Out of the depths

Past blog entries have attempted to express my feelings of freedom and joy at finally being out from under the weight of oppression and depression that had characterized my entire life. Maybe a lot of people can't relate to the incredible feeling of having a weight lifted off one's shoulders. I have heard stories all my life of people being set free by Christ but could never understand what it meant. I was always jealous of those people which would usually lead to cynicism. "Oh sure you're free, just wait until the shoe drops and then we'll see how free you really are."

Well, for me it's been about 6 months since this journey of freedom began. I'm not saying that I never screw up, but I can declare with confidence that I now know what it means to be free and can proclaim in the words of the Jesus: "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed".

Several years ago when I was probably at the lowest point of my life, a time when my life was almost completely out of control, I wrote the lyrics to a song. These are the words of a tortured soul, the words of someone who has come almost completely under the control of darkness, who is attempting to fill with depravity that emptiness that can only be filled by the bread of life.

I don't share these words to depress anyone, or even to evoke pity, I think these words were really a cry out of the depths, a cry of hopelessness, fear and rage; the cry of a creature of the night compelled to slowly devour itself and others in order to satisfy the hunger within.

verse 1:

It's the blood child, it's the blood
don't you see it, don't you know

It flows through your body
like wine or like fire
and it won't ever leave you alone

You can cry all you like
for the peace of the night
but the truth is a scream or a moan

It's the night love, it's the night
can't you feel it, can't you see

Its whispers seduce you
with words soft and warm
but it won't ever let you be free

You can run to the light
crave its withering might
in the end it is just you and me

chorus:

In the end it is just you and me
two souls stranded so far from home

Wandering hopelessly, helplessly
tired and alone
in the end it is just you and me

In the end it is just you and me
feeding hungers that mock and consume

seeking solace in pleasures that
fade all too soon
in the end it is just you and me

verse 2:

It's the pain child, it's the pain
don't you see it, don't you know

His strength is your master
he bends your free will
and you dance like a clown in his show

You can struggle and fight
to be free from his might
but in dreaming your feet are too slow

It's the rage love, it's the rage
can't you feel it, can't you see

It pulsates within you
a sensual flame
that strains in your chest for release

You can bring them all down
make them kiss the cold ground
in the end it is just you and me

repeat chorus:

Now the words of the Psalmist make so much sense to me.

Out of the depths I cry to you, LORD;

Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

If you, LORD, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.

I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Psalm 130:1-6

Shine On...

Richard Wright (1943-2008)

Of Logs, Specks and Duty

With election season upon us I think what I have been listening to lately is very appropriate. No, don't worry, I'm not getting involved in politics again. Far from it actually. What I've been listening to and thinking about is actually prompting me to be even less interested in politics than I have been recently (which lately has been very little).

The call rings out across the land: "Christians everywhere unite. Let's win this country back for God". My response a few months ago would probably have been one of passionate agreement with that sentiment. Yeah, lets go, lets mobilize the troops and get out there and vote in people who will return this country to its "City on a Hill" status like it was in the "good old days".

Good old days eh? Hmm, when exactly were the good old days? Maybe a year or two in the 1950's? Umm, no, we still had segregation then. Maybe back in the 1700's or 1800's? Umm, wrong again, we were wiping out Native Americans and enslaving Africans back then.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't turned into some America hating Communist. For all its faults, past and present, the United States has always gotten a lot of things right and has always seemed willing to learn from its mistakes (albeit very slowly and very painfully).

But, let me get to what I think is the most important point here. And that is the question of what relationship the Christian Church should have to politics and political power. Well, the simple answer is: "NO RELATIONSHIP AT ALL!" Now that I've got your attention let me explain. The Christian Church is the body of Christ. Its job is to represent Christ to those around it. Jesus never once attempted to compel behavioral changes or morality through any type of force, physical or political.

Jesus lived in an empire that was every bit as immoral, sinful and hedonistic as ours could ever hope to be; He lived in a part of the empire that was rife with political dissent and dreams of throwing off the rule of the Romans. But yet he never advocated the use of power to change behavior or got involved in politics for any reason, even "good" reasons.

So on to what I've been listening to and the point of the title of this post. I've been listening to a sermon series by Gregory Boyd (senior pastor of the Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul MN) from back in 2004 (another pretty highly charged political time). The series is entitled "A Myth, a Cross and a Sword" and resulted in a book called The Myth of a Christian Nation. I've been listening to and reading Greg's stuff on some other subjects and have found it to be life changing. When I discovered his take on politics mirrored the feelings I've been having lately it was a bonus. In this series Greg Boyd lays out, far better than I could, a compelling take on the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdoms of the World. Capped off by a call to pay more attention to the logs in our own eyes than the specks in the eyes of others, and to remember that our duties, especially to those outside the Church, are those of healing, help and honor, rather than condemnation and compulsion.

Check out the sermon series here: The Cross and the Sword.

If you are daunted by the task of listening to them all try starting with this one, I think it is a good summary of the whole: Is the Church the Guardian of Social Morality?

My Wife the Servant/Warrior

I realized last night during several conversations with my wife that she was perhaps the most important tool God has used (and is using) in my healing and coming back to life. I've always known that her tenacity and strength were astounding, but I guess it's only been lately that I've realized just how important she has been in this process. My wife provided a refuge, a place of safety and security in a tangible way, that I had never known before. We know, once we are well enough to grasp it, that God is our refuge and our strong tower, but oh how important it is to have that represented to us by someone in our lives that matters.

Safety and security are things that I never experienced in my life before now. My life has been one of uncertainty and fear, always waiting for the hammer to fall, for someone to leave, for some disaster to strike. I've never been able to trust in God because I never had his trustworthiness and fidelity modeled by the important people in my life. Someone who grows up without a father would have a hard time relating to God as a father, in the same way someone who goes through life never knowing what it is to trust will have a hard time having faith and trust in God. That has been my experience for nearly as long as I can remember, a complete block when it comes to trust and faith in God. I have been consumed with worry, doubt and fear my entire life, which has resulted in anger and even hatred towards God as I blamed him for all of the horror that I saw around me and all the abandonment and betrayal that I felt from the experiences in life.

My wife told me from day one, really without knowing the original source of her promises, that she would never leave me or forsake me. Then she proceeded to live and demonstrate that promise through the ensuing years of rough emotional upheaval on my part. My reaction to the prospect of getting married was a full blown anxiety attack that lasted almost a year, followed by depression and related medical issues that lasted for several years. Only recently has the healing started taking place to the point where I am no longer a dead man walking. Only recently have I been able to pray to God, to trust in God, to worship God, to hear from God, to read his word, to actually understand and grasp the astounding love of God that led him to embark on the perilous and risky endeavor of winning and wooing his lover and bride (that's me, that's us) back to himself.

It was actually a perilous and risky endeavor for God from the very beginning. To bring into existence created beings (Angels, humans, etc.) that were free to follow their own paths, to choose whether or not they trusted or loved their creator. Free to turn on him and plunge the universe into unspeakable horror and danger if that was their choice - which they did. And then, as if that wasn't enough, God chose to prove his goodness and his love to the very beings that had turned their back on him. Instead of smashing his rebellious creation into non-existence and starting over, or forcing their devotion with the iron fist of a dictator, he chose to pursue his errant and adulterous bride all the way to the gates of hell and beyond and rescue her from the very jaws of death. And to do this, Jesus came in the body of an unglorified man and defeated death, and the lord of death (Satan), by inserting himself, as it were, between us and the executioner (Satan) and taking the death blow meant for us.

I can grasp and understand this, really for the first time, because I've had someone do this kind of thing for me in the physical realm. My wife took on a perilous and risky endeavor when she chose to bind herself to me in marriage and pledged to never leave or forsake me. It was a very risky thing to do. She would endure emotional pain and sacrifice and hardship because of it. She could have suffered betrayal and the loss of everything. But she counted the cost and chose to pay the price no matter how high it turned out to be, all for the sake of love. She pursued me to the gates of the hell I was in and beyond. And, as a willing servant/warrior for God, she brought me out of that darkness and into the light. What a spectacular demonstration of God's love, to give sacrificially for someone else. By doing so my wife acted as the hands and feet of God and brought me to life so that I can in turn bring others to life. They in turn can do the same for others. The healing will spread like ripples in a pond as the kingdom of God continues to rescue those being stolen, killed and destroyed by the thief (Satan).

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. --John 10:10

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. --Romans 5:8

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. --John 15:13

Here's to Rabbit Holes

A few months ago the faint, pink hues of dawn began to appear in the skies of my consciousness. I began to be aware of the unfamiliar, but very welcome, sensations of life. Around this time I wrote my brother an email. I'm not sure I was aware at the time I wrote it of the germination taking place within my heart. In that email I shared with my brother a waking dream, perhaps a vision, that I'd had. In the dream...

I was wounded and crawling across a battlefield. There were dead and dying everywhere, the blood and gore was sickening, and all seemed lost. I crawled on and on dragging myself through the filth, hardly able to breathe, nearly paralyzed by dread and fear. Every second that passed I expected to be my last, with every movement I expected to feel the death blow as the enemy, in the full brutality of his obvious victory, claimed me as another victim. Then, from somewhere, came an impulse: "Look Up". I did.

For the first time in a long time I looked up and saw what I would have seen at any point had it occurred to me to look up instead of focusing on the horror and the filth on the ground beneath me. There He was, the Warrior King straight out of Revelation, sword and all, with his battle host surrounding him in the full splendor of inevitable victory. The battle wasn't lost. The enemy wasn't winning after all.

I looked across the wide expanse of the field of battle and there were so many wounded... crawling... heads down... completely unaware of the victory over their heads. I looked down and my gaze was caught by the putrid panoply spread beneath me. The bright hope of morning was dimmed into the dismal gray of coming night. The Warrior King faded quickly into a memory of light, a faint image at the margins of thought. I was wounded and crawling across a battlefield.

Look up you damn fool. LOOK UP!

That was the story of my life. Crawling, defeated, sidelined, wounded, doomed to repeat the same mistakes and follow the same road day after changeless day, year after senseless year.

Writing that email to my brother marked a turning point. I wonder how he would like being compared to Morpheus from the Matrix? I believe it was God's great pleasure to use my brother in just that way. To offer me a choice and an opportunity to unplug from the dream state of false existence and be reborn into that otherworld, that real world, that dangerous but free Kingdom of God where I can be trained to infiltrate the darkness and wake more sleepers to life.

I have followed the white rabbit. I have chosen the red pill. I've stuck my hand in the mirror. The doors of perception are being cleansed, everything is beginning to appear as it is: infinite (to paraphrase William Blake).

Alexander Solzhenitsyn 1918 - 2008

The world has lost a great light. Thankfully this light was a writer and his words are still with us. Here is a tiny sample.

To such consciousness, man is the touchstone in judging and evaluating everything on earth. Imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now experiencing the consequences of mistakes which had not been noticed at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life.

----

No one on earth has any other way left but -- upward.

Harvard Address - June 1978

Made-up Things

Hither if I have come through earth and air,
Through fire and water--I am not of them;
Born in the darkness, what fair-flashing gem
Would to the earth go back and nestle there?
Not of this world, this world my life doth hem;
What if I weary, then, and look to the door,
Because my unknown life is swelling at the core?
(George MacDonald, "The Diary of an Old Soul")

I must confess something rather embarrassing: not too many weeks ago I had fallen under the spell of the village atheists. I was reading their writings, and listening to their debates, all with the intention of proving to myself how silly they really were, and how superior my Christian worldview was from the standpoint of logic and reason.

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the ivory tower, I discovered to my horror that they were making sense. Taken purely from the standpoint of logic and reason they make some powerful and convincing points. Sure, the Christian apologists who debate them make very powerful and convincing points as well, but the atheists have a trick up their sleeve which, to me anyway, trumps the apologists and wins the debates. You see the atheists get to play both sides of the table while the apologists only get to play one.

The atheists use arguments from reason and logic, but their trump cards are the arguments from emotion. The atheists seem to share a level of anger and hatred towards God that borders on the psychotic. They level charges against God with all the fury of a lover scorned and all the hurt of an abandoned child. And it is here that I ate the apple. For I too have long struggled with anger towards God for all of his seeming injustice in allowing the pain and heartache of this world to continue unabated.

The natural result of this anger seems, almost universally, to be a planting of the seeds of doubt. We try so hard to force the universe into something manageable or predictable. We take refuge behind the study of science. We try to find shelter beneath the comforting gaze of the goddess of reason. We deny the basic truth that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, or we abandon all pretense and wallow in the muck and the mire.

And here, after years of struggling with faith, after wasting so much time trying to make God fit into the mold I had created and the box I had formed, I came to the end. And at the end I discovered the beginning. A light was shining in the darkness but I had not understood it. Not understood it that is until I was stabbed through the heart by the truth of the story and the reality of the myth. As I lay there in a stupor, under the spell of the village atheist, drunk with the maddening wine, I remembered...Before the silver cord was severed, or the golden bowl was broken; before the pitcher was shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well. (Ecclesiastes 12:6)... I remembered.

I remembered the Creator because I remembered His creation. I remembered the numberless stars scattered like a symphony of light across the heavens. I remembered the sundering sea with its eternal invitation to pass beyond the edge of the world. I remembered the ancient forest and the lord of ageless wisdom that resides within some hidden realm. I remembered that I was fearfully and wonderfully made... in the secret place. That I was woven together in the depths of the earth. (Psalm 139:14,15)

I remembered my true home; a home I had never seen, but a home whose story was written on my heart. A story, a myth if you will, about a King and his Son. A story about a princess looking and longing for her white knight. A story of loss and betrayal, and of rescue beyond the gates of hope. And the story rings true. The myth that is written deep into every fiber of creation, that awakens a longing so exquisite as to be almost painful, resonates with a verity that goes beyond the realm of thought and word and finds its anchor in the very bedrock of the universe.

Yes, the pain is real. Yes, the sadness is real. Yes, the tears are real. Yes, the horror and disease and loss is real. But in what story are they not? And in what tale that stirs the heart do the heroes not live happily ever after?

The Lord of the story, the great Prince of the myth, came and knelt at my side as I lay bespelled and touched my face. He healed my heart and spoke my name. And at the sound of that voice I awoke and I remembered, and remembering I turned my back on the shadow and turned my face towards the glorious light. In the words of a great traveler who went before me on this road: "Here I stand, I can do no other".

All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things -- trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. (C.S. Lewis, "The Silver Chair")