Good times

The past few days have powerbombed me in almost every conceivable way. Okay, I'm a bit of a 'drama queen', but it certainly feels like that, even if it is a totally incomplete truth.

Somehow, one seemingly innocent decision to traverse through the cold weather of Manitoba to buy a book for school and visit the lady-friend ended in a variety of other poor decisions and unfortunate circumstances. Where do I begin? The most obvious issue was my car not starting. The problem? The starter! Yay! But it's fixed now, so there you go.

Coupled with that were a variety of circumstances that have left me emotionally, physically, and spiritually drained. I've felt like I've made every conceivable poor decision lately. I know that's not true, but sometimes I just feel completely overwhelmed by my own inadequacies. I was barely able to crawl out of bed this morning. Yeah, that's my life. I don't even have it that bad and I still struggle to facemy existence.

I think the problem I have with being really honest and vulnerable with people is that I generally think they are either uncompassionate, indifferent, or judgmental. That doesn't really leave any room for myself, either.

I think that's one of the reasons that I love counseling: the other person is paid to care.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. You know that person isn't going to start talking about their own problems and ignore you, they're not going to simply hear what you have to say and then talk about the weather, and they're not going to judge you and burden you with even more guilt than you already have. It's great.

I know friends are crucial and that real friends are able to bear your struggles and failures with you, and vice versa, but that's easier to believe as a concept than to live as a reality. It's just so frickn' hard for me to trust others, even those who seem to care for me. Hmm, maybe I could start going to a bunch of counselors and that would even things out. Or maybe not.

I am very thankful for the people who do love and care for me, without a doubt. I just hope I am able to learn to live in those relationships with the freedom and peace that God intended, that I can learn to truly love and be loved.

Well, it's a nice dream, if nothing else...

"When you're pushed...

...killing is as easy as breathing." ~ John Rambo

I don't know exactly if I can express how excited I have been to see the new "Rambo" movie. I don't know if it has anything to do with my being a male, but there is something so deep inside of me that resonates with the character and mission of John Rambo.

It has been 20 years since the last Rambo movie and it begins with his life in Thailand, keeping to himself, shutting out the rest of the world, trying to quiet the haunting memories of the lives that he has taken. A man who is content to let things be, to step back and live simply while the world goes on.

And the world does go on. Oppression, abuse, rape, slavery, genocide, they all continue to go on in the country right next door, Burma. Some Christian missionaries want to go and help, they wish to step into the line of fire and are willing to sacrifice their safety to bring supplies and encouragement to those living in constant fear of death, or worse.

What would Jesus do?

What would Ghandi do?

Yet Ghandi did not live in Burma. An environment of British Imperialism saturated with media exposure is not quite the same as an environment of uncontrollable and ignored civil war with soldiers psychologically desensitized to killing women and children without thinking twice.

It's not the same, and it's never the same.

It's not so black and white.

One of the central scenes in the movie involves Rambo killing three men who had stopped his boat, which contained the missionaries he was taking. The men saw that there was a woman on board and they wanted to take her. Rambo offered them money. They wouldn't take it. They should have.

One of the missionaries loses it on Rambo, saying it's never okay to take a life, that what he did was wrong. Grabbing the guy's throat Rambo throws him up against the boat and says, "Who are you? Who are you?!? They would've raped her 50 times and cut off your heads!" Oh man, Rambo is so awesome. Stupid Christian missionaries.

Ironically, the guy who was angry at Rambo ends up killing an enemy soldier anyway. Somehow idealism falls apart when the ideals are sought to be lived as laws. The world is not such a cookie-cutter shaped place.

So how does God see all of this? What happens when diplomacy fails, petitions are ignored, and injustice still thrives?

To quote Sean Connery in 'The Untouchables',

"What are YOU prepared to DO?"

I am self...ish?

Some great conversations were had tonight between friends over good food and good coffee. It was a blessed time. I am thankful for that.

I mentioned that the reason I want to help the less fortunate and marginalized is not because I'm such a good dude and I really love them, but because I just feel like it's something I need to do, that I need to take further steps towards obedience to Christ and these are some of those steps. The focus is on my own spiritual journey.

Then the question was raised as to whether or not that is a bad motive and simply self-serving.

Good point.

In some ways it is totally self-serving but what part of self? We too easily equate the 'self' with the 'flesh', but if I have been infused with God's Spirit, then my 'self' can also be the Spirit. I think seeking my own best interests isn't necessarily selfish, because God is seeking my best interests, too.

If we wait for our motives to be pure, for our hearts to be full of warm fuzzies and self-sacrificial love, we will likely be waiting for a long time before we are able to act towards others based on those characteristics.

"Only those who believe are obedient and only those who are obedient believe." Bonhoeffer is the dude.

I understand those people who champion for pure motives of love to be the driving force of those who act in the name of Jesus, but that's not where we start. Obedience is, well, obedience.

God doesn't call us to feel love. The call is to love, and love is about action not feeling.

The changing of our hearts is not up to us but purely in the realm of their Creator. What is up to us seems to be in allowing that to happen, taking steps to be open.

I seldom 'feel' it. Does that make me a selfish, inconsiderate person if I still serve others and seek to show them love and acceptance when I don't feel loving or accepting?

Yes, I can. Yes, we can.

I find it disheartening that those who are most adamant that we should only serve when our motives are pure are often the ones who don't serve at all.

I should know, I used to be there. Honestly, sometimes I still am. For that I am sorry.


Lord, may You be glorified as we seek to serve You by loving others, in spite of our broken hearts.

Sex?!? Warning: I shall be scandalous.

I'm just going to throw this out there, if you like it you can keep it, if not, send it right back.

It seems as if we, as human beings, are also sexual beings. That seems pretty undeniable. You can deny that sex is good (aside from procreation), you can deny that expressing sexuality is appropriate, and you can even deny that it should be discussed, but you can't deny that sexuality is an inseparable part of our humanity.

Well, I guess you could. I occasionally enjoy living in denial about various truths, so you're in good company if that's your perspective on this issue.

For most of my life I have viewed sexuality as a negative thing, as if sinful in and of itself. I think that perspective is the result of various factors: partly due to my own struggles, partly due to how I was raised, and partly due to what the church has taught me. I'm not sure what the ratios are between those three, but whether explicitly or implicitly, I somehow found the message that our sexuality should be repressed, for our own good and the good of others, the good of 'the world'.

Certainly throughout history sexuality has been abused in terrible ways that have destroyed many lives. It is a powerful force that, if misdirected or misused, can cause so much harm and suffering. I've never failed to understand this reality, and I appreciate the seriousness that the church has traditionally bestowed upon it.

Yet sexuality is also a sacred thing, in many ways an expression of the Divine Love. It has such richness and depth and is a vital part of our beings, even if it's not expressed through the physical act of sex. I've never failed to understand this reality as well, and I appreciate the reverence and significance it has been awarded by many within the church, though these aspects have been seemingly overshadowed by sexuality's severity.

The issue I have is that while I have little trouble incorporated the former reality, I've never felt able to translate the latter reality into my own being, into my own sexuality.

And I don't think I'm the only one.

I feel like I've been told that my sexuality should be suppressed, denied, or ignored rather than embraced, explored, and understood...maybe even expressed? I don't think that necessarily equates to me having sex and then writing about it on my blog (though I'm sure I would garner plenty of new readers and a legion of comments), but I don't yet know exactly what it does imply.

What I do know is that denying my sexuality has led to denying a significant and fundamental part of who I am.

Say it with me, "My name is [insert your name], and I am a sexual being."

Doesn't that feel better?

Small Grope

I love my small group. I think that we really define the essence of 'small group'. We're pretty small, and we're definitely a group. Yep, that's us.

There is something of serious value in getting together with these brothers and sisters and talking about Scripture and praying together and sharing and just, ya know, being. A lot of these folks I would not hang out with otherwise, not because they're lousy people but simply because there are few people I do hang out with regularly. That's just where I'm at. And so I meet with these people because we share some things in common, hopefully the most important being our relationship with Jesus.

And it's good.

I try and lead our times together, as of late, to greater and lesser degrees of success. And I love it. I think I love it best when I experience times like tonight where my head is not in the right space and I can't think clearly and I cannot steer the dialog anywhere coherent...and yet God is still at work, still teaching and loving and calling us to Himself.

Yeah, those are the beauty times. They strip me of any misconception that God's work has anything to do with my own greatness or ability. Far from it. Even when I'm "on" and things go smoothly and I can lead and guide with great skill it's still the Lord that is doing all the real work, but it can be a far greater temptation, in those times, to think of myself more highly than I ought.

The salt is just salt and the light is just light. They don't choose their natures, they just are. When salt salts things its simply doing what's in its nature. When light shines it's existing in what it is. Nothing too special about that.

What's significant is the one who formed the salt and created the light out of darkness.

Panning for gold in a jewelery store

On Sunday we had a guest speaker at church. I was powerbombed. It was frickn' awesome.

So many words of truth were spoken that I hesitate to focus on any one revelation. It was just so rich...and compelling. I know that not everyone received it in the same way I did, and that's cool, as we're all in different places on the journey, but I know there will be fruit from what was shared, even if it's not immediate.

That seems to be how God works a lot of the time: slow and steady. Not always, but that has been my overwhelming experience and what I've seen in most others too.

But if I HAD to single out one thing to share, right now, it would be about reality.

We are so immersed in our culture, in our conditioning, that we actually become convinced that the way of life presented to us in society is THE way of life. The unfortunate thing is that I think it applies to the world both outside and inside the church. The church, in general, is enmeshed in this culture so strongly that we begin to adopt its distorted views of life, which in turn distorts how we live.

We are not to divorce ourselves from our culture. That is not the call. The call is to follow Christ into the culture. The culture may be screwed up beyond belief and share very few values that line up with the values of Christ, but that doesn't mean we abandon the world. Change is possible.

We change things by being changed people.

We become changed people by allowing Christ to change us.

We allow Christ to change us by following him.

I think I'll just leave it there for now.

End on a hight note.

Temptation

Jesus went out in the desert and was tempted for 40 days. That's rough.

I struggle through enduring ten minutes of temptation before I fold quicker than wet towel. Well, that's not entirely true, but it feels like it at times.

An interesting quote from Thomas Merton: "The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little."

What struck me about Merton's words is how all temptation, in general, is about settling for too little. It's not a statement about consumeristic selfishness, that settling for less than getting everything we could want is a grave mistake. Not at all.

To me it speaks of our own ignorance, the reality of our failure to discern what is valuable and worthwhile. The Lord calls us to experience the life we were created to live but so often we are tempted away by the world around us and what it offers. We see not what God is offering but instead what we are lacking. But seriously, I wouldn't call, "lacking a kick in the groin," a negative thing at all.

The metaphor loses ground in that I seldom feel like I'm missing out when I see other people kicked in the groin. There really is no benefit at all to being kicked in the groin, but I liked the picture. It amuses me.

Of course, there is always some draw, some perceived delight, the odour of which is wafted towards our nose by temptation. It knows exactly the kinds of scents that tickle our fancy.

We presume that something smelling so wonderful must taste equally delicious and so should not be withheld from us, for that would be unfair! And so we devour all that we can until we are full, only to discover that it leaves us wanting more, hungering for food that will satisfy our unquenched desire.

"Why spend money on what is not bread and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." ~ Isaiah 55:2

But I still want what I want. I'm a silly person.

Lord, may You never allow me to settle for anything but the fullest life You offer each of us. Help me to believe that it's not just an empty dream.

One silly mistake...

Ministry is full of surprises and unexpected circumstances. My Pastoral Theology professor shared an amusing story of when he was giving a sermon in a small church in a French community.

What he said was, "J'ai violé le marteau de mon voisin."

Apparently, that is not the same as, "J'ai volé le marteau de mon voisin."

It seems to me that having two words that close in spelling and pronunciation would just be asking for trouble.

I mean, the difference between saying, "I stole my neighbor's hammer," and, "I raped my neighbor's hammer," seems to be significant.

Is one sin really worse than another?

Well, I would say the latter would be far worse for the perpetrator.

On overhead projectors and spirituality

In my higher education today, I was intrigued to learn some information regarding Kabbalah. For those of you who haven't heard, Kabbalah is the cool spirituality of Madonna (the singer not the virgin) that has become moderately publicised as of late.

I don't know a lot about it, but what I learned today was that it's a form of Jewish mysticism and one of its beliefs is that before the Fall, everything was translucent, as in you could see through everything, like a stained-glass window. That would be kind of weird, to be perfectly honest, but it's intriguing nonetheless. You could look through a tree at an elephant. Any attempt to cover yourself with fig leaves would be a futile endeavor.

And then came sin, and with sin, a hardening of reality, and things were made opaque.

To think that the Fall brought opaqueness is a bit of a wandering into left field, but I like the concept that it points to, that we were created to be in harmony not just with God but with all of creation, and where there is harmony there is no need to hide.

I am not transparent. I'm barely translucent at times. I would say I'm fairly opaque. I think I'm pretty easy to read, in terms of knowing what's going on in me in general, but I try to guard the details from the prying eyes of everyone around me, to greater and lesser degrees of success.

I envy those stain-glass images of the saints. Maybe that's how they really do look now.

If I can't be honest about myself with others, I'm never really able to rest in being honest with myself. Everything inside of me must be protected from potential abuse and misuse by others, but in creating a barrier to guard against attack I create a barrier against healing and love, the things I desperately need to survive.

I pray that the Lord would be merciful and tear down the walls I've built. I hope that you would learn to have the same desire for yourself.

It doesn't even have to be as flashy as with Jericho.

Careful how we love

Have you ever seen the movie, "Of Mice and Men"? Great film. I'm talking about the one with John Malkovich and Lieutenant Dan (aka Gary Sinise). I would recommend it to anyone who could find it. The book is fantastic, as well, but the movie was really well done.

There's one part in the film where John's character, who is somewhat mentally challenged, finds a cute puppy in a barn that warms his heart to no end. Such a simple man can truly appreciate and cherish the simply beauty of a small puppy dog. To show his affection he takes the puppy and begins to pet it with care. Surely the small dog relished in the attention and love it was receiving at the hands of such a gentle giant.

But then things change.

Suddenly, the puppy dog isn't moving anymore. Lennie's heart breaks at the realization of what he had done and is overwhelmed with guilt.

He had killed the very thing he was trying to love.

Old Jack

I rang in the New Year with Jack.

Jack is an older fellow. Likely in his 60s, has very few teeth, but man, does that guy love to talk.

Well, maybe he doesn't LOVE to talk as much as he NEEDS to talk.

I think we all desperately long for human contact. We were created with a need to seek it. It's a good thing. But Jack has a clear deficit in that area that becomes apparent quite easily. Jack was sitting alone at a table for a long while. Occasionally, someone would come over and talk with him, and that's a good thing, but in a room full of people talking and laughing together, Jack was alone.

The odd thing was that he didn't seem bitter or unhappy about it. I think he needed human connection so much that even being around others who were connecting was feeding his spirit. That's okay, but it should never end there.

I would've been content to ignore this fellow but someone took my seat when I got up to go to the bathroom. God has a sense of humour, without a doubt. I noticed a free chair by this guy, which was also strategically by the food, and so I decided to sidle up and find out who this dude was.

His name was Jack.

Jack occasionally let me say a few words like, "Oh, really," or, "Oh, wow," or maybe even, "Huh, that's interesting." There were a few instances where he even almost let me finish telling a whole story. We talked about safety with power tools, the trailer he built, BBQs, model cars, real cars, and a whole host of other topics. Jack just wanted to talk and needed someone to listen. That's cool with me.

I seem to attract those kinds of people at times, and while it can be draining for me to some degree it's always good. I was thankful that I could kick off my year with an experience like that. God was interested in blessing us both through the experience.

Happy New Year, Jack.