World of Warcraft

Slowly and repeatedly, some things dawn upon me. For one- I am not ill. I, for numerous reasons need to see myself as ill, and as one who has not recovered from a lifetime of food and body issues. But that's just not true any more. No matter what size I wish I were; I am not in an unhealthy relationship with food any more. I don't struggle with it any more. Alone in a kitchen does not make me afraid that I will begin to eat and end up 600 lb on a gurney en route to gastric bypass. Sitting down to a meal does not make me feel afraid or panicked. Snacks are not the boss of me. My bathroom scale is not my disapproving sargent. Weeks can pass by without me fighting the urge to stand upon it and measure whether I deserve to live or not.

I struggle with feeling that I am a failure. The truth is that I am a success. It's difficult for me to type that, as we've been trained that shitting upon oneself is righteous, whereas measuring one's true abilities and making an honest evaluation is a dangerous practise. It's the pride that comes before the fall. I just can't carry on indefinately believing that I am a flop and will never amount to much. It's tiresome. It's a lie.

The truth is that we all play world of warcraft. There is a whole fleet of rubbish getting thrown our way on a moment to moment basis. And there is an army of good stuff. Life giving stuff. You just get one pack of lies beaten down when you turn around and see another fire breathing dragon. You think.... "I CAN'T EQUIP THAT". I must be a failure. I must be stupid. I must have skipped that class and gone to 7-11 for slurpees and menthols. But the truth is that you're in a battle and it's just not tidy and linear.

The more that I learn and grow, the less time that I can really spend believing rubbish about myself. It just doesn't ring true any more. I've seen too much that contradicts those lies. I also know that if we are community, we do one another no good if we stay as small as possible. We are susceptible to depression and disappointment in self. That seems inevitable. To a certain degree we need those moments for balance. But to be deceived about who we can be in all our giftedness (read: God) is nearly irresponsible. It doesn't put your skills out there to serve the community. Nor does it make God look good.

We can only know in degrees whether we are successful or failures. In the day to day, we must ask ourselves: "How have I loved today?" We must take honest evaluation of where we need to make peace with others. Where we need to defend someone, where we need to feed, water, love, or listen.

I remember a pivotal moment many years ago in therapy. My counsellor looked at me and said; "Today you are not bulimic."
Here I had been striving and waiting and wrestling for years for the moment when I would no longer be ill, so that I could begin to live. And all we really have is today. If today I am not ill, how will my day look? There is no default, no excuse to wait, nothing to blame.

When I write the words; "I am not ill", I am filled with the strangest sensation. Like I am on the first square of a brand new game, ripe with possibilities. I don't have to be handicapped by my twenty pounds. It doesn't limit me from being well today. But if I believe that I am ill, then it is no wonder to me that I've made little of myself. It's a familiar place to be- one where you believe that you've been cut off at the knees and you just can't walk the same any more.

What I actually believe is that God has more for me. I know that sounds trite and maybe contrived. But when I trace my finger along the map of my life thus far, I see how things went when I carried on doing what I felt in my heart of hearts to do and be. I like the way that Jesus did only what his father asked him to do. And I want that. I'm not interested in a life lived outside of Jesus because I don't see anything there except the absence of God. Now, I'm miles away from the whole blessing theology. Therefore I don't believe that me doing the correct behaviors, praying enough, or praying correctly will iron all the kinks and unpleasantries out of life. The Bible I read tells about John the Baptizer's head being served on a plate. That was no punishment because he didn't pray hard enough or tithe less than 10%. It's just life. And I imagine that at the end of John's life as his head was getting sawed off, he didn't wish he had gone into business or farming instead. He was sold out- he knew who he was in the context of marching relentlessly after God.

In this world, with its warcraft, getting distracted is absolutely constant. Getting confused is a useful tactic. Having a form of godliness but denying its power is trendy and current.

We are all normal. There is a range of psychoses that falls within what we deem as "normal" in our culture. The truth is that we all battle demons that take upon themselves different forms, depending upon what our life story has been thus far. We all struggle with issues of identity. We all wonder about significance. Some of us are aware of these dramas, some further along in their resolution of them, and some up to their nackers in la-la land denial.

But I have a hope that they can be beat down. Well, maybe not beaten down, because maybe they'll keep hanging around and baring their teeth and snarling. But I think that in the battle, one can get to the point where the messages no longer seem personal. They are no longer defining. They don't have to be wrestled with for months or years because they will immediately be recognized as UNTRUE and therefore POWERLESS.

*thanks to my friends this week, many of whom were Jesus to me. Constantly pointing me to the truth, sharing their stories with me, feeding me cinnamon buns, drinking my coffee, invading my inbox. Jesus was really onto something when he said that strength lies in weakness. Always surprising, always miraculous to behold.

On Loving People

I've come across a few instances in my blogging life where people choose to go into the "witness relocation program", pack up their virtual online life, and start all over again somewhere else under an assumed identity. Either that, or just sort of vanish. Its not difficult to understand. Talk about a platform for worldwide misinterpretation and vulnerability- providing an oppurtunity for every tom, dick and harry to tell you what your problem is and why you should take it elsewhere.

But there's more than one parallel to "real life". Who doesn't hide behind something? Who isn't afraid on some level of people's judgements, hatred, misunderstanding?

Life as a human is chock full of relationships. And it doesn't take any amount of insight to know that loving people is a quagmire of complications, subject to perspective bound interpretations.

Which brings me to God, and love, and authenticity. The more you allow life to grow you, the more people you love. The more people you allow into your heart, the more your heart expands to allow for the numbers. The more people taking up your heart space, the more you realize how much pain, ugliness, disappointment, and sorrow there is in this life. The more you recognize its existance, the more you want to be useful in some capacity, to ease the pain, to be part of a solution, but ironically, you simultaneously realize that you can "help" no one, that you are utterly bound in your own selfishness and stunted desires and distracting mind games.

Which brings me back to God. And back to the question about how do we people want to live these lives we've been given? I've got to say, that for myself, despite the pain and sense of powerlessness, I wouldn't have it any other way- at least when I think of the richness brought about through human relationships. What wealth we share in terms of beauty in a whole bunch of broken people desiring to give one another a hand up and a shoulder to cry on, and some stuff to laugh about- Together. It provides a sense that God is very creative and makes all sorts of different people for all sorts of different reasons.

On Sunday at church, I listened to a fitting teaching about God and His sense of direction. How the Spirit of Jesus speaks in ways we can each hear. Through the boredom, the monotony, the looooooong stretches of life where no miracles or "breakthroughs" occur in your life. Where you are angry, disillusioned, mad at God, not sure any more why you are compelled to follow that "still, small voice" since it doesn't seem to be taking you into any euphoric mountaintop places or even into a place of endless patience with your spouse and children. But I got a picture of prayer moving things in the spiritual that goes beyond my sense of immediacy and my desired results. I saw a picture of us all being interlocked in varying and creative ways. That a loving heart- a heart that loves God, hurts when others hurt. Cries when others cry. Lends a hand.

How does this relate to the witness protection program? Here's how I see it. We ought not be too quick to judge others, or to offer them really valuable advice, unless it compells relentlessly from that place deep inside. People's pain won't disappear because of a seven point address on why they are hurting, what they did wrong to get hurt in the first place, and how to turn into a better person so that they don't keep getting hurt. I think our good intentions to make people feel better often drives them away. Sends them into hiding. Then we can pretend that they are not hurting anymore, because we don't have to listen to it any more. i think that a more accurate truth is that we are all mixed up all the time. We all struggle with something. We all stumble over some repetitive theme til we want to scream and run for the hills.

And we all have the capacity to listen. To tune into how to love one another. It's bound to be flawed. Its bound to be painful.

But would you really have it any other way?

With All These Planks and Splinters Piling Up, Brian Just May Get That Addition Yet

Recently, any spare brain space has been dominated by thoughts of hidden forms of judgementalism and how unnatural the practise of grace can be. Lessons learned at the thrift shop, coupled with an amazing series on total forgiveness at church right now has brought about a desire for greater freedom in this whole area of grace.

What I really want is for people who bug me to change, but the other thing the preacher-guy said that stuck long and fast in my head is that the common denominator in all our problems is the "me" factor. I'm in all of my problems, every single one. So it seemed sensible to try and redirect my telepathic messages from the thrift shop legalists back to "me" and see what I could do to contribute in a more positive way. Enter: Pumpkin loaf. I thought I'd bake an extra loaf, slice it up and put it on a plate left over from my bridal party (a plate I really don't need back, and I'm tired of seeing kids eat toast off of: "Happy 25th Anniversary!"...). I wrote a little note for the thrift shop volunteers and tucked it in with the loaf. With two kids filling the double stroller, I balanced the plate of loaf and my handbag up top of the sun shade that we clearly wouldn't be needing that day. We strolled through 80 mile an hour winds past the church, over the crooked sidewalk, past the other church, through the parking lot, over the footbridge, and into the parking lot of the thrift shop.

That's when the plate fell.

Pumpkin loaf with shards. Didn't seem all that gracious. I considered stealing a 25 cent plate and transferring the loaf over... but there was still the risk of razory bits of "Happy 25th Anniversary!" clinging to the underside of the bread so I thought better of it. It also struck me as pretty ironic to go snitching things in the thrift store when what I wished they would do is stop treating their customers with such suspicion. Well, I'd have to try to behave graciously instead and in this case, that appeared to include keeping the pumpkin loaf to myself.

I did a quick scour of the place for vintage bits of this and that for my sewing projects. Then the kids and I went to pay. As I approached the cash out, the woman made a comment about my bag; something to the tune of, "Oh! She's got a bag like that too!"

"Bag like what?" , I had to know.

That's when it came out about the volunteer who had come in, toting one of my roomy bags-for-Darfur and was asked to leave her "backpack" at the front, lest she should go about stealing their precious, dented donations. Well, it seemed like an oppurtunity to me. So I launched into how disappointed I had been to hear this tale, how sure I was that neither of the two of them would ever treat a customer so suspiciously, how this was a place all about God and his love, and that if people chose to sin by stealing, wasn't that between them and God? Wasn't it wonderful that they donated their time, and could spend the day making people feel welcome and happy to be in such a place of good service?

The women half-nodded in sort-of-confused, token agreement. Then with a toss of the head, pointed out a customer from a different religious perspective, and leaned closer to me. "You have to watch those people"; she shared with me conspiritively, "I once saw a woman leave the store with things in her hand that she never paid for. Why would people come into a place like this, that's for missions, and steal things when the prices are already so low?"

Her partner nodded vigorously.
"Yes, you sure have to watch those kind of people."

And with that, I gathered up my planks and splinters, my shards, crumbs and the kids.
With my addiction to thrift shopping, I imagine that God will have many more oppurtunities to try and help me work my way through this whole grace thing.
So far, I mostly have stuff to haul around.

Redemption

Once upon a time, there were two young women. They had left their farming communities and had moved their belongings into the big city, probably using their dad's hog-smellin' half-ton to get the job done right. They'd never met one another, and moved into apartments at opposite ends of the big city. But life is weird, so one way or another, they met and began to create a series of adventures built on the themes of laughter and life.

There was snow-shoeing, all-you-can-eat spaghetti-ing, greasy spoon breakfast eating, pining after handsome hunks of manliness-ing, movie watching, body part piercing, other-country-travelling, tent sleeping, hair fussing, and other general hanging-around-ed-ness.

Then came the day and the season where entirely too much sharing crossed the boundaries of frienship and loyalties. Where hearts lay ripped and oozing on the floor of the foundations we'd built that friendship on. Where apologies and justifications were shouted at one another in the very same breath. Death of trust and loyalty dealt by "friendly fire".

Oh, we tried to bridge the abyss. Being "good Christians" and all, we worked hard against the scourges of grudge, revenge, disgust... But something was broken.

We grew up, life taking us this way and that. We lived through our mid to late twenties, and pretty well through our thirites with the memories of those times feeling well shadowed by the less than pleasant torture of our friendship's demise. But we had new lives to live, new sorrows to navigate, new friends to love. And so we were not crippled, only bruised.

And then one day, in the two seconds between the dinner table being set, and the children planting themselves on their chairs, I stole a moment to check my in-box. And I came back to the table with tears streaming down my face, my heart full, and lodged in my throat.

"Subject: Hello my old friend

Dear Joyce,
I spent the day looking through old photographs…and there you were, smiling at me, taking me back to a day in time when life seemed easier. I smiled back at you, I laughed aloud, and then I began to cry. So many regrets…what a fool I was. You were one of the greatest friends I ever had. I made so many stupid decisions in my 20’s. I am sorry! I can’t take any of it back and that makes me mad…mad at myself…mad at the world… I am sorry that it has taken me this long to say I am truly sorry…sorry for hurting you in a way that a friend never should…sorry for thinking only of myself.
Will you ever forgive me? Have you ever forgiven me? Maybe I have never forgiven myself...even after all these years."

OH THE REDEMPTION!!

OH! the reunion we shared after all those years. One more roadtrip, this time her doing the driving and me waiting with joy and anticipation. And then the hours and hours and hours of talking, reconnecting, redeeming, laughing, crying. How my friend had grown! How different to now spend time talking about the God we both love, the questions that no seven steps can adequately answer, the losses and sorrows that we'd had, the hope we shared in something Bigger.

And the hope I received that day, knowing that 17 or so years of a friendship lost could be redeemed in a second through her vulnerability, her sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, her lack of self-protectiveness. How anything that pains me now is not the final word. How time can be wiped away, how time itself can be redeemed.

How much of life hinges on a hope for things not yet fully seen.

But sometimes just a glimpse of that kind of redemption can be the wave to ride on and the energy to harness for today's not-yet redeemed voids.

Hmmmm.....

Almost invariably you can find me moved (often to tears) by the singing/band playing when I go to church on Sunday mornings. Not because their performance exudes "excellence" (a new-ish church word meaning you practised a lot, talked on the phone about what colour schemes your clothing should match to, and secretly hoping that your team would get a call from a producing company because of your stellar sound...) but because the words and sounds and people around me somehow roll over and through and around me in a way that I can only describe as deeply spiritual. I hope again. I pray again. I feel tenacious about my desire to believe in a good God who loves me and mine.

But as much as I love it, I sometimes I wonder about the "Christian music scene". Occasionally I'll put on our local Christian music station while I'm working in the house so that the words will soak into me and the dirty couch and the wildebeast children. It never does a darn thing for the couch. But almost every time I feel vaguely disturbed about some aspects of what I'm listening to. I imagine the bands feeling as pressured as the "secular bands" to look and sound a particular way. I imagine them fussing with their hair, whitening their teeth, checking their rear view in the mirror and not wanting to come out looking frumpy or grumpy or chubby. Well, of course not. I'm not above that, and I'll bet my right thigh that you're not either. Then I imagine them checking their record sales, their placements on the popularity charts and glancing over their shoulders to see what gifted Christian singer is sneaking up behind them, about to steal their thunder, their sales, their moment in the sun.

I hear the Christian real estate salesperson advertise about how we should ask her to sell our houses because she believes in God. I hear about the conferences where we should all go and be together and rub shoulders after we buy our tickets through ticketmaster. I hear about the Christians who would like us to buy their cars, their lumber, let them landscape our yards or groom our dog.

And it just sits kind of funny with me.
Is it just me?

Lets Put on a Happy Face

Okay, enough with the depressing stuff already. YEEEESH! So people die and kids have to go for medical tests and needle pokes, but its not all grey and rainy and awful.

Take Ruth for example. You might read her blog and think that she's faking it because no one can be that lovely and that all-about-God and be real. Well, I'm here to say that she's the real thing. And its neat, because if I had to put my faith in my own faithfulness, my own commitment to "spending time with God" and "looking for His promises" then we'd all see in short order that I've acquired precious few points in the God club. But judging from Ruth, God apparently doesn't work that way.

Poor Ruthie has been dreaming dreams of the Hildebrands. Ruth has sung songs for the Hildebrands, and prayed prayers for the Hildebrands. Bold and fearless Ruth has even been willing to sub for Joyce the baby juggler. Sweet, senseless thing.

People are terrific. They charge me up and make me happy and give me hope. They make me laugh, and make me cry, and teach me stuff you can't get from most books. But when I have the oppurtunity to see God in people, I just feel warm and optimistic and I just wanna get me somma dat.

So, although I'm hesitant to spend time telling God how he should make sure that my boy is in good health and will remain there.... I'm more intrigued with wanting to get to know a God who speaks to people in still small ways. That's the kind of God I want to spend more time hanging out with. The kind of God who basically has decided to trust people to carry out His good ideas to some degree or another. Maybe if we spent less time fussing and fretting over what prayers to pray, or what programs to introduce or eliminate, or whether we should have a church vote on coloured or white toilet paper...... And instead we kind of chilled out with our God head-sets on and dreamed more dreams; then maybe God's goodness would take less of our own pathetic attempts to prove and program.

Sunday God Thoughts

"He found himself, wrapped in a towel, tired, and sandwhiched between two beautiful, breathing book-ends with his scooter at the ready when it hit him: What am I doing again? Where am I really going?"

......Its exhausting never having answers like those guys in the seminars do. Those messages with the four points beginning with the letter "P" wrap up perfectly, providing the people with points to ponder, and paths to peruse.

Yet I remain puzzled.

If God knows my heart, and His Spirit will pray to the Father for me when I am utterly empty, then why must I pray with these formulas, and perfect intentions?

If mountains can be moved with a simple faith the size of a mustard seed, then why would a mother's pain-wracked prayers not return to her a son, whole in body and mind?

If I know things as fact and they reside as such in my mind, why will my body and my behaviors not act in accordance with that knowledge?

If I pray correctly, fast for forty days, and give my possessions to the poor.... I am here to say that these behaviors will not manipulate God. God is God. Formulas suck. Life is floppy and untidy and uneasy with categorization. And so WHY are we taught that if we do things correctly, God will bless us? That God does not hear prayers spoken with selfish intent? That God wants to bless us so we best get a larger wallet?

WHERE IS THE MYSTERY IN THAT? If God is so containable, why not just get a business degree? A shiney credit card?

My family life can be good but not ideal. My job can be sufficient but not lucrative. My relationships can be rich but imperfect. My empathy for others can be genuine but not life changing. My parents may be wise but dead before I've learned enough.

I accept and need the God of mystery. The One who can see the rhythms of all that, hear the sadness in my heart, and do what He will. The God who is not easily summed up.

An exchange in a Narnia book goes something as follows:

"Is (Aslan) safe?"

"Safe? No. But He's good."

Church

Its with some fear and trepidation that I begin this post. Sybil is upstairs screaming that people may misunderstand my heart on this one, but its something that's been brewing in me for some years now. Soooooooo, here goes.

About six years ago, it became my steadfast prayer that God would lead me into the truth. Of all the prayers that have gone unanswered, this one could not be counted as one of them. It's not been answered simply, or without pain that I never heard anyone at a conference warn me about. Do I have a handle on truth now? Do I have my mantra and theological statement neatly printed, bound, and tucked under my arm for easy reference? This is the greatest mystery of all. As mentioned several trillion times before, the more I learn, the less I know for sure. And what I know for sure is that He is good, likely bigger than I'd imagined, and probably controversial. I know its not my place to decide if I'm right, or you're right, or if they're right. Even if I had the whole theology thing tidy, and I'd take out my pointer for you, it would be entirely a waste of time unless that pointer would be held in a trembling and sweaty hand, knowing that the words coming forth were done so simply because I'd offered myself up as an intrument.

One of the themes along the way these past years has been hearing of people's sense of disillusionment with the organized church. Too showy. Too churchy. Too fake. Too hypocritical. Too happy. Too morbid. Too boring. Too isolating. Too pushy.

Then there was the church's frightened comebacks: the floats in the Saturday morning parades filled with ridiculously happy people dancing to loud Christian music and waving plastic palm branches and placards about determinedly. "So, you think church is boring?" they screamed, hoping to convince the dirty commoners below that they did indeed know how to have a good time. One or two of them might have worn a "Coors Lite" t-shirt, just to prove how easy they were to relate to. I wanted to squirm and duck. I felt embarrassed that our insecurity was that obvious.

If the peppy music didn't bring them in, how about small groups? This one made a bit of sense. People could meet, be relational, help meet one another's needs, bring others into community by living out the concept of loving your neighbor. I'd always wanted to have the nerve to use my former life as an eating disordered shattered person who learned how to put the pieces back together, so I optimistically packed up and headed out to Calgary for a huge "Small Group Conference". (Woo Hoo!!)

Once there, I waded through rooms and rooms full of literature that decoded every little thing God had ever said or even thought about saying or thinking. I ran into a woman I recognized from life-before-kids. She had hated me then, but now she was all grown up and leading small groups in her church with her husband. I signed up for some seminars. I'd come here for direction and chose my discussion groups accordingly. I had to run to the bathroom a great deal since I was pregnant with our third child. From within the stall, I overheard grown-up small-group leader tell her pretty friend something nasty about me. My first sigh of many.

We filed into the sanctuary to begin the day with worship and singing. I immediately recognized the leader as a man who had been busted for cheating on his wife, so he'd vacated town and church quickly and quietly, shaking our dust off his sandals as he went. I didn't remember any resolution to that minor lapse in morality, but it seemed that he'd found his way back to pointing us all to God. *sigh*

Off to my first seminar. An hour in, I wondered if I should go and recheck the label on the door. This was all about projections, visualizing, and then making things happen. We saw impressive mathematic formulas of how many times we'd have to do fund-raisers in order to build wings onto our church buildings. Growth, growth, growth, is what this thing was all about. And personal growth was not a prerequisate for this kind of gardening. It didn't sound as if we'd need a big, controversial God in any of this either. It was a lot tidier than that, all laid out in formulas on the whiteboard. I excused myself to go have a nap on the empty nursery floor. The smell of baby wipes and dirty carpet had a more honest scent about them.

I never was much of a small group leader.

The deeper I dig into this church post, fearing that I may begin to choke on my foot, fearing that I may be buried alive.... the more I recognize that unless you've come here to read a novel, there is no way that I can write this and call it a "post". We'll have to call it a mini-series. Maybe we could have a cell group about it or something.....

I actually LOVE church. For the first eighteen years of my life, I went to the dullest, most legalistic, drab, uninteresting church in the history of homo escapeons. And I loved it. I loved the familiar, the richness of tradition, roles, consistency. I loved the sincerity that I caught glimpses of there. I loved the swish of ladies in their girdles, squirming, sweating, staring at the wall clock and worrying about the chicken dinner over-cooking. I loved the tidy pews, the unused choir "loft", the tone whistle that the farsinger used to start us off on an endless hymn with no notes. The sermons were dreadful and dull, but I loved watching the man, farmer by week, preacher on Sunday morning. I enjoyed hearing his wife's loud snoring as well...

I went some years without really going to church that much at all. It was all so complicated. The preachers were having affairs, and lying about it; the people were all very pretty and talked about Jesus a lot but they were terribly hostile and intimidating. Then if you got involved at all, you became subject to long speeches about "commitment" and how to "just DO it" and developing "leadership skills". Sometimes you'd get sent home to change for coming to worship team practise wearing the wrong colours. Tiresome really.

That's all behind me now. Now I'm to the point where I also tire of hearing people fight about God's love. I just don't get it.

I go to church now, and I cry whenever possible. The cheaters and the fat people link arms with the pretty people and the faithful ones. We laugh and cry and eat together. Sometimes we'll bring a pizza to someone who looks hungry. Or maybe we'll throw some money into a dish to pay for a funeral. When we sing, I let my arms do what they want to. I sing with my whole body: the sound of the mysteries fills me up and overwhelms me. I wish this honesty for the cheating preacher, the horny music pastor, the self-righteous small group leader, the business men from the seminar.

I volunteer for nothing organized. I listen to that still small voice and shut my ears to propoganda of being so godly that more people will want to come into church and we could build a wing in red brick or something.

And my heart aches for all the misunderstood, broken, passed over whom the church has trampled over to reach those almighty projected numbers.

Have Courage

I am a shameless thief. I pillage and steal and thieve without a single shame. In the days when I used to sew and sell garments, I stole ideas from frocked toddlers whose aunties had brilliantly outfitted them. Now I fancy myself a housebound philosopher and I steal thoughts from brilliant writers and expound on them here.

This morning I came upon a post that I got so excited about that I had to walk away from it because I was trying to read it so fast that I was skipping too many parts. Kind of like stuffing your face with almond rocha at Christmas and then realizing you should have slowed down and enjoyed the process. Or like finding a vintage quilt at the thrift shop for $5.00 and just woodenly walking away because you can't bear the stimulation.

Allow me to introduce Queen Heroical:

"...It also dawned on me that this might be why the Bible needs to tells me (us) to think on whatever is good, whatever is noble, whatever is right etc etc etc ... not because doing so is easy,

............. but rather because doing so means accepting, openly accepting that there is love greater, there is love which exists in the pain of it all. Think on it – have courage oh you of little faith ... have courage, do not be afraid, think on these things. Lifting eyes up can be harder than seeing what is at our feet. Daring to trust in the ever familiar face of betrayal – daring to love when it seems impossible – daring to believe that despite it all – we are all, each one of us, loved by God. Hard. "

I've been thinking about how when we are confronted by things that frighten us, we search our minds for a way to "set things right". We search from the storehouse of all the wonderful learning we've submitted ourselves to. Surely we've read a book about "What-to-do-or-say" when confronted by this situation. Surely we heard a sermon that taught us the appropriate antidote. Surely if we choose our steps righteously, we are responsible to appropriate the correct behaviors to bring back the familiar equilibrium of yesterday.

I challenge you to instead examine your own heart.
How righteous are you feeling? How relieved that your ducks are in a row? Do you dare to lift your eyes? Do you have the courage to love authentically? Do you have the guts to tell your own truth? Ask your own questions?

From which perspective will you love others? From the honesty that we are all stumbling, all gasping, yet all impossibly, mysteriously loved by God?

The more I learn, the less I know for sure. And there's a great relief in there somewhere, because it opens my mind to the endless possibilities of God's endless, redeeming love. And that's where I choose to look and rest.