"We all struggle with forward motion.."

Art of any sort is an expression that either rusts or shines, depending on the time and heart invested. For those of us who have always dabbled in trying to paint words, play colors, or capture the fleeting, our very sensitivity to the depth we seek to express can be desensitized through neglect. Even if we've never been very good at sharing it with others, the neglect will dull our own experience of it.

After a 9:00-5:30 in an office and a bike ride home, my energy to perceive and think about the transcendent is nigh nonexistent, let alone my ability to express that which I have no strength to grasp.

To some, expression is a luxury. To others, it is a necessity for survival. I fall somewhere in between those two categories, perhaps resting most of my weight in its survival value. Maybe this is why 7th chords on a piano or some walking bass notes on a guitar will hold me over even if I don't have the luxury of digging into the dirt of my heart with words. (After all, my linguistic energy is expended on trying to understand the Tianjin accent of taxi drivers and street vendors or attempting to read store signs and restaurant menus.)

Though learning Damien Rice and Over the Rhine songs on the guitar and piano have been my reprieves, the melancholy of others never fully manages to express one's own, no matter how beautiful it sounds.

In the same way, as much as Henri Nouwen manages to find resonance in my soul, I have found that he can be the Novocain that numbs my real need for the Sp-rit's presence. Vicarious spirituality isn’t the same as the imminent presence of G-d.

It's amazing how sin and a little bit of surface spirituality manage to inoculate against the Incarnate Word. I'm afraid of not hearing the Sp-rit's voice, but I'm petrified of ever coming to a place where I don't care about not hearing Him speak. I don't ever want the daily grind to be my excuse for mediocrity. I find it shocking that callousness is so much easier than sensitivity. Perhaps that's because rolling backwards merely requires passivity, but as some latter day poets with modern harps have rocked out to, "We all struggle with forward motion… Cuz forward motion is harder than it sounds, every time I gain some ground I gotta turn myself around again.''

I'm rather low maintenance externally. Give me a mat on the floor, some food in my tummy (just not celery), and I'm gravy. I'm not that picky. But spiritually… I can't be having no shit. I need to be rollin' out the spiritual caviar and filet mignon.

If ya'll are pr-yer warriors, I certainly wouldn't mind some spiritual throwing-down on my behalf. Over here, the gloves need to come off, Satan needs to know his role, and I need to live this reality of being dead to sin, but resurrected with Chr-st, Romans 6 style. I need space and strength to know His presence again.

Word.