....we are just waiting for the blank pages to be filled in, that's all.

Love won. the end.

(or maybe that's really where everything begins.)

The whole earth is weeping, waiting for a name.

invisible chains

it's too late and I'm too tired to be anything but straight-forward. Tomorrow is 'black friday' and yesterday I was reading about the Israelites. And today I was thinking about them.
They were out in the wilderness, following God around- quite literally- they'd stay where he was as long as he was there, and move when he moved, stop when he stopped. They didn't go hungry or starve or anything because he gave them 'manna' to eat every day......
and, well, here's a piece :

" Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”

"And say to the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall not eat just one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him, saying, “Why did we come out of Egypt?”’” But Moses said, “The people among whom I am number six hundred thousand on foot, and you have said, ‘I will give them meat, that they may eat a whole month!’ Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, and be enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, and be enough for them?” And the Lord said to Moses, “Is the Lord's hand shortened? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not.”
(it's all there in Numbers 11, you should read it)

Basically, they complained a lot, and honestly, it isn't all that surprising when I take a quick look around at others or myself.

Does anyone else find it ironic that the day after a holiday we term 'thanksgiving' (and I know people often leave words devoid of any true meaning after awhile, but really? 'thanksgiving' is a pretty simple concept) is the day when mass amounts of people run around like they have lost their minds, chasing after a few extra pennies and shiny things on shelves? We've given our twenty-four hours of sanctity to being thankful, now we must leave opportunity for our greed to run rampant. It's so easy to criticize the past, but we are just like them. Very few of us know what it means to not have had our basic needs met...... and yet we still join the disillusioned circus, still crave more, still claim we don't have enough, still make excuses to show our love by buying people off rather than actually taking the time to do something meaningful with them.
And I sometimes wonder how it all looks to God, is it like one giant repeat button being pressed over and over again?
how long has stuff superseded real relationships with people?
Forgive me, I'm not eloquent, especially not past midnight when my brain stops functioning and goes into sleep mode, all I can say is that my heart sinks.
I'm not sure who to feel worse for. I think it might be fair to say that america is one of the most impoverished places on earth. If we were full, why would we have the desire to keep stuffing things in this gaping black hole? and we do a pretty good job of stuffing.
If we knew what love was wouldn't we ever realize that our actions affect others?
And wouldn't we care?
And if we really knew what this whole thanksgiving thing was about, would we really be filling our bellies with greed a few hours later?
I dare you to look in their eyes and tell them that your family, your friends, they really do need this new ipod, this new computer, this new shiny toy, those shoes (when their closet is full of them). Look in their eyes and tell them "I'm sorry, but these people, my friends and family, they won't know I love them if I don't get them something, and then I'll feel bad."
I dare you.

Or better yet.
Go tell God.
Tell him why you need all this stuff, tell him why giving to others is so important when celebrating Jesus. Explain to him that you are under obligation to buy and give all these things on this date for these people, even when it costs the tears and sweat and lives of your brothers and sisters. Even when it causes greed to eat away at your soul, to numb the heart that is beating and slowly turn it to cement.
Go tell him.
I dare you.

We have become a sad culture indeed when people's love of others is based on buying large gifts for each other a couple times a year. But it's so much easier than really loving. And it's so much easier than really giving.

And it's so much easier than really looking in their eyes.
And it's so much easier than really dying for them.


We are the ones in chains running back to Egypt.
We are the ones who need to learn what love is to stop this mind-numbing game and shake us all awake.

the Jesus I know

Something written awhile back, that never got used. It was written in response to the question of who Jesus is, you know, with those many varieties floating around out there.




‘And who do you say that I am?’

This is the part where you attach your ‘personalized version of Jesus’ sticker, all sparkly and shiny ________. Don’t forget to double-check to make sure he is wearing the right name tag, and by all means make sure you have put him in the right group. You wouldn’t want him to end up over there with those people.
I have issues with labels: They don’t sum up a person. They categorize them and try to fit them in a box along with fifty-thousand other people, who are of course, exact replicas of each other. Since when do we refer to our friends and people we know dearly as a category and only that? They are defined by their character and their very being, they are defined by who they are.
I took a field trip to the library the other day and wandered about a bit aimlessly until I was sucked into the religion section. I stood there, gaping up at all the titles of books, Jesus’ name repeatedly staring back at me with any sort of attachment imaginable. And I got tired; it was the same kind of exhaustion that used to come after fifteen minutes of shopping with my crazed, bargain hunting sister when all I wanted was my hoodie. It reminded me of a clothing store, just pick the one that fits you:
“Jesus and the Revolutionaries”
“The Historical Jesus”
“Jesus was a feminist” (at which point I started chuckling….dismissing the fact that I was in a library)
“What Jesus Meant”
“The Mystical life of Jesus”
“A New Life of Jesus”

And I can’t help but wonder why we have this almost irresistible pull to morph Jesus into all these different varieties. It seems like we are always putting some sort of agenda on Jesus. “He is left,” “He is right,” “this means he is a revolutionary,” “and this part here means that he was for social justice.” But our versions of Jesus are just that: our versions. We assign him the characteristics we think are prettiest, or most flattering. We give him all the right leanings to squeeze into our ideologies. We mold him like clay on a spinning wheel until he looks just like us, or worse, some trendy form of what we think we should be. None of this draws us away from ourselves or from the comfort we have barricaded ourselves inside of. Everyone seems to enjoy their form of Jesus because he is always on their side, in their club. He is of course, pointing the finger along with us at all those other people over there who got it all wrong. We recycle and care about the earth, we stand for the innocent and defend those being wronged in the world. We don’t conform to the materialistic, greed-eating, consumer-driven lives of America. We promote tolerance and peace….. And oh how the arguments fly from all sides. How we hate to be compared in any way to those we try so hard to divorce ourselves from. Drugged by our own efforts to make ourselves good, we are disillusioned in thinking we can love so many in the world and not love the person standing in front of us. In the process, we have removed any need for Jesus to come and tell us we are all selfish sinners. Now we can achieve our own goodness. Funny how it all looks like the same fuzzy picture painted in ten different ways.
Until we are made extremely uncomfortable, until we are offended by the things that flew out of Jesus’ mouth because they are so backwards and contrary to what we think we should be living, until we are utterly humbled by the gaze of someone that can see right through every walled façade we have piled high to keep out others and ourselves, until Jesus disrupts who we are, shakes out everything we cling to for security….until this Jesus tells us to forsake everything for him, I will have a hard time buying the sales pitch that this is the real Jesus.
You can’t categorize him. You can’t tie a pretty bow around him and wrap him up like a Christmas present. He won’t be conformed to your agenda’s and your opinions, you can’t put him on like the latest trend. Jesus didn’t come to start some mass world-wide revolution in the sense that we think of it. He didn’t have global organization plans or political means to accomplish…..
None of that is what He is about.

He came for us to know him.

He came to look you in the eye, and to rip all the misconceptions you have ever held about yourself; about how good you are, how adequate you are, the things you value. He came to tell you that yes, you are broken, and you don’t know how to love. You cause pain to your brothers, sisters, and yourself daily because of it.
He came to turn everything around and proclaim a kingdom that is different. He came to embody the only person we have to base our definition of love on. He came to show us a father that refused to stop at anything to show us his love.

I don’t want a better version of me. The last thing I need is for someone to prop up my arrogance, my opinions, and my way of demanding that everything I think is right.

I say that he is Jesus who lived and died for me, and I will trade anything to really know him.

He is humble; I still cling to my rights.
He is loving; I seek my own good above others more often than I would ever admit.
He is unafraid of people’s regard of him; I would rather please than cause strife, even if it is what’s needed.
He is offensive; I value my reputation.
He has no pretense; I have questionable motives.
He had empty hands; I grasp tightly.
He loved freely; I am prejudiced.

The Jesus I know is not like me.
He demands that I be like Him.

Christmas is coming soon.......

I happened across this a few minutes ago, turns out advent conspiracy has partnered up with a fair trade organization as well. Anyway, this is the part that really made me grin:


"You're joining people all over the country who believe that when gifts are given, they should always speak of the sort of world that Jesus came to show us - one where the last is first, where the poor are included, the sick are healed, and the captive is set free."

thank you whoever decided in writing this, not to make any sort of separation between the things we do and the person we follow.

The Loveless

I woke up to the rain this morning. It’s been falling in slow and steady sheets through the fields. And I sat on my bed, dimmed daylight sneaking through my window, and strung a few notes out on my mandolin. Small, simple songs for a grey morning. Time has slowed down for me, I’m no longer in this frenzied rush or strain to make things happen or get things done. My life doesn’t consist of finding something to be busy about. And I am starting to realize that the more your life becomes about that sort of thing, the less it becomes about the right sort of thing.
Pause.
Stand still in time and look about you at the turning leaves and the rain puddles scattered through the fields. Sip your coffee in the morning and look at the person across from you until you see them. Look at them until you can find in their eyes the depth and thought and feeling and being of a life lived, pain felt, things experienced, and love learned. And keep looking until you can find residing there the very thing you know resides in yourself. Look until you are mystified by the wonder of it.
And walk the day with that pair of eyes, and with this new heart beating something beautiful, and with your empty-full hands holding out this glowing love to every person you meet.

We are none of us machines that walk the days and nights on this earth. Hard as we try to deceive ourselves into some sort of blind, unfeeling state where cold laws and analysis hold our fascination, it is not who we are. We ache. We have broken hearts, we have feeling hearts, we have eyes that grasp onto beauty, that despise the ugly…..
We have actions and movements formed by others’ actions and movements; we are none of us separate. We are none of us alone.
This life is not defined by a prescribed formula, not by small actions we can fit into a box and mail through the postal service. The reason we want things to look a certain way is so that we can perform our check-mark, achieve our supposed success in living the right way ….and never have to resort to a love that is dangerous and flows through our hearts and situations, a love that asks us to not ignore the stories and lives and plights of others. A love that does not simply acknowledge the suffering of others, but cries out with them, feels part of their pain and agony, and sees part of their world through their eyes. It is a love, that, instead of situation or label or cause, puts a name on a stranger.
We have been quietly converted to the lie of a loveless life where we are slowly strangled by the cords of our many conveniences; stuck in a room where the mass of things, situations, and manipulated circumstances turn from claustrophobic to suffocating.…..all the while hiding from the wonder lingering about us, trailing our paths, clinging to us like the mist on a mountain. Our eyes begin to grow dim in the haze that surrounds us.
So pause.

Someday this will all be ashes blown away. And I have no plans for a futile chase. Sit still for a moment. Let the smile creep and grow from your heart to your mouth to your eyes. And stand there, let go of it all, watch it float away like a thousand bubbles set free on the wind.

Let the story burn into your heart. Let it burn into your eyes until it clouds your view. And look into another pair of eyes; look until you see. Look until it changes you, until the ice thaws. Look until you are no longer a machine. Look until love becomes something more than a function and a prescribed action. Look until you see the blood falling from another pair of hands. Look until you see Jesus.


And walk the day with that pair of eyes, and with this new heart beating something beautiful, and with your empty-full hands holding out this glowing love to every person you meet.

I'm a well-balanced human being....

I’ve heard so much yuppy nonsense in my life about being well-balanced and on the other side of it, so much well-aimed criticism of anything nearing the borders of the extreme.

Did anyone ever pause to wonder, that maybe it isn’t the ’extreme’ that is the problem, maybe it’s what is chosen to be extreme about. There are a lot of extremes in this world that we don’t consider to be a detrimental thing.

I seem to remember something about a certain person, he said a lot of things….He told people to sell everything they owned, to give up their lives and follow him, He said he had no place to lay his head, I also recall something about taking up your own cross and following him, renouncing everything.
RENOUNCING EVERYTHING

So either I am a little confused as to the definition of the word ’extreme’ or I am a little confused about what this one person said and did, even though a lot of it seems irrevocably straight-forward. Because it seems as though we are told to be extreme about something: loving God and loving others.

And if I remember correctly, there’s this whole crazy story. It involves God becoming a baby, a human, living among people, loving them, telling them He was the way to the Father, and then….dying a horrible death for our sins. But that doesn’t sound extreme at all. I mean, don’t get the wrong idea, living with basically no possessions, giving your life up to help and love others, and then dying for them when they were ignorant, ungrateful wretches…… that’s so well-balanced.

skimming through some stuff this morning....and I came across this. (scroll and read the article entitled Post-Hope) The problem with hope isn't hoping, it's where we place that hope, where we place our expectations.

"To be post-hope is to embrace love and duty despite all evidence around us. And to embrace our duty is to find motivation not in the hope of mountaintop success, but in love."

That is what hope should look like.......

Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord .

(just in case anyone forgot what 'steadfast' means.....)

1 a : firmly fixed in place : immovable b : not subject to change
2 : firm in belief, determination, or adherence

I just read this from my friends in India.

"Adam, preserved on the way to death and consumed with thirst for life, begets Cain, the murderer. The new thing about Cain, the son of Adam, is that man as sicut deus Cain himself lays violent hands on human life. The man who is not allowed to eat of the tree of life all the more greedily reaches out for the fruit of death, the destruction of life. Only the Creator can destroy life. Cain usurps this ultimate right of the Creator and becomes a murderer. Why does Cain murder? Out of hatred towards God. This hatred is great. Cain is great, he is greater than Adam, for his hatred is greater, and this means that his yearning for life is greater. The story of death stands under the mark of Cain.
Christ on the cross, the murdered Son of God, is the end of the story of Cain, and thus the actual end of the story. This is the last desperate storming of the gate of paradise. And under the flaming sword under the cross, mankind dies. But Christ lives. The stem of the cross becomes the staff of life, and in the midst of the world life is set up anew upon the cursed ground. In the middle of the world the spring of life wells up on the wood of the cross and those who thirst for life are called to this water, and those who have eaten of the wood of this life shall never hunger and thirst again. What a strange paradise is this hill of golgotha, this cross, this blood, this broken body! What a strange tree of life, this tree on which God himself must suffer and die- but it is in fact the Kingdom of Life and of the Resurrection given again by God in grace; it is the opened door of imperishable hope, of waiting and of patience. The tree of life, the cross of Christ, the middle of the fallen and preserved world of God, for us that is the end of the story of paradise."

-dietrich bonhoeffer
Creation and Fall

I don't even have a title.

I probably should have taken the nap. Now I am so indignant I'm not sure if I can find all the right words. There's this post which led me to a certain website(and a few you-tube videos), which led me to a fit of anger that actually left me speechless (other than two words, which I will spare you....)
The general thing I am feeling right now is a really wretched, nasty disgust in what seems to be, not only our fascination with making money off of sin, (yeah, I went there) but our fascination at watching people writhe in pain caused by these actions.... we put them on T.V. shows, in the newspapers, in 'gossip' magazines.....and then talk glibly about how horrible these things are. Or in one case a news reporter, smiling prettily, almost mischievously, while talking about people using a website to have affairs. What about the people who act like robots reciting 'facts' about people getting killed or mistreated..............etc. GET A FREAKING LIFE, PEOPLE! If other people's misery provides you a form of entertainment, you need a new hobby.

If you are going to spend your time worrying about/being informed about other people's pain....then learn the appropriate response, please. It's called crying and being deeply aware of their brokenness and our own. It's called being angry because people don't know how to love eachother. It's called learning how to love others before yourself.

I don't know if I can keep writing about this, I don't know that there's much to elaborate on. It's fairly obvious that we are all a little too obsessed with getting our own way, satisfying what ever desire we may have, and demanding that things happen instantaneously..... otherwise we will give up and go elsewhere.
...and in the end all to our own detriment. We will have refused to learn any of the lessons that would actually benefit us in the end, the ones that teach us what it really means to live, simply because they were hard lessons to learn. And we all know that easy is popular.


'Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.'

To those who are exploiting other people's pain or sin or whatever for their own benefit or profit:


How dare you.
Learn what love is and stop talking all this crap about some fluffy thing you've made up in your imagination that you ridiculously call 'love'.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

so please, go learn what love is. Stop robbing all these people of love- start giving it instead.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

5 “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.

8 “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.

love your neighbor as yourself.....?

Here is an interesting read about food.


While I realize that many people (including myself) remain ignorant or naive as to the effects of our own actions on people thousands of miles away, in different countries, I still don't think that can be offered as a good enough excuse. You can blame the government. You can blame those evil people running corporations that are fueled by their need of money.
It's very easy to blame....and to point fingers at all those 'others'.

What I don't understand is the people who claim our country as a christian one. Putting an entire nation under the umbrella of Christianity is a dangerous and stupid (that's right, no eloquent words, it is what it is. Stupid. ) assumption.
I want to know what they think the word 'Christian' means.

Because I am pretty sure I recall some guy named Jesus quoted as saying 'love your neighbor'

And I am also pretty sure that the actions ( a very vast majority of them) of our nation don't quite fall into that catagory most of the time.

You can also claim we (commoners) aren't the direct ones causing these things to happen. You may not have malicious feelings toward others who are starving and dying in poverty in other countries. But can I just say something uncomfortable?

We are all guilty.

Have we never stopped to wonder where our greed and comfort came from? Have we never stopped to wonder at the price of it all?

Do we care about others enough to say something on their behalf? and do we love them enough to change?

Do we love our neighbors as ourselves?

Because right now I'm looking pretty well fed and clothed.....
and I have some neighbors around the world who can't claim any of that for themselves.

But I haven't said much of anything.
And I have changed the way I live very little.

some month-old thoughts

So then, some of the question is, how do you make someone realize they are partly responsible for someone half-way across the world? It should be easier than it is. We are all human, and if it were your child, your relative, your friend, you would care, you would care enough to do something drastic.
But for some it isn’t easy enough to tell them that they should care about someone they don’t feel responsible for. We already tend to suck about caring for the people around us as much as we should….If we can’t care about the people we see, interact with, live with……why would we give a hell about someone who practically feels invisible to us? So we face the dilemma of tracing down our steps to prove that our actions do indeed affect people we can’t see, people we don’t know who may be thousands of miles away as well as next door.(no man is an island) Some people may flat-out refuse to repent, But there are those, whom, shown the consequences of their actions, may actually decide to start making different ones based on that information…..or rather, based on what that information reveals about ourselves and our priorities.

So the questions run:

-How can people be taught to empathize with others they don’t know?
-What proofs can be brought forward that trace our actions ?
-Why should we be held responsible?
-Is it really our fault that others are deprived of opportunities we have?
-How do we help people see that they should help support organizations that are doing good work, but that they are also personally responsible…..and should learn personal change?


…..and then the harder questions stem from those

Why should we care (about others at all) ?
What makes life, and the way we treat others so important?
Honestly, why bother when we know we won’t convert everyone (to not be selfish or to help others)?

When we rid ourselves of all these other things, all we have left are ….each other…. Others.
Which is why it’s not too hard to be poor and happy, or rich and sad….. Depending on what value determines ‘poor and rich’


People who have sought after the world’s values and riches and prestige are deluded, people who have sought after only their own happiness are as well…..one day we all die. One day all our titles and things and measurements for who we are turn to ashes and blow away like dust. …and these three remain : faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. ‘love never fails’

Most pitied in the world should be those who grasp at power, those who believe who they are is found in what they have, or where they live, or how successful they can be…..those who strive for any and every distraction they can find….those who oppress, those who use, those who grasp, those filled with greed….. Because life has eluded them, and they do not know what it means to be alive, or how to have life and really live.

reduce, reuse, recycle..........

I saw a sign through a window today, and it almost perfectly sums up the problems I have with the newest trend.....that of being environmental/green/justice/issue minded people.




Um. I'm pretty sure before we ever had any need to recycle things the world was imperfect.



It's good that people want to try and help fix problems that we've helped to create....... but really??

None of that fixes us. WE are the issue. WE are the problem.

The fact is, the 'issue' isn't the issue.

Our characters are.

Our lack of love for eachother is.

Caring about the environment is admirable. Trying to save people from being horribly wronged by others is admirable, and these things should be done.
But what are our reasons for doing these things?

We've set up a system where we can ease our conscience and feel like we are doing our part without it really costing us too much.

Give us an issue to fight and we are mostly willing.

Point out that much of this is due to our own character failings, that we are in essence the cause of the 'evil' we are fighting....and people don't know what to do. They will fight hard in any battle, until they find out that the enemy is actually staring them in the mirror.

It's so easy to point fingers and tell someone else they are in the wrong, it's so much harder to realize that I myself don't love people like I should; That the enemy I am actually fighting is myself.

If we actually lived what Jesus taught, if we actually walked in his footsteps, if we learned to love like he loved..........
and none of it for personal gain.......
do you think more people would be convinced?
Do you think more people would see what love was?

If anyone out there knows of organizations that are doing some really good work out there, or situations that don't tend to get a lot of publicity.....PLEASE, leave me a comment with a website, or a link, or any information regarding it.

"He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for my sake will find it."

Sometimes we find things or situations or people in life we would love to keep for our own. And then something happens and we remember that our life isn't really our own.
I got so caught up in what I was losing that I entirely forgot why I was giving it up.

I found my hope again.

(oh, and you should check this out)