An easy yoke... a burden, light...

I don't 'do' trendy.

A book was written a couple of few years ago entitled "An Eight Track Church in a CD World." While I'm sure Dr. Nash had good intentions, they might have been best spent elsewhere paving a road. I like the church as a solidifying, eternal presence. I absolutely love the fact that I can sing the same songs my forefather's did. I don't want lights and sounds and powerpoints and a "praise team." I feel cheap and tawdry singing "a love song" to God. I don't want the church to change to fit the culture....and for that matter I don't think God does either.

I think that's why I've never liked the phrase "Let Go and Let God." Aside from sounding remarkably New Age and Spiritual, I never liked it primarily because it was trendy and I heard "speakers" in trendy tshirts, faded jeans, chains, and a gelled hair-do say it. (I don't like them either, coincidentally.) I still don't like it, but now I have another reason.

When Jesus is praying for the weary, he doesn't say "Give it to God." or "Let go, and I'll take care of it for you." What he says is "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me." I still have something to do. I can't just "let go." I have to "take on"....and what I take on isn't "nothing" but it is "easy, and light." I am still yoked.... it just fits better now. Why? Am I now stronger with broader more powerful shoulders, able to carry the weight? Or does God remove some of the burden, allowing me to regain my feet?

I do not know. I do know, however, that I have not, nor will I ever let go, and let God. He won't and I can't. Instead, I will take whatever he offers me to put on... for I know that wearing it will be infinitely better than shirking anything I have ever made for myself, expecting him to swap it out for me.

Inner Resources

Birth begets life and as result, I am someone’s child. Love begets marriage and as a result, I am someone else’s husband. Should the cycle repeat, I eventually will be the other side of that equation and a father, both in law and in blood.

I am a grandson to two people, one of whom has a functioning brain, the other of whom is dying with Alzheimer’s; both of who’s husbands have long been dead. I am the apple of my mother’s eye, the star in my father’s crown, although I often feel quite the opposite.

I am a brother. I spent eighteen years of my life with this person who I now feel as if I don’t even know. I am unsure as to how this makes me feel.

I have a razor’s edge view of right and wrong. Black and white are for me not only opposite ends of the pigmental spectrum, but in-between them there exists nothing. You are my enemy or my friend, and I love you both, although for one I will exert all my efforts to comfort – the other, to destroy.

I am intensely insecure. I feel the need for constant reassurance that I indeed am who it is that I say I am and that I treat others as I say that I should. Through the bluster and braggadocio, lies a yearning need to be told that I have been good, and faithful. I thrive on appreciation. I exist to summate the Law and the Prophets.

I am honest, completely, and expect the same from others. I expect from others only their best, and am hurt when I do not get it. I do that which most fatigues me because I know I must. No one else will…and it must be done.

I am not glib, sensational, or overly communicative. I am an island with few docks at which select ships may berth. I am self-aware. I am critical of everything, myself paramount. Myself has a name, but that is not who I am.

Given Circumstances

I often wonder what it is like to be satisfied. What does feel like to be wholly sated with life and all it's trappings? How does one process the idea of being genuinely content? Then I ask myself if this is even possible...probably not, I suppose. Would I even want to be that way?

I suppose that it is, in the end, a question of "fight or flight." In flight, one can escape that with which he is not satisfied but in so doing runs the risk of increasing his dissatisfaction by not fighting. In fighting, one can change that with which he is unsatisfied but in so doing runs the risk of increasing his dissatisfaction by virtue of the Herculean effort it takes to fight - which drains him.

For Sisyphis, it was punishment. His eternal struggle was a punishment for unacceptable behavior this side of the River Styx. For Jacob, the struggle was to strengthen him and change him forever. For Job, it was simply to prove a point. What is it for me?

The beauty of rest is never so pristine as it is in weariness just as power is never so riveting as it is in weakness.