Best of my Xanga...

So this series may only be one post long... but remember xangas... they were the bomb right? Well I had one too... and this was probably the best thing I've ever written on it:

Sometimes I feel pretty dirty. Sometimes its because I've done something I feel particularly dirty for doing. Other times its just the accumulated filth of not doing business with God. I've thought about this a lot and I don't feel like I'm any less acceptable to God. I think its probably the other way around. That God becomes less acceptable to me. I think when I get into these moods I'm no longer okay with having nothing to offer God.
I talked to a girl in the SUB about a week ago who's biggest problem with Christianity was that people couldn't work off their shortcomings. That resonated with me because in a sense that's my biggest problem with Christianity too. I keep hoping that there's some way besides the humiliation, pain, and self-denial of the cross. There is nothing more. There is no more blessing and no more reward, than the body and blood of Christ [credit: Derek Webb]. There is nothing in the goodness and obedience of my hands for the obedience of my hands was made possible through Christ's blood. He is all in all.
Lately I've been feeling dirty (the accumulated filth kind). I struggle to come to God with nothing. It seems shameful, undeserved, disrespectful even. And in a way it is all of those things. But Jesus still smiles. The love of the Father still embraces the prodigal. The Spirit still comforts. The immutable nature of our faithful God beckons to us to surrender saying, "there is nothing more." You don't need to be whole to come to Jesus. My brother asked me a question concerning the passage in the Word where Jesus says that he came to save the sick. I expressed that I'd had similar quandries about the matter. In the context of the text it would seem perhaps that pharisees are not sick. But we know from elsewhere that they are. Hence the dilemma. Reguardless of dilemmas, in the context of my life this passage speaks wonderous love to my heart. Jesus came for such as I. If I boast of health, Jesus will not come to me. He will move on to those who admit weakness. And so if the blessings fall on those who are poor in spirit, then I will humbly join the ranks of such worthy individuals.

love.

will

Autumnal

Sun seems distant this time of year
as life is on the retreat
having given one last burst of radiant joy
to let all know it's glory
hoping
that it will not be forgotten by the dormancy
of a winter too long

Retreating behind armor of thick bark
sap recedes to meditate upon the effects of the fall
it has experienced again.
The world looks on and sees the barren branches.
The arms once clothed in blossoming beauty of life
now stripped and naked.

But deep underground
deeper than the season's chill
the roots draw up springs from the ground
and from the cold dreary rains of autumn
life is sustained and assured
that as it passes through a season of winter
it will only be for a season,
and so gathers new strength.

Can I See Another's Woe?

Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no!  never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird's grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear --

And not sit beside the next,
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant's tear?

And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
Oh no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

He doth give his joy to all:
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not year.

Oh He gives to us his joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

-William Blake

The Morning After

Time lost and wasted
spills over the dawn into a day
breaking with guilt and fear.
Can a day or work be blessed
while life endures such great weakness?

But hope also rises with the dawn
as to the cross the sinner's drawn.

Awake O sleeper!
For from the Father's faces do shine
the smiles of love forever thine.

Reconciliation...

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with a friend of mine where he confessed that he had strong feelings of animosity in his heart towards another brother who had done some harmful things to him. When he thought about his brother hatred arose for how he had hurt him and his family inadvertently through some foolish actions. While the brother had undergone church discipline and was no longer directly involved in my friend's community, my friend still harbored bitterness in his heart towards him. This situation was hard for me to swallow. It broke my heart to know of the sin in my brother's heart that was being justified by sins against him. And it got me thinking about forgiveness. I feel like over the past weeks, God has used this situation along with a book I've been reading and most recently a discussion in a small group in my church this evening to bring the idea of forgiveness and more specifically reconciliation to the forefront of my brain tonight. You dear friend, are the beneficiary of my meditations.

The most obvious truth about forgiveness is that we who have been for forgiven must forgive. It is not as easy as saying, "Yeah... I should probably not hold it against her any more." As someone once said, we need to stop shoulding all over ourselves. Forgiveness (and any mandate of Christ) is not motivated by any sort of legalistic shoulds or shouldn'ts.

I had a unique experience about a month and a half ago at a coffee shop. I was walking in to have a quiet time and passed a guy on a bench who asked for some change. I truthfully told him that I didn't have any. As I walked away into the coffee shop, I thought to myself, "I probably should have helped and maybe I should probably help him still by giving him my free pastry I'm about to receive for buying a cup of coffee." Feeling justified in the truth that guilt is a poor motivater for any action, no matter how just or merciful, I did nothing. As I read in John chapter 1 that day about how the eternal Word, through whom everything that we can sense, became a part of his creation, I was moved by the humility of Jesus. As I meditated on the fact that he is in me, and I am in him, I realized that my previous action didn't make any sense. I don't live according to a standard where I should do certain things to be better. Christ lives in me, and his character is such that he humbles himself. If he is one who humbles himself for the sake of others, then I must out of my very nature do everything in my power to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and clothe the naked. It's not some sort of test I need to pass. I don't play that game any more. Jesus passed the test and took up residence in my heart. It is out of this new nature that the born again have no choice but to forgive.

This is why the Bible says that unless we forgive then we will not be forgiven. It's not that we have to pass the test to get the reward, but that those who know they have the reward cannot help but get the right answer on the test.

That being said often times to forgive is painfully hard and rubs against our pride in such a way that repulses us. Not just our pride either. Often times we have suffered grievously at the hands of people who screwed up either intentionally or unintentionally. I've been reading A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser. In the book Sittser describes his journey through the loss of his mother, wife, and daughter after a single car accident caused by a drunk driver. Through a less than stellar prosecution the driver is let off the hook. Sittser describes how he wrestled with the fact that justice was not served. That the drunk driver did not in some way feel pain equal to that which he had caused. After describing the struggle in his heart and the difference between healthy grieving and unforgiveness Sittser remarks that victims must acknowledge that they cannot change the past, there is no going back, but there can be moving forward. He says that "though forgiveness seems to contradict what's right and fair, forgiving people decide that they would rather live in a merciful universe than a fair one, for their sake as much as anyone elses." This is not easy, but ultimately it leads to freedom. If we choose not to forgive, then we are bound to our bitterness which eats at our souls and makes the world we live more mean than merciful. Ultimately though I would argue, and I believe Sittser would agree that forgiveness is only possible if God forgives us first.

Often times when we resist forgiveness it is because we desire for the wrongdoer to come to us and ask for it. We believe we don't owe them anything, so why should we? As I mentioned before we don't act on shoulds, but rather out of our regenerated nature. So besides the fact that that's not a good question to ask, forgiveness is a good idea, because it offers freedom for us from hate and bitterness. Also if forgiveness flows out of our nature because it flows out of God's nature then the let us consider the nature of God's forgiveness. God did not wait for us to come to him, in fact I would argue that such an action on our part was impossible. The model that God has set up is that the responsibility to reconcile lies not with the one who has committed the most fault, but with the one who has the greatest ability. Thus we ought to consider the nature of God which reached out to us and forgave, and reconciled us to himself. If then, we are new creations, we must reach out to those who have sinned against us also, even before they come and apologize or seek for the relationship to be restored. If we do this, then we prove ourselves to be children of our Father.

love.
will

And death shall have no dominion...

And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.

Under the windings of the sea

They lying long shall not die windily;

Twisting on racks when sinews give way,

Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

Faith in their hands shall snap in two,

And the unicorn evils run them through;

Split all ends up they shan't crack;

And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.

No more may gulls cry at their ears

Or waves break loud on the seashores;

Where blew a flower may a flower no more

Lift its head to the blows of the rain;

Though they be mad and dead as nails,

Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;

Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,

And death shall have no dominion.

-Dylan Thomas (1933)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_death_shall_have_no_dominion"

Invictus

Anti-Meridian finally appeared in my mailbox... best lyric triumphantly sung by Reese Roper:

Hope Unstoppable,
sing the morning sun,
wake up, oh sleeper,
the Daylight has come.

mmmm.... good stuff.