A colourful online worship resource.
Thanks go to Julie Poe for this link.
Monday, March 01, 2004
‘paralysis of analysis’ and the limit of these very words
I spent some time meditating and praying on my stuckness yesterday. On what the cross and the suffering means to me. To you. To everyone.
I do not have to understand all nor do I believe that my understanding is a complete view of what is there. There are things you do not see when you look out of a window. What you see is there, but there is so much more out there to be seen and experienced.
First thing is that I have not been conversing with the father as I should be. And I have gotten stuck from trying to verbalize, systematize and sterilize my faith. I have not meditated on the cross and the suffering and the forgiveness for a while.
I read that Gibson said that he wished he could tell people to enjoy the film, but he knew that no one ever did.
I did not enjoy it at all. It was a good film, but between the film, Lent and the Holy Spirit I have not been able to look away from the awfulness of what I saw. What I have believed for most of my life that Christ went through.
I am right. It doesn’t make since. George you are right in your comment. What Christ did, especially since He was God and had the power to stop it all, did not make since to my human mind.
What I put my faith in is this:
While he hung up there, after being placed up there by the ones that He came to love, He forgave them. He knew He would be rejected by the world and yet He continued to love. In life and in death. And on into eternity.
Knowing full well these people, you and I, all that we have done and still do, He loves us. He loves us as we are, not as we should be. None of us are as we should be.
I put my faith in that love. That man. That God.
I pray that I am but an image of that. I pray that I never look away from that again.
No way of doing things. No heavy yoke should I invite people to as part of the Church. Just that love and acceptance. Respect and companionship. I pray for any and everyone’s forgiveness everyday - every moment that I fall short of that. Anything other than that that I try to invite people into as the Church is the very reason they do not come. Anytime I perceive and act as though my marriage is to be anything less or more than that it ceases to grow and mature. I begin to expect things and am disappointed.
I ask Heather and my Abba and all of you to forgive me for doing that and for the things that I am sure to do in a life time and eternity of walking together.
As much as we all need and want a love such as this the world tends to reject it. As I begin to walk closer to and with Christ and more and more I die to myself and begin loving like this the more that much of the world will reject me.
It is a dangerous thing to love.
I am thankful I am not in this alone.
I do not have to understand all nor do I believe that my understanding is a complete view of what is there. There are things you do not see when you look out of a window. What you see is there, but there is so much more out there to be seen and experienced.
First thing is that I have not been conversing with the father as I should be. And I have gotten stuck from trying to verbalize, systematize and sterilize my faith. I have not meditated on the cross and the suffering and the forgiveness for a while.
I read that Gibson said that he wished he could tell people to enjoy the film, but he knew that no one ever did.
I did not enjoy it at all. It was a good film, but between the film, Lent and the Holy Spirit I have not been able to look away from the awfulness of what I saw. What I have believed for most of my life that Christ went through.
I am right. It doesn’t make since. George you are right in your comment. What Christ did, especially since He was God and had the power to stop it all, did not make since to my human mind.
What I put my faith in is this:
While he hung up there, after being placed up there by the ones that He came to love, He forgave them. He knew He would be rejected by the world and yet He continued to love. In life and in death. And on into eternity.
Knowing full well these people, you and I, all that we have done and still do, He loves us. He loves us as we are, not as we should be. None of us are as we should be.
I put my faith in that love. That man. That God.
I pray that I am but an image of that. I pray that I never look away from that again.
No way of doing things. No heavy yoke should I invite people to as part of the Church. Just that love and acceptance. Respect and companionship. I pray for any and everyone’s forgiveness everyday - every moment that I fall short of that. Anything other than that that I try to invite people into as the Church is the very reason they do not come. Anytime I perceive and act as though my marriage is to be anything less or more than that it ceases to grow and mature. I begin to expect things and am disappointed.
I ask Heather and my Abba and all of you to forgive me for doing that and for the things that I am sure to do in a life time and eternity of walking together.
As much as we all need and want a love such as this the world tends to reject it. As I begin to walk closer to and with Christ and more and more I die to myself and begin loving like this the more that much of the world will reject me.
It is a dangerous thing to love.
I am thankful I am not in this alone.
Saturday, February 28, 2004
a journey
When I was in junior high and high school I didn't really see where I fit. Through my eyes I did not see people like me. I would look at history books or hear stories about people who succeeded at doing this or that, but they were not me. I would look at family and church and see those that were 'successful' as being the preachers. That was not for me.
An insecure ball of feelings, deep emotions, desires and superficial dreams.
Rock and Roll!
I would go home and turn on Mtv the radio and hear myself in these people. I was empathetic with them.
I tried to live life similarly to how I perceived those people who I connected with lived there’s.
They were also perceived to be successful. Something that I did not picture myself ever being.
I never did quite fit in with everyone that I got high with. Existed with. They didn't care about anything. I only pretended not to.
We got pregnant
How do I love? Where do I look for success here? Where do I, in my current reality, find someone I connect with or perceive to be successful at loving?
Mom, Dad and Christ
My own experience of love at home mixed with my own experience and all I knew about Christ left only Christ to look to. Our only companion for this new journey. (Christ that I experience in my parents and others as well)
In trying to model myself and allowing my heart to be modeled after Christ's I began to love much more than just my own family. How do I go about helping this world? How do I go about helping The Church? So many of us have missed the point! About life. About love. About the mission of the Church. It's all about love! Doing it and experiencing it. His love in us for each other.
Being the insecure person that I am I have looked for my path to be plotted out for me. I have, subconsciously, tried to mimic your's or his or her life.
I need to return to, not even mimicking Christ's life, but letting go of myself to allowing Him to live in and through me.
"We must become the change we want to see." - Ghandi (and Joshua Rudd(?))
All of my life I have been the little brother. The tag along. A follower. A layperson as apposed to a leader. Never quite fitting in or being excepted. Even in my church. My wife has the same problem in church although she is definitely not a follower.
I pray that God takes me and guides me and my family, as individuals and as a unit, into the mission and purpose he has for us. I know that to be loving.
My ego wants me to stop being the little brother and the one who's different and doesn't quite fit in and to start being a 'leader'. I want to have a degree and a cool job that you envy or admire. I want to be able to write well so you think I'm smart. I want to have something big and profound to say.
Forget all that though. More than any of it I desire that change in me and in the world. And the only thing that little Scotty can do is to be that change. My house a sanctuary. My family a church. Our lives a mission. That mission love.
It's not big and important by the world standards, but whether you are white, black, red, have spots, gay, straight, modern, postmodern, male, female, confused, sick, well, republican, democrat, Muslim, Christian, atheist, Hindu, upper, middle, lower, no-class, Southern Baptist or Catholic, you need love.
"Live simply that others may simply live." - Mohandas K. Gandhi
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." - Jesus
An insecure ball of feelings, deep emotions, desires and superficial dreams.
Rock and Roll!
I would go home and turn on Mtv the radio and hear myself in these people. I was empathetic with them.
I tried to live life similarly to how I perceived those people who I connected with lived there’s.
They were also perceived to be successful. Something that I did not picture myself ever being.
I never did quite fit in with everyone that I got high with. Existed with. They didn't care about anything. I only pretended not to.
We got pregnant
How do I love? Where do I look for success here? Where do I, in my current reality, find someone I connect with or perceive to be successful at loving?
Mom, Dad and Christ
My own experience of love at home mixed with my own experience and all I knew about Christ left only Christ to look to. Our only companion for this new journey. (Christ that I experience in my parents and others as well)
In trying to model myself and allowing my heart to be modeled after Christ's I began to love much more than just my own family. How do I go about helping this world? How do I go about helping The Church? So many of us have missed the point! About life. About love. About the mission of the Church. It's all about love! Doing it and experiencing it. His love in us for each other.
Being the insecure person that I am I have looked for my path to be plotted out for me. I have, subconsciously, tried to mimic your's or his or her life.
I need to return to, not even mimicking Christ's life, but letting go of myself to allowing Him to live in and through me.
"We must become the change we want to see." - Ghandi (and Joshua Rudd(?))
All of my life I have been the little brother. The tag along. A follower. A layperson as apposed to a leader. Never quite fitting in or being excepted. Even in my church. My wife has the same problem in church although she is definitely not a follower.
I pray that God takes me and guides me and my family, as individuals and as a unit, into the mission and purpose he has for us. I know that to be loving.
My ego wants me to stop being the little brother and the one who's different and doesn't quite fit in and to start being a 'leader'. I want to have a degree and a cool job that you envy or admire. I want to be able to write well so you think I'm smart. I want to have something big and profound to say.
Forget all that though. More than any of it I desire that change in me and in the world. And the only thing that little Scotty can do is to be that change. My house a sanctuary. My family a church. Our lives a mission. That mission love.
It's not big and important by the world standards, but whether you are white, black, red, have spots, gay, straight, modern, postmodern, male, female, confused, sick, well, republican, democrat, Muslim, Christian, atheist, Hindu, upper, middle, lower, no-class, Southern Baptist or Catholic, you need love.
"Live simply that others may simply live." - Mohandas K. Gandhi
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." - Jesus
after the passion
(I wrote this Thursday night, but didn’t think I wanted to put it up. I now feel that I need to be honest about my own struggles and questions. My brother-in-law has been asking questions off and on for some time and, though he has not seen the movie he asked about sacrifice. “Why did Jesus have to die? What about people before Jesus? Did they all go to Hell?”
I found when I was faced with Christ’s pain and suffering I was asking the same sort of questions. Especially about those who were not Jewish in the Old Testament.)
I saw The Passion tonight....[long sigh]
As I watched this happen to this man I kept finding myself saying to myself, “This doesn’t make any since. This doesn’t make any since.”
What is it that my faith is in here?
This blood
All this blood
Punishment
Pain
Murder
Sacrifice
Anger
Forgiveness
Greed
Power
Fear
Love
Love....
We say he died for our sins.
What does that mean?
Was it murder or sacrifice?
A death of a companionate and loving man at the hand of fear and hatred and greed is what I see and is there to be seen by all. (that is the fear and hatred and greed of all parties involved. The Romans. The Jews. The crowd of people, who in Isreal would have been a mixed group of people, views and religions.)
Murder(?)
But the loving God I rest my faith in is not about doing this to anyone. That is not love. I don’t see that. That is what does not make since to me when I see all that damn blood and you say, “Jesus died for my sins.”
Christ says that he lays His own life down, but he didn’t just whip himself and climb up on the cross on his own.
This does not make since.
It only begins to make since when I begin to see a glimpse of the whole which is that it is both. Not one or the other, but both.
On the ride home alone(?) I was reminded of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. He had told his brothers he was going to forgive them for selling him into slavery and they questioned whether he was or could really do that. Joseph understood who his brothers were. He was not naïve. He knew that his brother’s, after their belly’s being filled and pocket’s filled with cash, would walk away bickering. He told them that what they had intended for evil the Father used for good.
God didn’t cause Jesus’ death. Sin did. All of it. Christ didn’t save himself from it because he knew it was the loving nature of Our Father to use it.
I was told once by someone while we were talking about engaging cultures that are not necessarily our own that he didn’t thank that God called us out of our comfort zones. If that’s the way ya’ want to look at it I suppose, it is so obvious that following Him will lead us WAY outside of them though.
Christ was a loving, companionate, and innocent man who engaged everyone with open arms and an open heart and we are called to do the same. And He made it clear that if the world did not spare Him for it than neither would they spare us.
“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” - from John 13:35
Love! Not being the Hip New Church. (that title of that article ticks me off by the way) I’m not learning to pray to a different drummer. I am learning to pray and drum alongside The MixMaster.
The heart that I have right now as a Christian causes me to focus on the whole story. Not the blood and the pain and not just the flashbacks in the movie where you find that it is in the context of those relationships that this pain is put to use and the only place that it makes since to me.
I don’t understand why Christ had to die. I don’t understand sacrifice in the old Testament. I do understand that Love is a verb. God is love. I have my faith in Him. The love to me isn’t that Christ hung on the cross. It is that he didn’t get down because He and the Father are one and He understood that the Father is love and He would not just allow this to happen without using it.
ps - And another thing. If you think I would be pissed about my son being hurt like that you know that God is going to be a bit moved. The difference between Him and I is that He used it for good. I on the other hand would smack the stuffing out of ya’.
I found when I was faced with Christ’s pain and suffering I was asking the same sort of questions. Especially about those who were not Jewish in the Old Testament.)
I saw The Passion tonight....[long sigh]
As I watched this happen to this man I kept finding myself saying to myself, “This doesn’t make any since. This doesn’t make any since.”
What is it that my faith is in here?
This blood
All this blood
Punishment
Pain
Murder
Sacrifice
Anger
Forgiveness
Greed
Power
Fear
Love
Love....
We say he died for our sins.
What does that mean?
Was it murder or sacrifice?
A death of a companionate and loving man at the hand of fear and hatred and greed is what I see and is there to be seen by all. (that is the fear and hatred and greed of all parties involved. The Romans. The Jews. The crowd of people, who in Isreal would have been a mixed group of people, views and religions.)
Murder(?)
But the loving God I rest my faith in is not about doing this to anyone. That is not love. I don’t see that. That is what does not make since to me when I see all that damn blood and you say, “Jesus died for my sins.”
Christ says that he lays His own life down, but he didn’t just whip himself and climb up on the cross on his own.
This does not make since.
It only begins to make since when I begin to see a glimpse of the whole which is that it is both. Not one or the other, but both.
On the ride home alone(?) I was reminded of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. He had told his brothers he was going to forgive them for selling him into slavery and they questioned whether he was or could really do that. Joseph understood who his brothers were. He was not naïve. He knew that his brother’s, after their belly’s being filled and pocket’s filled with cash, would walk away bickering. He told them that what they had intended for evil the Father used for good.
God didn’t cause Jesus’ death. Sin did. All of it. Christ didn’t save himself from it because he knew it was the loving nature of Our Father to use it.
I was told once by someone while we were talking about engaging cultures that are not necessarily our own that he didn’t thank that God called us out of our comfort zones. If that’s the way ya’ want to look at it I suppose, it is so obvious that following Him will lead us WAY outside of them though.
Christ was a loving, companionate, and innocent man who engaged everyone with open arms and an open heart and we are called to do the same. And He made it clear that if the world did not spare Him for it than neither would they spare us.
“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” - from John 13:35
Love! Not being the Hip New Church. (that title of that article ticks me off by the way) I’m not learning to pray to a different drummer. I am learning to pray and drum alongside The MixMaster.
The heart that I have right now as a Christian causes me to focus on the whole story. Not the blood and the pain and not just the flashbacks in the movie where you find that it is in the context of those relationships that this pain is put to use and the only place that it makes since to me.
I don’t understand why Christ had to die. I don’t understand sacrifice in the old Testament. I do understand that Love is a verb. God is love. I have my faith in Him. The love to me isn’t that Christ hung on the cross. It is that he didn’t get down because He and the Father are one and He understood that the Father is love and He would not just allow this to happen without using it.
ps - And another thing. If you think I would be pissed about my son being hurt like that you know that God is going to be a bit moved. The difference between Him and I is that He used it for good. I on the other hand would smack the stuffing out of ya’.
Friday, February 27, 2004
this wife of mine
We were eating lunch today and Heather is telling me about taking Mikah and sissy to the pet store the other day and one of the dogs they held. We started talking about what kind of a dog or dogs we would like and how much we would be willing to pay for one and how much we would be willing to pay if we were to buy a purebred dog or dogs and begin breeding them. Not that we are planning to do this anytime soon, but anyway. My very pregnant wife turns and says to me, “Yeah! I'm all about breeding someday.” LOL!! She didn’t realize what she had said until I about choked on my cherry-coke.
it's all about me...
just kidding
It's my 26th birthday!!!
Ben and Jerry's Everything But The... and Phish Food, family, internet and bit of the Game Cube.
Heather and Kiwi have the sniffles so please pray for them and the baby. Please pray for Mikah too. We have realized that he is worried about the baby. He has been really acting up the past week or so and it has finally occurred to us that he wants the baby here now because he is worried not just impatient. The little guy's got a big heart and he just doesn't know how to express some of his feelings.
It's my 26th birthday!!!
Ben and Jerry's Everything But The... and Phish Food, family, internet and bit of the Game Cube.
Heather and Kiwi have the sniffles so please pray for them and the baby. Please pray for Mikah too. We have realized that he is worried about the baby. He has been really acting up the past week or so and it has finally occurred to us that he wants the baby here now because he is worried not just impatient. The little guy's got a big heart and he just doesn't know how to express some of his feelings.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
socksual appetite
I am beginning to think that there is a creature in our laundry room that eats all of our socks.
Lent
I’ve not paid much attention to Lent before. In thinking about it today I have wondered what went through Christ’s mind as the day drew nearer.
He was alive and sacrificing his life daily through love and compassion in those forty days.
How do you prepare yourself for such a think?
Prayer is all I can think of. The contrite heart Alan points out from Psalm 51.
This time apart from the local church we had been attending, the baby growing in my wife’s belly, the clear and present danger of hormones, attempts by someone I used to work with to evangelize me through email and convince me that I am not saved because I do not speak in tongues, and all the rest of my life experience to date continually confirms to me one thing.......that they will know us and He who has sent us by our love for one another. And not just for one another, as in other Christians, but love of all those who don’t even love us. Those who hate us. Those who just don't agree with us.
What I will do for Lent is reflect on what that really means and looks like to love and be compassionate for all of ya’. Even those who have it out for me.
I have the tendency to be offended and want to argue when someone does not agree with me. That must go out when I flush with the rest of it.
Peace to you .
I hope your day is fully experienced.
ps - Keven Rains has a good Lenten post ...on waiting
He was alive and sacrificing his life daily through love and compassion in those forty days.
How do you prepare yourself for such a think?
Prayer is all I can think of. The contrite heart Alan points out from Psalm 51.
This time apart from the local church we had been attending, the baby growing in my wife’s belly, the clear and present danger of hormones, attempts by someone I used to work with to evangelize me through email and convince me that I am not saved because I do not speak in tongues, and all the rest of my life experience to date continually confirms to me one thing.......that they will know us and He who has sent us by our love for one another. And not just for one another, as in other Christians, but love of all those who don’t even love us. Those who hate us. Those who just don't agree with us.
What I will do for Lent is reflect on what that really means and looks like to love and be compassionate for all of ya’. Even those who have it out for me.
I have the tendency to be offended and want to argue when someone does not agree with me. That must go out when I flush with the rest of it.
Peace to you .
I hope your day is fully experienced.
ps - Keven Rains has a good Lenten post ...on waiting
Friday, February 20, 2004
you know i'm smiling...
Regular image host is blocking me for today. My boo-boo. I left the ultrasound pics I was going to put up in a temporary fotopage. Go check them out here.
These photos don't show it, but it appears we will be having a boy!!!!
Estimated time of arrival is August 7th.
He seemed to have hiccups for a spell and was sucking his thumb bit.
Mikah was in there with us. He thought it was "totally awesome"!
ps- we are still going to think about girl names just to be safe...
These photos don't show it, but it appears we will be having a boy!!!!
Estimated time of arrival is August 7th.
He seemed to have hiccups for a spell and was sucking his thumb bit.
Mikah was in there with us. He thought it was "totally awesome"!
ps- we are still going to think about girl names just to be safe...
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
we're going to paint the town...translucent
I’m going to take my loverly wife out to dinner tonight.
We have not been out in ages.
::Side thought:: - I can’t wait till we are in Indy. We don’t have any cafes here and I know we both would like to go to poetry readings. I would love to be able to find some good jazz and/or folk playing somewhere for sure.
We have not been out in ages.
::Side thought:: - I can’t wait till we are in Indy. We don’t have any cafes here and I know we both would like to go to poetry readings. I would love to be able to find some good jazz and/or folk playing somewhere for sure.
stuck
I’ve been so grouchy and stuck in my head lately. Really it’s more like my head has been stuck up my hind-end. Ya’ know?
It stinks up there.
Lost in self-pity I think. A bit of fear maybe. Not for sure.
I do know that for my little fam it hasn’t been the nicest being around me.
That’s not ok.
I refuse to let myself remain stuck here.
I need to let go....
....but first I need to figure out for sure what it is I am holding that is making me this way.
Pray for peace...
It stinks up there.
Lost in self-pity I think. A bit of fear maybe. Not for sure.
I do know that for my little fam it hasn’t been the nicest being around me.
That’s not ok.
I refuse to let myself remain stuck here.
I need to let go....
....but first I need to figure out for sure what it is I am holding that is making me this way.
Pray for peace...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)