These are days
days spent with
arm over ear and temple
headache spilling
out and over the brim
of these eye lids
and the light
like splintered glass
breaks apart the
silence as it all
comes crashing in
the drapes drawn tight
but never tight enough
leak faster than
gossip told in
the presence of church ladies…
these are the days
when the world doesnt
stop rotating, while this heart
hesitating self-hating
the undulating tempest
of this temple of God
i guess this temple
needs a little work
some sprucing up wouldnt
hurt either…
still let me know
digest another pill
with cold tap water
and pay homage
to the couch surfer
one last time.
Blog
I Am me
I am closing these eyes
Breathing deeply…for a moment
I am wiping the sweat from
My brow and furrowed forehead
I am casting one more
Quarter in the wishing well
And praying at the same time
I am double tying my shoes
Extra tight and
checking my fly again
I am casting sideways glances
Into faces I’ve never known
Could they be friend or my neighbor?
I am mostly convinced
Mostly…still riding the fence
Good thing it’s not picket
I am often times wrong
But under my breath I
Will admit it to the confession
Booth of one
I am almost older than
I feel but again
Don’t count on that confession
Either…
I am more than cover art
On the front page
Waist even neck deep
In pages yet unread
I am thankful
Over and over
Again.
In His Returning (The Prodigal)
If I am lost…
If these hands
no longer
Grasp you
If these feet,
Feeble and calloused
Refuse to inch forward
Static… and alone
If this body,
Aching and groaning
Heart ache
Life ebbing away
Flowing out more
Than flowing in
If this is who
I am now…
If I am found
If I am empty
Then I am powerless
I am a broken
Vessel
Used up
Dropped and shattered
If I am lost…
Who can save?
Who can save…me?
Because if I am lost
If I am indeed static
Like an empty radio signal
If this is me…
Who will rescue this…
This mess
Who would even dare
To care?
Everything flows out of me
Except for this empty
Am I my own worst
Enemy?
Is there any hope left…
For me?
Just when I pray
For the end…
The end of this
The end of all things
Within this broken
Shattered heart
Within the shell
Of an empty man
Something happens
It’s not desperation
nor spiritual exsanguination
this mind has not
left for vacation
but something happens
from the outside
flowing life back into me
something I can’t explain
Fear replaces hopelessness
It ignites my fingertips
Ignites and increases my shallow breathing
Fear gives way to something
Long lost to me…
A warmth, blanket thick
Envelops me
I am assured
With arms around me
That I am safe
I am home
Was I lost? Was I truly found?
Then I hear his words
In my ear
A feast for me
For me? I don’t deserve anything but blame and guilt…for me? My savior
My hope…turns and says to others near
This is my son…he was lost but now he’s found
My life, my love, my joy is returned to me
Come let us help him see
Let us celebrate in his
Returning.
A Prayer
when the clouds have rolled back
when the pain cascading over
has receded passed our broken hearts
when the tides of confusion too
have drifted, current strong back into the deep
there, my soul, we will be free.
When the strength of ebb and tide
flows through our veins
when worries no longer drive us insane
and the peace of the Divine
enters us once again
that is where I will want to remain.
Don’t capsize me dear Lord
I am weak and without sword
but You have never left my side
through pain and sorrows been my guide
Provide Your light
return my sight
All to You I give, all for You
I will live.
“On your mark…get set…”
Philippians 3:14-16 (MSG)
14 I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.
15 So let’s keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you’ll see it yet! 16 Now that we’re on the right track, let’s stay on it.
You’ve seen it before, athletes staring down the track, or focusing on the ball and not idly chattering with others before the game or competition. They are visualizing the finish line, the victory, the means to get from point A, where they are now, to point B the completion. Every step of the runner is considered. Every eventual or possible play by the sports star is thought through. The journey to the finish line is not easy. A lot of preparation beforehand must be made. To simply show up at the competition without first preparing the mind and body will most likely lead an athlete down the track of failure.
Within the preparation of the athlete, not only are the possibilities of each footstep or play considered, but also the dangers. There are risks involved in competing. Injuries can occur. One false step or hesitation could lead to a devastating injury of the athlete. If the mind of the athlete is not prepared to engage in split second, total commitment then mistakes and second thoughts could lead to bodily harm.
The athlete must be prepared to engage in battle, so to speak. They prepare themselves for the opposing force. A good athlete studies his or her adversities, weaknesses, and those he or she is competing against. When this knowledge is secured, 100% is given to the effort of success, anything less than full commitment is unacceptable. It has been said that an athlete leaves it all on the court, meaning they give it their all nothing less than everything.
Is that how our relationship with Christ is? Are we committed 100% to this allegiance? Or are we crucified with Christ only on the weekends or just certain holidays? We short change the power of God and His moving in our lives if we aren’t fully committed to Him daily. Like an athlete that the Apostle Paul describes, we have to focus and press on towards the goal. Becoming like Christ, following in His footsteps take real courage and commitment! We can’t be fair weathered about it. If we are fair weathered Christians then we aren’t fully engaged in this forward motion of becoming like Christ! Just as the athlete who flinches or hesitates mid-step the consequences could be devastating to our forward progress.
The message version of the above passage says in verse 15, “If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you’ll see it yet!” Note that God can and will guide us in the spiritual discipline of obedience. We can’t be amateur athletes of faith all of our lives. He wants more from us. God knows what we’re capable of even beyond what we know of ourselves. We cannot feast on spiritual baby formula for the rest of our earthly lives. God wants us to grow, mature and develop in us a deeper understanding of this faith that He gives us. In so doing we will realize, like Paul, the ultimate goal is Christ-likeness the prize is the eternal reward but we can live it today! We can live as eternal children of God today, but it requires our full commitment and obedience to His promptings and guiding of our lives. Anything less than a full or total commitment will cause us to doubt. A halfhearted commitment will cause us to doubt ourselves, our initial motivations, even our salvation. Halfhearted commitment will also have us question the relevancy of God in our lives and that of His power and might.
We cannot afford to be halfhearted in our focus and our aim as Christ-followers. It’s all or nothing. We too must leave it all on the court.
If any of us are lacking focus or commitment today, first of all know that you’re not alone! Every one of us struggles from time to time with our faith. Sometimes our old selves causes us to hesitate and also trips us up along the way. But it’s what we do next that counts. Get back up and keep running, keep our focus on the prize, the model of holy living: Christ himself. There’s a prayer chorus that says this;
“All there is of me, Lord,
All there is of me,
Time and talents, day by day,
All I bring to thee;
All there is of me, Lord,
All there is of me,
On thine altar here I lay
All there is of me.”
Get back out there and run and don’t look back! Get on with it!
Winter Doldrums and Spring Blues
I am pouring myself another cup of heavy ambrosial espresso. I admit it, I have cabin fever! It’s not as cold as it used to be, the snow is melting and with the rise of temperatures and melting snow there is slush and water everywhere. Anyone else strongly dislike getting their feet wet in subzero temperature water? Yet here I am sipping my hot coffee, itching for some sun shine yet reluctant to crack the door and test the wetness of the ground with my toes. There’s only so much television to watch, and books to read and naps to take before you begin to feel it rise within you like blood pressure in a hot tempered person.
I am tired of the winter months. I can’t confess this enough! I do not enjoy it anymore. As far as I’m concerned the snow can depart come December 26th and arrive December 25th the next year. Obviously that’s just me, and for others this is their cup of tea…you can keep it all.
I am sipping, leaning back on this creaking chair, the sounds of the tv echoes off the photo gallery of my family on the wall. Here I am…winter doldrums, spring blues…itching my spirit like poison ivy on the skin. April…is that you knocking on my door?
Just because
I’m sitting in this parking lot,
The hyperactive kid is throwing
Balls of snow and ice at
The van while he dances to
A tune only he can hear
And then lays down in
The field of white and communes
With the snow angels.
Sometimes we need to be like that
simplified
Unfettered
Unrestrained
All engaged and who cares
What others think in the process…
Sometimes we worry too much
Stress over things that we can’t control and it weighs on our souls
It ages us, wages war with us
And we are weary
Closing our eyes and pulling
Out our hair in frustration…
Sometimes,
Maybe today,
Maybe tomorrow
We get out there
And commune with the
Snow angels too…just because.
Progressing or Protecting the Status Quo?
“Discontent with the status quo is a great catalyst for vision.” –John Maxwell
“…there is still a need for those of us nestled deep within the Christian bubble to look beyond the status quo and critically assess the degree to which we are really living biblically.” –Francis Chan
‘You’ve got to leave your past in your behind’ –Pumba (the Lion King)
What is it organizational or even denominationally that instills this thought that the status quo must be kept? In The Salvation Army I think we often wrongly use the song “So we’ll lift up the banner on high…” as a rally cry to what we’ve done instead of what we could be doing. The Status quo can be healthy, it can be a source of good…but when it becomes the main thing instead of the Main Thing, then we’ve lost our perspective and we need vision realignment.
I humorously remember the time that I went to the optometrist and had my eyes dilated so that they could get a good view of the present health of my vision. I had to wait for a few minutes after the drops were administered so that the chemical reaction within my eye could appropriately take place. Then under a lighted scope the doctor peered into the eye. Thankfully nothing was wrong but following the simple procedure I was to go out and select the style of glasses that I would like to wear. No one warned me that my vision was now slightly impaired, the pupils were twice their normal circumference and would be sensitive to light. There I was, slightly yet temporarily impaired, trying to study the color, shape and style of my – would be glasses.
I probably looked rather funny that day, holding the glasses close to my face while wearing those ridiculous plastic sun visors over my eyes. The thought occurred to me in the process of picking out my new glasses, that the optometrists of the world had a very spectacular sense of humor and I would have to live with glasses that I had picked while still very much visually impaired.
Protecting, even upholding the status quo as the measure by which we have to lead by or vision cast for the future is like picking out glasses while your eyes have just been fully dilated…it just doesn’t make sense and on the outside is a humorous moment to behold. The status quo is defined by how things are currently, and I would add that they become that way currently but living beyond the status quo of our past.
Within The Salvation Army sphere, had William Booth upheld the status quo of his day, He would have remained a Methodist minister and conducted his evangelical ministry from behind the doors of the church. But to move beyond status quo of today means we must take risks. Sometimes risks are unpopular because the waters surrounding ‘risk’ are untried and turbulent. No one enjoys change if they are not the one propelling the change. Yet to remain within the status quo, to play it safe, to keep things the way they have been or are currently is to be like the miserly servant of the master who was entrusted one talent in the Parable that Jesus told, the servant goes and buries the treasure because the risk was too great for him. He played it safe and so when it was time that the Master called together his servants again after returning this miserly servant proclaimed; “ ‘Sir, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered, ‘Evil and lazy slave! So you knew that I harvest where I didn’t sow and gather where I didn’t scatter? Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received my money back with interest! Therefore take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten. For the one who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless slave into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’” Matthew 25:24-30
The Status quo is not what we are called to uphold. This measurement is manmade, temporary and can only tell us of where we’ve been but not where we’re to be in the future. Leaders cannot or should not be willing to settle for and rely on the things that we’ve already done for the kingdom. We can’t hang our hats on them, pat our stomachs and stop casting the vision for tomorrow. When we settle, when all of our energies are expended to protect the status quo watch out because inevitably if we remain there God will appoint someone else in our place more willing to take the risks that we are not. It is my hope and prayer that this never happens.
“Faith in God’s revelation has nothing to do with an ideology which glorifies the status quo.” -Karl Barth
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The Perils of Propagating Apathy
Apathy:
1.
lack of enthusiasm or energy: lack of interest in anything, or the absence of any wish to do anything
2.
emotional emptiness: inability to feel normal or passionate human feelings or to respond emotionally
There’s a real danger in our world today. It’s not death…well not initially…it could be linked like some shoe string cousin. It’s not any kind of phobia. It’s apathy. I’ve talked about this danger before but sometimes it needs to be belted out through a bull horn before we wake up to its dangerous venom. Unlike hate or violence or any other kind of life threatening plague on humanity, Apathy can inflict the worst kind of sickness on the spirit on mankind.
There have been countless stories of real life examples of this disease. A woman in the state of California was mugged in broad day light and no one would come to her rescue…she fought with her attacker as he tried to swipe her purse In Broad Day Light! The only person that did come to her rescue was a homeless man who happened to be nearby. Everyone was far too busy to even care about her life threatening situation.
It’s hard to imagine people witnessing something of a violent nature and not doing something about it. Perhaps there was an element of fear or self-preservation, but to do nothing when one has the opportunity to do something…mind boggling. You might content that I wasn’t there so I couldn’t judge the merits of the would be witnesses…true and yet this is just a small example of this plight of apathy in our world today.
As Christians images of the parable of the Good Samaritan come to mind. Read it now from the Message version:
Luke 10:30-38 (MSG)
30 Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. 31 Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. 32 Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man. 33 “A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. 34 He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. 35 In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’
36 “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”
37 “The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”
Did you catch the last thing Jesus said to the teachers of the law in this passage? “Go and do the same.” Go and do the same as what? The same as the Priest? The same as the Levite? NO! The same as the Good Samaritan. It’s funny that the one person that the Jews would have avoided in their lives came to the rescue of this man. The person with the least to offer gave what he could to the hurt and possibly dying man. That doesn’t sound like an apathetic person to me. This parable captures an attitude that we too should adopt in our lives.
Do you care enough?
Can we say that we would have done the same in our lives? Are we people who care about more than just ourselves? Are we willing to risk something not for ourselves but for someone else? For a complete stranger?
You do for me! (Jesus)
Matthew 25:34-40 (MSG)
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation.
35 And here’s why: I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, 36 I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 “Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? 38 And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’
39 40 Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’
Do care enough? Do you care at all for others or those around you? Apathy is a deadly disease of the spirit, and if we let it loose in our lives we run the risk of not only missing out on blessings but much more. We could lose our very souls. That is a very, very scary proposition to think on!
Get on with it!
In a very real aspect, we can rid ourselves of this plague of Apathy by getting on with it! What I mean is that we ought to stop talking about loving others or helping others by actually doing something about it! Take action! Roll your sleeves up and get to work!
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” -C.S. Lewis
Enjoyment or Disappointment (I think It’s time)
We bite our nails
Pluck strands from our crowns
And dream we were someone else
Somewhere else
Anywhere but here
But underneath it all
Under the grit
The grime
The labor, the time
Under our fingernails too short
And the receding of our hair
Is that spark
That vivid hope
That longing to breathe free
Like our lady of liberty with torch
Bearing light to the lingering masses
We live, yet seldom
Live to enjoy it…
We drink in disappointments
Yet seldom stop to bathe
In the ineffable laughters
Of the moment
It all falls down
Below the expectations
Below the frustrations
And then we wake up
With nothing
But our fears
Why?
For what?
Perhaps we shouldn’t
Let moments pass like that
Perhaps we have dined
On the ugly for far too long
Perhaps it’s time
Time to change that
Time to reinvent
Ourselves
Our minds
Our hearts
Time to refrain
And begin again.
Pastor's Ponderings 