pushing away
pushing away what once was
for something more new
surprising, less filling.
the words you wrote
now fade into eternity,
yet, caught on this heart
holding onto what you
definitely don't want.
you've pushed me away.
your wish is fulfilled.
what remains is a shattered heart
and a place where dignity once stood.
August 29, 2007
August 26, 2007
Saying what I can't
The words of others that speak to my condition...
"What great gravity is this that drew my soul toward yours? What great force, that though I went falsely, went kicking, went disguising myself to earn your love, also disguised, to earn your keeping, your resting, your staying, your will fleshed into mine, rasped by a slowly revealed truth, the barter of my soul, the soul that I fear, the soul that I loathe, the soul that: if you will love, I will love. I will redeem you, if you will redeem me? Is this our purpose, you and I together to pacify each other, to lead each other toward the lie that we are good, that we are noble, that we need not redemption, save the one that you and I invented of our own clay?
I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me.
I went looking, I wrote out a list, I drew an image, I bled a poem of you. You were pretty, and my friends believed I was worthy of you. You were clever, but I was smarter, perhaps the only one smarter, the only one able to lead you. You see, love, I did not love you, I loved me. And you were only a tool that I used to fix myself, to fool myself, to redeem myself. And though I have taught you to lay your lily hand in mine, I walk alone, for I cannot talk to you, lest you talk it back to me, lest I believe that I am not worthy, not deserving, not redeemed.
I want desperately for you to be my friend. But you are not my friend; you have slid up warmly to the man I wanted to be, the man I pretended to be, and I was your Jesus and, you were mine. Should I show you who I am, we may crumble. I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me.
I want to be known and loved anyway. Can you do this? I trust by your easy breathing that you are human like me, that you are fallen like me, that you are lonely, like me. My love, do I know you? What is this great gravity that pulls us so painfully toward each other? Why do we not connect? Will we be forever in fleshing this out? And how will we with words, narrow words, come into the knowing of each other? Is this God's way of meriting grace, of teaching us of the labyrinth of His love for us, teaching us, in degrees, that which He is sacrificing to join ourselves to Him? Or better yet, has He formed our being fractional so that we might conclude one great hope, plodding and sighing and breathing into one another in such a great push that we might break through into the known and being loved, only to cave into a greater perdition and fall down at His throne still begging for our acceptance? Begging for our completion?
We were fools to believe that we could redeem each other.
Were I some sleeping Adam, to wake and find you resting at my rib, to share these things that God has done, to walk you through the garden, to counsel your timid steps, your bewildered eye, your heart so slow to love, so careful to love, so sheepish that I stepped up my aim and became a man. Is this what God intended? That though He made you from my rib, it is you who is making me, humbling me, destroying me, and in so doing revealing Him?
Will we be in ashes before we are one?
What great gravity is this that drew my heart toward yours? What great force collapsed my orbit, my lonesome state? What is this that wants in me the want in you? Don't we go at each other with yielded eyes, with cumbered hands and feet, with clunky tongues? This deed is unattainable! We cannot know each other!
I am quitting this thing, but not what you think. I am not going away.
I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God's own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me.
I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again.
God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love,, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us."
The words of others that speak to my condition...
"What great gravity is this that drew my soul toward yours? What great force, that though I went falsely, went kicking, went disguising myself to earn your love, also disguised, to earn your keeping, your resting, your staying, your will fleshed into mine, rasped by a slowly revealed truth, the barter of my soul, the soul that I fear, the soul that I loathe, the soul that: if you will love, I will love. I will redeem you, if you will redeem me? Is this our purpose, you and I together to pacify each other, to lead each other toward the lie that we are good, that we are noble, that we need not redemption, save the one that you and I invented of our own clay?
I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me.
I went looking, I wrote out a list, I drew an image, I bled a poem of you. You were pretty, and my friends believed I was worthy of you. You were clever, but I was smarter, perhaps the only one smarter, the only one able to lead you. You see, love, I did not love you, I loved me. And you were only a tool that I used to fix myself, to fool myself, to redeem myself. And though I have taught you to lay your lily hand in mine, I walk alone, for I cannot talk to you, lest you talk it back to me, lest I believe that I am not worthy, not deserving, not redeemed.
I want desperately for you to be my friend. But you are not my friend; you have slid up warmly to the man I wanted to be, the man I pretended to be, and I was your Jesus and, you were mine. Should I show you who I am, we may crumble. I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me.
I want to be known and loved anyway. Can you do this? I trust by your easy breathing that you are human like me, that you are fallen like me, that you are lonely, like me. My love, do I know you? What is this great gravity that pulls us so painfully toward each other? Why do we not connect? Will we be forever in fleshing this out? And how will we with words, narrow words, come into the knowing of each other? Is this God's way of meriting grace, of teaching us of the labyrinth of His love for us, teaching us, in degrees, that which He is sacrificing to join ourselves to Him? Or better yet, has He formed our being fractional so that we might conclude one great hope, plodding and sighing and breathing into one another in such a great push that we might break through into the known and being loved, only to cave into a greater perdition and fall down at His throne still begging for our acceptance? Begging for our completion?
We were fools to believe that we could redeem each other.
Were I some sleeping Adam, to wake and find you resting at my rib, to share these things that God has done, to walk you through the garden, to counsel your timid steps, your bewildered eye, your heart so slow to love, so careful to love, so sheepish that I stepped up my aim and became a man. Is this what God intended? That though He made you from my rib, it is you who is making me, humbling me, destroying me, and in so doing revealing Him?
Will we be in ashes before we are one?
What great gravity is this that drew my heart toward yours? What great force collapsed my orbit, my lonesome state? What is this that wants in me the want in you? Don't we go at each other with yielded eyes, with cumbered hands and feet, with clunky tongues? This deed is unattainable! We cannot know each other!
I am quitting this thing, but not what you think. I am not going away.
I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God's own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me.
I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again.
God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love,, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us."
August 24, 2007
the learning curve
I felt like I've learned a lot while working here at the shelter. I know that working third shift probably isn't ideal but it gives you tons of time to sit and think about stuff, to write, and to read. I just wish that I took more advantage of it sometimes. I have the perfect opportunity for growth and I choose to stunt it on a daily basis. I think I'm good at that because I'm human; because I ultimately am capable of destroying any hope at what's best for me. It's a trend I've noticed about myself. There's a trend... or a flow to what goes on here at the shelter too.
It starts about 3:00am when I realize that everyone's asleep but me. This is a tough revelation to deal with because it's about an hour after this that I remember we were made to sleep at night, not to work. It's like my body automatically shuts down about 4:00. Seriously. I've never had this kind of experience on a repeated basis. The only thing I can compare it to is a heroin addict who's trying to get clean and really wants to take a hit. Only I'm a sleep addict who's intentionally depriving himself of his addiction all in the name of I-need-to-pay-the-bills.
And it's about 4:13 in the morning after undergoing the initial depravity-attack that I begin to really desire signs of human life. Sometimes I even wonder if I'm a zombie, a walking corpse without any signs of actual life. I know that when I look through the glass in front of my face that second shift cleaned, I can see my reflection. I almost don't recognize myself with my mouth gaping open and the dried crusty drool caught up in my beard. There's a first-time reaction to this is as well. It usually involves a blank stare and a sudden gasp - an attempt to wake up and breath life back into my manic state.
At 4:30 on the button I decide that I need to get up and walk around. This is a sure-fire way to stretch the energetic athlete dying to get out of my body. It lasts until 4:32 when I'm back by the kitchen and I once again become a walking corpse. I'll typically make my way back to the desk where I sit and try to figure out what I'm going to do. I've gotten into the habit of watching an episode or two of Friends. I have no social life, it seems, so I live it vicariously through fictional television characters. I'm happy to report that I have six friends. They're not a bad substitute for actual human interaction. I sometimes talk to the computer screen. I laugh with them. I cry for me on my behalf.
About 5:45 I like to step outside and take in the morning air. There's something about seeing how everything comes to life in the morning that captivates me. It's dark and rainy this morning, but it's cool to see the sky blossom into dawn, like a seed gently pushing itself out the dirt, it's merely making the way for something beautiful to happen. So I sit on the step out front and eagerly wait to see what's going to happen later in the day because it's got to be beautiful. Like a flower. It's times like these that I feel like a hippie but wait impatiently for life to get a move-on so I can see what's in store.
After stepping back inside my peace is disturbed by a screaming child of a few years. It's okay though. This happens every morning just a smidge after 6:00. He's like an alarm clock, a rooster that's capable of waking everybody up at the same time each morning. I'm actually starting to depend on this kid to kick me in the pants each morning. When he finally leaves the shelter, I'll have to ask one of the teenagers to scream for me. But that just might cause more problems than it's worth.
Around 6:23 the phone starts ringing more repeatedly. It's nothing important. It's usually nobody, well, obviously it's somebody calling, but the phone call has not much importance. Unless it's my boss. That happened yesterday. She told me to get off the phone and go clean. But it's usually around this time that one of the clients comes out of his room to go get coffee and beg for the newspaper that hasn't even come yet. I tell him he can go look for it, which he sometimes does, but it's never there until 1st shift magically brings it in with them. Maybe they buy it...
By 6:56 everyone's pretty much up. I mean everyone... unless they're a married couple because they skip breakfast. Everyone else is sure to be at breakfast though. 7:00. They go get their grub on. It's nice though. This is the best part of the morning. I hated it before. I hate mornings when I first get up anyway. If I woke up with a gun in my hand and you smiled at me I would probably use it against you. Your smile, not the gun. What are you thinking?! Really though, it's just nice to see real people after 4:00am that aren't trapped inside my computer screen.
There's joy in working here though. There's an amazing privilege in getting to see life blossom every morning in these halls. It's like God's creation's stepped inside these walls for even just a few hours, a few moments, and I'm caught up in His grace. The screaming child, morning smiles, and the smell of coffee bring a person into something. Sometimes it's beyond description. Beyond words. Every morning, it's beyond me.
I felt like I've learned a lot while working here at the shelter. I know that working third shift probably isn't ideal but it gives you tons of time to sit and think about stuff, to write, and to read. I just wish that I took more advantage of it sometimes. I have the perfect opportunity for growth and I choose to stunt it on a daily basis. I think I'm good at that because I'm human; because I ultimately am capable of destroying any hope at what's best for me. It's a trend I've noticed about myself. There's a trend... or a flow to what goes on here at the shelter too.
It starts about 3:00am when I realize that everyone's asleep but me. This is a tough revelation to deal with because it's about an hour after this that I remember we were made to sleep at night, not to work. It's like my body automatically shuts down about 4:00. Seriously. I've never had this kind of experience on a repeated basis. The only thing I can compare it to is a heroin addict who's trying to get clean and really wants to take a hit. Only I'm a sleep addict who's intentionally depriving himself of his addiction all in the name of I-need-to-pay-the-bills.
And it's about 4:13 in the morning after undergoing the initial depravity-attack that I begin to really desire signs of human life. Sometimes I even wonder if I'm a zombie, a walking corpse without any signs of actual life. I know that when I look through the glass in front of my face that second shift cleaned, I can see my reflection. I almost don't recognize myself with my mouth gaping open and the dried crusty drool caught up in my beard. There's a first-time reaction to this is as well. It usually involves a blank stare and a sudden gasp - an attempt to wake up and breath life back into my manic state.
At 4:30 on the button I decide that I need to get up and walk around. This is a sure-fire way to stretch the energetic athlete dying to get out of my body. It lasts until 4:32 when I'm back by the kitchen and I once again become a walking corpse. I'll typically make my way back to the desk where I sit and try to figure out what I'm going to do. I've gotten into the habit of watching an episode or two of Friends. I have no social life, it seems, so I live it vicariously through fictional television characters. I'm happy to report that I have six friends. They're not a bad substitute for actual human interaction. I sometimes talk to the computer screen. I laugh with them. I cry for me on my behalf.
About 5:45 I like to step outside and take in the morning air. There's something about seeing how everything comes to life in the morning that captivates me. It's dark and rainy this morning, but it's cool to see the sky blossom into dawn, like a seed gently pushing itself out the dirt, it's merely making the way for something beautiful to happen. So I sit on the step out front and eagerly wait to see what's going to happen later in the day because it's got to be beautiful. Like a flower. It's times like these that I feel like a hippie but wait impatiently for life to get a move-on so I can see what's in store.
After stepping back inside my peace is disturbed by a screaming child of a few years. It's okay though. This happens every morning just a smidge after 6:00. He's like an alarm clock, a rooster that's capable of waking everybody up at the same time each morning. I'm actually starting to depend on this kid to kick me in the pants each morning. When he finally leaves the shelter, I'll have to ask one of the teenagers to scream for me. But that just might cause more problems than it's worth.
Around 6:23 the phone starts ringing more repeatedly. It's nothing important. It's usually nobody, well, obviously it's somebody calling, but the phone call has not much importance. Unless it's my boss. That happened yesterday. She told me to get off the phone and go clean. But it's usually around this time that one of the clients comes out of his room to go get coffee and beg for the newspaper that hasn't even come yet. I tell him he can go look for it, which he sometimes does, but it's never there until 1st shift magically brings it in with them. Maybe they buy it...
By 6:56 everyone's pretty much up. I mean everyone... unless they're a married couple because they skip breakfast. Everyone else is sure to be at breakfast though. 7:00. They go get their grub on. It's nice though. This is the best part of the morning. I hated it before. I hate mornings when I first get up anyway. If I woke up with a gun in my hand and you smiled at me I would probably use it against you. Your smile, not the gun. What are you thinking?! Really though, it's just nice to see real people after 4:00am that aren't trapped inside my computer screen.
There's joy in working here though. There's an amazing privilege in getting to see life blossom every morning in these halls. It's like God's creation's stepped inside these walls for even just a few hours, a few moments, and I'm caught up in His grace. The screaming child, morning smiles, and the smell of coffee bring a person into something. Sometimes it's beyond description. Beyond words. Every morning, it's beyond me.
August 22, 2007
C.S. Lewis
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
I talk of love - a scholar's parrot may talk Greek -
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
I talk of love - a scholar's parrot may talk Greek -
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
August 21, 2007
The Kingdom [in class notes]
I think that I might have posted this before, but I ran across it and thought that I would share. It's basically notes from class about 3-4 years ago. Interesting how I forgot about it and it came back to me...
I think that I might have posted this before, but I ran across it and thought that I would share. It's basically notes from class about 3-4 years ago. Interesting how I forgot about it and it came back to me...
The Gospel of Jesus isn’t something that is easily explained, it’s more of something that is witnessed. When Jesus was on Earth, he preached about the Kingdom of God. He said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near.” However, in our day and age, that isn’t what we hear preached in the church. Unfortunately, we hear that Jesus only came to forgive us of our sins or that Jesus was only a great moral teacher. But that wasn’t the case because Jesus was more than just a great moral teacher; he was the Savior of the world. He didn’t just come to teach us about grace, forgiveness, mercy, and show us how we should live our life. He made something that appeared to be completely unattainable within our reach. Jesus was a stud in my opinion. He was God incarnate. That is something that man is unable to do.
The Good News that Jesus proclaimed was the availability of the Kingdom of God; something that is seldom heard of in the church today.
The Kingdom of God is the effective range of God’s power. God, being the Creator and sustainer of life, has rule over the entire Earth and creation. However, the only place that God’s power is limited is within the confines of the human heart. God cannot force us to love him.
Who
The Kingdom of God is God’s Kingdom, simply put. It is the effective range of his power. Jesus preached the availability of the Kingdom of God. It is available to everyone, whether Jew, Greek, prostitute, tax collector, beggar, Pharisee, Priest, etc.
What
The Kingdom of God is God’s Kingdom. It is the effective range of God’s power. The only place that the Kingdom is limited is within the boundaries of the human heart. It is where God rules and reigns, also known as the Kingdom of Heaven. Man had turned what he wanted the Kingdom to be into his own image, blinding all followers to the truth. The system that was in place for the Kingdom of God on Earth was not what God desired, which is why the Kingdom that Jesus preached was rejected. He manifested the Kingdom through the disciples.
Where
“The Kingdom of God is near” is a phrase that Jesus constantly repeated over and over. In some translations it reads that the “Kingdom of God is here.” The Kingdom of God is first seen at the beginning of Creation in the Garden of Eden. The relationship that God had with Adam and Eve was the Kingdom of God, but after the fall, it is also the reason why Jesus returned, to restore that relationship.
When
The Kingdom of God is here.
Why
Why the Kingdom of God?
It had fallen into religious and ethnic captivity.
What are the two Gospels that are most commonly preached in the church today?
The Gospel of the Left views Jesus as a teacher on how to love one another. It appeals to people who think that humans are pretty good. The Gospel on the Right preaches mainly on the forgiveness of sins. It knows that the problem with humanity is sin. However, the problem with these two Gospels is that they’re only half of the message. When a particular church leans only on one of these two Gospels, it is missing what Jesus was really preaching. But preaching only the Gospel of the Left and the Gospel of the Right, growth is stifled within a religious community. It wipes out any chances of spiritual growth, mainly because an individual begins focusing on either their sinfulness, and that becomes their only focus, or that they undermine Jesus and his work on the cross by thinking that his blood wasn’t necessary, but his lessons on life were. The big issue is that the church wouldn’t be trusting Jesus with its life.
How could we go about changing what we do?
We could start shifting the message and start preaching an available “with God” life and show them how to live that life.
What is Grace and how does an individual grow in that Grace?
Grace is God’s action in our life. I can grow in that grace through several different means, such as the spiritual disciplines. However, growing in grace only works within the Kingdom of God. If one tries to practice disciplines outside the Kingdom, it turns into legalism and buries people.August 13, 2007
August 11, 2007
Dear God #2
I'm tired of this constant,
this feeling of defeat
resonating in the hallows
of my being that You
have stripped bare.
Who knew that nothing
inside of nothing
could manifest such pain,
such sorrow?
A pain and a sorrow that feels
shameful to have
because of my apparent
lack of faith -
or the display of the waning
root that's left?
When will You let Your hand up on
hearts and let them grow?
Let them finally grow
around each other as we stretch
and reach higher
and higher
towards You with the others'
support?
Wait
if it's Your desire,
but a small sign or
inkling of hope and encouragement
would be a welcomed
stranger of nourishment
to this weakening root being tromped
under these feet that oppose me,
these feet of those I consider closest
to the void beckoning
its darkness inside.
But I feel oh so alone
on this vacant battlefield
soaked in my blood,
littered with the empty threats
of my oppressors,
the ones that this sword I am
wielding didn't even lift its
edge to slaughter.
It was my fight that
You stripped from me.
My epic that You've
taken authorship of.
Strangely, in this
holy obedience
I desire to submit.
I give in because I can't water myself
when I'm buried under the earth
covered by the blanket of
those that oppress.
I'm tired of this constant,
this feeling of defeat
resonating in the hallows
of my being that You
have stripped bare.
Who knew that nothing
inside of nothing
could manifest such pain,
such sorrow?
A pain and a sorrow that feels
shameful to have
because of my apparent
lack of faith -
or the display of the waning
root that's left?
When will You let Your hand up on
hearts and let them grow?
Let them finally grow
around each other as we stretch
and reach higher
and higher
towards You with the others'
support?
Wait
if it's Your desire,
but a small sign or
inkling of hope and encouragement
would be a welcomed
stranger of nourishment
to this weakening root being tromped
under these feet that oppose me,
these feet of those I consider closest
to the void beckoning
its darkness inside.
But I feel oh so alone
on this vacant battlefield
soaked in my blood,
littered with the empty threats
of my oppressors,
the ones that this sword I am
wielding didn't even lift its
edge to slaughter.
It was my fight that
You stripped from me.
My epic that You've
taken authorship of.
Strangely, in this
holy obedience
I desire to submit.
I give in because I can't water myself
when I'm buried under the earth
covered by the blanket of
those that oppress.
August 9, 2007
7:51pm
There's so much that I'm starting to question now, especially about myself and why I even believe what I believe. It's like I'm still going through the process where I'm making my faith my own and not my friends' adaptations of it or some obscene ideas of it. I want to make faith something deeper for me, something much more real; because I just know that's what it is. I almost feel that I have the desire sometimes to jump on a spiritual-bandwagon that's become so popular, but I also know that that's not what I'm doing at all. I felt a conviction deep-down inside and I've tried my hardest to not stray from that conviction.
What was the conviction?
Just that the way faith has developed in my life has been very religious, like there's steps involved before we're allowed to go deeper. We've become so clean on the outside that it covers what's really going on on the inside. Christians in America, especially, have become more and more like pharisees that don't know how to do dishes. And frankly, I've grown really sick and tired of it. I don't want a part of it anymore.
I've been really overcome by this idea of chasing after Jesus and latching onto what he's doing here. Church, where I've grown to know it, is really detached from that. My conviction has been to take the words of Christ literally, to heart, and to allow them to drive me to action. I think deep down that the church wants to do that too, but it has become so misled and corrupted. It just took stepping out of it to realize this.
And while it would be easier to sit outside the doors and insult it, my heart wants to see the church cured - to see it purified. I just think that the best way to do that isn't to tell them (to talk about it removed from action - a lot like they already teach on matters of faith), but to show them, to inspire and drive them to change, to actually pursue love as a unified body over all barriers, even denominational ones. There's no denominations in the kingdom of God, so why do we let them be created?
There's a lot to say about Jesus and the message he preached, that he lived out and actually saw come about. But it amazes me how we've allowed our theological and weak interpretations cloud the mission. Jesus' message wasn't a secret, so why do we approach it like it is?
I realize that Jesus spoke in parables, but it wasn't to confuse us. It was necessary to cause us to search deeper, deeper than the Christian message that the world is somehow feeding us through "Christian" circles. And the meaning behind them helps us grasp understanding. Jesus was very clear when he said, "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." It's at hand?! It's here! What's so confusing about that?
If we follow Jesus' example and just quit talking about following him, I bet you anything that this entire world would be changed in a radical way. That's our problem. We talk about things too much. So let's stop being lazy and do something already.
There's so much that I'm starting to question now, especially about myself and why I even believe what I believe. It's like I'm still going through the process where I'm making my faith my own and not my friends' adaptations of it or some obscene ideas of it. I want to make faith something deeper for me, something much more real; because I just know that's what it is. I almost feel that I have the desire sometimes to jump on a spiritual-bandwagon that's become so popular, but I also know that that's not what I'm doing at all. I felt a conviction deep-down inside and I've tried my hardest to not stray from that conviction.
What was the conviction?
Just that the way faith has developed in my life has been very religious, like there's steps involved before we're allowed to go deeper. We've become so clean on the outside that it covers what's really going on on the inside. Christians in America, especially, have become more and more like pharisees that don't know how to do dishes. And frankly, I've grown really sick and tired of it. I don't want a part of it anymore.
I've been really overcome by this idea of chasing after Jesus and latching onto what he's doing here. Church, where I've grown to know it, is really detached from that. My conviction has been to take the words of Christ literally, to heart, and to allow them to drive me to action. I think deep down that the church wants to do that too, but it has become so misled and corrupted. It just took stepping out of it to realize this.
And while it would be easier to sit outside the doors and insult it, my heart wants to see the church cured - to see it purified. I just think that the best way to do that isn't to tell them (to talk about it removed from action - a lot like they already teach on matters of faith), but to show them, to inspire and drive them to change, to actually pursue love as a unified body over all barriers, even denominational ones. There's no denominations in the kingdom of God, so why do we let them be created?
There's a lot to say about Jesus and the message he preached, that he lived out and actually saw come about. But it amazes me how we've allowed our theological and weak interpretations cloud the mission. Jesus' message wasn't a secret, so why do we approach it like it is?
I realize that Jesus spoke in parables, but it wasn't to confuse us. It was necessary to cause us to search deeper, deeper than the Christian message that the world is somehow feeding us through "Christian" circles. And the meaning behind them helps us grasp understanding. Jesus was very clear when he said, "repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." It's at hand?! It's here! What's so confusing about that?
If we follow Jesus' example and just quit talking about following him, I bet you anything that this entire world would be changed in a radical way. That's our problem. We talk about things too much. So let's stop being lazy and do something already.
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