Excuse me, sir, where's the church?

I've been dreaming of a church. A church where the members are not each islands to themselves, but where each member is a part of each other's lives. Not just on Sunday, but always an integral part of life. Kind of like a body. One body. You don't just need your arm or your eye on Sunday. Why do we only need each other on Sunday? For that matter, pretty much all the churches I've been to around here don't even need each other on Sunday. We just show up, exchange a couple of greetings, file into our usual pews, scan the audience for visitors and make note of where they're sitting so we can avoid them afterwards, shake hands with five people around us after the second verse of the second song (thus fulfilling our duty of fellowship), enjoy the message--even take notes, feel a little conviction, then scurry quickly back to the safe insulation of our own private homes and wolf down whatever we're having for lunch . . . by ourselves.

I've been dreaming of a church that spends its money on the body and not the building. I've been dreaming of a church where walking through the doors means walking into open arms of brotherhood. I've been dreaming of a church where the people make me feel like I'm home instead of sitting back at a safe distance and saying, "Oh, look--a visitor. Good. I hope he likes our church and starts coming regularly, and our numbers grow, and we get bigger offerings." I've been dreaming of a church where the singing is led by the congregation, by its burning love for its Saviour and Head. I've been dreaming of a church where the members assemble out of a passionate desire to worship and learn of their Lord, where everyone is together because they WANT be there--not because they ought to be. I've been dreaming of a church that is free and knows it. I've been dreaming of a church where there truly is no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, rich nor poor. I've been dreaming of a church where we're all one. One.

Christ, I know I'm part of your Body, but why do I feel so amputated? And where can I find the rest of Your body? Jesus, where's the Church?

Death: Staring into the Mirror

A helicoptor is flying over the house. At 12:30 AM. It's almost certainly a life flight. Someone's dying right now. Someone's hurting. Someone's crying, someone's praying, begging, pleading with a God they've never talked to before.

So often we reduce death to heaven and hell. And heaven and hell are certainly the most important places in regards to death; they are ultimate . . . for the deceased. But for someone, death is only a mirror and a door to life forever changed. A door through which the living are forced without any answers to life's most bitter questions, nor any guidebook for that which lies beyond. Death changes lives. It's a mirror into which every loving friend, brother or sister, father or mother, even the mere thinking observer must gaze and reflect and respond or react.

There is a certain finality to death which somehow arouses the strongest emotions within every beating heart. My soul, numbed and cooled by books and reactions and conflicts over the preceding months of school, was seared to life last fall by the death of a dear African brother. When I was with Providence in Cameroon, something was dying inside of me--something I knew nothing about. Providence was one of the most passionate people I have ever met. I don't think I ever saw Providence but that he was wearing either a face-covering grin or a solemn scowl of deep thought. He would have nothing to do with the ordinary life. As he walked me down to the square the morning I said goodbye to the town of Sabga at the end of July, it was with sobering sadness but an even fiercer hope that he pledged his love and prayers to me along with his conviction that I would be back. And that morning, the ability to be content and passionate with an ordinary life died inside of me.
When I went back to the states, I could feel that death inside of me as I integrated myself back into ordinary life. My heart would not waste its passions on an ordinary life. The end of summer brought school. My fourth year of college and more of the same ordinary academic pursuits: literature, psychology, language. Nothing thrilled me, nothing broke my heart, nothing infuriated me. I lived a half-smile. I wished upon a heavy heart with eyes bereft of tears. Until Providence died. He was twenty-eight, and I cried for the first time in months. All the other squabbles and conflicts in my ordinary life seemed so small and acidic and I hated it all the more. Providence had been living an extraordinary life, walking everywhere with his smile, his Bible, and his backpack full of tracts. Why take him and leave me? Average, ordinary me, contributing nothing to eternity. I held my face in my hands for a long time, crawled into bed and wished the world would disappear. But I had to go back out and face my excruciatingly ordinary life . . . it was still there and demanding my attention.
I remembered when Providence took me along with him to visit all the sick people at Mbingo hospital. We spent the afternoon in the trama and surgical ward with people who had just lost eyes or limbs and still didn't know if they'd keep their lives. I talked to some of them and saw so much grief and hopelessness. I saw bodies ravaged by accidents and disease. They asked me questions I could not answer and when I'd seen all I could handle I went out and sat on a wall. But Providence was still in there. Still bending over some dying lady's bed and praying. Still talking with families of those in such pitiful conditions. Fervent, compassionate, never-tiring. Driven by love. He came outside and asked me to come in and pray with him for a boy. I went with him, but, humbled and embarassed speechless, could only stand by and let him pray. I begged God to instill in me such a passionate, selfless love as I witnessed in Providence.

And then he was gone. My heart ached. Felt like it was fastened to a wall, but someone was pulling hard and tearing it. I sat with my face buried in my hands looking into that mirror called death. Why should I go on with this ordinary life? I could quit school. Go back to Africa. Live like Providence did, traveling as far as he could, talking to everyone he could. But too many things in this ordinary life tied me down. I looked on, reading emails as I and my other brothers and sisters in Africa grieved Providence's passing. But I could do nothing.

Providence was welcomed into heaven last fall, the place for which he was created, but my heart broke, and I'll never be able to escape the vision of a dark gap left in the hedge. The hole where once an extraordinary life poured passion and energy and everything he could into everyone he could. And his prayer calling me back to Africa.

"The clocks have all stopped, the story's been told
This is your life, so how will it show?

No, you can't pretend that forever
Will never come knocking at your door.

Run through the flames,
Never look back.
What did you think that you came here for?"
--the Afters (One Moment Away)

Impossible

Do I believe in the impossible? Do you? Why not? And why do I assume that you do not? Is it because that's the way we live, talk, act, think? Or rather, have conditioned ourselves to think.

Do we really not believe in the impossible? Then what is it inside of ourselves that draws us to the impossible when others reveal it, speak of it, only to reject it when it becomes too close to real, yet too inexplicable to our well-trained conventions? Could it be the truth?

What is impossible? To some it is very truth itself. What they have not seen, touched, or heard cannot be real. No, in fact, even if they have sensed it, if they cannot explain it, then it cannot be real. It was the senses playing tricks, some bad left-over gruel as Dickens' Scrooge might say.

And so to these people, they would not believe the impossible if they saw it with their very eyes.

Impossible is, in fact then, a state of mind. Fear often controls us more than any other emotion or conviction. We fear the pain, the unpleasantness, the awkwardness. We fear anger and failure and loss. We fear each other, our enemies, and even those we love most. But most of all, we fear the unknown. This is where impossible is born. In the fear of the unknown. We've never seen it, we don't know about it, it doesn't fit into any of our boxes or systems, so naturally we fear. The fear of the unknown is perhaps the strongest of all, because we have no way to fight it. And so we respond the same way my older brothers used to respond to me when I was being obnoxious and annoying: "ignore it and it will go away." So we ignore it. We deny its existence. We deny even its possibility; we label it-- it's impossible. Not reality.

But is it? Really?

"You can't see gravity, but it still exists." A poor example often used to try to prove the existence of God. Trying prove the possibility of a thing commonly thought impossible is different. Still the principle applies. Conventional wisdom tells us that certain things are impossible: a stairway to heaven; a tunnel to China; a true disappearing act; a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people-eater. But what are these labels of impossible based upon? An argument from silence. The fact that we've never seen one. So seriously, what else is called impossible and accepted as such? Suppose it's only because we haven't yet opened the right door?

Now, lest we get carried away and start jumping off buildings in attempts to fly, let me say that I'm not trying to prove the existence or the possibility of anything. I'm just traveling a road of thought.

Let's remember that impossible is actually a reality confirmed by God Himself (Mk 10:27). Jesus' disciples were confused-- worse-- they were filled with consternation and, without doubt, fear itself. "Who can avoid death, if even the richest, most law-abiding, moral man is condemned?" And, yes, Jesus confirms their fears, "With people it is impossible to avoid death." And so there are certain things that are impossible-- under certain conditions. "With people . . . " There is the reality that most of us live in. We all know (in our right minds) that there are many things that are impossible with people. If left only up to people. But that's an if that doesn't have to be reality. You see, in the same sentence Jesus says "but not with God; for all things are possible with God." All things . . . do you believe that? All things. A camel can pass through the eye of a needle. A rich man can enter into the kingdom of God (why doesn't that shock us Americans?). Blind men can see. Cripples can dance. The deaf can hear the mute sing, and dead men can get up and live again. Here. Now. All things. Reality. Do you believe it? Do you live in it? What is impossible to you?

Many people today claim to have witnessed or even experienced miracles. Some people say the age of miracles passed into history with the death of the last New Testament apostle. Some say there never was any miracle. They've never experienced one, but if they did, they would doubt their senses or state of mind instead of recognizing the hand of God. Would you?

What is impossible? What reality do you live in? The reality of all possible? Jesus has something to say about this reality. Mark records a powerful statement just before Jesus casts a demon out of a boy. The disciples tried and failed. The father of the boy was struggling with unbelief. His plea for help was disclaimed with "if you can do anything . . ." "If you can? All things are possible to him who believes." There was authority in those words. Authority from heaven. Authority that changed this man's plea from "if you can do anything" to "I believe! Help my unbelief!" Authority that changed reality. You know the end. A demon who was overpowering to every other human attempt was subdued by the impossibility-destroying power of God. Impossible? Depends. Do you believe?

Not so many things are impossible when you're living in the reality of Divine Power.

Write.

So you want to be a writer? Well, then write.

That's it?

Makes sense, doesn't it? You want to be a swimmer, you swim. You want to be a singer, you sing. You want to be fighter, you fight. Want to be a builder, you build. You want to be a writer, write. Simple.
But not.

What do I write about? Can I just sit down and write? No inspiration pushing me, driving me, compelling me to write? Who wants to read scribbles and babble? Do I not need a reason to write? A mission? A point, a goal?

What is your goal? To be a writer. Then write.

But that's not it-- is it?

No, you don't want to be a writer. You love to write. But more than that, you love to change. To change yourself, to be changed, to feel yourself and see yourself changed. But just as much, you love to change others. You love to, you desire so badly for others to join you in change. To live the change you've felt in your heart. That's your heart-- your passion. Have I got it?

No. You got part of it. It's deeper. Much deeper. For I see within myself no change. And that's what drives my desire to write. Notice: I say within myself. Yeah, I've changed much on the outside. Hair. Clothes. Music. Other things maybe. That's change you can put a finger on. Only a finger. But the heart . . .

Scars. And spreading like a leprous scab is a scar that gathers its covering across my heart to prevent change, to retard passion, to suffocate love. And all my radical, sincere, passionate outward change is discovered to be merely an emotional wave that washes over my face leaving a new piece of the facade with each new inundation.

So where does that leave me? Desiring to change? Of course. But isn't everyone? How strongly do I desire to change? Or should I ask, How deeply do I love the warm, calming shallow water? And somehow it helps to know I'm not alone. For as Mark Hall confesses, we are both

“Fearless warriors in a picket fence,
reckless abandon wrapped in common sense,
deep water faith in the shallow end.”

And though our eyes are “wide open to the differences” we are trapped in the strongest web of all-- our desires . . . for the picket fence; for the natural, instinctual common sense; for that easy and calm shallow end.

That's why I want to write. To change. To tell you not to be like them-- or me. To lift up my shirt, reveal my scabby, scarred heart. To remind myself of the passion I once was. To try once again to convince myself . . . to change.

That's it.

What If Jesus Meant Everything He Said?

You’ve heard from your mother, your father, your professor, the teenager at work, all the best wisdom man can give you. And it makes sense—if there is no life after this one. However, I am a disciple of Christ. I look for a city not built by the wisdom of man. Sometimes in that search Christ leads me to things that don’t make sense. So then is that to be rejected? Because it’s not logical, because it doesn’t make sense? What Christ said about self-denial, giving up everything to the poor, hating your family, not worry about the basic needs of life . . . was that really hyperbole? My question is, What if Jesus meant everything He said?

Thinking. Always thinking.
But ever getting closer?
I wonder.
Though I feel the loser,
I wonder
if it is not simply a difference
in values and what is
valuable. Make sense?

My life: nothing but His.
All this world’s gloss
I’m counting it loss,
Losing the dross,
Seeking the kingdom first,
Seeking for better or worse
That fount to quench all thirst.

And I wonder,
Did Jesus really mean
everything He said?

The riches, pleasures, and comforts of this earth are something to be laughed at, not clung to.

If our great God (with Whom nothing is impossible) leads a husband to a "comfortable", established life in a civilized culture where the family can rely on his job or church support and the local health facilities and where they'll have a set routine everyday where the husband won't have to travel much either alone or with the family . . . then he’d be reasonable. Then you could understand. Then that man would be “responsible.”

But if He leads a husband to a ministry where from day to day, year to year he is completely trusting God for his financial income, where there is no hospital or even clinic just down the road, where you have to boil your drinking water, shake out your shoes every morning and bleach your eating dishes (such as they might be). Where the family might move to a new home every three years, where the persecution is vicious and your enemies are everywhere. Where each day you awake and place the protection and provision of your family completely in your God's hands-- and you know that you have no other choice because there's too much against you for you to take care of them in your own power. Where you believe in and see miracles as God's normal working . . . then, that’s hyper-radical, unreasonable, irresponsible, because there's no way to raise a family in a lifestyle like that.

He should have, of course, done the Apostle Paul thing. Only single males can follow Jesus like that. I mean Jesus couldn’t really have meant for the principles and outright commands He gave in Luke 9:23, 24, 57-62; 12:4-7, 22-34; 14:26-33; 18:18-30; 21:1-4 to be applied to ALL Christians-- even wives and children!

But that quiet, firm voice will not leave us alone: What if Jesus really meant everything He said?

Matthew 5:38-48-- “You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 16:24-27-- “Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then He will repay each person according to what he has done.' "

Luke 14:25-33-- "Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,
'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, "This man began to build and was not able to finish." Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.' "

-----------------------------------------

In private silence now sit I and think
and in oceans of questions softly sink.
To find some peace, a quiet search
and thus my heart ever yearns.

Head held in hands
to listen to the distant lands
cry out for hope, a desperate cry.
And I-- where am I?

Clinging, ever clinging
to this sinking
earth and treasures held in Fine land's bosom.
But what will I give to the King of heaven?
Shall I give all?
Yes, I must give all
and gladly, for my life is not my own
but his and ever shall be so.

So what future then awaits me
as in darkness now I strain to see
the path so far ahead?
It is not mine to know-- I must be led
and that by One more wise
more loving than my mind's
imaginations can surmise.

And can I fear when led by
such a kind and faithful Eye?
Though fulfilled be darkest fears
of life alone and lonely tears,
though I be despised
and seen as fool in man's full eyes
of earthly wisdom,
though life be lived in
separation, lived alone and my heart wrenched
away from a human love, unfulfilled yet unquenched,
still I will love Him,
still I will praise Him,
still I will seek His kingdom first
with a desperate hunger, unquenchable thirst.

And when my life is at an end,
my head once more held in my hand
my thoughts will wander back across
the years of joy through painful loss.

And then I'll lift my hands
and praise the great I AM
and rush to meet my Husband Christ
who made worthwhile a dying life.

He'll bid me enter to His rest,
"Fear not, for naught but gain is found in death."
----------------
And yet, I am the worse, for I am a hypocrite living a life which bears no semblance to the message I preach. Jesus, save me from myself.

Think Happier?

Tired hands cradle a tired head. A cracking heart sinks deeper into his chest cavity as the bubble of misery rises higher and higher in his throat. Tears tease his flickering eyelids with the threat of a flood, but they find no release and the emotions building up within the prison of his chest stubbornly press on his lungs. Ragged sighs try to grow into sobs, but a strangling anger chokes them back, and he breathes with a sort of growling groan, short, sharp and bitter.

--------------------------------

When you read that description of emotional pain, how does it make you feel? Depressed? Angry? Frustrated? Why? It's not because of the hardship of this man or boy or whoever he is. You don't even know why he is miserable, and it really doesn't matter. Because you're not sad for him. You're sad for yourself. You're thinking about all the things that have made or could make you feel that way. That painfully depressed. Yet it's only your depressing thoughts. It's not your life circumstances.

So, someone says, Think happier. Does that make a difference? I mean really, could that possibly even work? Sure it could. Our emotions are greatly influenced by the thoughts we let pass through our minds. You think what you read. The more colorful the words, the more vivid the thoughts. Think about what you read. When we consume our time feasting on the difficulties and struggles of life and all the things that seem to us unfair, we will certainly find ourselves to be unhappy and reveling in self-pity.

So think happier.

One Bad Day (from Sketches of Life)

I shuffle down the sidewalk quiet and alone. Quite oddly alone, for there are hundreds passing me on my left. I avoid their obtrusive stares by turning my own upon the fountain and pool to my right. The railing occupies my right hand and side-- a buffer and a welcome distraction. The morning's rain has left rows of droplets clinging to the underside of the railing and hiding from the coming sun. I find some strange sympathy for these pathetic little water particles. I'd like to be hiding too. So I don't mind that they leave my fingers wet as my hand slides along the railing. It is not my practice to ignore my mankind brothers and sisters, but this day I must, for I find no happy thought within my heart to share abroad.

The sun stealthily curls its golden paint around a towering cloud, and the gilded edges threaten to make me smile. But I resist. A smile would be wasted upon such a ruined day. And besides, the sun is inanimate-- he won't care. Just like everyone else.

I begin to step out to cross the road looking up just in time to see the car. I stumble and step back trying to regain my balance. Forget my composure. Ruddy color flushes my cheeks and I seethe through my clenched teeth.

I toy with a regret that I didn't keep walking, head down, right out in front of that car. I know I shouldn't be thinking this way, but no one else feels bad, so I continue the self-pity party in my own little world. It's an addiction of sorts.

Staring straight ahead I stalk past the library, behind the Alumni building, and wind my way around the tables and chairs outside of the coffee shop. Those who notice me and offer their “Heyhowyadoin” receive my manufactured “Goodyou” with all the insincerity I can muster.

Down the long sidewalk to the back door of Graves, I stagger, almost there. I hope no one comes busting out of the door and runs me over. But it figures. I'd be surprised if no one did.

Brett's sitting in the lobby. I hope he doesn't notice me. I don't really feel like stopping or taking the time at all. Brett's always in a good mood and, what's worse, I know he'll actually care about my puny, selfish troubles. He'll ruin my pity party, so I sneak past him and trudge up the stairs to the second floor East. Leaning on the handle to room 223 I fall into the dim light and close the door behind me. Two steps and my bookbag hits the floor by my desk. One more and I'm at the air conditioner. Andrew has it set to “Freezeyourappendagesoff” as usual. But at least he's not in the room right now. As the polar wind ceases under my controlling hand I sigh half in relief, half in resignation. But I miss the numbing sound of the air. The silence screams my pathetic loneliness. Music. Flipping open my computer, my hands rise to the tie still squeezing my neck and my head totters twice before lolling over loosely to the left. Too tired to hold my head up is too tired. Draping the now-removed noose over the back of my chair I slide into my bed six inches off the floor. Forget the music. Sleep welcomes me home. The first open arms I've found all day.