You gotta know when to hold 'em, Know when to fold 'em...

Nouwen likes to say that we each have our own crosses to bear, referring to the unique weaknesses and burdens we each possess. However, with deference, I believe that the analogy, when used in the context of our faith, should not be tossed around in its colloquial meaning. Chr-st is the bearer of our cross, and it is upon the cross that we have been crucified with Him, dead to ourselves.

Perhaps a more apt New Testament allusion would be to say we all have our thorns in the flesh. Like Paul, we have those demons in our lives that seem to haunt us no matter how much we pray for them to be taken away. Paul called his a “messenger of Satan.” Three times he prayed to be relieved of his curse, and three times the Lord replied, “My grace is sufficient. My strength is made perfect in your weakness.”

Ever since I realized that running away doesn’t do much to solve problems, I’ve attempted to take the challenge of facing them head on, no matter how difficult. In the few short years that I’ve attempted to hold that standard, there have been two things that I’ve realized.

First, no matter how honest we are with ourselves or with other people, some things just take time. A single conversation, albeit a bold and necessary one, does not automatically fix things. No matter how hard we try with something, we can only do so much. The rest is in the placating and neutralizing effects of time. Free will also dictates that a positive response cannot be forced… it is between the other person and G-d. Time, in the hands of G-d, becomes an important catalyst for healing and growth. It is also in this span of silence that we must strive to remain as faithful as we can, in spite of our sometimes quasi self-deluded attempts at justifying our actions. (How’s that for qualifiers?)

Second, after facing the reality of our weaknesses and sin, and after wrestling with them like Paul, I think it’s ok to come to the conclusion that they are our own unique thorns, our very own customized messengers of Satan who won’t leave us alone. We might have to bear our vices and our scars longer than we would prefer, so that we are humbled enough to know that it is G-d’s grace that sustains us, not our ever-improving, ever-victorious holy and righteous self discipline and willpower. And if we indeed live in a fallen world where our hearts are broken and our thoughts distorted, where our bodies and all of creation groan for the culmination of redemption, then it might be ok to embrace the idea that though sanctification is a process, some of these curses will indeed remain with us until all is made right. If the case is that a given thorn refuses to change, then for your own sake, know when to walk away and know when to run. It’s not faithfulness or bravery to fight a battle that cannot be won. Run. (Joseph ran from Potiphar’s wife. David ran from Saul). Run until your legs can no longer move, because if you believe in Chr-st’s return, then you’ll also know that your running is not cowardice or ignorance, but the proper response until Someone else ultimately takes care of business.

The message most people probably need to hear is to stop and fight. But for others, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to know when to run.

Rain, rain, go away!

After waiting two weeks to play Ultimate, it was rained out, yet again.

Embracing the Silence

Silence is frightening. It’s frightening when it reveals how unsettled I am when I’m surrounded by it. Like a crack fiend’s craving, I’m looking for my fix of lyrics and music. Withdrawal is difficult. LSD users have flashbacks. Musicholics have earworms… an auditory itch that yearns to be scratched in the form of sound waves. But instead, there is silence.

I decided that for some people music is just a pastime. It’s something fun to move to, something you belt out with friends when you’re cruising down the highway with your windows down. For others though, it’s like psychological cutting… the emotions that are squeezed out of the blank spaces between the black dots on lined paper and the insinuation of experiences in the lyrics are the razors that remind us of our existence. The bleeding that ensues confirms that we can still feel, for better or worse. We breathe a sigh of relief after our depths are stirred, even if we know nothing has changed after having the last three minutes and fifty three seconds light up our auditory cortex.

For the last five days, I haven’t listened to music. Like an addict, all I’ve wanted to do is to take an injection of iTunes. I cooked and I cleaned without the normal hiphop. I walked around in my boxers, while the gravity of the piano called to me like a black hole. “Just a few chords,” I thought. “Just one or two times through the Damien Rice and Over the Rhine songs I’ve been learning.” Being forced under the lulling non-noise of the ceiling fan and air conditioner, I realized that the frightening roar I heard was my own emptiness.

This is the very emptiness I sought to inundate with music. From Scr-pture, I get the vague sense that G-d isn’t a fan of artificial opiates. When I sat there in silence and kept the professionally recorded melancholy from using my heart as a treadmill, I could no longer ride over this chasm on the borrowed wings of someone else’s talent.

The process of addiction is often perpetuated by the fear of facing reality on the road to sobering up. A temporary escape becomes a desire to remain in a state of ignorance. (Insert Homer Simpson here, toasting, “Here’s to alcohol: The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems!”) I’ve always prided myself in being a realist. And I’m too proud to turn my back on that claim now. So here I am, simultaneously acknowledging my idolatry and confessing the unexpected emptiness left by a masked but shriveling spirituality.

I take great comfort that J-sus is “G-d with us.” I’m relieved that we are indwelt by the Holy Sp-rit. I’m grateful for a love that casts our fear and grounds my identity as a child of the Father. I think sometimes, we can worsh-p in silence. I look forward to when this naked emptiness will be filled again.

But not with music or lyrics.

Clear as a Distortion Pedal

We spent the blackness of our pens and ivory of keys
Trying to pierce the shell of the reluctant masks
So we hear a snare but the heart shakes with the bass
No blade sits deeper than four strings and a bow.
Those dancing harmonies trampled over my composure
And the harp shred through my Kinkade, spilled my ghosts.
Who knew that the muse moonlit as a janitor.
But no one told me that he couldn’t mop up the fog.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

"... While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." -Romans 5:8

Here is a truth that I am grateful for. In our self-absorbed state of rebellion and callousness, Christ died for us. It is the Lord who knows us intimately (Psalm 139), and the Lord who hunts us down when we have strayed. His love is not incumbent on our obedience (or lack thereof). In love, He reminds us of all that we were meant to be, and our obedience becomes our response. All while we were still sinners.

"Oh to grace how great a debtor,
Daily I'm consigned to be.
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above."