On relationships...

"My great admiration and love of nature's creations took me out to Africa in early youth and there, through the real contact with all these wonders, I got to admire and love it even more. I found out while bringing up animals that the most different species will form friendships and be inseparable friends, and that no animal can live without society, or without a true companion. The loss of this friend after a long separation will break its heart, or the the meeting with its friend after a long separation will make it wild with joy. In the world of animals I have experienced love, gratitude, fidelity, attachment - all the beauties of the soul - and very often I felt inclined to think what wonderful examples were thus set to the lord of creation, man."

-Kalman Kittenberger
Big Game Hunting and Collecting in East Africa, 1903-1926

Losing My Religion

I went to an art show tonight and at this art show there was a painting of Adam and Eve. I was immediately struck by the emotion in their faces. Eve looked ashamed - Adam, sorry.The artist was standing next to me, who I don't know very well at all, and I leaned over and said to her that Eve looked ashamed and Adam appeared to be sorry. She, the artist, then turned to her friend and expressed her gratitude that it came through and someone got it.

Some got it, alright. Me...and if the goal of Art is to affect an emotional response, this young woman succeeded.

Was Adam sorry? How much did he hate himself and what must have been his temporal chargrin as he looked on Eve? Did he contemplate suicide? He, while the Father of Man, was also, argueably, the Author of Sin...or if not the Author, the tip of the Author's pen.

As a man, I carry the burden of my wife. How would I feel to have brought something like that upon her? And then by extension...others who in me have placed their trust? It was Adam's fault, and it will be, has been, and is mine as well. To deal with that weight in my own life is cumbersome...how must it have been for Adam? How heavy his yoke and difficult his burden?

Overwhelmed and afraid of weeping in public, I retired to a back porch only to be confronted by one of my first loves, the game of soccer. I watched as young kids played in the cold rain. I remembered the smells. The squash of my boots in the pitch...the way the water would drip off my hair. This was my favorite time to play, save when the frost made the pitch crunchy and the ball sting. I remembered what it was like to coach. I missed it. I forever will.

Then I remembered when God told me I couldn't coach anymore. I remember when he took from me what I loved and most enjoyed. I remember knowing I would forever miss it. I also knew that he was giving me something else that he would eventually take away; theatre. Forever placing me where I need to be, for the people who need me, for the time appointed, with no regard to how I felt about it: God's relationship with me in a nutshell.

I wonder when will I wander through a theatre rehearsal and miss it? When will I not be able to act anymore and will I miss it?

I'm coming to grips with the idea that my present is my future past....and frankly, it saddens me.

"Three Promises"

No Condemnation

No Politcs

You Will Be Better


- or -

No Condemnation - for those in Christ. Other than that....

No Politics - that are not resoved in a Godly, humble manner

You Will Be Better - if only for reaizing how bad you are


Christ's death and resultant atonement are not a self-help starter kit. To be in a relationship with Christ is work like no other. It is a daily mortification of your own desires that, willingly or not, you put aside for his. It is not a relationship I enter to "get something" out of it, but one in which I give all with no regard to what I will receive. I give because I am commanded...not because I always want. I work because I am told...not because I feel like it. I do all that I do because that is what he wants, which is more important than what I want. "Because I said so" is sufficient. To Nineva will I go. That is my relationship. I exist to be used. Though he slay me...and he often times does.

But we can't put that on our signs...it doesn't put bodies in the pews.

Matthew 23:33-39

In The Still of the Night

I woke up at two o'clock this afternoon. I walked the dogs. I played video games all. day. long. I spoke to no one. No one spoke to me. The silence in my home at this moment is deafening save for the clacking of the keyboard.

Rest.


Got some.

On Humility and Service...

I am humble.

Realizing the inherent, apparent contradiction in that statement, let me take the time to unpack it.

I am rarely wrong about things. I say this not to pat myself on the back, but more often than not, God grants me tremendous insight and gives me a gift of discernment that is rarely off the mark. I am confident of these revelations and support them with all that I am, knowing they come from God. People misconstrue this as arrongance. Not realizing that I am just a conduit in a much greater transaction, I wish deeply that people would stop looking at the pianist and be immersed in the music.

I have done my best to do my duty, to God and my country, to obey the scout law, and to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight....and while I feel Sir Baden Powell may be somewhat pleased with me, I know that my Father in Heaven is even more pleased with me. I am truely one in whom He is well pleased...and I know all of this not because of anything I have done to merit the pleasure but because of what Christ has done to merit my release.

I am bold, forthright, and assured - embued with a spirit of authority and not timidity precisely because I am humble....and as a necessary result...I am also humbled. But... I want to be right because I am right, not because God has given me a right vision. I, and I alone want to be right. I want to stand in the face of the Almighty and scream triumphantly that I am right! I do have a right to be angry and weary and how dare you tell me otherwise! I am through! Do you hear me? I have done my time, done my duty, and obeyed your law....I want to be released!

In the maelstrom that is the breath of God, I want to lean in, buffeted by the fury, fists clenched in defiance, raised in the air and for all that I am worth roar at him that I and I alone know what is best for me!

I want to conquer God....I want to be right....because I want to think that I am.... I and I alone.

But...

If I truely believe that my life is not my own...then, I can never be right, alone, and am, therefore, wrong....so it is in the tender, sustaining fury of the love of Abba Yahweh that I am humbled - and made right.



Humility.


Embrace it.