Comforts

I'm in Texas at the moment, staying right next door to Comfort.  They call themselves "an antique town", with antique stores on every corner and shops in-between designed to make a life worth staying home for.  If simple things could produce nostalgia, happiness, and, yes, comfort, they'd be making bank.  And, of course, they are.

As a Christian woman I live with a lot of guilt about my comforts.  Whether it's chocolate or Netflix, there is a niggling suspicion that I shouldn't be using these to make myself feel better-- that's what God is supposed to be for.  Jesus said He would send us The Comforter, and He did!  So.... why am I left feeling that on most days in this way the Holy Spirit doesn't "work"?

Let me draw a distinction in self-defense.  When the chips are down and the world has fallen apart and it's three in the morning and my soul is bleeding, God is the only true comfort and I run to Him every time.  It's the less cataclysmic moments that cause me trouble-- like when I'm dis-regulated, grumpy, tired, annoyed, disappointed.  It's as if these "minor troubles" don't warrant a trip all the way into the throne room.  It's so far!  It's so much work to get myself into the proper brain space for communicating with The God of the Universe.  It's so much easier to "grab a snickers bar" and rely on those splendid chemicals and endorphins that same God gave us which equalize and restore us to a state of comfort.  

Here's what I'm not saying: don't eat when you're hungry-- go to Jesus!  Don't nap when you're tired-- go to Jesus!  Don't grieve when you're disappointed-- go to Jesus!  (And I'm certainly not advocating eating a snickers bar!)  While Jesus always ministers to us whenever we come to Him, He also understands the human body and that it has been made to need food and rest and tears.  He employed all of those things Himself and holds no guilt over our heads for doing the same.

Here's what I am saying: Why is it, in so many every-day moments, that we are more comforted by Doctor Who than by the Real Lord of All Time?  Why is chocolate-dipped biscotti more comforting than The Bread of Life?  Why is exercise (reportedly) more comforting than walking with our only perfect Dad?

Do you feel this?!  I have not written a rhetorical post here-- sound off for me.  Where has God met you on this?

Just when you think sci-fi has come up with a new concept...

Every good sci-fi show has at least one consciousness-swapping moment.  My personal favorite is when Cassandra and Rose and the tenth Doctor get all tangled up in that one episode with the cat nuns... yeah-- this has what to do with Jesus?

I was listening to most of the book of Mark today when I was stopped by the bit in chapter 14 where the girl pours nard over His head and everyone is ragging on her, basically because they can't see how Jesus is worth her extravagance.  He hushes them up and makes her eternally famous, but what stopped me was this:

"I need to realize there is no extravagance too great to lavish on Jesus.  Even when human wisdom tells me to be frugal, He approves of super-expensive displays of affection towards His person.  That's cool.

Oh, but wait, now He's saying His person won't always be here... so we won't always be able to do those kinds of things for Him.  So never mind.

Oh but wait!  Sci-fi!  He left, yeah, but He also downloaded His consciousness into several billion other bodies!  Which means..... I don't ever have to be afraid I'm 'spending too much' on the body of Christ."

So, while this does not give me license to spend all I want on myself, it does give me permission to ere on the side of being overly extravagant towards any of His current bodies.  Because He is always worth it.

Born Lost

Christianese is, without question, the most frustrating dialect I have picked up in my 31 years.  It's composed almost entirely of ill-defined words, ethereal concepts, infinite historical context, unpronounceable names, and obscure similes.  But worst of all it's been rendered nearly meaningless by long use, over-use, and casual use.  What does "Judge not lest ye be judged" actually mean anyway?

I was forcibly reminded of this language problem last week when I read Luke 19:10-- "For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost."  Due to the ever-present filter of Christianese, the image which swam into my consciousness was of vast, shadowy hoards, coming into focus as they neared me, and looking suspiciously homeless and addicted.  And I was not part of the throng.  But with this idea of being the "sought treasure" of Jesus fresh in my mind, I decided to tackled Christianese head-on and actually look up the word "lost".

adjective
1. no longer possessed or retained
2. no longer to be found
3. having gone astray or missed the way; bewildered as to place, direction, etc.
4. not used to good purpose, as opportunities, time, or labor; wasted
5. being something that someone has failed to win
6. ending in or attended with defeat
7. destroyed or ruined
8. preoccupied; rapt
9. distracted; distraught; desperate; hopeless

That pretty much dispenses with Christianese.  Because suddenly it's personal. Pre-Jesus, I am, you are, the shadowy hoards are no longer possessed or retained by our Father; the devil has tempted us away with empty promises.  Our souls can no longer be found walking the Garden with our Creator in the evening.  We have gone completely astray, missed the way and are bewildered as to where we are, when we are, and what direction we should be taking.  We have not been used to good purpose-- our father the devil employs us to steal, kill and destroy, wasting us on his machinations for there are always plenty more.  For many thousands of years God failed to win us.  Every single one of our lives ended in defeat and was daily attended by defeat.  We were destroyed and ruined on every side. We were preoccupied with ourselves and enraptured with our own survival.  We were the very definition of distracted, distraught, desperate, and hopeless.  

This is what it means to be lost.  And I have been.

But thanks be to God I live post-Jesus.  And I have been found.

The Gospel According to The Princess Bride

(Why I did not post this when I originally wrote it over two years ago is beyond me.....)

Have you ever thought of recasting this story? Jesus gets to be Wesley, we (the Church) get to be the true Princess Bride. Humperdink can be Satan if he wants, and the Six-fingered man any number of demons. (Sorry to all the side-kick fans, myself included: all good metaphors must end.)

Suddenly whole conversations and scenes take on profundity William Goldman never imagined, no matter how good he was at crafting archetypes.

Jesus: "I told you I could always come for you. Why didn't you wait for me?"
Us: "Well.... you were dead."
Jesus: "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while."
Us: "I will never doubt again."
Jesus: There will never be a need."

"You read that wrong. Buttercup doesn't marry Humperdink, she marries Wesley. I'm just sure of it. After all that Wesley did for her, if she doesn't marry him it wouldn't be fair."
"Well who says life is fair? Where is that written?"
"I'm telling you you're messing up the story, now get it right!"
So might an innocent observer to human history berate the Great Narrator.

In fact mightn't the Church be as indicted at times at Buttercup was by the Ancient Booer?
"Why do you do this?" asks the puzzled Buttercup.
"Because you had love in your hands and you gave it up! You're true love lives, and you marry another. True love saved her in the Fire Swamp and she treated it like garbage. And that's what she is, the Queen of Refuse!"

Do we not hear familiar lies in the oily-tongued reassurances of Prince Humperdink?   How often has our Accuser said, "I could never cause you grief; consider our wedding off. You returned this... Wesley?... to his ship?"
"Yes," replies the duplicitous Count.
"Then we will simply alert him. (And now for the poison.) Beloved.... are you certain he still wants you? After all it was you who did the leaving in the Fire Swamp. Not to mention that pirates are not known to be men of their word."
"My Westley will always come for me," we counter stoutly, trying desperately to believe our own words.
"I suggest a deal. You write four copies of a letter. I'll send my four fastest ships. One in each direction. The Dread Pirate Roberts is always close to Florin this time of year. We'll run up the white flag and deliver your message. If Wesley wants you, bless you both. If not... please consider me as an alternative to suicide? Are we agreed?"
How many times have we nodded our hesitant agreement over the centuries? Why does it take us so long to proclaim, "You can't hurt me. Wesley and I are joined by the bonds of love. And you cannot track that. Not with a thousand bloodhounds. And you cannot break it. Not with a thousand swords. And when I say you are a coward that is only because you are the slimiest weakling ever to crawl the earth!"
And then "Wesley" has to come save us from the consequences of our arrogant (and well-placed) faith.

Doesn't Revelation even end with Jesus on a white horse? "And look, there are four of them!"

Grace

I have the most sympathetic dog in human history.  I don't know how he tells I'm crying, but the moment he realizes emotion is happening, he's right there, nose to tears, paw on shoulder.  Or, as this picture shows, tongue to tongue in a display of anti-exercise solidarity.  This afternoon I sat down with my coffee after a morning of work and finished the last of "Julie & Julia", a favorite not because of the cooking but because of the marriages.  Both Paul and Julia and Eric and Julie have marriages like I have a marriage.  The words these men speak to their wives; the way they go to bat for them; the insight they have into the female hearts they have care of (witness the gifts given: mortar and pestle, faux pearls); the tenderness they show their fragile, driven women; all these things melt me into a pile of goo.  Weeping goo, in this instance, and Norman was right there to make sure I didn't emote alone.

I am so thankful for my life I don't have words. God will have to translate my tears. I think I'm finally beginning to absorb what happiness really is, a thing with which I have struggled all my life.  I have never been wildly emotional so I chalked it up to that, but it goes deeper.  Of course.  I begin to feel, not simply understand, that I have been rescued from God-knows-what and placed in a garden, both physically and emotionally. I look at my beautiful yard and joy erupts out of me. I think of Dale and the most perfect outlet for my happiness is these tears. This is what humility is achieving in me. I haven't written about humility yet, but I will.  It's a rainbow I've chased all my life, thinking if I only ran fast enough, if I only searched hard enough I could achieve it.  Suddenly I find all I must do is stand still and accept God's opinion of me.  Out of all reckoning.  It's not about me at all.  I did not expect an ability to assimilate happiness to be on the other side of sacrificed pride, but that equation makes perfect sense now that God has managed to crack the door of my understanding.  And through that crack I see the kind of person I hope to become: unashamed, guileless, simple, sincere, empathetic, and 100% love.

Just like Norman.

Glorious Cliches

No apologies today for extended silences-- too much else to say.

I have been reading again.  A cause for celebration and acknowledgement as I haven't, really, since getting married.  On the docket at the moment are Jerry Benjamin's booklet "Simply Singular: Is Christ Prominent or Preeminent?", Rev. Henry Wright's "A More Excellent Way to be in health", and Kevin Dedmon's "The Ultimate Treasure Hunt".  All of them whirl around the same eye-- the centrality of Christ to the Christian life and the necessity of seeking Him for His own sake rather than for what we stand to gain by cozying up to Him.  It's difficult for me to talk about any of these precious things without sounding trite, even to myself, because the words that say what I mean are very cliche, over-used and nearly devoid of meaning after 2000 years of use.  Trust me when I assert that for every tired platitude I write there is a glorious firework going off in my brain.

I got to hear Jerry Benjamin speak again over the weekend; he taught the book of Daniel at Ecola when I was there 12 years ago, and as a Jewish convert to Christianity he brings a depth of perspective coupled with a passionate delving into the Lord that falls like the first rain after drought.  He said repeatedly, "The Christian life is impossible," and he is right. Fortunately, the only Life we are called to is Christ's and He's already lived it.  How easily we forget.  We assume that in gratitude for our "so great salvation" we are now called to "do great things for God" when in fact He simply wants to be His great self in us, and let the great things occur as the natural side effect of the saving life of Christ. 

As I was perusing Dedmon's book this morning, it was impressed upon me how easily we have strayed from the centrality of Christ even within our concept of salvation.  We constantly assert, "Christ died to save sinners," which is certainly true; Paul says so in 1 Timothy.  But unless we look at the whole picture of Scripture we sail dangerously close to thinking it is therefore all about us.  It's an understandable assumption-- we're living in our bodies, and, as my pastor recently mentioned, whose face do we always find first in a picture? We are self-centric by nature.  Oddly enough, so is Jesus.  In fact that's the point: Jesus died to save sinners, but that issue wouldn't even be on the table unless He had wanted us.  Jesus died so He could have what He wanted, His greatest treasure, His body, His face in the picture: us. Salvation is all about what Jesus wants.  And since we know He only wants what the Father wants, and what the Father wants is perfect, we can rest assured, without any need for pride, that we are a super big deal.

But only because our worth is found in being the possession, the inheritance of Jesus. 

That, my friends, is a saying not in any danger of becoming cliche.

"We Own This Country!"

Let's talk about ownership.  Clint Eastwood spoke at the 2012 Republican National Convention on August 30th and said, "We own this country."  It threw a switch in my brain.  What does it mean to own something?  What are the ramifications if I do?  Why is it important?  Does God think it's important?  Did the Framers of our country think it was important?

ownership
noun
1.  The state of being an owner.
2.  The legal right of possession; proprietorship.

The legal right of possession.  That means if I have a legal right to something, I do in fact own it, i.e., have responsibility for it, may take pride or despair in it, must keep it up, repair it, cherish it, clean it, care for it, show it off and protect it.  That's the meaning and the ramification all rolled into one.

Why is it important?  Well, because God does think it is important.  He is the one Who commanded-- not just suggested-- "do not steal," "do not covet."  He thus implies that some things belong to someone and not to you, and that some things belong to you and not to someone else.  How kind of God!  He is protecting our property rights!

Speaking of property rights, the Framers also thought it was important.  I read an article this morning that quoted John Adams as writing the following: 
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free." 

Madison added, 
"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own."

Property rights are mentioned or implied in Amendments two, three, four, five, seven and eight of the Constitution, over and above (according to the above-mentioned article), " “religion,” “speech,” “press,” “privacy,” “newspaper,” “vote” (by citizens), or “suffrage,”".


So, the million-dollar question: do I act like an owner of this country?  Do I take responsibility for it?  Do I take pride in it?  Do I keep it up, repairing and caring for it, cleaning it up, protecting it, cherishing it and showing it off?  Good parents tell you you can't have a puppy till you can prove you can take care of a frog or your room or your bike.  Because you want that puppy you learn what it means to be an owner, or, more accurately, a responsible adult.  Growing up in the Me Generation I feel like I'm one of a million "frog neglectors."  I want to learn how to be trusted with that puppy.

I'm going to start by voting for a "business man" and not a "an attorney," and by getting off the computer and cleaning the house. 

Because it's mine.