Anything but this...

When the children were young and we were so very deep in debt there was no way out, when we were forced to one inescapable conclusion - that we had to declare bankruptcy - I groaned inside. "Oh God. Anything but this."

But of course it happened. And through it, I learned about mercy, and grace, and forgiveness, and provision. I learned which people were our friends and which ones didn't want to have anything to do with us because they judged us. I learned how God can take the most awful experiences of our lives and teach us lessons we need to learn: how to live within our means, for one thing. 

When the government came after my husband and took him to court - and we had no money to fight them - when they broke every promise they made to us when he stood trial, I closed my eyes and said, "God. Anything but this." But it happened anyway... and through that experience we learned the pain of being falsely accused with no way to fight back, and we learned who stayed, and who judged. We also learned even more about God's provision, and were given even more opportunities to forgive.

When our child was injured and had to undergo surgery - when she faced unjust treatment by one health care professional after another - when she was declared disabled ... I dropped my head to my chest and sighed, "Oh God. Anything but this." But through that experience we learned how to ask for what we needed, how to accept help, and how to see light even in the midst of darkness. 

When our other child rebelled, hung out with people who were in trouble with the law, stole for them, stole from us, and finally wanted to leave the province, I ached inside ... "God. Please. Anything but this." I was so scared, felt so rejected. But ... she left anyway. And through her leaving, I realized that the hedge of protection that I had placed around her no longer protected her because she had chosen to leave. At the same time, and probably BECAUSE of that loss of protection, I learned how to trust Him for all things, how she needed to be away from that protection to see how bad things were "out there".  I learned how to let go more and more of my need to control the outcome, and how to develop a relationship with her that grew more and more precious in such a short time. And I knew the joy of seeing that same child embrace a vibrant relationship with God - something she never would have done had she stayed. 

When she got evicted and had to live in her car, when she fought fatigue, sickness, hunger and cold for days and days ... making her so exhausted she fell asleep at the wheel and was killed ... I cried in anguish, "Oh GOD! Anything but this!!"  But of course, through the searing pain of loss, I learned the sweetness of God's presence, the wonder of true friendship, the amazing impact of her legacy the more I told her story, and the empathy that allowed me to be there for someone else who lost her own daughter not long after that. 

More and more I am convinced that God uses the darkest, most terrifying experiences of our lives to show us His great love and to make us stronger for whatever is around the bend. I have learned this through the things I have gone through, usually kicking and screaming like some petulant child. He is patient with me. I am learning.

Photo "Doctor In Surgery" by
taoty at www.freedigitalphotos.net

When my brother got cancer, and needed to have surgery, I knew by then that God was going to work something amazing out of it all. And He did. The surgeon got all the cancer. There is none left. Sure, there are physical problems still, and it is hard, but God has this under control. 

When my mom got dementia and went wandering one day last month, and had to be put into protective custody in the hospital, part of me went to that place of fear: "Dear God, no. Not this." But this time, I didn't stay there. I started to see how God was working even in the midst of this horrible thing in our family. I can see God's love in the situation even while she waits, still wanting to go home, to be placed into a nursing home - the last place she ever wanted to go. In spite of all of that, I have confidence that He will make a way in that wilderness just like He did with all the other barren places I have mentioned, and way more besides. 

He does this because He loves us. He LOVES US. Not because there is anything we've done or not done - but because He WANTS to. That's it. No more than that. 

And I am sure that He will amaze us all. And that He will delight in His lavish love when our jaws drop at how good He is to us.

So ... when people ask me to pray for God to take something away from them that is hurting them, or hurting someone they love, I will pray - of course! But I pray for God to do the same kinds of miracles that He did for me and for us, ... for them.  I pray that He shows them His presence not only with them, but IN the whole situation. I pray that they have peace, that they will learn the joys of letting go of their situations and clinging to Him. That they will realize that He is right there with them.  

I have seen too many miracles happen "in the midst" to believe less than that. 

The pressure and politics - and pleasures - of isolation

One day recently, I was having a discussion about something with an acquaintance, when the topic turned to something on which the person and I did not share the same opinion.  

She asked me about it, so in spite of my better judgement, I gave my opinion, which I backed up with anecdotal (based on personal experience) evidence.  It stopped the conversation cold, and both of us commented on how awkward it felt, how inappropriate it was for us to even be discussing it. 

After that, I sensed a coldness, a withdrawal of respect, if you will, between us.  And it got me to thinking about the subtle pressure that comes to bear when two people don't agree on something - the social pressure to conform, for one side to convince the other and failing that, the removal of that thing from the list of things where one feels "safe".  

There is a lack of acceptance that is inherent in such differences of opinion; one side is unswayed by the other, and a (silent or voiced) agreement takes place where both parties resolve never to bring up that topic again.  Whether that is from a fear of confrontation, or from an unwillingness to entertain the other's point of view (belief, doctrine, attitude) again based on fear of being proven wrong or anger that someone holds to a different viewpoint, the result is the same: the walls go up and a whole other area is cordoned off with a big "Do Not Enter" sign posted, a "demilitarized zone" - a no-man's-land or an emotional mine-field.

I've been giving this idea some thought since deciding to leave the institutional church last summer.  And I've noticed that in some ways, and with some people more than others, the same process has been happening with people who had said to me that we were part of the family of God.  Yet when we decided to leave the physical house where they felt (to one degree or the other) comfortable, and where we did not, there was that same awkwardness, that withdrawal, that "let's not go there" mentality that just ... appeared.  Out of nowhere, it seemed, people who would laugh and joke with us simply avoided eye contact, or promised to keep in touch but didn't, or if they did keep in touch, there were awkward silences, things they felt they couldn't share, things we felt that we couldn't share - because we were in different worlds.  

And slowly, that resulted in isolation from a community we THOUGHT was based on more than just the name engraved on a plaque or painted on a sign near the church entrance.  It made us question whether the relationships that we had spent years developing were nothing more than a sham - whether they were based on whether we kept up our end of the contract, or whether we were "of use" to the community.  It all seemed so ... superficial, petty, and ... conditional. 

We made it clear that we were not leaving our relationship with God, but that we no longer subscribed to living life by traditions, rules, and the fear and shame that is behind those things.  We thought that those who knew us best would understand that this was not a rejection of them, but a personal decision.  And perhaps some of them did.  

Yet ... here we are.  God sets up times when we are in community with one or two other people and seeking His face - and He shows up; these times are wonderful and remind me of what the early church must have been like.  Yet for the most part, it's like we have died as far as relationships with some people are concerned.  

Don't get me wrong; our relationship with God has deepened and we are experiencing peace and joy more now than ever before.  Yet even that makes some folks uncomfortable; after all, aren't we supposed to shrivel up and waste away to nothing if we don't slap our fannies on a church pew somewhere? 

Photo "Bald Eagle Close Up" courtesy of
Tina Phillips at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

More and more, I don't think so. I think that that mentality limits God in ways I am not comfortable with.  And truth be told, while there are some aspects of church attendance and traditional ministry that I do miss at times, in those moments, I usually just play the tape all the way to the end and realize that for me, it's not worth going back for just those few things.  

I kind of feel like Neo in "The Matrix" - I've swallowed the red pill (those who've seen the movie know what I mean) and now, things just don't look the same anymore.  And it IS isolating.  The very nature of that realization means that there ARE going to be topics I won't be able to discuss with certain  people, and there are going to be some people who won't feel comfortable being around me either. It isn't that they are wrong and I am right; it's just that we are in different places with different needs. Yet, for someone who all her life wanted everyone to like her and approve of her, it's a big deal that some people now ... don't - or they don't act like they do.

Accepting that is probably one of the hardest things about this past year.  As liberating as this lifestyle is, as wonderful as it is to look at life through the lens of God's unconditional love, it is still sometimes a lonely place - but one dear friend of mine turned that thinking around when she called it "the aerie" - the eagles' nest.

I like that.  True, there is isolation, but there are also many more updrafts, and the advantage of a bird's eye view, so to speak.  Things that seemed so huge: political wrangling, position, petitions, placards, pleading, proselytizing, pontificating, and pseudo-pious posturing ... seem so puny and piddling compared to the simple truth that God is God and I am not.  And I'm okay with that.

In fact, I'm better than okay with it.  I like it just fine!

Lesson from RMS Titanic

On April 10, 1912, the Royal Mail Steamer (RMS) Titanic set out from Southampton, England on her maiden voyage to New York, with 2227 people on board, mostly wealthy people in first-class cabins and immigrants transported like cargo toward the new world. 

The Titanic was already famous. She was touted as "the unsinkable ship" - the safest ever to be built - and so confident were her designers of that "fact" that there were only 20 lifeboats on board: only enough to carry a scant half (at most) of the passengers on that voyage. The mood was festive. Nothing bad could happen. 

Late on the night of April 14, at 11:40 pm, the ship struck an iceberg, about 400 miles south of Newfoundland. April in Atlantic Canada is far from springtime. 

To one eye-witness, the sound of the ship hitting that iceberg was like fabric ripping. The passengers who were awake felt the ship shudder, and many just lay back down and trusted the "safest ship ever built" to take them to their destination. Some asked members of the crew if there was a problem. They were told that as far as they knew, there was none. 

There was a problem. The problem was that the ship had struck an iceberg, and the pilot of the ship believed the propaganda that the ship was unsinkable, and so delayed his distress call. The passengers - confused and disbelieving - were not warned early enough, and when they were warned, the crew started calmly handing out life-preservers to the passengers.

While most passengers got a life preserver, many more people died than needed to die, because of (1) the arrogance of the designers (2) the implicit trust people had in the media hype [in other words, they believed what they were told], and (3) too few lifeboats and too little instruction on their use (based on reasons one and two). 

Photo "Titanic Ship Sinking At Night" by
Victor Habbick at |
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Again, from eye-witness accounts, the RMS Titanic sank bow-first beneath the waves, looking much like an incredibly slow-motion dive that a duck might make, eventually at a 65-degree angle as the stern slipped beneath the waves. The sinking took two hours and forty minutes. 

Those left on board during that time with no life-boats left to save them, huddled near the stern, still clinging to the vain hope that the great ship would not sink. More and more of them let go, unable to hang onto the railing (or each other) any longer, faced with two realities: the cold numbing air of the North Atlantic and the force of gravity that pulled them sharply downhill. The icy water killed over 1,500 people in mere minutes from their entrance into the water - those who had their life preservers but who were too late to get into the lifeboats. 

Those in the lifeboats could barely believe that the ship was doomed and so they lingered near it until it became obvious that the media hype was wrong; they rowed away clumsily because most of the crew had gone down with the ship and they had no instruction on how to navigate the huge rowboats, each holding about 35 people. 

Over three hours they stayed in the lifeboats in the freezing cold, pressing close together for warmth, calling out the names of their loved ones out over the dark water ... for answers that never came. As twilight turned to dawn, they could see the outline of a ship, a proven ocean liner whose captain had heard the delayed distress call and was waiting to pick up survivors. The Carpathia took aboard 705 survivors that morning. The rest of the Titanic's passengers and crew had died - one thousand, five hundred twenty-two people. (*)  The enormity of that loss was unprecedented: nothing like that had ever happened on such a large scale.

The only ones who survived were the ones who got off the ship and into a safe place, at great personal and emotional cost. 

We are aboard another Titanic - the religious system we call the church (notice I use the small letter c??) - and we are so caught up in the hype of the gates of hell not prevailing against it (in other words, indestructible) that we forget that the real Church isn't about the system or the vehicle (so to speak); the Church is about the people: real people with real lives. Unfortunately, what we settle for is being lulled into a false sense of security by the propaganda and the ritual and the expectation that the deck beneath our feet will hold and stay steady ... we are settling for doing church instead of being the Church. 

What we have called the church (the building, the religious system) is waterlogged and already beginning to tilt, and it has been on its way down for decades. It was never indestructible; it is man-made!! The real Church is created by Jesus - and besides, when Jesus said "the gates of hell would not prevail against it ... He was talking about the Rock upon which He would build the Church - that Rock being the truth that He is the Chosen One, the Son of the living God - the Good News, ... not the vehicle.  

"And we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." (2 Cor 4:7) WE are the Church. WE carry the Good News, this treasure, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. We don't need to go to a special place, or say certain words, or do certain things in a specific way or order. The building, the organization, panders to the control freak in us, the need to feel that we are in control of something ... when the truth is that there is nothing that we can do to make God love us more OR less than He always has. 

Photo "Couple Having Breakfast"
courtesy of Ambro at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

If WE are the carriers of the Message, if we are the dwelling-place of the Spirit of God (and by faith in His Word we ARE) then the structure (seen or unseen) is not important and may actually detract from what God is doing. What matters most is our willingness to listen to His leading. 

The safest place for us is not on board a sinking ship. We don't have to "do" church; we never did! We ARE the church - and that truth makes Jesus' words come alive: "Wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst." (Mt 18:20) We don't have to have two hymns, announcements, offering, a sermon and a prayer. We can be who we are, share what God is doing in our lives, and lift one another up without the benefit of clergy, a building, or even singing if that's not where the gathering goes. I've been in such gatherings - in coffee shops, living rooms, restaurants ... they are amazing, energizing, and precious.  The moment we legislate such a living thing with the word "should", it is re-infected with the cancer of man-made position and influence ... and dies a painful death. 

Why would I want to participate in that? 

The way I view "what the Church is" ... has been undergoing a transformation lately. I'd been seeing it as the narrow (so narrow you can see through a keyhole with both eyes), traditional definition for so long ... that the idea of informal, unstructured gatherings any old time with other believers had to be called something else - like visits, or sharing, or whatever else happened. The reason for this was that (obviously) there was no pastor or worship leader, so it couldn't be church, right?  Really though, what I experienced in those impromptu get-togethers in random places ... was the Church. I just didn't recognize it because I was so used to the Sunday-go-to-meeting kind of ritual gathering where it feels 'safe' - (like the Titanic was for those four days...) surrounded by the ornate trappings and beautiful music and such, playing on the emotions and relying on manipulation to get people to respond. (Oh of course you've heard it and seen it happen: "Can't I get an Amen?" or "We'll sing that verse one more time and sing it like you mean it!"  etc., etc.)

I've since realized and been able to recognize the Church at work even when my husband, my daughter I have breakfast on a weekday morning and end up (as we usually do) talking about God. He's part of our lives, our everyday. Such times are when we feel most encouraged, in a safe place with each other in our relationship so that we can be honest about our feelings and help each other to grow in our faith. 

And I find myself less and less willing to board the ocean liner. The luxury accommodations just aren't worth it. 


(*)   -  Information retrieved from http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/titanic.htm 

Wanting from within

Aesop wrote a fable about a man walking down the road with a cloak on, over his clothes. Meanwhile, the sun and the wind were arguing about which was more powerful (well, mostly the wind. Which is a whole other post!)

So the sun suggested a contest. "Whichever of us can get the man to remove his cloak is the most powerful." The wind agreed. "You go first," the sun said.

So the wind blew and blew. The man pulled his cloak around him tighter. Not wanting to appear to have lost, the wind blew harder. The man braced himself against the force of the wind, and held even more tightly to his cloak. 

Then it was the sun's turn as the wind gave up. The sun remained where he was, and shone brilliantly, heating the air - and the man - with his rays. Soon the man began to mop his forehead. He loosened his cloak and finally stopped and removed it, draping it over his arm before continuing on - with a smile. 

Photo "Silhouette Of People On Hill" courtesy of
moggara12 at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

The moral of the story was that one can accomplish more with kindness than with force. I'd go a step further and apply this fable to the modern church. And by modern I mean anything after 900 AD.

The wind in this fable is the tendency to judge, to make someone conform to a strict moral code and then punish that person when he or she doesn't toe the line. This is most often attempted by the manipulative act known as shaming. (Yeah, you've had it happen to you. And like me, you've probably done it to others too, and felt completely justified in doing so ...) The problem with shaming is that it NEVER works. Instead, it causes the person to withdraw or move away, to try to appease and become a chameleon (not being real is never a good idea), or to confront or take out their anger and hurt on that person or group. I could do a whole post on this too. But not today. :)

The sun, by contrast, is the love and grace of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and the compassion of Jesus. This is an internal motivator. 

God doesn't shame us. He accepts us. He has made us "accepted in the Beloved." (Ephesians 1:6). He loves us ... and this great love (that is the cause of Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf) makes it possible for Him to call us His children! (1 John 3:1)

In fact, His grace goes so very deep that Paul, after exploring how deep it is in Romans 5:8-11, addresses in Romans 6:1 the one fear I have heard so often expressed by "people of the wind" - how it's possible (and they can't accept this possibility in their works-based theology) to abuse God's grace by continuing in sin!! But Paul has just finished chapter 5 by implying that such a presumptuous lifestyle would be possible, given the depths of God's grace: "...where sin abounded, grace did much more abound..." (5:20)! His response to that hypothetical question is immediate. In chapter 6:2 (in that confusing Pauline language because well, he's Paul and he used to be a Pharisee, what can I say!!) he responds, "Of course not!! Why would you want to?" (Judy's paraphrase there...)

And that is just the point. Why would you WANT to?  Wanting to is the whole point, the whole reason why God made a way in Jesus to escape the consequences of our own inability to rescue ourselves. He wanted us to want Him. Not because He was holding our feet to the fire - that would be such bondage!! Grace - because God is the most - had to be the most anyone could imagine and then way beyond! This is the whole idea behind the scripture, "...the love of Christ constrains us." (2 Cor 5:14) That word "constrains" means "motivates from within" or "strains from inside or alongside." And that isn't something we drum up, working ourselves into a frenzied lather like the prophets of Baal did on Mount Carmel, trying to impress God with how holy we are. "In this is Love. Not that we love Him, but that HE LOVED US and sent His Son to be the propitiation [the wrath-taker] for our sins." (1 John 4:10). 

He did it. HE did it!! 

This full and free grace frees us. Completely! It buys us back (at SUCH great cost!!) from the slave-trader and makes us completely right with God, no holds barred, and declares that we are no longer slaves. Why would we want to go back to that kind of life, trying to keep with our own efforts what we could never have paid for in the first place? 

Wouldn't it be so much better to let the Sun shine in?

Harmful things many Christians believe

I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday about how people have certain beliefs that are so destructive for their personal and/or spiritual growth. These attitudes are pervasive; that is, they are everywhere. However, I've noticed them most (and perhaps it's because I get around most in these circles) in the church. The list below is not exhaustive by any means, but I have put together a few of the most harmful-to-the-spirit things that believers believe ... and all of them are myths, yet taught as truth.

1. It's all about the outside. Yeah, that old myth is still kicking around. I'm not so much talking about physical appearance here (although that can be included) as I am about the penchant believers have to lay down rules and regulations, obligations and expectations of themselves, and then expect others to follow them. And when others don't follow them, they judge these people and call into question their commitment or their dedication.
   
   This myth is born from fear: if I don't measure up, if I don't do enough, God won't love me. Or my prayers won't get answered. Or I won't have a nice car. Oh please. God's love and God's grace don't work that way. Get a grip on even a corner of the lavish love that God has for you, and that myth will vanish like fog on your glasses when you enter a warm house after being outside in the cold. Understand the grace of God and you will live in gratitude and not in fear.
   
   
2. Self-denial and self-love are mutually exclusive.  Yikes! This is a variation of the first one!! The belief is that one is a good person if one is self-sacrificing and never looks after oneself. In fact, this belief is the fast track to burnout! Jesus knew this; He often took time away from the crowds to be alone and spend time with His Dad. He recharged His spiritual batteries and was ABLE to give Himself fully to others BECAUSE He spent that time looking after His own spiritual health. That "J-O-Y" that we learned in Sunday School (Jesus-others-you spells Joy)? Yeah THAT's a myth. It's more accurate to say, "Jesus pours into you and fills you up, so that you can pour into others."
   
   A healthy self-love is crucial to the ability to lay aside what we prefer at times, in order to meet another's need. When we don't care about ourselves, we will not care about others; remember, the 2nd greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Not instead of ourselves or before ourselves.
   
   I'm not talking about narcissism here. I'm talking about knowing yourself, knowing your limits, and looking after your own spiritual condition first. In that regard, I'm a big believer in the saying, "You can't give away what you don't have."
    
3. I need to defend God. Hmmm, here's a sticky one. The idea here is that any time anyone says something that we don't believe, or expresses an opinion that casts a shadow on the Bible, or espouses a cause that is not "scriptural" ... we feel we have the right - indeed the obligation - to point that out.
   
   This is probably the one thing above all other things that gives Christians a bad reputation, because "pointing that out" causes others - and so many more than we can even imagine - to dismiss us as judgmental hypocrites, having no compassion or tolerance for other people.
   
   I had quite a problem getting this myth expunged from my psyche. Finally, it dawned on me. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion means that everyone has the right to say or to believe what he or she wishes, within certain legal boundaries. That a person - or a government - or a social group - says or believes something that I don't believe is actually a good thing. If that person or that entity loses the right to say or believe that thing that I don't like, freedom of speech and freedom of religion don't exist. And if they don't exist, then I lose the right to say or believe what I want. It goes both ways, you see. The golden rule is still golden.
   
   One of the things we have lost - I believe - in the last few hundred years since the Reformation, is the wonderful and nearly lost art of acceptance. Accepting people and situations the way they are can go a lot farther than placards and petitions, protests and punishment. Jesus operated like that. He wasn't a pushover and He did not join in others' evil deeds. But He ate with tax-collectors and prostitutes. He accepted everyone the way they were, and loved them. Their own gratitude for that love transformed them. The only ones He had judgmental words for were the people who were so tightly bound up in how everyone else was doing it wrong (and how much better they were than everyone else) that they couldn't accept that He might be who He said He was. Even those among that 'elite' group who were willing to listen to Him, He accepted and loved just as much as the fishermen and farmers who flocked to the hillsides to hear Him and to watch Him love people.
   
   God is a big boy. He can look after Himself. He doesn't need me to run roughshod over other people to prove a point defending His honor. I can trust Him to do that... and He does it far better than I ever could, and with far more compassion and mercy.
   
   
4. I need to understand everything. Wow. The older I get the more I realize how silly and potentially dangerous this myth is. It's important to know what we believe and why we believe it. But there are things about what we believe that just don't cut it. They can't even come close to explaining all there is to know about God and about how He works. And I don't need to comprehend it. If I do, or if I think I do, then somehow God becomes just a ho-hum part of my existence instead of an all-consuming passion. And if I feel as though I need to control everything, then I make myself something I was never meant to be. Only God has the right and the power to control it all.
   
   Mystery makes our lives interesting. It also keeps us humble. When we admit that we don't know it all, that God might be a smidgen more vast than we can conceive, or work in ways other than what we might have thought ... our world expands. It's like standing at the foot of a mountain we've only read about. There is nothing like that feeling of being so small, such a speck on the sands of time, to give us perspective and to make us grateful beyond imagination for the love and the mercy and the grace of our great God toward us.
    
5. Bad things come from the devil. The problem of evil is a huge one. It is true that much of the evil in the world happens as a result of the influence of the father of lies.
   
   But not all of it does. A lot of times, bad things happen as a result of a choice ... ours or someone else's ... that sets a series of consequences in motion. And in a lot of cases, even those bad things can be turned for good because (get this) God is never surprised by the bad things that happen. He works it into His plan to transform His children into His image.
   
   He doesn't cause them to happen. He weaves them into a tapestry. Sometimes we can get a glimpse of what He is doing ... but most of the time we see that tapestry from underneath, and it appears so jumbled and tangled that it doesn't make sense to us (see myth # 4). That's where faith comes in. Faith (whatever form that takes for us) is based on what we believe the character of God is. If we believe Him to be harsh and vindictive, we will see Him as cruel and punitive. If, on the other hand, we believe Him to be loving and pure, we will see Him as having our best interest in mind, and we will better be able to trust His heart even when the storm is raging.
    

"Happy Family" image courtesy of
photostock at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

These are only a few of the myths that plague us as believers. I'm sure you can think of more. 

We put a lot of stress on ourselves by trying to do what we were never meant to do. A lot of us (and I have done this) try to be the Holy Spirit - to bring someone to our way of thinking. It's true that we can participate in doing God's work. But let's remember ... it's GOD's work. So let's let Him. 

My prayer is that we will all grow up into Him and learn to love as He did as we begin to understand how very deeply and passionately He loves us ... to love God (in return) first and foremost, to love ourselves, and then to love others as ourselves. It really is the only way to be happy.

Happy New Year!

The Father's Grief

There is a story told in the New Testament of two sons; the elder stayed home and did everything his father asked, and the younger wanted to leave. 

In those days, upon the death of a father, the elder son got two thirds of the inheritance, while the remainder was divided among the younger sons. There was a provision in the law of the day that a son could ask for his share of the inheritance prior to the father's death - but requesting such a thing was, in essence, saying that the son desired his father's death. It was a very mercenary thing to do. Greedy. 

Many commentaries on this story look at the son leaving as the moment at which the son turned his back on his dad. 

Might I submit that this had happened long before the boy packed his bags - that the younger son had done nothing all of his life, or at least all of his teenage years, except to take whatever the father freely gave to him as his right, and still asked for more. He used his dad's name, his dad's wealth, his standing in the community, and that wasn't enough. He couldn't wait for his dad to die. And it wasn't happening fast enough. 

So he grabbed what he wanted and left the farm. 

From the dad's perspective, this son had turned his back on everything he had taught him. He robbed his dad of the help and care that would be his in his old age, by taking off and spending his money on frivolities and lascivious living. 

Did you know that the word "prodigal" means "wasteful"? It does! 

Did you also know that when a child in the Hebrew culture embraces a lifestyle with which the parent does not agree, the family has a funeral for him? That started many centuries ago and it still happens!

"Male Crying" photo courtesy of
David Castillo Dominici at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

The father in the prodigal son story grieved the loss of his son ... as if he had died. In fact, the boy he remembered, the child who doted on his father's every word, truly no longer existed. He'd been replaced by a petulant, prideful, pathetic individual who only looked after himself and who ignored or rejected all efforts to make him see the error of his ways. 

The father mourned for him. Perhaps for weeks, perhaps for months and maybe even years his heart ached within him. At sunset and often during the day, he found his eyes straying unbidden to the gate, the place where he had watched his son's retreating form walk up the hill, then disappear over the top of it.  

Over and over he thought about those last few months prior to his son's departure. He blamed himself for not being able to teach his son right from wrong. He wondered if there was anything he could have done to keep his son from engaging in such selfish behavior. All the arguments, all the bitter words, echoed through his mind. Shame and anguish engulfed him. Once in a while, he'd hear reports of what his boy was doing out there - and his spirit was distressed, the grief as fresh as the very first day. He wondered if there would ever be an end to the waste, to the selfish actions by which the boy's life was characterized now. 

Yet, he'd had no choice but to let go... as painful as it was.

In the meantime, miles away, it took the natural consequences of those selfish actions to hammer the boy's pride and self-absorption into submission. The process might have taken years; we are not told how long it was. 

But one day - one day when the former heir had thrown it all away and there was absolutely nothing left - he realized that in wasting his father's riches and resources, he had wasted himself. He knew he had given up the right to be treated as a son. He knew his dad had already had a funeral for him. He knew that he didn't exist. 

He was a non-person. A second-class citizen. A servant. 

Yes, he had in reality made himself a servant to his own passions, to the grips of excess and then to the bony grasp of poverty to which his self-centered behavior had brought him. 

His mind dwelt on servanthood; he knew a lot about it. His father had many hired hands - they had enough to eat and more besides, and a warm and clean place to live. True, their lives were at the beck and call of their master. Yet their master - the father - was good to them. They were protected, cared for, fed, clothed and housed.

He, on the other hand, was feeding pigs. Swine - the most disgusting animal a Jew could possibly be asked to tend. He smelled of pig feces; the odor is one of the worst in the world of domesticated animals. His clothes, his hair, his skin reeked of it. Yet he was so hungry that he gladly would have fought them off at close range to get the pig slop that they received. Yet, he wasn't even allowed to share the pigs' food. Nobody gave him anything. Not one thing.

He wasn't aware how deeply his dad had grieved; in fact, he'd convinced himself that his dad didn't care about him the way a dad cares about a son. He'd done too much, wasted too much. Especially himself. 

Yet ... he was desperate.

He'd go back to the homestead, he thought, and ask to be hired on as a servant. Living in the servants' quarters wouldn't be so bad. It would certainly be a lot better than what he was forced to do now. And it was a lot better, he reasoned, than he deserved. 

When he left home, he felt entitled to the life he thought he'd been denied. When he started back, he felt beaten. Used up. Worthless. 

He was desperate. He was willing to go to any lengths to have a better life than the one he'd chosen, the lifestyle that had turned on him and devoured him. 

Before he rounded the crest of the hill toward home, before he was amazed to find that his father welcomed him with open arms and reinstated him as a full member of the household, little did he know how many long nights his dad had held close to himself all that was good about his growing-up years, how profoundly and constantly his father had missed him. His company, his voice, his smile, his laughter. 

His heart. 

The relationship he'd abandoned, wasted in the dust on his father's front doorstep, was waiting for him when he returned. The father made that perfectly clear. He knew it - though the enormity of the dad's forgiveness and acceptance overwhelmed him - as surely as he knew his own name. The sounds of music and dancing had returned to the house. He was so very grateful.

He stole a glance at the older man amid the festivities.

His dad's face was wet with tears. But he was smiling from ear to ear.

Seeds we sow

Did you know that God hates? 

Yeah, sounds weird doesn't it?  But Proverbs gives us a list of six things that God hates - no, as a matter of fact there are seven that are an abomination to Him (abomination is like really intense hatred).  

Let me give you the list and the reference - because something jumped out at me about it some time ago as I looked at it.  

"There are six things which the LORD hates,
Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him.
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, 
And hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked plans, 
Feet that run rapidly to evil, 
A false witness who utters lies, 
And one who spreads strife among brothers."
 - - (Proverbs 6: 16-19)

Did you notice it?  There are two things that jump out at me.  One is that lying is mentioned TWICE - once as just the tongue (body part) which lies, and the other as the PERSON who lies.  And the other thing is that for the most part, these are just actions that God hates (represented by body parts) - whereas the last two - (which talk about lying and about spreading discord between brothers) actually talk about the person.  So much for hate the sin, love the sinner!!

Source (via Google Images):
http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/life/article/363719

That should be a clue as to how desperately wrong it is to lie to people and to tear down person A to person B so as to make person B mistrust or judge person A.  I've seen this happen over and over again, and every time it is extremely upsetting.  Talebearers, the Bible calls them. People who betray confidences to make themselves look like the good guy ... while the other poor slob comes off smelling like a skunk.  I'd even go as far as to say that this kind of behavior can be seen as bullying.  And I have less and less tolerance for that kind of thing, whether in a family, a church, or a workplace.  Those words of discord are seeds that spring up in not only the life of the person being disrespected, but also in the life of the person tearing him or her down.  The seeds of discord yield a harvest of shame - whether now or later.  

That's the thing about seeds.  They reproduce and multiply - IN KIND.  You can't get an orange tree out of an apple seed.  The kind of seed we sow is the kind of fruit we'll get, and we'll always get more than we give, for good or for evil.  And when I hear someone talking to me about this one or that one - revealing secrets or expressing opinions on what he or she has done or said, I now find myself wondering what that person tells others about me. 

That's a sobering thought.  

I need to pay attention to make sure that I not only don't spread discord, but also that I don't allow others to do it as well - that I pray for and appropriate the courage to confront and expose it ... in a kind and gentle way, knowing that it could just as easily be me holding the seed bag.

The Face of Evil

When I was a kid, it was easy to know who the villain was in a TV show or a movie.  It was the ugly guy.  It was the gunslinger with the black hat.  Or the supervillain with the evil laugh and /or the cartoon character with the pointy ears.  It was hardly ever the ravishingly beautiful person.  Or the one who seemed to be so nice.  

But real life isn't like that.  The old saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover," is a double-edged sword.  Sometimes the most beautiful people are those who seem to be unapproachable on the outside, yes.  I know a few people like that and am glad that I have taken the time to get to know them.  But the opposite is also true.  Just because someone is attractive or seems nice ... doesn't necessarily make it so.  Appearances can indeed be deceptive.  

I got to thinking one time recently about what the worst kind of evil, what the purest form of evil, looks like.  I know that evil is, in a sense, faceless: it is no respecter of appearances.  I'm not talking about appearances, but about attitude.  After examining several options, I believe that the purest and most dangerous form of evil is that which truly believes itself to be good.  

The most obvious form of that type of evil would be someone like that guy called Adolf that was rattling around Europe in the 1930s and early 1940s.  He was an impressive guy, a consummate leader - and truly believed he was doing the world a favour by committing genocide.  One religious organization even called him "the defender of the faith" for that stance.  Of course another guy named Winston kind of took exception to Adolf's "vision" for a brave new world - and stood up to him the way you'd stand up to any bully.  He got some folks to join him and stop Adolf. Thank God! 

But we don't have to come face to face with a Hitler to be exposed to pure evil.  It is so rampantly wide-spread that we could rub shoulders with it every day and not be aware of it.  

Rarely is it ever up-front about its agenda; sometimes it is not even aware that there IS an agenda (and would be righteously indignant if you even suggested it)!  And the agenda always boils down to the same thing: power.  

Evil is power-hungry.  And if it can achieve its purpose (and thereby gain that power for a longer period of time) by putting on the face of a saint, it will.  Confronted, it may act injured, longsuffering, or bewildered.  Only when it's unequivocally exposed for what it is, will the claws and fangs come out.  

This story is repeated so many times throughout so many generations.  Power-struggles are so common in relationships, whether husband-wife or parent-child or boss-employee or teacher-student.  And it could be the seemingly submissive one who actually wields the most power.  I remember being close friends with one couple early in our marriage where the husband seemed to rule the roost ... to the casual observer ... yet it was the wife who manipulated, wheedled, and controlled what happened in the everyday.  

At first subtly, then more and more as the children came along and grew, this woman - with a sweet smile, happy-go-lucky outlook, and syrupy voice - undermined her husband's reputation with his children, drove a wedge between him and them, and took their side in parental decisions against him and in front of the children ... every time.  The children grew up disrespecting him, openly criticizing him, and rebelling against him.  And all the while, she decided what happened, how it happened, who went where and what they did.  Finally when the husband died early - of a stress-related illness (who knew?) - the whole family did a flip-flop and talked about him as if he was some sort of saint - which he would have been the first to admit he wasn't.  

Not long after, the wife looked around for someone else to control (oops, HELP) - and found a new target in the husband's mother.  And everyone looking on from the outside thought that she was such a brave soul for facing life without her husband, for carrying on, and for being so nice to her mother-in-law and carrying on her husband's memory.  But in essence, she had lived her life without her husband from the get-go.  His feelings, his opinion, his input was never listened to or asked for - and when he gave it anyway, he was belittled in front of his children.  Now that he is gone, it has made little difference in her life except to remove the little bit of resistance he provided. She is actively feathering her nest and taking advantage of her mother-in-law, using her visits and her children as weapons to get what she wants: the family heirlooms, that is.  And most people still think she is so sweet.  The saddest part of it is ... so does she. 

It's so very tragic.  Yet this is only one example of so very many similar situations in so many families world-wide.  This is where pure evil thrives - not so much in despots and political parties and institutions like the film industry (or whatever is the most recent target of the moral majority) ... but in homes, churches, schools and workplaces all around the world.  

It makes me all the more determined to examine my own motivations - to pray and ask God to reveal the secret places in me where I hide from my own agendas, where I have myself convinced that I'm doing the right thing, where I still try to gain the upper hand at the expense of my husband's and/or my children's self-esteem or their freedom to choose.  I remember living that kind of life for decades, and thinking it perfectly normal and "right."  What it really was, was the natural result of the original curse: "Your desire will be to rule over your husband...." (Genesis 3).  And I had fallen for that hard-wired obsession to rule it all: hook, line, and sinker.  It took a great deal of Life beating me down into submission, for me to understand just what I was doing and to ask for help in letting go.  It's only by the Grace of God that I can even see an inkling of that compulsion in myself.  And it's only by His Grace that I can be free of it.

About the size of it

I remember once hearing a song on a children's program about perspective.  Yes, by perspective I mean how things that are far away look smaller, and things that are up close look bigger. Some of the lyrics went, "Oh the big becomes the little when you move it back a bit, that's about the size of it.  That's about the size, it's where you put your eyes, that's about the size of it."  

At odd times that little ditty comes back to me to help me get some perspective on things that happen in my life.  When I'm going through something, it's huge to me.  Sometimes, God allows me the ability - temporary as it is - to step back from it and see a bit more of the big picture.  It could be something someone else says or is going through that makes my situation seem minor. Or it could be that I will catch myself saying something that I used to take for granted, like, "Oh I can't wait for (whatever) to happen."  Hm.  Really.  Well, I guess I'll just have to wait, because it won't happen until it happens, will it?  And if I live all of my present life and circumstances putting in time until it happens, then I'm missing most of my life!!  What's wrong with enjoying what is NOW, anyway?  Why does it have to be about 'pie in the sky bye and bye'?  

Anyway, lately I've been noticing how trite my circumstances seem, how mundane, how filled with trivialities they are, when there are people among my friends who are facing life-and-death situations, huge relationship upheavals, and other equally distressing events, like grief, for example.  I look at the things which seem important to me today, and somehow, compared to what some folks have to face every day, my concerns seem so pedantic, commonplace even.  More than one friend is in treatment for cancer.  Others are grieving the tragic loss of a neighbour.  Still others are struggling to survive in a daily high-stress and oppressive environment which they cannot escape.  

At times like that, I'm grateful that even with the problems I have in my own life, I have the blessings I have as well.  One of those blessings just so happens to be that I don't have any of those horrible situations in my life right now.  I do feel for those folks who do have those life-and-death situations in their lives just now, and I do pray for them - for healing, for peace, for strength.  But at the same time I do thank God that I've been spared some of what they have had to endure. And I can be thankful for some other things too. 

I thank God that He's with those friends in a very real way, and that He's given them the strength to face their own "valley of bitterness" and shine as bright lights through it, beacons of faith for those who will look.  Watching them in their journey has shed so much light on my own path.  I cannot begin to describe how phenomenal that is.

And when it comes to my own comparatively insignificant problems, I can be thankful that no matter how small a matter is, God is still interested in it, if it's important to me. Not because it's important to Him, but because I AM.  That realization just blows me away, every - single - time.

I can be thankful that at one time, not too awfully long ago, my life was a terrific mess, and that God saw fit to meet me in the middle of that mess and transform me, take my ashes and grant me some of His beauty.  I can now truly thank God that I was in the state that I was in - because if I hadn't been, I wouldn't be in a position to be able to relate to people who are now in the same situation that I once faced.  I wouldn't be able to tell them that things do get better when He is given carte blanche on a day-by-day, moment-by-moment basis.  Even if I did tell them - if I hadn't had the mess in my Christian past that I did, these suffering believers would never believe me, and some would never be able even to admit that they suffer as well (and so begin their own path of healing).  It's the story I have - such as it is - that allows me to be able to walk people through their own journey if they so wish.  It's the reason I wrote my book (see the right margin); it's one of the reasons I blog.  

When I am in the midst of a "situation" - it helps me gain perspective to allow myself to really feel what I'm feeling: to admit it is there without hiding from it. That way I can deal with the feelings head-on, and get from them what they're trying to tell me about my inner life.  Then I can release them and move on in gratitude. At that point, I can experience God's peace, and somehow, the problem doesn't seem so large anymore.  

I can't escape from my circumstances. And I can't escape from my feelings.  I know; I tried.  The more I tried to escape from my feelings, the more they pursued me, the larger they became.  So I've learned to seek a divine perspective early on in the game, and give myself permission to be human and to not have all the answers, to leave the answers to God.  

He's always had them anyway.

Launch Out

I loved to watch the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show when I was a child.  I still like to watch it.  (Shhhh...)


One cartoon that comes to mind is when Sylvester is trying to get Tweety who (for some reason) is in his cage out on a post in the harbour.  He takes a motor boat and heads in the direction of his prize.  But alas! the boat is still tied to the pier.  The boat stops suddenly, falls apart, and Sylvester skids ahead on the water, falling prey to cartoon gravity only after he stops moving and gives one of those "help me" looks, sinking beneath the water as the sharks circle him.  


My best friend and I were talking one morning this week about how some folks tend to have a difficult time letting go of the way they've always done things, of attitudes they have had for years, in order to go deeper into relationship with God.  And in one of those "God-moments" where God steps into a situation and provides perfect clarity, my friend said, "Yeah, well, it's kind of hard to let go when you're so busy holding on tight."  

Source:
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/2007/02/11/12-30-32-med.html

Indeed. It's hard to get where you want to go if you're still tied to what you thought you left behind.  Like poor Sylvester and his rope.



There is a scene in the gospels where Jesus was teaching large crowds from a boat, and then the teaching was done and the crowds dwindled away.  Jesus turned to the disciples who were there and said, "Launch out into deeper water, and let your nets down for a catch."  


There may have been some fish in the shallows that their nets would have caught. And they could have been satisfied with those and with the fact that Jesus was in the boat.  But He wasn't asking them to just catch fish.  He was asking them to go out into something they couldn't fathom - with Him - at a time of day they didn't normally do that sort of thing. (The fish would be closer to the surface at night, "easy pickings." This was the middle of the day.)  And He was asking them to trust and obey Him in the deeper waters with something they already thought they knew how to do.  


This is important. There is always MORE to God, there is always more IN Him: new depths we can't begin to understand, new heights we are unable to perceive.  If we look, if we really search and want to find, there are ever so many facets, layers, levels to Him - we'll never come to an end of discovering more of His heart for us.  Mining those riches all starts with doing something very dangerous to the status quo.  It starts with asking Him what He wants to say to us, and giving Him carte blanche to put His finger on things that might not be all that comfortable for us to face.  To challenge the way we've always done something because we think we already know how to do it - after all, we've been doing it this way for ages (like oh, I don't know, perhaps our own version of what it means to be Christian, which - to many people - means sitting around being RIGHT and nit-picking and judging those who dare disagree in the slightest).  To realize that we can't do anything on our own, that only He can.  To lose a whole ship-load of arrogance and to learn a little humility. To understand that He is God and we are not.  And to learn that we don't have a corner on the God-market.  He is ever so much bigger, deeper, higher than we ever thought possible. His grace has ever so much more room in it than our puny minds can fathom.  It is limitless - infinite - as infinite as He is. 

Launching out into the deep, losing our prejudices and bigotry, relying on Him and accepting and loving each other - can we see how a watching world could begin to say, instead of "What a bunch of haters, look at them devouring each other, guess their belief in God just makes them into a bunch of cannibals..." to say, "Look at how they love and care for each other, how they accept each other and help each other up when they fall. What a God they must serve to lead them to treat each other with that kind of respect!" 

Perhaps it takes launching out in vim and gusto with the rope still attached to the pier of our religious trappings and our self-righteousness - and suddenly finding ourselves in the water with the sharks circling - before we can get to that point of realizing how much we need Him. 

What if we stopped playing church? What if we stopped asking or expecting other people in the church, in our families, and among our circle of friends to meet the deep needs of our spirits that only God can meet?  What if we started admitting our own helplessness and asking HIM to fill the void in us with Himself?  to show us His heart for people, even the people we find "challenging"?  to treat them the way He does - with mercy, acceptance, and love?  to shed our spirit of entitlement and begin instead to be thankful for that limitless grace and extend it to others because He did it for us and we could do no less?

I wonder.