Faith, Hope, Love, Music [and the Santa Generation]

[I wrote & first published this on December 18, 2006. I wanted to give everyone more time to read it this year, as it is for the coming holiday].

If I were to tell you now that I haven't slept lately, you might think "oh, college kid. It happens." It does, but finals week has finished for me, officially signaling the end of the semester and the beginning of a well-deserved, highly-anticipated three-week vacation. No, the sleep deprivation is because it is my favorite time of year....the season of Christmas is upon us. I have helped decorate cookies, I have shopped, I have spent--oh, how I have spent--and I have wrapped and wrapped. [I'm a very meticulous wrapper]. Really it's the cookie decoration and beautification of boxes that has led me to lose the z's that become so elusive towards the end of each year.

It's an interesting point in the Western calendar. I think that we simultaneously see the best and worst of humanity during the holiday season; we want so badly to give and give and give unto others that we will cut exponentially more people off in the parking lot, and maul through the stores to ensure an efficient gift-buying process. Families reunite, another two-edged sword. You see your family, but.....you see your family...and somehow that produces greater stress than otherwise. [Do you REALLY want to be told again how you could be better? No.] And you drink away the knowledge of the bills that will arrive shortly after the new year begins [which is just a tragic aside to the beginning of a new year, really]. Or you drink away the experiences you have with your family, whatever. Some people stress out too easily, and relax least effectively. It's not healthy.

Nor is this notion of Christmas...and I have to think there's some merit to our traditions despite that. I love Christmas decorations [I don't like that they go on sale in July or that they rarely acknowledge Christ] but the warm glow of multi-colored lights reminds my heart of joy. I love Christmas cookies and other baked goods made seasonal. They're so good. I hate when they go bad because you couldn't possibly eat it all before it goes stale. I love my family. I hate that we aren't united more andthat we live so far away from each other & that to see them I'll have to leave Oakleaf on Jesus' birthday. I love giving gifts [I don't like not having a plethora of George Washingtons]. It's just a solid holiday, this Christmas. There's so much to it. So much to take in, absorb, and respond to. It can easily be so overwhelming.

I feel like that's the catch-22 of Christmas. It's a celebration....and we find so much to celebrate; so many people, relationships, opportunities afforded us....Christmas helps us wrap us the last year of our lives, evaluate what we've done and whom to, how to do the same or better or never again in the coming year. Which I think is just a product of having such a momentous occasion at the end of the year, not necessarily Christmas. But here it is, it is Christmas, the day of the Christ, and it's lost on a generation writing to Santa for Tickle Me Elmo [TMX--the new generation], remote controlled cars, Barbies, XBOX 360s, Wiis, iPods, guitars, cars, clothes, jewelry, better jobs, healthier marriages, marriage in general, happier parents, more money, more of this, more of that........

I don't think any of these things are bad. Obviously. I just got a new guitar [and I grin inside as I type that]. But I wonder if they really are what we are looking for, if they offer what is needed to speak to the depths of a broken heart. And while many of them have the capacity to aid in doing so [being out of poverty, having healthy relationships, guitars...] I think they are just a means to an end. God doesn't want to see the world's hungry to go a bed made from a pile of grass each night cold and without a substantial meal. God doesn't want to see His beloved detached from the spouse they have, affirmation not being spoken over them, needs left unmet, love not being had. So we have these things like money and marriage. And God gave us guitars because God gave us music and music is the best thing. It's #4 on the royal list....faith, hope, love [the greatest of these being love] and music. That part's not in the Bible though. It got left out.

So like I said, and I feel like it should be reiterated, none of these things are bad; I think they're great. But I think they are only a means to an end. But they are pled to Santa [mythical figure metaphorically standing for talking to a wall] to obtain them, to be happier, to live better. But what if this Santa generation [this era in particular....25' blowups of Santa and Frosty in the front yard are kind of excessive] found hope? [I often wonder what if we didn't create new characters to mark the birth of Christ to be politically correct, but that's another blog, another day.]

Because I think all these material things we've invented, while they speak for creativity, will never satisfy. You do not still play with the toys you threw a tantrum over when you were four [I got the Batcave playset when I was 4 for Christmas; I remember that glorious morning. Lexie, my German Shepherd, enjoyed her stocking of biscuits beside me as I played]. Years from now, you will not listen to your iPod because years back you were listening to a WalkMan and that's just the way things are. But I don't think we're all so materialistic. I don't. I think that Christmas has become a holiday of family and giving, both of which are good things, relationships and selflessness. I read a Christmas card the other day that read inside something to the extent of "wishing you all the magic and wonder that is Christmas." But Christmas is not magic and wonder. Christmas is a celebration of truth, grace, hope, faith...and love. To be so fortunate, to be so privileged, to be so redeemed. That the King of the Mighty Angel Armies [plural] was born so gentle, so humbly to come to know and save and hold the hearts of His beloved.

You.

And it's this time of the year that I begin to wonder what it would have been like, the Savior of mankind born to us after years and years and years of waiting and prophesy and waiting and hope and....waiting. To arrive at the barn, to lean over the manger, to see hope in human form. To look into the eyes of God on earth, to hear His mother singing Him a lullaby. To see light glisten in His eyes and hear Him coo and all those cute things babies do even when they aren't the Only Begotten Son of God Almighty come to save the world from the enemy. Nevermind the coming years in which He will grow and teach and minister and heal and save. That moment, that night in the barn, when grace was given a name....Jesus, "God saves." God saves. He rescues. Love now existed on earth in its purest form, against the forces of Hell that rose to destroy it. The stars shining brighter than they ever had and ever will for a very long time, angels singing as they always have and always will but this time in a vocal symphony audible to human ears. The miles traveled to see Him and bow and weep and laugh and embrace by the anonymous shepherds with the thankless job, cast to the sidelines by the religious right. The anticipation they must have endured, eager breaths containing their excitement as they crossed the fields and searched the town and followed the star and met their God. How privileged. Who were they, but shepherds and men? Who were they but broken-hearted sinners waiting for rescue and redemption? It must have been beautiful.

O come, all ye faithful, joyful & triumphant
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem
Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels,
O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.

Merry Christmas, everyone. May you awake Christmas morning to hope in your hearts, for joy and love are ours to have forever.

Antique Cars and Ice Cream Sandwiches [on being a refuge].

Give it a few decades, and I’ll probably resemble my dad and grandfather in the ways they reminisce about the cars they had when they were my age. But if I have my way, my Jetta will last forever if it means I have to gut and rebuild the engine every 225,000 miles. Whatever. It’s pretty and they don’t make them like that any more. It’s tragic.

I was driving to Orlando from Jacksonville last night, and for those unaware that includes a drive on I-4, the Road of Death. I was in a hurry so I broke my no-extreme-speeding rule for a moment and began to fly. It’s been a while, and I forgot how good it feels. So my fancy modern six cylinder was flying by most of the cars and keeping up with the others, and I began to notice how many vintage cars were sharing the road with me at a much slower pace. There were several, and it has led me to conclude that if I looked into it a little, I’d learn there was an antique car show of some sort that night in Orlando. But I don’t care so I haven’t investigated and I continued to fly to my destination, which was a show. So once hours pass and the show and post-show dinner concluded themselves and faded into yet another fond memory, I drove home. Another journey on the Road of Death.

To be completely honest I was more tired than I should have been as a driver, so I’m a little fuzzy on specific details but I do remember seeing several cars on the sides of I-4 and I-95 alike. One in particular stood out to me on the way home: yet another antique car, returning home from this vintage car extravaganza. Its sleek lines glimmered even in the headlights of my car and the moonlight, washed and waxed to be gazed upon and admired in its utmost pristine condition, fingers run across its design. Except this time, the hands were those of the tow truck man, his eyes investigating the best method to get this car off of the side of the interstate and to the nearest mechanic qualified to be trusted with such a treasure.

The irony of the moment is what struck me most; a car that not only is admired just as it drives down the road but was just at an event where car collectors and fans gathered to discuss and share their passions, to brag about their babies. This car probably got a few compliments, “This sure is a nice looking car, I had one just like it years ago….” And the owner probably pretended to be more humble about it than he is, “Aw shucks….well I’ve done this-and-this and such-and-such work on it, since my kids moved out and I’ve retired, I’ve had more time.” He probably didn’t mention that there was a chance the car wasn’t going to get itself back to its protective garage that night. That’s my guess on how it all played out anyway. And it occurs to me that this is probably how many of us seem, how I seem to so many. I am so well-put together, that girl who goes to college and church and doesn’t do drugs. Like I have nothing wrong on the inside, like I am not plagued by a curse thirsty for my veins. Hide your sins from the righteous, for they will judge you. When in fact I think it is so important for us to invest in community, to have relationships facilitating freedom so I can pull up my sleeve and show you my scars without shame, to reach for victory and be caught when I fall. We don’t have that community. We go to the show, brag, and die on the way back to our self-fashioned homes, our comfort zones. We go to work and class and church and the beach and the movies and out to dinner and the bowling alley and say we’re “fine,” we’re “good.”

Nearly four years ago, my grandma was quite literally fading away on the death bed Hospice had rolled in for her. My mom, brother and I moved up to Arkansas to be with her until the end. It did not take long for me to settle back into the home of my childhood, the den that saw my finest Lego creations and the kitchen walls that saw my watermelon fight with my brother, the bedroom that saw my slumbers and the acre of pine trees that saw my young explorations and games. My grandma and I didn’t talk every day and we kept in touch through my mother, but it was with my grandma that I felt least condemned as a child; I usually got in trouble with everyone else. So I never felt like a guest in that house. If it was her house, it was my house and that’s just the way it went. Her car became my car, actually, and I loved that boat simply because she had driven it.

So that May, my aunt and her kids came to bid my grandma farewell. Family politics had separated them for years, and no doubt my cousins had no idea what to expect and I am sure the dying woman hardly able to simultaneously breathe and keep her head up straight threw them off guard. My brother and I were present during their visit, stretching out all over the leather couch in ways my mom would probably reprimand me for, eating every treat under their roof because those ice cream sandwiches were purchased for us and we knew it. My mom probably would have reprimanded me for my 2^nd or 3^rd ice cream sandwich, but it was Grandma & Grandpa’s house so I could pretty much have as many as I wanted, sixteen years old going on seven, forever young in their eyes.

One of the things I remember most about that night was the lack of seating during the reunion, which was probably only exaggerated by the amount of space my brother and I were taking up without hesitation. As comfortable as we were, my cousins were not as it had been nearly a decade since the last time they had seen those walls. We had pulled in the dining room chairs for them, and I remember seeing them sitting on the edges of them, clearly not at ease and hardly speaking. I probably would have reacted the same way. It was a very awkward situation. My grandma passed away four days later.

This is what I know: I know that if you want to find Jesus, He is with the dying, the nearly dead. He is with the strippers and prostitutes on their way home, whispering in their ear that they are worth and meant for something so much more than they sell themselves for. He is with the homeless and the hungry, giving them reason and hope to draw their next breath when hope is a stranger and hot food is a forgotten luxury. He is with the wealthy, coaxing them out of their bank accounts to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and cold. He is with the weary, those resigned to the mundane and pathetic, those who have lost themselves to “the way things are.” He is with the Church, telling her to be a refuge for the beaten and battered souls seeking asylum. And this is what I know: the Church, at least in America, is no refuge. I’ve talked to homeless folks who were denied pastoral advice until a background check was run. I’ve been on the payroll at a church that locks the doors that bear the name of Jesus Christ, because no one wants those homeless people inside. They might want help and then we’d have to give it. I’ve seen false prophets scream lies and judgment at college students.

And let me tell you, Jesus Christ has no part in any of those things.

What needs to happen is this: we need to look in the mirror and examine the reflection. I am tired of lies and well-to-dos. There is no room nor time for false premises, and Sunday bests are hard to maintain and yet hard to shed. The shiniest cars break down. Hearts will fall and stagger in this fragile life. I want community. I want the Church to step it up so my friends will stop seeing a false impression of Jesus and decide they want nothing to do with the God they see in America, the God who hates the gays and abortionists.

That God does not exist.

We are all poverty-stricken, even if our bank accounts are fine. I want the poor and broken-hearted, the contrite spirits to know that when they walk in the houses of the Church—they are only walls, by the way—that they can lay all over the couches and eat every last bite of ice cream in the freezer. I want the lost to know they can walk into the Church, the body and fellowship of Jesus Christ, and be neither judged nor condemned. A refuge is a stronghold, and love is shelter from the storm. I want the hands of Jesus Christ on earth to be the best vintage car mechanics the world has ever seen.

I want a refuge.

James 3:1-2

Leadership is not a hobby. It is not temporary. Its intensity comes in waves, but the influence never dies.

Live it.

It's just simple economics, really.

I have made a friend recently without knowing it or trying so much. To be completely honest, I was just doing my job. I was handing coffee out of the window with a smile on my face. I do that with most people, most cups of coffee. I am paid to stand at that hole in the wall that unites me to you, the customer, for those anticipated three minutes or less, and talk to you. I will ask you about your day. If you won’t tell me, I will tell you about my day. I am generally prohibited from abandoning people at the window. Other than the particularly awkward, skeevy & flirtatious, and clinically anti-social, I have no choice but to talk to you. Talk we shall.

We have talked about her day many times, and she is not afraid of telling me all about it. Recently more personal details have come to surface, and I have invited her to my community of faith that we call “OakLeaf Christian Fellowship.” We have talked about tears at night, vacations and marriages, parenthood. We’ve talked about school. We’ve talked about books. Tonight, we talked about grace. She loves God because He’s God, and as much as she believes in the new covenant, this blood that saves us from works, she’s caught up in them. She is caught up in her list of things she can do to show God she loves Him. Self-admittedly, she cannot just be in love with God.

Today, a hurricane came to Florida. I don’t really care that it wasn’t in the news and no meteorologist deemed it to even qualify as a tropical storm, but the contents of the Atlantic ocean were dumped on Jacksonville today. Particularly on the campus of the University of North Florida, and particularly from 11:45 A.M. to noon, when I walked across campus to make it to my psychobiology class for our first exam. I was drenched. I give my dogs a bath and laugh at them for looking like drowned rats. I think today I gave them a run for their money, if they could only see me now. But it felt so good to walk in the falling water. It was the perfect day for it.

I am not one to understand grace. It’s not in our economy, wreckless unmerited favor. I cannot make sense of it, and I have yet to meet anyone who can. Other than Jesus. Jesus Christ is grace incarnate. As soon as I went to school, God made sure grace was the first word to drip from Heaven to my heart. It still makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable. In the economy of divinity, my place in the royal dining hall is outside, on the corner with the other whores. With the liars and the cheats and the scoundrels. With the Pharisees. But not with Jesus.

You can’t blanket entire populations, but I generally think most people regard God in this way. If in fact there is a God, then you can’t be around Him. Because you don’t want to be or He doesn’t want you to be, which will ultimately make you not want anything to do with Him.

None of that is Truth. All of that is false. A lie from the pit of lies, a pit ruled by bitterness and resentment and hatred and evil of the worst kind. The pit my blood runs from.

A lot of people had umbrellas today. They were smart. I have an umbrella, and to my defense it is in my friend’s car, but even if I had it on hand I probably would not have used it. For some reason I think they’re unnecessary. Color me a lunatic.

So I’m holding my flip flops, with my jeans rolled up, bolting across the green. Eventually I got to the point where I just didn’t care anymore and had a stroll thing going on to get to the test I was running late for. Eventually, I came to a dead stop behind a wall of girls afraid of the puddle they circumstantially had to cross [stairs on one side and construction on the other left them few other options].

Dead. Stop.

I like to think that I’m charging right through the puddles, that I’m enjoying being soaked. That I will dance in the rain if it means that my heart is, for even just that moment, synchronized with the heartbeat of Heaven. But I was told long ago that I cannot dance.

They were probably right, let’s face it.

I do not think that I am new or fresh or exciting half the time, but Heaven disagrees. I do not think I’m accomplishing much, but Heaven disagrees. I do not think that I have anything to say that anyone else will want or need to hear, but Heaven disagrees. I do not think that I have a heart worth pure and true love, but Heaven disagrees.

What I’ve found, then, is this God that I generally try to distance myself from pursues me like white on rye, like peanut butter on jelly. It will make me uncomfortable, walking around all wet afterwards. It might force me to alter my living habits, having to let my clothes dry instead of putting them away all nice and neat-like. But it also might remind me of bigger things, better things. A better economy than my own. Adam and Eve messed up, screwed me over [I would have eaten the entire apple], God is the only one who could fix it, and He did fix it. I take or I refuse. No more, no less. That is the economy at stake.

Friend, I am sorry you don’t love God just for the sake of love. To respond to romance in the ways we dream of. Just to love in the name of love. My heart cries for that to change, but I know that as I write this, I still try to pull my umbrella out sometimes. But something in me tells me to hold off, to let the water fall from Heaven and drench me. Soak me. To leave no room for air. To know that grace exists, it’s just not in my economy. Grace and love and peace exist, and exist for me.

I feel a rain a’comin.’

the heart of the woman on the wall.

I have taken on a thousand names, playing each and any part that was asked of me; demanded of me. I have given myself away for less than I am worth. I have taken little in return. I have walked by the disapproving eyes. I have spent my life sitting on the wall, partially in but mostly outside. I have begged you to leave me there.

I have felt the weight of an empty heart as often as I have scanned the bare cabinets of an empty kitchen. I have tasted dirt and gold for my sins. I have taken the beatings that come as often as the jewelry.

Time has left me nameless, my resignation bearing my defeat. I have heard of you; your pursuit. The stories of you have melted my heart, making me aware of what stopped beating long ago. Those stories claimed my courage, taking hostage the false bravery I muster every morning just to get out of this stained bed. I see only the fear of you…at the moment of my last breath, please let the flames come quick. I, more than anyone, am aware of this economy of gracelessness, knowing where I stand and how little I have to offer. Surely they reflect your judgment—and my own—that I do not deserve you. Just leave me there.

—Rahab. Gomer. The Church. Me.

I like this.

"Eyes speak before the lips move."

- Arshile Gorky

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaature! [I was asked to write about a tree].

My dad and I were driving around Jacksonville at some point while I’ve been here for school, and he said to me something about how he appreciated the scenery. Jacksonville, for those that don’t know, is very woodsy. Tampa, on the other hand, is where my dad lives and it is almost entirely conquered by concrete and skyscrapers. It’s depressing. It feels skeevy to me when I’m there. It’s part of why I didn’t go to USF.

I once had to study the field of environmental psychology for a class presentation and referred back to some studies I’d learned in my Stress Management course sophomore year; cities with high crime rates have implemented what they call “green spots” consisting of trees and patches of grass to break the cement scene and have seen drastic reductions in crime. Apartment buildings in similar inner-city areas have hosted balcony beautification projects, which united the apartment residents in community and experienced less crime, theoretically as a result of the endeavor. Hospital patients with views of nature have better chances for smoother recoveries; those with pictures of nature to compensate for the lack of sparkling mountains and lakes in their windows experience similar effects. Those with neither have lower rates of recovery, and typically recovery is slower. Office workers with a view enjoy their jobs more than those without views; cubicles with pictures of nature are daytime homes to more productive employees.

In short, nature makes people happy.

God once told Paul to write some words [I believe they’re in the book of Romans, but my internet is broken as I write this and I’m not prepared to read the entire book looking for it right now] about nature, about this power trees have over us. They say something to the effect that creation exists to point to the Creator, so no man [or woman] will be left without accountability when they meet God. No one can say they didn’t know He existed, because He’s going to say “that’s most certainly not true. I set eternity in your heart. I created you to think of me. I’ve pursued and loved you desperately since before you took your first breath. And if all else failed, I made the trees.”

I was in church this morning and I was standing in the aisle with some people near the back, and the woman standing in front of me was in one of those positions so that the small boy who was trying to get through our group and to the other side couldn’t quite get around her. He certainly didn’t want to go through her. And then she shifted, which only made his situation more difficult. This is all happening in seconds, and I’m watching the whole thing. I stood there watching, and could have helped him walk in the clear path I could see from my towering view nearly five and a half feet in the air, but I chose not to. I figured he’d get it on his own and I didn’t feel like crossing any social boundaries at the time. Call it keeping to myself. In any event, in seconds the two of them figured things out [once she saw him] and she moved and smiled and he went on his merry way. None of this is of eternal consequence, but I feel like God used the moment to tell me that there will be times when I will see the way out for other people. At those times, I’ll probably need to tell them if I want to call myself a fair person. That might mean you’re an alcoholic and won’t admit to it. That might mean you’re in a significantly unhealthy relationship and cling to it for redemption. That might mean you’re simply looking for the way. It’s only fair that if I see it, I tell you. I can’t say I’m loving if I stand back and let people wallow in their own self-destruction, dying to old wounds.

For this reason, I want you to be exposed to the fact that Jesus Christ loves you. Desperately. And now you’re read it. You can’t say you didn’t know. Maybe we all go to Heaven around the same time so we stand in line. I don’t think so, but let’s say that’s the case for a second. We’re all in a line outside the gates as the book with the names of those covered in the blood of the Lamb are found. If you get to the front of the line and find with crushing dismay that your name is not in this book, you can’t pass me on the way out and say I never told you about it. You can’t blame me for an eternity of dying without death, knowing no finality or conclusion. Hell is going to suck. Forever.

Forever.

If you don’t believe me about this Jesus-rescues-everyone thing, you have to wonder why the trees reach upwards [weeping willows being an exception to my metaphor, though they are pretty and you still have to wonder how they got here in the first place]. You have to wonder why it’s trees that make the exact elemental conversion we need to trade off of for our oxygen supply. There it is, conveniently built into our environment.

Next time you see a tree, look up.

A Word from the LORD....

July 8-9, 2007

I had a dream while I was sleeping the night of July 8, 2007 [technically it was the 9^th because I woke up at four in the morning to the end of it]. I've wondered before what it felt like to have a dream from God; I figured it'd just be one of those things you knew when you got it. And that's the case. I've had weird dreams my brain has conjured up, mixing chemicals and memories. I've had a dream from the enemy, which really scared the hell right into me. And now I've had a dream from God. I'm not bragging. But it's been a month now and I've only told a handful of people because I felt like if I told anyone other than pastors and close friends in the faith, I'd be bragging that Jesus shared a dream with ME, not you. But that's not important, and I know that, and I'm not bragging. I want to make that clear. In fact, I feel I've been wrong to guard it. It wasn't a word for me. It was for everybody. And with that, here is the dream:

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I was with the OakLeaf Christian Fellowship youth group, at a hotel/nursing home…in reality, we had just returned from a trip going to Student Life and ending it with The Call in Nashville on 7-7-07. The next night God gave me this dream, as I said at a hotel/nursing home. It was the environment of Student Life but the purpose of The Call, that young people had intentionally gathered in the old folks' territory for intercessory prayer. Rebekah or Taylor, of the youth group, had told me that there were also homeless people there, that the hotel staff [or staff of wherever we were] didn't mind. I'm thinking of this as I am getting myself some food, but Will and Ian [of the youth group] came to get me so I grabbed some bread to take back with me. I grabbed bread and butter for my bread, I may have forgotten it at first, but as I walked by the table I noticed that all of the bread broke into two halves, the regular consistency of bread but a clean cut in the break each time, the same way. I thought to myself how it reminded me of the body of Christ, the bread being broken as communion bread, and decided against the butter on the bread and put it back down on the table. In doing so I noticed a homeless man with short dark hair and shabby dark clothing sitting in a chair facing the dining room to the left of the step down to the platform before the stairwell. I thought to myself how maybe he was waiting for us "normal folk" to finish before he'd see if there were leftovers to eat off the table. But on the table there was just bread…the body of Christ. As polite as he was trying to be, I didn't think it was necessary.

I stepped down to the platform before the stairs with the boys and surveyed the room below. Immediately I got a sense that something terrible has happened, and evil has moved in. All along the perimeter of the room was furniture, on which were afflicted peoples. They were no small afflictions. All were possessed or falling prey in some undisclosed way to the enemy; all of the people sitting around the walls of the room were in his clutch. There was nobody that I particularly saw in the room necessarily; all were sitting up against the wall. The only person in this state that caught my eye specifically was a homeless man with a dark-haired woman kneeling in front of him and laying hands on him, praying for him. One of the girls in the youth group, it may or may not have been the same one from before, came to meet us at the top of the stairs to tell me "it's because we stopped refuging." There was no exchange. That's all that was said. In my dream I wondered if "refuging" was a real word, though I figured it meant to give refuge to. Dictionary.com confirmed this once I woke up.

I began to hear wicked, incoherent speech to my left. The voice then said "our names are Sugar and Haziel* [or "Heziel," I'm not sure right now]." I was reminded instantly of the Scriptures when the demons say "our names are Legion, for we are many" and Jesus cast them out into the pigs. This terrified me because it seemed to give authority to the voice. I turned to look, and it was an older woman with short, dark gray hair and a blank stare on her face. Her mouth was gaping open. I hear moaning behind me so as I turn my neck to look behind me, I also hear chocking and gurgling. The moaning is from an old man standing directly behind me, dressed in all white, with high creased pants and a button-up collar shirt tucked in. I realize as I look into his distorted face that the choking and gurgling is me, though there is nothing visibly choking me. My face and throat are frozen stiff and I cannot be saved from where I am—or it feels that way, with the presence of the enemy so thick. I consciously say "Jesus" and instantly wake up. My cheeks were burning and my face was flushed, but my body relaxed as I continued to pray.

From what I understand at this point, the church has obviously failed in being a safe-haven in the way that Jesus' arms are open to everyone, such as the homeless. As for the man waiting to eat, he shouldn't feel so different and marginalized that he has to wait to eat the crumbs off of the richer folks' table, even in the environment he was in. The Church, the Body of Christ, isn't offering itself to feed the hungry, though it looks clean on the outside. The old man dressed in white behind me was from the place we had gathered. As good as things look, our lack of action has given the enemy room for his own movement and the more this generation steps in to counteract, the more we'll see we've done wrong that needs to change.

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There are a number of things I could say, because in many ways I hate the Church. Rather, I hate what the Church is doing and has done, which is probably the more righteous attitude to have. I once heard a man say that the Church may be a whore, but it's the whore Jesus died for. That's very true. I may be a whore, but I'm the whore Jesus died for. You don't have to sleep around to commit a betrayal of intimacy.

The Church is not gated. The Church is not an institution. The Church is not a building with pretty windows. The Church is not tradition. In fact, the only traditions I feel have a place in the Church are communion and baptism.

If you've ever run into those "crazy Christian folk" I hear about so much and run into now and then—you know who I'm talking about, the ones who judge you for having piercings, tattoos, or a different worldview—I'm terribly sorry, from the very bottom of me. Really I am. That's not Jesus. But this is a spiel for another day.

The Church is a body of people, a collection of very good friends. The Church is the light in the dark. So it's particularly a bad thing when we seem closed off with a "no sinners allowed" sign on the door. It's just unhealthy in every respect. I'm sorry. Jesus probably isn't who you think He is, even if you think you know Him pretty well. He is LORD, Savior, Son of God, my only hope, lover of my soul. Everyone knows or has heard John 3:16 at least once, that God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son so that anyone—anyone—who believed in Him wouldn't know what it meant to be defeated by death, but instead how it feels to conquer it. Jesus Christ conquered death for you. For me.

No one follows it often with the next verse, verse seventeen, but it might just be my favorite. These are the words of Jesus, mind you:

"God didn't go to all the trouble of sending His Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again."

This is the message the Church needs to convey, to be a refuge for people. For everyone, regardless of their image or worldview. We can't shut the Bible, nor can we write it our own way. God has spoken. These are His words. Love. Love. Love. Love. Because He loves me, because He loves this whore so much, He'll change us. He'll make us more like Him, and less corrupt. Less full of hatred. Less conquered by death. May it be so.

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*The whole name thing here is under a little bit of dispute because I don't know how it would be spelled, and therefore what it would mean. I thought when I woke up that it was "Haziel" or "Heziel," and in researching them I have been led to "Hazael," which I am thinking suffices just fine. It means "God sees" in Hebrew, and was the name of a king of Aram during the time of the prophet Elijah. You can read a little bit about him in 1 Kings 19 and 2 Kings 8. He wasn't good. He said he was, but he wasn't. And as we know, actions speak louder than words. In this case, those are the words for the Church right now. We are a white-washed tomb.

I think that's what God was saying to us in the dream. I am human, I can hear wrong for sure, but I am totally at peace delivering this message, which I think is a good sign [John 14:27]. SO. Mull on that one.

The Rebel Generation and the Perfect Kingdom

Let's play that association game where I say something and you think fast and respond the first word that comes to your head. Game? Game. Go.

Peanut Butter.

Jelly.

Winnie.

Pooh.

Gotham City.

Batman.

Van Gogh.

Paint.

Guitar.

Music.

The-same-stupid-commercial-filmed-a-thousand-different-ways.

Corona.

America.

Freedom.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Indeed. Here we are, the United States, proclaiming freedom into all the world. "Come into our land and prosper." This is no commentary on what you may think of our current politics, economy or immigration policies. This is just our ideal. Freedom. The American Dream. I wonder, though.

Our Constitution created within itself the option to improve, change and alter the rules. I suppose we've interpreted this as ultimate freedom, superior to the rest of the world. Even Darius, the Mede-Persian king who overthrew the mighty Babylonian Empire tangled himself up at least once because he made a bad law and even as king was unable to change it. A dear friend of his nearly died as a consequence. I feel like giving ourselves leniency to change our rules leads to some sort of legal relativism, which permeates our morality as much as it reflects it. But obviously if you have a bad law that you cannot change and discover its nature only when confronted with its consequence, then you're screwed. Maybe your friend comes face-to-face with a lion or two because of your ill-advised logic as a political leader. So it seems to be that we are damned if we do, damned if we don't. Is it possible to have flawless laws in a world that changes with every sunrise?

If it were, we'd have to wonder what that would look like. It would be a kingdom, with an absolute ruler, because if he were to be flawless then there would be no need to impeach, replace, or assassinate. He would speak truth, because if he were a liar then we wouldn't want him in charge of a flawless kingdom. There's no room for falsehood in this place. His subjects would love him, because he would do only good things for them because he loved them as well, perhaps even before they loved him. He was probably the first one on the scene for that to work out. I would venture so far as to say that this kingdom would therefore be ruled by this love. Consequently, people would be inspired to obey the laws because they would respect the kingdom intrinsically. [Remember, this kingdom has flawless laws that never need to go under the Congressional knife]. Any violations of the law would go against the character of the kingdom, its king, and to that degree its subjects as well. It would be a threat. Perhaps even a betrayal.

If we're going to go so far as to speculate that there could exist perfect laws, we might as well go out on a limb and guess what they would be. Personally, I would think that they'd address relational respect, even love, to guide the actions and relationships amongst the people. The king would have to be a flawless example of these laws just because he's the leader. He can't get away with screwing up. The people could though, because if they were perfect too then we wouldn't need the laws at all. But we do have laws, so I'm guessing that the people are screwed up a little bit. But they like these laws so they try their best to honor them. That's what it is, anyway; a matter of honor. By abiding in it, people would defend this honor from things not of their kingdom, their home. While we're at it, let's say too, that because the king is perfect and good, he is very generous and though he's not going anywhere anytime soon, he wants to let some subjects inherit the kingdom. It would still be his, mind you, but they'd get to share in it on a deeper level just because this good king would have to like to share.

Now, the king would probably present this proposition at some point to all of the people in his rather large kingdom, so they would all know what was up. It's only fair. That might take longer than a day or two, because there are a lot of people, so he'd have to send messengers from the central area to the far reaches of the kingdom so all the distant folk heard the word as well. I imagine he would tell them that immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissentions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like these would violate this perfect relational law he's created because it hurts other people's feelings, and his as well just because it's mean and wrong. But things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control would form the right kind of attitude to pursue this good law and share in the kingdom on a deep level. The king would be very proud of you, I'm sure, since he'd be a good king. Good kings have pride in good people. It would be a very good kingdom. If only.

I don't think that good exists because bad exists, or that right exists because wrong exists, but I do think that we've labeled good "good" and right "right" because we've been presented with an alternative. We've seen "bad," and we've done "wrong." [Go ahead, you can admit it to yourself]. So we've contrasted white with black and dark with light so we can wrap our heads around what we're dealing with in life. But my black probably isn't your black because we don't live in the kingdom I just talked about. We live in America, Land of the Free Thinkers. Land of Relativism. There is no place on earth you could get away with more, I'm sure of it. Even more than in Amsterdam. No one in Amsterdam has completely revolutionized the theories of the entire developed world. Tell me if I'm wrong. But we have the power to do that in America. So we put this thinking and speaking freedom to use and talk and discuss and challenge. And rebel. It's in our nature. It's why even in my good kingdom, there are laws. There would be a right and wrong. Now, in a perfect kingdom we wouldn't have to worry about it but I would imagine that any good king could eventually figure out a way to perfect his people so they didn't run around killing each other with words or stones all the time, if at all.

Do you think it would be okay to say that maybe we are so delighted in thinking all over the place that that is why we can change our laws? Because this isn't my good kingdom, so we'd probably have a few wrinkles to iron out as we went along. Do you think that we would be able to get the whole population to agree on even just one principle to found our laws on? Just one. We'll use the example of my good kingdom earlier, which was founded on love. Can we all agree on love? Probably, but then we'd argue over what love really is. Pure, true love; not just any love. My pure and true love could very well be the next person's lust. I think the love we would found our laws on would have to present itself to us somehow, which demands that this love would be bigger than us, bigger than America, bigger than our borders, bigger than our oceans, bigger than our world, bigger than our galaxies, bigger than our universe. It would have to be the center of it all, otherwise it would fall apart. If the foundation of a flawless kingdom can't measure up to a star, which blows up with time, or a galaxy, which could slowly fall victim to a black hole…then it probably isn't worth our time. I know it wouldn't be worth mine. Let me propose the characteristics of this love of which I speak, and you tell me if you think I'm hot or cold about the whole thing: what if it were patient? kind? not jealous? not boastful? not arrogant? appropriately flattering? selfless? What if this love didn't keep a record of any wrongdoing, but with its patience it taught us its ways because this love hates evil and rejoices in truth? [Remember, there's no room for falsehood]. What if this love would bear my burdens for me? Believed in me for all of the best things love could offer? What if this love hoped all things, endured all things [even rebellion, even betrayal]? What if?

The world would be beautiful for it. You and I, we'd be beautiful. We probably wouldn't even understand it. There is faith; there is hope; there is love. The greatest of these is love. Love would conquer rebellion against it, as it endures all things. Love would pursue, even through the deepest betrayal, because it endures all things, hopes for all things. Love is the action that defends honor and preserves the perfect Kingdom, the embodiment of its King.

Put that soda down!

I feel worse about working at Starbucks now...All around, America needs to revolutionize its dietary practices.

8 Ways Soda Fizzles Your Health

We would wager money that many of you are “doing the dew” or “doing what tastes right” this very moment. Before you take another gulp from your soft drink can, here are 8 facts about soda to consider that may drastically affect the quality of your health.

pH of Soda = pH of Vinegar
For one, soda, no matter who makes it, is the most acidic beverage you can buy, with a pH of about 2.5, about the same as vinegar. Why does that matter? Acid oxidizes whatever it comes in contact with. If you put soda or vinegar on metal, it will rust it quickly. Check out this table of acid levels of your favorite sodas.

Drink Soda, Leach Calcium
If you drink soda, which also contains high levels of phosphorous, you will leach calcium from your bones. Dr. Michael Murray from the Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine concluded, “It appears that increased soft drink consumption is a major factor that contributes to osteoporosis.” Furthermore, Dr. Elson Haas, author of The Detox Diet states, “Tooth loss, periodontal disease, and gingivitis can be problems, especially with a high phosphorus intake, particularly from soft drinks.”

Soda Will Dissolve your Tooth Enamel
Weak bones is just the beginning. According to Dr. James Howenstein. author of A Physician’s Guide to Natural Health Products That Work, the high sugar content of soda is awful. He states, “”In an interesting experiment the sugar from one soft drink was able to damage the white blood cells’ ability to ingest and kill bacteria for seven hours.” Dr. Marion Nestle from his book Food Politics states, “Sugar and acid in soft drinks so easily dissolve tooth enamel.”

Each Additional Soda Increases Risk for Obesity by 1.6 times
So now we’ve got weak bones, weakened immune system, and dissolving teeth. What’s next? Weight gain! Dr. Nestle also concluded, “The relationship between soft drink consumption and body weight is so strong that researchers calculate that for each additional soda consumed, the risk of obesity increases 1.6 times.”

Children Who Drink Soda Break Bones More Easily
Our children aren’t safe, either. Dr. Nestle states, “Adolescents who consume soft drinks display a risk of bone fractures three to four-fold higher than those who do not.” Dr. William Duffy from the Naval Research Institute states, “The high sugar hides the acid. Children little realize they are drinking this strange mixture of phosphoric acid, sugar, caffeine, coloring, and flavoring matter.” Greg Critser from his book Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World states: “A joint study by Harvard University and Boston Children’s Hospital researchers in February 2001 concluded that such excess liquid calories inhibited the ability of older children to compensate at mealtime, leading to caloric imbalance and, in time, obesity.”

Diet Soda Isn’t Any Better
For those of you with a diet soda in your hands, the news isn’t any better, in fact it’s worse! Carol Simontacchi from her book The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children states, “One liter of an aspartame-sweetened beverage can produce about fifty-six milligrams of methanol. When several of these beverages are consumed in a short period of time (one day, perhaps), as much as two hundred fifty milligrams of methanol are dumped into the bloodstream, or thirty-two times the EPA limit.” So, you’re poisoning your body, too.

And when it comes to saccharin, which is a noncaloric petroleum derivative estimated to be three hundred to five hundred times sweeter than sugar: “More than a dozen animal tests over the last thirty years have demonstrated the carcinogenic effects of saccharin in the bladder and other sites, particularly female reproductive organs, and in some instances at doses as low as the equivalent of one to two bottles of diet pop daily.”

With diet soda, you’ve gone from high calories to poisonous levels of methanal and an increased chance of developing cancer. Not a very good trade.

Could Caffeine Jeopardize the Human Race?
Then there’s the caffeine. Jean Carper from her book Food: Your Miracle Medicine : How Food Can Prevent and Cure over 100 Symptoms and Problems states, “tests at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine by Roland R. Griffiths, MD, show caffeine withdrawal can strike people who drink a single cup of strongly brewed coffee or drink caffeinated soft drinks everyday. Further, Dr. Griffiths discovered that caffeine-withdrawal symptoms include not only headache, but also fatigue, mild depression, muscle pain and stiffness, flu-like feelings, nausea and vomiting. And for women: “Those consuming at least one cup of a caffeine-containing beverage per day, such as coffee, tea or soft drinks, were more prone to PMS. And the more caffeine they consumed, the more severe their PMS symptoms.”

Caffeine causes withdrawal with symptoms mimicking a flu and for women it makes PMS even worse. But could caffeine really jeopardize the future of the human race? Yes! “A study on the relationship between caffeine and fertility found that… just one caffeinated soft drink per day was associated with a reduced monthly chance of conception of 50 percent.”

If All That Wasn’t Enough Watch Out for a Asthma and a Rash
And finally there’s the preservative used in soda. Dr. Marcia Zimmerman, author of The A.D.D. Nutrition Solution : A Drug-Free 30 Day Plan states, “Sodium benzoate Sodium benzoate is used as a preservative (microbial control) in foods, including soft drinks, fruit juices, margarine, confections, pickles, and jams. Sodium preservatives add sodium to the diet and reduce the availability of potassium. Some reported reactions to sodium benzoate include recurring urticaria (rash), asthma, and eczema.”

Still Drinking that Soda…..?
Hard to believe that so much mayhem can come from a little can or bottle, but there is absolutely nothing good or redeemable about soda. The sooner you can remove it from your diet, the better. If the FDA were doing its job, it wouldn’t be allowed on the market. If you care about your health and the quality of your life, put the Mountain Dew down!

Taken from Water For Life USA, 1 August 2007

http://www.waterforlifeusa.com/blog/uncategorized/8-ways-soda-fizzles-your-health/

What I Learned at the Warped Tour:

1. It's better to fight your flip-flops in the dirt whilst carrying merch that gains weight as you carry it across the North Florida Desert than to rough it barefoot and fight the prickly things.

2. Beat the rush to the Port A Potties, if you must go at all.

3. Sunscreen. Be it's friend.

4. It's okay if everyone is smelly and dirty, because we're all there for music. So what if half of it isn't very good?

5. Concession food is not that good.

6. It would suck to be responsible to clean up after people who don't seem to care about trash or recycling recepticles.

I was volunteering at the To Write Love On Her Arms booth at an unfortunately slow day, so there weren't many epic conversations but there was, among the throngs, one guy in a band in full support, who had lost his mother to suicide. I can't fathom that. I think of young unhappy teenagers killing themselves, and parents have to bury their children. As unnatural as that is, I would almost think it worse to bury a parent who didn't enjoy life. I would blame myself. Well I'd do that in either case and neither case is a good case.

A young girl who was probably early teens was with her crew, who came up to the tent and answered no to my asking if they were familiar with the story. I told them, and this girl was hanging in the background clearly trying to not seem interested, but investigating. As they left, she said, "I'll have to tell my friend. She cuts." What a line. When she walked away I saw a heart cut into her hand.

That heart has more capacity to hate than to love.

I don't know who you are, you'll probably never read this, but you are worth more than that. Tell your friend....yourself. Don't hide it from me, yourself, or anyone. Build this testimony.

Sadly though that's what we do...we hide our demons. We bury our skeletons under dust and garbage without ever actually mourning and burying it--we need that process. We need to confess to other people. It's how we're wired. Neglecting this all-important human design, this fodder for community deeper than societal excursions, beyond the internet and reality tv, forces us into further exile and bound by more chains.

You need to fess up.

I have been there. I have been haunted. I have been plagued and tormented and I can tell you now that it did not have a chance of stopping until I told someone. Until I let another human being in. I can fabricate God into anything I want into my head and invest my entire being into avoiding the pursuit [but we won't last for long], but the tangible human community, the eyes to look into, the hands to hold...those hands hold back the hands that cut and steal and kill and destroy.

Those are not your hands.

Your hands were meant to lift, to heal, to praise, to hold. Please do those things. Please do not let someone go, even if that means yourself. Please do not let pride keep you captive, telling yourself that you can do it on your own or that no one else cares to hear your pain [I care], or worse: both. Those chains are thick but they are not unbreakable. Please do not believe otherwise. Please do not believe the lies. You are loved beyond measure.

7. Gays, Wiccans, atheists, agnostics and Christians came and created a crowd today. Every human has a beating heart that tells a different story in the grand scheme of things, with a new, smaller story every day with every sun rise. All of these people came to the booth today. All of them had God whispering in their ear; some heard it better than others. All of them are loved beyond measure, equally pursued and equally made deserving by the God who determines everything. They deserve healing. They deserve love on their arms.

And so do you. So do I. Please don't wait.

___________________________________________________________________

Please e-mail, IM, call, or go to lunch with me if you need to talk this out. I don't care if I know you or not. My e-mail's at the top of the page. Please don't wait another day. You know if it needs to be done. You know if there's something missing, replaced by something dangerous. Let the walls fall around you.

I can hear the hearts crying louder than the rocks

Where, when does it start? How can a generational curse be so outstanding that you and I are born into both privilege and poverty, knowing the touch of both God and the devil? Where and when will it end? When will the hungry eat? When will the thirsty drink? When will lives begin and end above the bondage of slavery? When will hate be conquered? Darkness cease and day break? Children not be beaten? Marriages be a lifelong union? Evil end?

All I know is “not now. Not here. Not for a long time. And not by human hands.” We got ourselves into this mess, and I don’t care if you think Adam and Eve is a fairy tale or not, mankind is a diamond covered in tar. And not a diamond from Africa that lives ended to sell to the highest Western bidder, either. A fair-trade diamond unscarred by human error. So when he’s riding in town and his fans are going nuts and the social powers that be told him to shut them up, I understand why he said that if the people were quiet, the rocks would cry out to compensate. The whole world is waiting for redemption. Every child born from his and her mother’s womb is already victim to an apathetic world. Every beating heart wants to be known and loved despite what flaws would be found. Every soul needs acceptance despite inadequacies.

I cannot offer you that.

I have long reached the conclusion that men and women are incapable of meeting such needs. We’re much too selfish. Remove divine love from the equation and we have absolutely no incentive to better the world, to look out for others, to love our neighbors, to love our enemies, to truly love ourselves. To love anyone. Remove agape from the equation and you are left with a world in which orphans are adopted by men who sell their organs on the black market, children are sold into slavery by parents who need money to pay the interest on a $36 dollar debt, human trafficking triumphs under the radar, girls old enough for brushing their teeth and tying their shoes to be their greatest responsibilities are forced into prostitution and beaten for resistance, thousands die weekly of sickness and malnutrition in displacement camps due to decades-long warfare while obesity and prescription drug abuse rages on the other side of the globe, when bullets fly into the bodies of the innocent in public parking lots, women are raped by friends and family, one man voluntarily slits the throat of another, dirty water murders millions annually while others pay $5 for a small bottle from Fiji [$5 to bloodwatermission.com will build a well & revolutionize a dry village], parents hate their children, children hate their parents, eating disorders hold people captive, blades create scars of self-inflicted wounds, and adultery, corporations, abortion, divorce, lies, pornography, theft, jealousy, addictions, greed, debt, disobedience and injustice reign over its inhabitants.

Freedom. I want to be free.

I want to hold back the hands that cut, unlock the prison doors, dance in the sun rise and swim in the waves. I want to scream truth louder than the lies, give the hungry, thirsty, homeless and poor everything they need to meet every single need they have and will have. I want to not be crippled by my past and shortcomings. I want to encourage rather than gossip. I want to bring healing. I want to comfort those who mourn. I want to proclaim victory. I want to lead the way to freedom. Where children can laugh and dance and be embraced by their parents. Where the poor are rich and the last are first. Where addictions are weak and chains are broken. Where the only blood that will be shed has shed and cheeks know not the touch of tears. Where hearts are confident in love and community thrives in fellowship. Where slavery is nonexistent. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom.

I really believe on a deep level that you are reading this and you agree. I really believe on a deep level that this desire is written on our hearts that beat and long to be intimately known and intimately loved, reverberating with souls craving intimate acceptance and intimate freedom. The rocks don’t need to cry out. Our hearts are loud enough.

I don’t claim Jesus of Nazareth because I think it makes me better than you on any falsely-determined level. I don’t claim Jesus of Nazareth because he told or forced me to. I claim Jesus of Nazareth because he didn’t just say these needs needed to be met and someone should do something about that. I claim Jesus of Nazareth because he rose up and met them, because he broke addictions, because he ended slavery, because he conquered evil, speaks only truth, comforts those who mourn, and grasps every starving heart and holds it to his. I claim Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ because he proclaimed freedom to prisoners and liberty to captives.

I cannot offer you that kind of love. I claim the man who can.

Verily, today there is freedom.

Choose this day, not knowing tonight.

I walk on shards of broken glass
I fall to the ground like so much dust
I am never who I'd like to be

Discontent and breaking in
The walls will fall around Jericho

You'll find this on a page in my wonderful moleskine journal dates April 14/15, 2007. Maybe I wrote it at midnight, I don't know. I don't remember writing it. I do know that I meant to elaborate on it later, make it longer, rewrite it in general, but I never got to it. Even tonight I'm not sure where to go with it if ever I chose to lay music on it. It's not very good, let's face it, but there it is. Once in a while I read through this wonderful journal I speak of [wonderful by its own merit, not necessarily the words inscribed on it at this point] to find something to throw up here. Sometimes I find something that strikes my fancy. This is what I like:

The walls will fall around Jericho

I guess now it speaks to me because I just saw it happen in a few different ways. Let's recap: Jericho is this stronghold, this fortress in the Promised Land, and for the weary Israelites to claim their Land, they'd have to take it down. Jericho was a mighty city; lots of people in it, and lots of protection around it. But in the most ridiculous way, God works through His chosen people and the walls crumble down. At that point the bewildered and surely terrified inhabitants of Jericho were easily taken and the rest is history in favor of the Jews. Go read it in Joshua.

Very recently I had the opportunity to read through said book of the Bible with a group of young girls, some closer to adulthood than others without even considering chronological input. In four days, give or take, we covered the major points in Joshua's life. Here's what you need to know about me: I'm easily intimidated by endeavors of eternal consequence, but I thirst for nothing else. Don't give me a job that doesn't matter because you'll find me to be the most haphazardly committed individual you've met. I loved the opportunity to communicate his story, because it is a solid one, but I also skeptically eyed the prospect of doing so to thirteen individuals loved by God.

We're left to know that Joshua was a decisive man. He woke up every morning and every morning he woke up he decided to follow God, to serve this YHWH that had been so faithful to him. To be united with this friend of his. It's a bold decision to make, what your day will be devoted to. Surely the same could be said for your life, but Joshua was wise enough to take things one day at a time. A wiser man once said something similar atop a mountain.

The thing about making a choice at the beginning of the day is you're pledging yourself to an entity before you know the end of the story. So I guess a large dose of faith or self-confidence here enters the equation, whatever you will. Joshua said to "choose this day who you will serve," and it could be his God, YHWH, but if it wasn't then you needed to decide that too. Basically, don't live a day without purpose. Right or wrong, give it to something other than yourself. Now, I, surely like Joshua, knew the correct answer to this. But in any event, this is a guy who had faith, and who pledged himself to God before he put his feet on the floor. Before he had a glass of orange juice. Before he read the paper. Before he logged onto myspace. Before he walked his dog. Before he watched the game. Before he had dinner. Before he tucked his kids in for bed. Before he assessed what happened that day. Before he saw the walls of Jericho crumble. He just knew that they would, indeed, fall down.

At this point I'm standing around the debris of the walls, a spectator. Maybe I had a hand in it, I don't know, but all destruction was the goal and might of YHWH. This group I had the opportunity to meet, and if your eyes read these words you know who you are, some of the members had these walls constructed around their hearts. I didn't see them slowly deteriorate. I saw them crumble, the gates of Hell shaking as it happened. I saw community, I saw love, and I saw freedom. I saw the power of the LORD, I saw the faithfulness of YHWH. I saw the walls of Jericho fall. And in my very priviledged vantage point, I choose this day to put my feet behind those of the Christ who saves and redeems before our very eyes every day. Blessed are those who see and believe, but even more blessed are those who do not see and yet still believe. We have so much evidence, we don't even need a whole lot of faith.

The bit at the beginning that I wrote back in April, like I said I don't remember writing it. I do, but only vaguely and there's a good chance that I'm making it up. I do remember being unhappy with who I was but being broken and looking up at the promise of who I was/am becoming, the sun breaking over the horizon. Promise. I remember knowing nothing other than the fact that I was falling apart and one day it would end, serving its purpose. Let no day pass without serving purpose. I remember heartfelt prayers and thousands of tears wept waiting, wishing for the end. It says in James not to try to get out of trials prematurely, but at that point I'd had it. However, in many ways I think I myself was delaying it. I have these walls around my heart that have been constructed for various reasons, but for God's plan to go on, they have to go. I knew that. I knew they would. I'm not stupid enough to say right now in writing that they're all fallen down and things are all better now. I'm still growing. I don't know how things will go tomorrow, and I don't know the rest of the process. I do know the end. Rescue. Redemption. Glory. The walls will fall around Jericho. I can rest in that. I can choose this day, knowing nothing beyond the sun rise.

only because the stone is rolled and the curtain torn;

Hey you.

Before you read this, before my words cause your thoughts to run and blood to boil, let me just admit right now that this will infuriate you; you will not agree with this message, my perceptions. You will tell your friends, tell them all about your “problem child.” And they’ll side with you, because friends do that. None of them have the authority to challenge you.

I do.

And that’s what’s pissing you off, the unnatural stir of events, assertions on my own part that make you shift in your seat. Shift and shift again. I will not send you this letter. You will not read these words. Give me pen and paper and I will paint the portrait; this leaves you at a mighty disadvantage. I will not fall to the curse of this family, to hide behind letters sent by technology or uniformed men, with futile fervor to bridge the gap between us consisting not of miles but of years of turmoil, resentment, unspoken words, forgotten apologies and consequent harbored bitterness. I am no coward. These words, should they meet you, will leave my face and come upon your own. You’ll threaten to cut the ties, to change the will, and I will walk away. I am not tied to you, I am not your puppet, I am not your punching bag, and I will not be your door mat. You, you will retreat and stew and relive these words, pervert the recollection when you tell the story through your distorted lens. I will sigh over you, and you will continue to plague my thoughts. I will not be free from you. But I will not be under you.

And that’s what scares you. No one else has stood for and by you as I have; no one else has taken your crap. I am the puppy you beat; I always return cowering with my tail between my legs. You had control. You had the power to punch.

You have been battling your own demons since your childhood, for so long that the bleeding wounds now blind you and all you can see is red. Your world is painted with your hatred, and you seek only things to serve you now. You have grown increasingly less selfless over time, convinced you have not been paid your due. Take this up with your debtor if you must, but do not take it up with me.

Keep your cookie cut-out of my character, for it is the only reference you will have to relive the past and design the future in which you want to live. You can choose brokenness or you can choose grace, and my bet is you’ll take the former. You will stay in the ditch you’ve dug yourself, but I will hold the rope for you. I will be near enough only to hear you call my name. But I will not crawl down there with you, and I will not be pulled down. I will not play second to your latest lover, and I will not be kicked just to serve you. I will not be bruised in meeting your demands. Meet them on your own. Take your own advice. Act like an adult. Treat your parents with respect. Grow up and stop immediately assessing every situation as if you are the victim, for I am not always the villain.

I know. This isn’t true, you are never wrong, you are only mistreated and misunderstood. How dare I be so mistaken to write this, let alone allow these thoughts to run amuck in my head as they have? By what authority may I defend myself and choose to lead a better life? Wherever did I get the impression that it is never good enough for you, that you will always find something to attack? Why is it that you cannot live in a state of peace? Why do you never question motives, you never examine the situation, you never account for circumstance? You’ll sleep better if you stay the way you are, cuddled with your skeletons, guarded by your demons. Let them tell you none of this is true, there is nothing wrong, and the world is against you. All your enemies created themselves out of sheer desire; I was born to. I was born to make you miserable. At a young age, before I acquired language, I set out to destroy you. It is your goal to make sure I do not succeed.

Go ahead, and fight that battle. You’ve already lost the war.

Enjoy the dark. The mess you made of me, the lies you spoke of me will join you and haunt you and you will wonder what you did so wrong in a past life that never happened to deserve such offense.

- Yours, if only by blood.

Farewell to lies and textbooks, but I'm keeping my arms.

I have never been awake for such a crummy sunrise as I was on January 11. I have nothing but respect for the way God paints the skies, but the beauty was nearly hidden by overcast clouds, to be completely honest. I kept telling myself it was a new day, but the thought was immediately followed by the next; it was not a new day that I wanted. I hadn’t asked for it. I resented that I couldn’t return it to customer service. But God does not take bargains. God just takes over. There’s no way to pause the sunrise. I learned that the hard way. I went home, I cleaned my apartment, I went to the classes I grew to despise.

Christmas Day is a twenty-four hour block that we tend to celebrate our family with the amount of crap we’re willing to give them. I celebrate the manifestation of redemption in the flesh. In a more painful way, it was on Christmas Day that I was redeemed. The ball started rolling, and it was a slow process. It is over four months later and I am still waiting for the end.

These classes that I went to…they were my identity. Every class I’d taken, every textbook I’d read, every test that I had taken and term paper that bore my name took on part of me just as it had taken on the printer’s ink. And I sat in them on January 11, running through the events that were beginning to unfold and redefine the world I lived in. Nearly four months have passed; two more days will meet the mark. In the proverbial grand scheme of things, four months is not a long time by any means. I call sets of them “semesters.” Yet this one was the hardest one, and this one took eternity to end.

On January 5^th, I got a flat tire.

On January 7^th, I reclaimed my heart and gained a new friend.

On January 11^th, I lost perspective because I thought I’d lost another.

On January 13^th, I interviewed for a job I was sure I’d get.

On January 14^th, I lost my expensive car key to a lame roller coaster.

On January 15^th, I got a flat tire. Again.

On January 16^th, I got my oil changed, and my tired patched for free. I was naïve enough to think it was over.

On January 23^rd, I got a ticket.

On February 20^th, I quit being the student I felt like I needed to be and went to a party disguised as a rock show.

On February 23^rd, I postponed one trip and went on another.

On February 24^th, I made friends with a new journal and renounced every demon that has held me down since the early beginnings of my childhood.

On February 26^th, I made some new goals for myself. I wrote them on a mirror to see them in my reflection.

On February 27^th, my grades paid the price and I lost my life goals, security, and identity within a matter of hours. I made a new deal with God, and I haven’t made life plans on my own since.

On February 28^th, I was swept away.

On February 29^th, I got the chance to spend a day or two adding to the Adventures.

On March 1^st, I didn’t get the job.

On March 4^th, I learned that in most cases, the body of Christ fails to meet the needs of the marginalized.

On March 11^th, a sixty-day drought ended.

On March 17^th, I drove hundreds of miles on three hours sleep and it was wonderful because I am blessed. I got made fun of for driving tame, but I didn’t get pulled over once.

On March 18^th, I co-wrote a paper that wasn’t mine on a book I’ve never read.

On March 20^th, I slept in my car. Don’t hate me cuz you ain’t me.

On March 28^th, I became better friends with my dad. [My dad’s awesome].

On April 3^rd, I got schooled and disillusioned.

On April 8^th, I got honest and a vision. Good things will happen because of it.

On April 10^th, I got humble. I have a long way to go.

On April 16^th, I took a step forward.

On April 18^th, I scheduled my life for the latter four months of 2007.

On April 28^th, I got another ticket, gained perspective, lower-back pain, and better friendships.

On April 29^th, I got mad at America’s insatiable greed.

On May 1^st, I got a much-needed love letter.

On May 4^th, I woke up with less homework, less guilt and easier breaths.

On May 5^th, I got a book I’ve been wanting to read, someone else’s story.

On May 8^th, I got a warm, fuzzy feeling.

On May 9^th, I had a good day.

On May 10^th, I wrote this at 2 in the morning.

This is my story. I spent hours with dear friends, mostly on Tuesdays, doing little more than conquering Guitar Hero and sharing each other’s lives. I’ve been given countless bites to eat, and you will get greater reward than I can offer for it. I missed the calls that came to me and mostly left messages on those I made. Countless hugs warmed my heart, and the course of my spirit was altered by your prayers.

If you’re reading this, you probably had a hand in this season. You’re a part of this chapter. The hand of God is clutching my heart through my chest, pulling me from the grave. Christmas Day lacked the peace I expected it to have, and was a catalyst of change. This is not over. I have important relationships to repair, wounds that I still must have healed.

Tomorrow is May 11, 2007. The sun will rise on a new day, a welcome day, and begin a new set of four months. I will learn new things, meet new people, and bear more light. I will shed more tears, have more laughs, see more darkness and experience new rescue. I will lead, and I will reclaim. I will write and play and read and run and love more deeply than I’ve ever been capable. I will get tired, and I will try harder. I will feel defeated but I will have victory. I will move and I will sleep under several roofs and I will write more letters and continue this story. I will come, see, and conquer. I will return to the classroom in fall just like before, but this time I will be free. My identity will not be printed on paper, double-spaced in twelve-point font. I will not be defined by letters. I will be given grace and confidence and love. Hope will wake me up in the morning. This is not a farewell to arms. This is a call to rise.

The Consequences of Being Displaced

Prior to April 28^th, 2007, I was a quiet activist. I signed the One campaign, I said my prayers for world peace. I slipped a few bucks here and there to charity. I went to class and did my homework, went to work and told my stories. I rattled off statistics like I knew what I was talking about. I wrote songs on guitars I received as gifts, wrote my words in journals like I had the right to share them. I drove around the car I didn’t pay for and slept in the apartment for which I didn’t pay rent [thank you, Dad]. I lived the life of opportunity I was born into. That was my story.

On April 28^th, 2007, I participated in Invisible Children’s Displace Me with 67, 870 other people in fifteen cities across the country. My friends and I joined the ranks at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. We simulated our own refugee camp to bring media attention to the guerrilla warfare in Uganda that has brought unspeakable consequences to the nation. Millions have died. Thousands die each week. In the chunks of my life that I call semesters, 16,000 people will die unnecessarily at hand of treatable diseases and malnutrition at Ugandan camps alone. Keep in mind that Uganda is not the only place in which this is happening. When I parked my car at UCF, my friends and I said our prayers that the lives of those affected will change; that the actions of Americans will bring blessing to the needy in Africa. I don’t think I was smart enough to pray for my own life to change, but it did. I learned a few things this weekend:

1. Right now, at this very moment, millions of people are hungry, thirsty, and completely incapable of doing anything about it. When they can, their food has the nutritional value of saltine crackers [which I imagine gets old real fast] and their water is dirty. For this, their immune system is weakened.
2. Sleeping on anything less than a well-made mattress blows beyond measure, and your body will hate you for it. Particularly your lower back. Do it for one night, and days later you still will not have recovered. Do it for years and it will kill you slowly, namely through smacking your already weakened immune system upside its hurting head.
3. For us, eating a few saltine crackers, drinking limited rations of clean, bottled water and creating our own cardboard campsite to slumber party with 5,000 people was cool. We got to wake up and eat a lovely breakfast at Perkin’s with student discounts, shower when we got home in warm, running water with name-brand soap, shampoo and conditioner, and sleep in a real bed that night and every night thereafter unless we choose otherwise. Fabulous. For them, they eat crap and drink dirt and can’t farm their own land back “home” (a very flexible term at this point) and sleep on what I assume is at best a sturdy concoction of mud and straw, unable to work for income and largely dependent on charity. If it hasn’t already happened, it’s in the works for the UN to drastically cut this charity. [Tell them not to].
4. There is an entire generation of children orphaned by AIDS and abduction. The lucky ones still have at least one parent. They walk every night to centers to protect them against the Lord’s Resistance Army, who have taken it upon themselves to raid villages and kidnap human beings and essentially make them their slaves. Parents are separated from their children. Women are raped. Children are taught early on that innocence is not theirs to have. Young girls are raped before they know what sex is. Young boys are told guns are easy to use. I doubt they even know what they are fighting for, other than to not lose their own life to the cause. In many ways, I think they already have. I’ve read, at least in terms of sex slavery, that there are 27 million slaves worldwide. I don’t know if this also accounts for those abducted by guerrilla rebels. This is the stuff of movies. I still can’t process that it’s actually the stuff of real life, that as I write this, there is genuine weeping throughout the world. That as you read this, lives have either ended or dramatically changed for the worse at the hands of others. The opposite is also true, and it is hope that carries us onward.
5. There is a movement in the youth of America, and fortunately the music community is fostering its growth. Music has the power to move and change, and that’s what is required right now. Most of the participants this weekend fell into the youth of America. This is our cause, this is what our generation will be known for—our response to the world’s depravity.

On April 29^th, 2007, I returned home. A few things have changed that I think are indicative of a greater movement within me: I say grace before meals, just like before, but now I really mean it when I say “thank You.” I lay on my bed grateful for its existence. It's not even mine, to be honest with you. I appreciate my showers on a whole new level. I study for finals, joyful that I have the chance at literacy, let alone higher education. I drink my clean, bottled water aware of how quickly it takes for thirst to set in when you can’t quench it. I have so little to complain about, and all it took was one sissified attempt at poverty for fifteen hours for me to realize it. My story just started a new chapter.

This war has not ended, and the problem is not contained. It is global. Please join me in this plight. We cannot rewrite history, but we have the rest of the future. We have the world’s story to change.

www.invisiblechildren.com/displaceme

A Tale of Two Geese

[This was originially written on 26 April 2006; in many ways it is an immature piece, but it is one of my favorites, and to launch the Ketuvim project I am first using old material. I apologize if you've read this before, but maybe there's something new you'd like to add]

Typically I think of good intros for these things. Or what I think are good introductions. This time is no different. What makes it unique, though, is that I forgot my good introduction. I had a final this morning that I nearly slept through, and when I got home I decided to embrace being up and went to hang out by one of the lakes and read. I could go back to sleep at this point, because I hung a dark, folded sheet on my window [ghetto curtains] last night because the girls in the next building leave their blinds wide open and the light on all day long also leave the light on with their blinds wide open all night long. Their light is brighter at that point than the surrounding campus buildings and parking garage. And it disturbs my sleep. I fixed the problem last night. So at this point I could sleep well in mid-afternoon. This is all besides the point.

There were 5 geese, give or take. One of the things I really, really like about UNF is that it's a nature preserve & we have tons of trees, a healthy share of lakes, and ducks. Year round. But the real treat is the Canadian Geese that come here seasonally to have their babies, give them time to grow feathers and learn to fly, and then they go home. In time, they'll be back. Like I said, it's a seasonal thing.

So I was out by the lake this morning, reading, and the geese were pretty peaceful and from time to time I'd look up and observe them, and the way the green trees reflected on the blue water below a pale blue sky with some white fluffy clouds. It was all very peaceful, really.

One of these geese was all by its lonesome, and I noted it more and more because it kept....attacking the other geese. It'd start vocalizing up a storm and then fly over to the other ones and they would fly away. [By "fly" I mean juuuuust above the water line, and if I had a fancy camera there'd be some spectacular pictures]. This goose was Cuba, and the other geese were democratic countries pushing the International / Cuban water boundary lines. And really, the other geese were not doing anything harmful [they're democratic & believe in the pursuit of happiness & freedom for all], just hanging out, swimming around. But this rogue goose, it was just mean. And actively rejecting all possible social engagement.

I started to think about people who do this in their own lives. I started to think about how I do this in my own life. How it's probably not a good thing to live in isolation. And I don't just mean antisocials, or the unabomber. I mean you and me, in the ways that we've decided to guard ourselves from further emotional torment by just cutting off any and all potential sources of evildoing. You know how democracy can seem shady sometimes.

What really happened was I was out there reading my Bible, Blue Like Jazz, and jotting things down for this summer [I'm really quite consumed by my plans and intentions for this summer]. And anytime I read Don Miller I wonder what would happen if we were all introspective, self-critical, and aware of our self-endangerment. I honestly believe it would change the world. It would be a better place. It's ironic, isn't it, that to live more fully we have to embrace every shortcoming? I almost want to be Don Miller, solely because I think he's brilliant. I think he's very good at articulating the secret to the universe. What I mean is he's very good at communicating God.

After a while, it became No-Geese-In-The-Water time. Like at public pools, they clear all the kids out for a good half an hour for adult swim, and the kids have to find a way to entertain themselves. I think my rogue goose is the force that prompted it; he made everyone else want to leave. And they did. This pair of geese wandered out together, and one of them pooped as they walked. Geese are very good at multi-tasking.

Eventually Rogue Goose got out of the water too, but didn't still stray from the area he was patrolling. There's this point by the mailboxes where there's something of a peninsula in the water. It's very small. But that was Cuba. All you could see was a very gentle push over the water by the wind, and honestly if it weren't a college campus UNF is the type of environment I would go camping in [though I'm very interested in seeing how campus authorities would react, I don't want to camp on the green. The sprinklers are very unpredictable]. I felt bad for the geese that left because it was really nice at the lake. But I suppose they went off to greener pastures. Rogue Goose, on the other hand, stayed right there in Cuba.

See this is relevant to me because I have created Cuba. I've made this tightly-mortarted wall around my heart and decided I was better off that way. I saw myself in Rogue Goose. And in ten years, I don't see it now but I'll see it in ten years, all the other geese will be around me, in my vicinity, in my environment, swimming in my same lake, and I'll aggressively make them leave. Fidel Castro has no friends. Maybe the Soviets. I actually don't think it's that bad, I function just fine. I really don't think I'm pushing that extreme. Maybe if I didn't read Don Miller I would be. Or, and more likely, if I didn't know Jesus. But I half-believe that if everyone else saw a parallel between this goose and human behavior, we'd be better off. And more forgiving. We all do it. We're either the Rogue Goose or we're the ones who leave Rogue Goose to his own lonely devices.

I came to a good stopping point in my reading so I could come home and tell everyone about Rogue Goose and the democrats. I partially believe anyone who has read this has successfully wasted minutes in what is ultimately a very short life, but thanks for making it this far regardless. Have a good day and be friendly to your neighborly wildlife.