Today I'm thankful for:
Chocolate Cherry Bordeaux ice cream in a pretty bowl... for breakfast.
Also, the gift of marriage. Not the kind that only goes as far as a piece of paper mailed to you by the courthouse; the kind where two people knit the rest of their lives together to be an expression of how God loves everyone.
The tears come easily these days, so the extent to which this song moves me may be no indicator of its greatness. But then there's this video.
'Blood' The Middle East
Lyrics:
Older brother, restless soul, lie down
Lie for a while with your ear against the earth
And you’ll hear your sister sleep talking
Say, “Your hair is long but not long enough to reach
Home to me
But your beard
Someday might be”
And she’ll wake up in a cold sweat on the floor
Next to a family portrait drawn when you were four
And beside a jar of two cent coins that are no good no more
She’ll lay it aside
Older father, weary soul, you’ll drive
Back to the home you made on the mountainside
With that ugly, terrible thing
Those papers for divorce
And a lonely ring
A lonely ring
Sit on your porch
And pluck your strings
And you’ll find somebody you can blame
And you’ll follow the creek that runs out into the sea
And you’ll find the peace of the Lord.
Grandfather, gentle soul, you’ll fly
Over your life once more before you die
Since our grandma passed away
You’ve waited for forever and a day
Just to die
And someday soon
You will die
It was the only woman you ever loved
That got burnt by the sun too often when she was young
And the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood
And there’s nothing you can do about it now
Once upon a time, Paul wrote a letter to believers who had so stripped the power from Christ's message that Paul in disappointment called them "spiritual babies". These were believers in Corinth, and they should have grown up by then. Where had they gone wrong?
For one thing, they were getting puffed up, thinking that their own brand of wisdom made them more spiritual than others. They believed this gave them rights, or authority, to act as they would without consequences.
Sexual immorality? For them it was a badge of honor. Participation in idolatry was a sign of strength. They had become self-seeking in their quest for spirituality.
There's an odd twist to this story, however. These same Corinthians were, by outward appearances, really spiritually active. Paul himself praised them for having every spiritual gift! Apparently, they were familiar with words of wisdom, words of knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, speaking in different kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. From the sounds of this, the Spirit's work should have been thriving in the Corinthian congregation. What was missing from this picture?
My guess is, Christ was missing.
In the same portion of the letter in which Paul praised the Corinthians for their spiritual gifts, he repeatedly referred to Jesus - nine times within nine of our modern verses, in fact. Excessive, much? But the excess served its purpose, because Paul's earliest readers would have recognized the repetition as a form of emphasis used often in those days.
Christ called the Apostle who founded this church; Christ was the means of their sanctification and calling; Christ is the Lord of all believers everywhere; Christ gives grace and peace with God; God enriched them to confirm the testimony about Christ; the Corinthians gifts were given as they waited for Christ to be revealed; their security was for the sake of their blamelessness in Christ's day; and God called them into fellowship with Christ.
Why do you think Paul was so emphatic about this whole Jesus thing?
I think the Corinthians had kept the bath water and thrown out the baby. Now that they had achieved their level of spirituality (after all, look at what they were spiritually empowered to do!), Jesus had become irrelevant to them, as had the purpose for which He had called them.
They had lost sight of love: relinquishing rights for the benefit of brothers and sisters; sacrificing temporary freedom for the sake of releasing sin's captives forever; allowing God's power to take precedence. That is Christ's love.
And that is what I think Paul meant when he said that we have the mind of Christ.
Stay tuned for the HORSE prompt to come at the end of the next post...
A chat with Jenni is like a turkey dinner - warm, nourishing, and most likely accompanied by thanksgiving. (They're also alike because you wouldn't want your inebriated uncle showing up for either of them.) In college, Jenni and I shared a learning curve that brought us away from dating-induced self pity and toward acceptance of how God was refining us through our struggles. We used the phrase "hard but good" to describe our challenges so often that it became like a rallying cry in our battle for character.
Looking back on the last month and its new experiences, I realize how the lesson lingers.
It was hard but good to tell my grandma "goodbye" after her 90th birthday, and for the first time to really mean, "goodbye forever, maybe."
It was hard but good to be honest with my professor for the first time, holding him accountable to his responsibilities as a teacher.
It was hard but good to leave my prodigal brother a message that for the first time betrayed vulnerability in response to his rejection.
It was hard but good to fret for the first time about my husband's success while he studied for his exam, and as never before to release that worry in the face of helplessness.
I know that the grand scheme of God's work didn't begin and won't end within the confines of my life. But there is something exceptionally genius about the way He sifts through the mess I offer and arranges the pieces to help make sense of it all: creation, the church, and even little Bethany.
Thanks for helping me remember and be thankful, Jenni.
HORSE prompt: If life were a multiple choice test, what would be the first five questions on yours? Write the questions and their multiple choice answers.
Reflecting on Matthew 6.
1. For The Birds, 2. at the couturier's, 3. Prairie Child, 4. Fresh Dinner, 5. Flock of Amigurumi Birds, 6. proud farmer, 7. Undry The Sky, 8. Untitled, 9. Bird Of Rust, 10. Freestyle, 11. Nostalgia (2), 12. on a rusty dumpster
God stirs up my guts,
knocking His big spoon against
the compassion-humility lump
that sits somewhere in the middle of me.
He breaks it into countless tears
working their way
through my doughy body.
Every tear touches the lifeless mixture
so I rise.
Such is the story of my life this far.
But through the surface of my full, rich life,
a thousand tears break.
I can't hold them in
because I've asked to be useful.
I don't know what will happen
once they've left me.
I do know that every groan
originates from and ascends to
a master of creative release who
empowers my ability to sustain and nurture
so that it actually
does
something
useful.
My deep quakes with the greatness of hope once again.
This is the story of His life through me.
Okay, no more chess analogies, because I'm having to research the game on wikipedia just to sound informed about a subject in which I have zero interest.
E and I invited M and T to mini golf last night. It was good times. M is still on the fence about whether he's going to come see the family.
If you're reading this post before July 5th, please pray M comes and some significant healing starts.
If you're reading this post after July 4th, please pray whatever did or didn't happen on that day would contribute to God's hopes for victory in these broken lives.
If you're writing this post on July 4th, please don't do anything to screw up.
Update (7/8/08): M was a no-show on the 4th.
My dad invited my brothers to spend July 4th with the family?!
The stalemate is broken!
Now the patient wait to see if brother M can build up courage to take the next move.
Updates as available...
"What is at the top of your list? Pick three random emotions (jealousy, wistfulness, etc.) and write a list of five experiences that cause you to feel each emotion. After all lists are complete, write a summary stating what each emotion means to you, based on your observations of the list for that emotion."
Humility
1. Losing at anything.
2. Leading to fill a volunteer gap when I know someone more highly-skilled could lead better, if only they were willing.
3. Debating with my husband about almost anything. (See #1.)
4. Teaching. (See #2.)
5. Losing at Scrabulous.
Humility is what I feel when comparison of myself to others is unflattering to me.
Bitterness
1. Watching politically partisan escapades.
2. Knowing gas in the U.S. will most likely never again cost less than $3 a gallon.
3. Recognizing impenetrable social cliques as they painfully exclude non-members.
4. Reading a history of atrocities committed in the name of Jesus Christ.
5. Losing someone to death knowing they never knew Life.
Bitterness is my response when any response seems powerless to change the situation.
Contentment
1. Walking home knowing who's waiting for me there.
2. Hearing my littlest brother's voice on the phone.
3. Watching an inspiring documentary film.
4. Seeing another believer baptized.
5. Purposeful times of prayer and worship with God's family.
Contentment grows out of interactions with others who snap me out of my self-absorption and remind me of an intention far superior to mine for a world far greater than mine.
Tag! If you read this, you're IT!
Riding in an airplane ranks among the most poignant spiritual alarm clocks in my experience. From inside Plexiglas the traveler penetrates a misty veil, enters a Tropospheric Hall where ceiling has turned to floor, feels the world double in size as the earth shrinks below. Do you see God there like I do? Awe steals over me every time.
Glory,
to him who rides the ancient skies above,
who thunders with mighty voice.
He alone stretches out the heavens
and treads on the waves of the sea.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him.∞
Seeing it with my own eyes I'm confronted once again by my limitations. I want to know Him more, but my awareness of Him is chained to my awareness of immediate surroundings. Self-centeredness lays a boundary that contracts slowly toward the center.
If I go up to the heavens, you are there.∞
Sometimes, rarely, I remember without the plane.
∞Psalm 68:33, Job 9:8, Psalm 19:1, Psalm 103:11, and Psalm 139:8
His cousin John got decapitated by a disgusting slug-king. Jesus just heard about it, and He wants to be alone.
The people are annoying. They won't give Him space. God, I hate the crowd right now. Why are we so suffocating, so desperate?
Why do we need Him?
I can just see it now: the numbing cloud of shock settling over His head; the throb of tears lodged somewhere deep inside His chest - we, in our barefooted blindness, crave His company as He craves solitude. What disgust He must feel as He slowly realizes that, once again, we've tracked Him down. Oh Father, He breathes, Don't let them say anything. I can't handle their ignorance right now. Maybe, just maybe, we'll get a clue what's going on, seeing things the way He does. Maybe we'll comfort Him for once.
I doubt it. You all must feel as ashamed as I do, but you obviously can't help approaching Him, either. What miserable failures we are. I don't like us, and I am one of us. We must make Him sick.
He's walking out now.
"And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed their sick."
You beautiful You.
Hi sister,
How you doin? To answer your question that you made on the phone, I want to go to Africa because I feel that God is calling me there. I decided to look at Tennmania because I remembered that all the trips that they had you needed to be 14. I ffound thuis trip and I new that it was what God wanted me to do. I hope that answers your question.
See ya,
Jamison:)
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