If I didn’t know better
[Or if the world were like me]
I would think that artists learned to tickle the keys
To paint the notes they could not see
And puerile musicians with only 4 chords
Spilled the inkwell to blot out silence.
I’d think writers were poets
Who were packrats with words
And poets who attempted free verse as such
Were lazy and sucked at making thoughts rhyme
[So I slapped on a bumper sticker that screams:
Po-Mo! Creative! Unique!]
If painters were seraphim
And poets were saints,
I would be me.
Scraping month old paint chips off the palette
Closing my eyes to miss the sour keys
[If I hit them, it’s called Jazz.]
Telling myself that free verse has enough space
To let me act a fool.
My thoughts lean heavy against my eyes
And I can’t tell if it’s my soul or my gut that’s rotund and full.
Something heavy inside me churns like butter.
An ocean? A storm? (Dysentery?)
[No, pick some spiritual imagery.]
It’s the Holy Ghost haunting me, according to Over the Rhine.
Whatever notions, vague premonitions
Whatever desires to create like God
and speak existence into the unspoken,
All that is hope and frail and much broken,
Is but a spark caught flickering on an unfocused camera frame,
While the inferno dances out past the corner of my eye.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
A letter for Thanksgiving
I suppose now is a good time to sit and think of all the reasons we should be thankful.
The first part is the sitting. Some of us (who work in offices), feel like we do that an awful lot. In fact, for 8.5 hours a day, I sit in a cheap office chair in front of my Macbook and fidget away. So why sit anymore?
Perhaps the sitting I'm thinking about isn't so much the physical position of our gluts on some padding. Perhaps I mean more of the spiritual sitting... a position of rest, but also of attentiveness, a position that is difficult to attain when our minds are overrun with time lines and schedules, people to meet and events to attend, assignments to complete and on and on. Our spirits are seldom still enough to just sit. I am thankful that I can sit.
"Be still and know that I am G-d."
I'm sitting on a couch, house sitting for some friends, who left banana chocolate chip muffins for me. (Crappy HNGR intern? Guilty as charged. But boy is guilt delicious.) Through the concrete ceiling, I hear someone sight-reading hymns on a piano and some foreigners w-rshipping on a brisk Thursday night in November, halfway across the world from the rest of their families. I'm thankful that family goes beyond our blood, but is found wherever there is His blood. In so many ways, we are exiles. But in so many ways, we find Home wherever we are.
There is a certain amount of restlessness in my heart. Pages and pages of journal will attest to the desires that demand a hearing. But even journals get tired of hearing the same things day in and day out. There is never full resolution. There is never full resolve. And what tomorrow looks like... what next semester looks like, I cannot say. But from our thoughts down to the core of creation, there is a yearning for completion. I am thankful that we are never left alone, nor are we without a promise.
I read this in 1st Peter today:
"To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion… according to the foreknowledge of G-d the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for the obedience to J-sus Chr-st and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you." (ESV)
Ironic that we are elect. Chosen, loved, the children of He who rules the Hosts of the universe. And yet... we are ragged, dirty exiles with our hearts on that place we call Home.
No matter where you're getting your dose of tryptophan and football, how close or far you are from those you love, go on and sit. Be still. And even if you have every reason in the world to be ungrateful, let the Spirit of He who bought us with his blood bring you a thankfulness that transcends understanding. If you think you feel close to home, might I remind you that we are yet a ways off. But if you feel far and lost, He is nearer than You know.
Friends, my Family, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Most sincerely,
Chuck
The first part is the sitting. Some of us (who work in offices), feel like we do that an awful lot. In fact, for 8.5 hours a day, I sit in a cheap office chair in front of my Macbook and fidget away. So why sit anymore?
Perhaps the sitting I'm thinking about isn't so much the physical position of our gluts on some padding. Perhaps I mean more of the spiritual sitting... a position of rest, but also of attentiveness, a position that is difficult to attain when our minds are overrun with time lines and schedules, people to meet and events to attend, assignments to complete and on and on. Our spirits are seldom still enough to just sit. I am thankful that I can sit.
"Be still and know that I am G-d."
I'm sitting on a couch, house sitting for some friends, who left banana chocolate chip muffins for me. (Crappy HNGR intern? Guilty as charged. But boy is guilt delicious.) Through the concrete ceiling, I hear someone sight-reading hymns on a piano and some foreigners w-rshipping on a brisk Thursday night in November, halfway across the world from the rest of their families. I'm thankful that family goes beyond our blood, but is found wherever there is His blood. In so many ways, we are exiles. But in so many ways, we find Home wherever we are.
There is a certain amount of restlessness in my heart. Pages and pages of journal will attest to the desires that demand a hearing. But even journals get tired of hearing the same things day in and day out. There is never full resolution. There is never full resolve. And what tomorrow looks like... what next semester looks like, I cannot say. But from our thoughts down to the core of creation, there is a yearning for completion. I am thankful that we are never left alone, nor are we without a promise.
I read this in 1st Peter today:
"To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion… according to the foreknowledge of G-d the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for the obedience to J-sus Chr-st and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you." (ESV)
Ironic that we are elect. Chosen, loved, the children of He who rules the Hosts of the universe. And yet... we are ragged, dirty exiles with our hearts on that place we call Home.
No matter where you're getting your dose of tryptophan and football, how close or far you are from those you love, go on and sit. Be still. And even if you have every reason in the world to be ungrateful, let the Spirit of He who bought us with his blood bring you a thankfulness that transcends understanding. If you think you feel close to home, might I remind you that we are yet a ways off. But if you feel far and lost, He is nearer than You know.
Friends, my Family, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Most sincerely,
Chuck
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Words In My Head (... Like misfits after midnight begging for a light)
Words are funny little things. The can draw blood and they can cure in ways that doctors can't. They can bring down empires and erect new ones. They can reveal the hidden, or they can hide the truth. They can paint more vividly than a brush and A carefully phrased sentence can insinuate and evade at the same time. It can serve to both appease our own need to reveal without actually doing so. And if we claim true ownership of our words, if they were born out of tears, experience and grace, then they are more than scribbles on a page or blips on a screen. They are more than academic and hypothetical ideas to be considered, critiqued and dissected. They can be the very portions of our hearts upon which those lessons were branded.
Dole them out with caution, lest you give something you never intended to.
Dole them out with caution, lest you give something you never intended to.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
Are we ever "where we need to be?" On one hand, isn't it possible to be in G-d's will, and isn't that then "where we need to be?" But on the other hand, isn't the nature of sanctification the reality that we aren't where we need to be, and thus we are getting to that place we're supposed to be? The former allows us to live in shalom with what G-d has given (or not given) us. It facilitates the process of living in the present. However, the reality of the latter is like a thorn in the mind, heart and spirit. The realization that our thoughts and motives count just as heavily as our actions (Sermon on the mount), yet we are to act in accordance with what is right even when our motives and thoughts are rebellious remains, to me, a difficult anomaly.
This is ever the tension of our lives... acknowledging the legitimacy of our feelings without necessarily living by them. Struggling to live right even when our motives are questionable. Through all of these paradoxes runs a thread of attempted faithfulness, often faltering... a faithfulness that I pray is honored even when I cannot straighten or sweep out the depths of my intentions.
The Spirit prays for us when we do not have the words... but I think He also prays for us when our motives are muddled.
This is ever the tension of our lives... acknowledging the legitimacy of our feelings without necessarily living by them. Struggling to live right even when our motives are questionable. Through all of these paradoxes runs a thread of attempted faithfulness, often faltering... a faithfulness that I pray is honored even when I cannot straighten or sweep out the depths of my intentions.
The Spirit prays for us when we do not have the words... but I think He also prays for us when our motives are muddled.
Monday, September 17, 2007
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.
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.
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