life life and more life

the heart is the core of who we are... our understanding, intellect, emotion, desire, will. unguarded and exposed, things tear away at it and everything is affected. and the heart numb, it almost stops living. it doesnt even know what to feel or think, or be. its just pumping and keeping you half conscious.

i am seeing my heart bruised and bleeding, me holding my skin together to keep it all inside- the bleeding- feeling like maybe i did this, i deserve this, not sure what happened. and the blood is drying and somehow in the shock of it, i got a needle and stitched myself up- the black thread stark on flesh. and in waking, i am wiping away the blood ... seeing my skin fresh again.

yes, there is an awakening. dead, numb -- for months. and now, awake. but not a sudden jolt, not an anxious awareness of a different state... its a slow waking, like on a good morning, when you have rested and are ready to get up and have a full day... ready to face it.


in that awakening, the heart, to do what it does best (which is to love), must forgive. at times, forgiveness feels impossible, impossible. but forgiveness and love, in the face of the reality of sin, are "inextricably bound together. God is continually, literally, second-by-second covering our sin under his sons blood and forgiving us our sins. God cannot love us unless He forgives us and cannot forgive us without a committment to love us. Love and forgiveness are equally bound together in all human relationships." (dan allender)


and so, the heart must forgive. not simply feel like forgiving, but must chose to forgive.

"Forgiveness is a not a feeling. Neither is it simply trying to forget the bad things done to us. it is an act of the will and heart. It is giving a person something they have not earned the right to have-- pardon. Forgiveness acknowledges that we have been wronged but it goes beyond that and extends mercy." (floyd mcclung)

In isaiah 53, we are given a prophecy about jesus and reminded of the bloody, violent sacrifice made that we might be forgiven. the images we see and feel are both the description of that violent sacrifice and the beautiful truth that forgiveness offers -- to be whole and to live.

"But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed."


"Still, it's what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain.The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God's plan will deeply prosper through him."


this heart can no longer hide because it is numb. its feeling again, finally. and so it choses forgiveness. how can it not?

"Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you."eph 4:32

the novelty of youth --- and --- loneliness

i am at the national pastors convention this week in san diego. its quite good for me to be out of normal life for awhile. i do feel like one of the youngest people here, though, and its been ego boosting in a probably prideful and self-serving way. i feel like the token representative of youth here. like these older pastoral types (mostly white guys from middle america) are here and they are valid in their experience and insight, but i, yes i, hold the elusive understanding of what it is to be young (young!), hip (yes, hip!- well sort of), in tune with culture (the young hip culture!) and part of an emerging church (a young hip culturally saavy emerging church!). so i walk around feeling special and different and noticed. and i like it. in fact, i like it a little too much, i think, because i can tell my pride is making me think i am better than everyone. and then, as i sat chatting with dan and one of his friends and dan says he "stays young" by spending time with me and getting my insights, the reality struck me: my youth is simply a novelty.

and it will only last me so long.

so what is more substantial in me that i have to offer to others, even now, in my youth? because my youth is not my substance and it will not sustain.

also, loneliness. i came down here alone and spent the last day and half navigating around alone, with bits of hang out time with other people, but mostly alone. i enjoyed the novelty (such a good word) of the alone-ness, but a few hours ago, it began to feel heavy. i just like having people around who know me and can relate to me and get me. its good for me to feel this loneliness, as it helps me understand how it feels and how people in my life and church community might feel when they are new, alone, lonely, out of place. its vaccuous feeling. and real- palpable loneliness.

innocence

dan spoke tonight about how we need to be constantly recognizing our identity as justified and righteous in gods sight... and how living the identity as one who is set free from sin and seen as holy and pure by god should inspire and encourage and compell us to live lives striving for purity and holiness. though we are sinners and fall short, if we constantly live in that identity, we can never break out of our cycle of sin-- and can sometimes even use our idea that we are "just sinners" to justfiy us staying in sin and subtly abusing God's grace and forgiveness. it was an important reminder for us all, as we humans are in the constant state of understanding our need for this, then failing... thinking we have it right and then falling flat on our face to find we need to be lifted back up again.

dan quotes cs lewis at the end of his message

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased"

as part of the gathering, the creative arts team had set up a prayer path, with small pretty stones covered in mud. the prayer path was to kneel down at the "mudpie" and put your hands in it, recognizing that as we continue to sin and not strive for holiness, we are settling for mud. the second part of the path was to take one of these small stones out of the mud, wash it in a basin of water and wipe it clean, recongizing that we can chose to not play in the mud and see the true beauty of purity in our lives.

as i approached the prayer station, one of the kids in our community stood by the station observing people go through the path, telling them "you can keep those if you want, you know." as i kneeled down next to him, i felt like i should feel this heavy weight on me, that i should bear the guilt of sins i have committed knowing full well that i was taking advantage of Gods grace. but instead there was this bright boy, his innocence radiating, reminding me that this small stone, representing the innocence and purity and holiness i have in Gods sight, can indeed be kept by me. i invited him to pick a stone out with me and we both picked them out together, put them in the water, feeling the mud sticky, then washed away in one simple act. then wiped clean in the towel.

i looked at it in the light, held it up. "look," i told him, "hold it up to the light!" and he did and it was a moment, both of us holding up our stones, letting the light shine through.