Apples and Change

Our household consists of the taboo

All we speak of is religion and politics

Each to our own

Agreeing on little

But motives are good

Mutually acknowledged

Yesterday reeked of our first Thai recipe

Chocolate chip cookies

Cuddled on the couch

Taboo subjects taboo

And rest, rested on us

All arguments forgotten

In the comforts of home

Today is the first snow

We move in 9 days

Into the city

Of traffic and sirens

Nations amix in one neighborhood

And blacks will no longer be the minority

Both of us return to comfort

In unlikely circumstance

Closer to history and pain

Memories and relatives.

We leave our olive and chocolate walls

To those happy to find them

Our caretaking responsibility

To one better equipt

And our lonely city

Will fade quickly in our memory

As we trade it for

Welcoming pagans and artists

We become we,

in a way more than

He joining me

Mine becomes ours

As we set our feet on level ground

Trust marks the way

As apples and change

Hold us in the sweet smell

Of tomorrow

Sex abuse and the Church

 What becomes of a child's perspective on God when the one who is meant to lead and protect, when the one who is meant to teach about purity violates that child's purity at a young age?  It is distorted.  Trust is broken between the child and the creator-due to the misdeeds of a created being.  A person, a man. A priest maybe.   These things are received on the gut level and repel children from the God who is capable of healing the destruction caused by a broken/wicked man. Christ suffered as we suffered.  Did he get molested? I don't know.  But he felt forsaken by God and he felt the undeserved guilt. The guilt of the whole world was laid on him.   This is a song I was singing tonight as I thought about this suffering of the children and of Christ:


You cried out,
You cried out,
God you've forsaken me,
You've forsaken me

You cried out,
You cried out
You've forsaken me
You've forsaken me

But you didn't waste your blood on me
You didn't waste your blood on me
You didn't waste your pain on me
Why should I live blind if you help me see?

Christians considering divorce

So...at church this morning the pastor talked about a church that suffered.  First they had a leader fall from grace and then had a shooting in their sanctuary.  Following this the musicians wrote a song focused on overcoming.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJvqQjaz87I In the past I have thought of Christ overcoming as him being risen from the dead.  For whatever reason, this morning it struck me different.  Christ allowed himself to suffer.  He allowed his hands to be nailed to a tree.  He allowed himself to be mocked.  He allowed his side to be pierced.  He had power to stop all of this with a word and he chose not to.  He had the ability to escape the pain and he overcame by staying in the uncomfortable situation (understatement).  Just wanted to share the thought. 

Shared Parenting

In the past week I have observed two shocking situations in families that have some level of child-sharing.

Situation 1:  I am sitting at the table with a woman and her two children.  Her child talks endlessly about a family member of his other parents family who was not treating him with respect and kindness.  The mother (who I'm sure felt sad about this and angry even) just sat and sympathetically listened to her child.  She spoke no words of support for her son's position or anger towards the offending party. She could not control or change these events.

Situation 2:  When driving through a trailer park I witnessed a man on his cell phone asking who I can only assume to be his child, "So, is your mom hanging out with any special "friends" lately!!?"

Um...the problem is this.  The children are stuck in the middle.  They don't know better than to rant about one parent in front of the other because they can't conceive the amount of pain that brings.  On the other hand, depending on the age, they may not be able to draw informational limits and refuse to be used as a pawn.

A while ago I read a book called "Between Two Worlds" by Elizabeth Marquardt.  In this book she talked about the child's perspective regarding living in two different families, houses and worlds.  She stated that the child never really feels home.  The rules are fluid based on situation and the sense that anything is permanent or lasting in life is thrown to the wind at a young age.   Divorce has become so common in our age-and since it has and these hardships on the parents are inherent-then let's step back and recognize that a child relates himself to both of his parents.  If one parent speaks bad about the other parent to the child-the child might believe that he is half bad, because he is half of the "bad" parent.  It is difficult to protect the children from these attitudes and frustrations that come up-but if they are protected from it, then it is out of love and compassion for the child. Even in the case of not sharing the child's outrage at an injustice as the woman in
Situation 1 showed.

Even in the hardest of situations-wisdom can be used in conversation to and around the children in regards to their "other" parent.  As the old adage goes "If you don't have anything nice to say...."

Rise and greet your neighhbor

So,  I've had a lot of church experience over the years and the most awkward experience has been repeated at almost every church I've visited.  The pastor asks us to rise, shake a hand, give a hug or something similar to people we don't know.  The heart of the matter is that they want us to form relationships with those we meet during this time.  In my lifetime I have met only one friend through this method.  The other 4,938 times I've done this it has been an unnatural act for me.  I'm terribly shy and the situation is tangibly painful, but aside from that-it is a mockery almost to the true intimacy that the church is supposed to have.  The Biblical description of church involves people being in real relationship, meeting daily, and sharing everything. 

 

So, what is the alternative?  Small groups or studies that require genuine relationship.  Barbeques, potlucks, Small classes with breakout groups.  Really, anything that inspires true relationships to form.  I've only seen one church do this well.  That particular church was small, about 45 people.  Everyone cared for everyone else's needs both practical and spiritual.  If someone needed support, a babysitter, people to help them move, company or a place to stay-someone would step up.  I know, it sounds like a cult-but it wasn't about our leader and there wasn't any crazy theology-just the above mentioned Biblical idea of actually being the church together and loving each other well, with actions and not just words.  That is the kind of church experience that I long for still. 

A rose

more thorns than flower

has yet to bloom

into it's full beauty

a voice has whispered "It will never bloom"

a rumor has spread "it is only thorns"

but I know what I planted

and I know how it was nurtured

these things take time

faith must rise

and call forth what is meant to be

what it is becoming

The Blossoming

Quitting teaching Sunday School was the best choice ever!

So...a few years ago my mother told me that there was an opening for a preschool teacher at the church I grew up in.  I applied and was accepted.  It took a while to develop relationships with the kids-but when they were solidified the structure looked like this: We all wanted to learn about God-and I was the tallest learner.  Little people can make good friends.  They see the world in a purer way and they are still horrified (not ambivalent) about things they should be horrified by.  They learned to trust me to be fair and I learned to trust them to cooperate with the structure because I loved them and they loved me.  (This somehow does not work in a home setting..I've tried with my own).  We had fun-learned about Jesus and I will forever treasure those two years.




During the time I was teaching though, I wasn't being taught.  I was needing outside inspiration and was trying to come up with that myself.  At the end I chose to let the position go because I wasn't passionate about knowing the Lord for myself and therefore could not teach the children that.  They deserved better.  Even though I knew the stories and loved each child...I couldn't give them what they truly needed from me. 

I started looking for a church.  I went to one nearby and everyone was so friendly-they all came up to introduce themselves to me after service. It was like a wedding reception line.  Someone even drove me home because it would be a long walk for me.  At the end of service they offered prayers for the many families in their church who were sick.  I was laid up for the next week feeling miserable. 

Eventually I walked into a church where I developed inspiration.  They taught things that I knew...but desperately needed to be reminded of.  As soon as I walked into the building I knew I was in the right place though.  I knew the songs and it felt peaceful.  Someone told me once, "You have to go where you have peace."  It was home.  I feel like I'm coming alive again and after each sermon I am more aware of what God is speaking to my heart. 

 

The sea is a hungry monster, which could swallow a navy, and then open its mouth for more. Are not many men made of the same craving sort? If you gave them half a world they would cry for the other half; and if they had the whole round globe they would weep for the stars. Man's mind never rests in sweet content till God himself satisfies it with himself -Charles Spurgeon

  Satisfied with God.  Living water that causes you not to thirst anymore.  Hm...seems I'm back to that.  How can a person be satisfied with God?  Wouldn't you have to be tangibly aware of him with you?  Most itches when they are scratched, begin to itch again.  Hunger, lust, companionship...  What is it to be satisfied to the point of contentment-forever? 

I went to a wedding on Saturday evening.  A friend of our family was getting married and the woman performing the ceremony read over the often quoted love verses:

Love is patient; love is kind; 

love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. 

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  

 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 Love never ends.

 But as for prophecies, they will come to an end;

 as for tongues, they will cease;

 as for knowledge,

 it will come to an end.

 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;

  but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

  When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;

 when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.

 Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 

  And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. 

As I listened to her speak, I weighed each statement as a single statement.  Separating them out, I weighed my life against each line.  I became so aware of the things that need to change in the relationships closest to me.   Just wanting to be different is rarely enough to make a person different, so I'm now searching for the tangible changes that I need to make.

The thrill of the needle

liquid on a spoon

lighter beneath

recipe for death

both immediate and complete

stealing the soul

a betrayal of self

a long goodbye

and I watched

could not rescue

just whispered hope

imprisonment was your freedom

till you freed yourself of your imprisonment

and I could not help

no more whisper of hope

mourning is a long goodbye

there is no rescue

and this is my brokenness

I still love you

The inner ache I have heard described in many ways:

• The souls vacuum
• burden of intercession
• emptiness
• dissatisfaction
• an unnamed need
• quiet prayer

I'm not sure if I am speaking of two separate things.  There is an ache people feel...how do they perceive it and what do they do with it?  I suppose this has to do with their beliefs, surroundings and upbringing.  People fill the vacuum with the much referenced entertainment, sex, food etc.  The ache turns somewhere-either earthly or spiritual. 

It reminds me of this passage:
   Athenians, as I have walked your streets, I have observed your strong and diverse religious ethos. You truly are a religious people.  I have stopped again and again to examine carefully the religious statues and inscriptions that fill your city. On one such altar, I read this inscription: “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” I am not here to tell you about a strange foreign deity, but about this One whom you already worship, though without full knowledge.  This is the God who made the universe and all it contains, the God who is the King of all heaven and all earth. It would be illogical to assume that a God of this magnitude could possibly be contained in any man-made structure, no matter how majestic. Nor would it be logical to think that this God would need human beings to provide Him with food and shelter—after all, He Himself would have given to humans everything they need—life, breath, food, shelter, and so on.

This is the only universal God, the One who makes all people whatever their nationality or culture or religion.

 This God made us in all our diversity from one original person, allowing each culture to have its own time to develop, giving each its own place to live and thrive in its distinct ways.  His purpose in all this was that people of every culture and religion would search for this ultimate God, grope for Him in the darkness, as it were, hoping to find Him. Yet, in truth, God is not far from any of us. For you know the saying, “We live in God; we move in God; we exist in God.” And still another said, “We are indeed God’s children.” Since this is true, since we are indeed offspring of God’s creative act, we shouldn’t think of the Deity as our own artifact, something made by our own hands—as if this great, universal, ultimate Creator were simply a combination of elements like gold, silver, and stone.

-The Bible-Acts 17 excerpt

Hard to believe people worshiped/worship created stuff.  I've heard people suggest it is comparable to spending hours a day devoted to the television.  I don't know that it's comparable-although I rarely see people have the same devotion to spirituality as they do to the TV or videogaming.  Random musing...Selah.