurrection in us.  It is this relentless fogiveness His people respond to and it should equip us with humility, boldness, confidence in Him, love for others and contentment as we grow to know Him more and more through His Word and prayer.

Wake Up – A Call to Arms

“As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, ‘In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’  I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” -2 COR 6: 1-2

“What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away. -1 COR 7: 29-31

 

 Wake Up by Jon Shabaglian

 

We are living in perilous times,

when to hold to God’s truth is an uphill climb,

Stranger daily is the banner Christ raised,

and if we stand with Him we’ll be quite a blaze,

But come has the day when the broad road is wider,

and the current of life is to live for yourself,

But the trumpet’s been blown and His Word’s the divider,

So he who has ears let him hear the call

 

Wake up,

We can’t afford to shrink back,

The days around us are black,

The time is now to arise,

And set our eyes on the prize

 

We are living in perilous times,

and yet ease and comfort is our paradigm,

Can we afford such a lax way of living,

when the kingdom of Heaven is groaning to come,

But the call of the Lord has made us sole becomers,

in the battle for souls raging day after day,

So he who endures till the end is a victor,

and will honor the Savior who endured for him

 

Wake up,

We can’t afford to shrink back,

The days around us are black,

The time is now to arise,

And set our eyes on the prize

 

What is it that distinguishes you from the ever-growing masses and the set apart few?

Does the passion of your heart say I’m a Christian?

Does your fruit show you’re out or in?

See the reality is that there’s a Heaven and a Hell,

and many of our friends have chose the latter to dwell,

With the Father there is no more middle ground,

so may your heart be awakened by the trumpet sound

 

Wake up,

We can’t afford to shrink back,

The days around us are black,

The time is now to arise,

And set our eyes on the prize

 

http://www.myspace.com/jonshabaglian

 

A CALL TO ARMS

“As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” -2 COR 6: 4-10

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” -2 Cprinthians 4: 7-10

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses [Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, Samson, etc.], let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” -Hebrews 12: 1-3

What separates us from Gideon, from Daniel, from David?  What disadvantages do we have to use as excuses to NOT be men after God’s own heart, to want the things God wants?  We have a New Covenant, sealed by the blood of Christ, clearing our consciences, wiping our sins away that we may serve the Living God!  We complain about not being filled as we sip warm milk for sustenance.  And as we sip, we miss the feast that sits before us, offering a lifetime supply of meat, of wisdom, of salvation, of intercession, of joy!  How much longer must we wait, shriveled up in tears in the back of a prison cell, weeping about our problems that we say still rule our lives when the door is open!  Throw off all that hinders, run forth and pursue holiness- pursue God.  Seek to know Him, for He has equipped us to.  Or continue to waste time complaining, dwelling, living in shame and guilt and just wait to be cut.  Either way, we are going to die: one way is to run the race with perseverance, knowing that the death and resurrection of Christ is in us.  We will experience loss, it will be hard, but we sacrifice NOTHING as what we gain is incomparable in greatness to anything we have here.

The other way is to rot.  One way ends in Life, one in death.  We must choose.  Yes, we must depend one-hundred percent on God but YES, we must pursue Him with everything we are. Take that condemnation and turn it into conviction, for it is meant to change us, to re-route the path we’ve created and bring us back to God’s true and holy path to Him.  Take that attitude that we’ve failed and fallen short of the glory and let’s read our Word, discovering that our sins have been sacrificed with Christ and that it is now HE who is judged in our place;  we’re in luck, for He has been deemed pure, holy and set apart from sin.  He intercedes and stands in our place that we may serve God, equipped in a battle we couldn’t win on our own; not with weapons of the world, but with weapons of righteousness that have the power to demolish all that sets itself up against God.  Go out, carry this news to others, for NOTHING can stop us now.

adrift

we had lived there for what could have been months, years, perhaps decades.  we were unsure of our Names until the event.  it was sprint, hunter, architect and me.  we were, i was told afterwards, shipwrecked long before; we had been young enough to forget about any life previous to this. 

we lived on the beach, never entering the jungle, where the star was.  the star was an unknown glimmer hidden in the bushes just out of sight; it reflected the sun, often causing a glare on our beach.  explorer went to find out what it was long ago, but never came back.  we always feared that jungle, to be honest, so despite how enticing the star was to our unknowing eyes, we avoided going in there.

then it happened.  the event changed us all.  we never knew anything beyond the ocean, the beach, the jungle.  we couldn’t see anything else, though some of us had wondered if there was more.  a small spot in the distance proved those notions true.  it was a small, weathered wooden boat.  the tide pulled it further in and when it finally reached the shore, we realized that it was more than just an object— underneath it were carved initials.  they were our Names.

it sat among us for what could have been hours, days or weeks.  sprint and architect wanted to know more.  it promised something beyond us.  its very nature told us we were more than what we thought we were.  hunter, however, didn’t want anything to do with it.  to him, it was a reminder that we had been wrong all this time about the nature and purpose of our lives.  ironically, before this, we had had no purpose;  he didn’t agree.

inevitably, talk of getting in this boat and perhaps seeing what was beyond the sea began to surface.  sprint wanted to, architect began planning and i must admit, even i was leaning towards leaving.  hunter could not be convinced, however.  conflicts began to arise, the intensity of which I had never seen before.  hunter clung on with desperation to his view while sprint and architect argued back, but with reason. 

one night while we were sleeping, hunter found a way to set the boat itself on fire.  i hadn’t realized how much i agreed with sprint and architect until i woke up to the smell of those flaming cinders.  we were done.  we had seen that there was more and lost any hope of getting there.  as we wept, hunter sat away from us, seemingly bitter despite his “victory”.  he spat out reasons for what he had done and mocked us for the fools he imagined us to be.  the smoke billowed up into the morning sky, mixing with the beautiful clouds that hung above our world like spirits that knew more than we ever would. 

i remember what happened next like it was yesterday.  hunter stood up with a look of horror in his face.  then there was a loud rumbling sound.  it was terrifying at the time, for we had never heard or seen anything like what was coming for us.   far away from us, where the ocean meets the sea, where the shallows give way to the depths of what we once thought was the boundary to our world, was a giant ship.  it had seen the smoke from the burning boat.

we all smiled, except for hunter of course.  he turned back and headed for the star in the jungle.  we called to him.  sprint even tried to physically drag him back, but he said he’d rather take his chances and that he would learn so much more from the star than we ever would from leaving.  to this day, i don’t know what happened to him but i had read of an old plane crash there;  perhaps it was simply the gleam from the wreckage.  i remember how attractive i once thought that was; how little i knew and understood! 

we now know and understand.  we now remember our Names.

the desert

i was called to the Promised Land and yet I wander, lingering in a dry desert while settling for weak opiates that temporarily satisfy great desires.  what happened to get me here?  what choices changed the path to this destination set by God?  i made some adjustments to this map i was given, but they were studied and researched markers to get me to the Land faster.  after careful planning, i had learned much about my instincts and how they were to be trusted, my plans and what steps would fulfill them and my freedoms and how they would lead to happiness.  all of these were supposed to keep me entertained and alive in the desert, promising at least some happiness before knowing Joy; besides, it was going to be such a long journey.  it wasn’t prudent to follow the route He gave me, which promised some mirror of this Joy in the midst of broken rocks, dangerous valleys and towering cliffs.  there must have been some sort of mistake, for though i desire the Promised Land, it wouldn’t make sense to die trying to get there.  sure He promised something about a New Life if i died, but that’s not reasonable.  no, this path is good.  i’ll get there in one piece and the others can die trying.  i will persevere and this water will cool my parched throat.  these plants will satisfy my hunger for now.  i will make it there, for i’m a man of reason and knowledge; a man!  the echo of my acheivement will carry on throughout my life.  i will make it, for my decisions are good and trustworthy and reasonable.  and if i don’t reach the Promised Land, i will make my home here.  this place is good enough, good, better even, than the place that may not even exist.  yes, i believe that i can survive here, happy even, just existing.  
 
“Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried Me and for forty years saw what I did.” -Heb3:9/Psalm 95

“By faith Abraham, when called to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” -Heb 11:8