On Remembering

Remembering is a funny thing. For an example, I read a book not too long ago that prompted me to go back through my early childhood and think of all the memories I have from before I was 10. It was an interesting exercise.

I grew up for my first seven years on a mountaintop in Alabama. So I was going through memories. The good and the bad, and everything was tinged a bittersweet. Now, this was weird, cause I have great memories of climbing down to the waterfall on my Grandfathers property, laying in the ferns with my older sister, and many other wonderful childhood memories.

But it was all bittersweet. Then I got to the memory of hearing that we would be moving. And I cried myself to sleep. I had no idea that had affected me that much.

And this is the case with a lot of things in our lives. Unless we actively go back and actively remember our story, from childhood on, we will miss a lot. This reaction to the memory of moving made sense of many things. Why everything before 8 was bittersweet, why I had stress headaches at 10. This was a part of my story that I was missing, and having that piece helped make sense of other pieces that hadn't made sense.

It's not just things like moving either. A lot of what we need to remember is how God has interacted with us in the past. What he's done throughout our lives. I need to remember that day in 2007 where I was at the end of my rope with my headaches, and God held me as I cried. For the first time I knew God was good. If I were to forget that experience, I would be missing a piece of my story, and things would go out of focus.

And it's not just our stories either. We need to remember God's story with his people at large. His story with Israel in the old testament, with the church in the new, with the church throughout history. It's no wonder that God tells Israel to remember so often. If they forget what God has done in their history, they will not live in a way that makes sense. They will not be able to make sense of their part in the story. It'd be like having to act a part in the second act without knowing what had happened in the first. You're not going to get it.

The funny thing about remembering, though, is that in spite of my ability to call up many facts about my past, it's hard to remember the emotion and meaning oftentimes. And that's what shapes our deeply held beliefs, our perception of past experiences...So we desperately need God and others to remind us. Remind us of who God is, what He's doing, who we are, and what we're doing in all of this.

So, I encourage everyone to remind the people in your life. Remind them of the Great Story of which they are living as a part. Remind them of God's work in the past. Remind them of the great goal we have in this life, remind them of who they've been and who God's making them to be.

Remind, remember. Cause once we can't, we're missing the most important thing: What Christ has done for us. So please, remind people when you see them, and remind yourself. We all need help in not forgetting.

Unspoken Longing

"You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw -- but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realise that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of--something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling(but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it -- tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say, 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul,. the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all."-C. S. Lewis The Problem of Pain.

I came across this quote in The Sacred Romance. This is something I have felt very often. It's something that, as he says, is impossible to communicate. You sometimes meet people and you can tell they've had the same experience, but even then you're almost unable to talk about it.

I would posit that this is a description of experiencing God and God's story. Not just the "emotional high" type of experiencing God, but experiencing God as storyteller. As Holy. Holy is an interesting word, but when it comes down to it, it basically means, in reference to God, "like God". It's rather self-referential. So, getting a taste of God as God is, in contrast to who we've conceived God to be.

This evening at care group I was reminded of my experiences with God like this. Reminded of the story that I get glimpses of being played out in my life and the lives of others.

Over the years of pain and beauty, I have many times sensed a deep longing for I-knew-not-what. As I said in a poem I wrote, 

"[This something] is gold! sapphires! diamonds!
But more, and with exquisite flavor, smell, texture.

Yet this something eludes me.
Like a smell I once knew.
Like a memory just out of my grasp.
Like a hint of melody that I cannot place."

I still cannot put it into words at all well, but I know WHO this something comes from, and who can satisfy this "incommunicable and unappeasable want." For that I am very thankful. 

I'm kinda looking forward to the rest of my life searching for, getting tastes of, hearing the echoes of that which will truly satisfy me. The epic poem that is happening all around me. I can name it as "God as God is and God's purpose in reality" but it will take a lifetime and more to learn what that means.

Following Jesus is much more than just being right, or doing the right things, it's about getting to know, being known by, and falling in love with God as God is. And that is a frightfully exciting thought.

The Past and Present

First off, I want to connect my two blogs. I'll post a link to my old Xanga blogs here.

Secondly, after reading through the last 5 years of my blogs, I just want to say how amazing God is. I can see so many instances where God has addressed issues that I brought up. Like my bitterness towards him. I began realizing it in 2010, and God worked on it a lot that next year. My walls, which I have posted about many times, are beginning to fall. I've gotten to know God in a much more intimate manner like I wanted to back in 2008...Yeah. So If you journal or blog, I'd encourage you to go back every once in a while and look for how God's worked over the years.

I had an amazingly relaxing weekend. Lot's of rest and people I love. It was great. I need now to go into this next part of life. I'm kinda excited, kinda scared. I don't want it to be the same as before. I want to be more responsible with my time and money. Make a schedule, make a budget, start exercising. It's not going to be easy, but it needs to happen. I'm not living a very focused life right now, and that needs to change. So, hopefully I'll keep this blogging up again. If for no other reason than so in 5 years I can look back again.

The Wall...Again

I've been dealing with a wall against pain and vulnerability for as long as I can remember. There was something of a break there between 2005 and 2009, but since then the wall has been back higher and thicker than before. It's kept me from loving, It's hurt others, and most importantly it's kept me from actually communing with God.

This wall was built to protect me.

I'm a naturally very sensitive person, though you'd have to know me well to know that. I tend towards harsh words and looks of indifference, and if that's hurt or distanced anyone reading this (I know it has some), I cannot tell you how sorry I am. Owing to this sensitivity, I have experienced much pain from things that others would be able to handle with fortitude.

This wall was built against pain.

I've been through pain that would have led to attempted suicide and institutionalization if I had not gotten the help I had when I did. It wasn't till this spring that I realized that. I knew I was afraid of pain. I knew I'd been through some serious pain. But I hadn't realized I was afraid of pain because I was afraid it would drive me diagnosably crazy. It's kinda like someone who's had a near death experience in a car crash being wary of driving. I couldn't and still can't trust God to not let that happen, but I can learn to trust that He will be with me and love and care for me even if that does happen.

This wall is held together by lies.

As I've grown, I've come to realize that what keeps my wall up is a lie. Actually a few lies, but one big one in particular: I am not acceptable to and secure in God. That is the lie that has dogged me from my earliest memories. There have been many many times where that lie has been enforced and I have incorporated that experience as "another brick in the wall". So here I sit behind a wall that keeps "pain" out because I do not believe God can deal with it. Because I do not believe I am worthy of God dealing with it. A wall that keeps God and others out, and me in. A wall so thick and high that I don't know how to tear it down even now that I want to.

This wall must come down.

My sensitivity is a gift from God. I've realized that over the years. I can feel with people, I can weep at the grief in the world, I can scream in the agony of the cross, I can dance with joy in the resurrection, I can cry joyfully as I hear stories about people getting to know God. It makes me "weak", but that is also a gift. It is hard for me to stand firm emotionally and mentally on my own without God's help. As much as it can suck, it reminds me of where my strength is. But I've walled in my gift because it hurt and I couldn't trust God with my hurt...But he's good with a sledge hammer/ball wrecker.

This wall is showing gaps.

God's been punching through my wall for a couple years now. Each time he exposes a bit more of my pain to his love. His love sounds comfy...and it is, but not when it's searing through your pain like a hot poker burning out the infection...but it's good...It's so good to get some fresh air behind my wall. God knocked out another section tonight. Tougher section than last time, but good. I hadn't realized exactly what lie I was believing till this time around. I long for this wall to drop, but it's kinda like I'm scraping away at stone with my fingernails until God shows up where I've been scraping and sets the charges...So, I really want to live in my weakness. I want to believe the truth that I am part of Christ's bride who is  "beautiful...with eyes like dove's", part of his "immaculate bride". That I am fully accepted and secure in God. That no one can bring a charge against God's elect for it was Christ who died...To be gentle with those around me, to be vulnerable to the pains and joys of the world again...Please God, keep tearing down my wall

Fighting...So hard

It is so hard to fight to keep mental health...every day. And I lose that fight a lot. too much...I don't really get why I have to fight, but I do. It is the hardest thing for me to do the simplest healthy things. Sleep well, eat well, do the things i need to do. I can't do it...not regularly. But i have to. I can't function if I don't. I've got a role to play in people's lives, in God's story, and to do that as best I can, I have to keep fighting...it's just really exhausting. I don't have a ton of emotional support either...God's got me. I cannot forget that. It's my last straw of sanity

King Beetle on the Coconut Estate

As the moon rose and the hour grew late,
The day-help on the coconut estate
Raked up the dried leaves that fell dead from the trees
Which they burned in a pile by the lake.

The beetle king summoned his men
And from the top of the rhododendron stem
"Calling all volunteers who can carry back here,
The great mystery's been lit once again."

One beetle emerged from the crowd
In a fashionable abdomen shroud.
Said, "I'm a professor, see, that's no mystery to me,
I'll be back soon successful and proud."
But when the beetle professor returned,
He crawled on all six as his wings had been burned
And described to the finest detail all he'd learned
There was neither a light, nor a heat in his words

The deeply dissatisfied king
Climbed the same stem to announce the same thing
But in his second appeal sought to sweeten the deal
With a silver padparadscha ring.

The lieutenant stepped out from the line
As he lassoed his thorax with twine
Thinking, "i'm stronger and braver and I'll earn the king's favor.
One day all he has will be mine."

But for all the lieutenant's conceit,
He too returned singed and admitting defeat.
"I had no choice, please believe, but retreat
It was bright as the sun, but with ten times the heat
And it cracked like the thunder and bloodshot my eyes
Though smothered with sticks, it advanced undeterred
Carelessly cast an ash cloud to the sky, my lord,
Like a flock of dark vanishing birds."

The beetle king slammed down his fist
"your flowery descriptions no better than his!
We sent for the great light and you bring us this!
We didn't ask what it seems like, we asked what it is!"

His majesty's hour at last is drawn nigh
The elegant queen took her leave from his side
Without understanding, but without asking why
Gathered their kids to come bid their goodbyes
And the father explained, "you've been somewhat deceived,
We've all called me your dad, but your true dad's not me
I laid next to your mom and your forms were conceived
Your Father's the light within all that you see.
He fills up the ponds as he empties the clouds
Holds without hands, and he speaks without sounds.
He provides us with the cow's waste and coconuts to eat
Giving one that nice salt taste, and the other is sweet.
Sends the black carriage the day death shows its face
Thinning our numbers with kindness and grace
And just as a flower and its fragrance are one,
So must each of you and your Father become.

Now distribute my scepter, my crown, and my throne
And all we've known as wealth to the poor and alone
Without further hesitation, without looking back home,
The king flew headlong into the blazing unknown.

And as the smoke king curled higher and higher
The troops flying loops round the telephone wires
They said, "our beloved's not dead, but his highness instead,
Has been utterly changed into fire."

Why not be utterly changed into fire?

A great song...This is what I've been feeling a lot recently. "We sent for the great light and you bring us this" is the emotion I've been feeling...I want to be changed into fire. It feels kinda against my nature, but there's something in me that wants to fly headlong into the blazing unknown....

(for those who don't get the song, think of the fire as symbolic for a life totally devoted to Christ and following his way.)

It's Been a Hell of a Few Weeks

There's so much brokenness in the world you would not believe...So much. I can't put words to it. I'm not gonna try...but it's really hard to deal with seeing this much pain and hurt and brokenness all at once...really hard. It's hard to believe it can be fixed...that it can get better.