Between The Pauses

From my journal today:

I truly only half-heartedly wish that words or pictures or sounds or smells could truly describe a place.  It would take the fun and joy out of actually traveling to and being at said place.  How would I describe where I am right now?

I found a break in the railing that guides a walking path that curves and slopes around the island of Cheung Chau.  Stepping through the brush and rock, butterflies dancing here and there, I came to a clearing.  Breathtaking.

The clearing opens to boulders, faded Chinese text graffitied onto their sides.  These boulders form a sheer and steep cliff, the ocean lapping against the boulders far below.  An island is enveloped in a hazy glow up and to the right, followed by two more in the distance, the haze and mist threatening to swallow them as the day wanes.  Another island juts out severely to the left, with boats and ships of various shapes and sizes sitting off shore, mulling about, sunning themselves on a rare, beautiful day.  Tug boats, fishing boats, pontoon boats, speed boats, cargo ships, cruise liners… they all sit and float along, from every perspective and point of view.

Huge clouds billow in the distance, a moderate breeze cools a brutally hot day, the birds sing their songs in force while the waves roll and crash against the rocks. Wholly different sounds, unified into a beautiful melody, an anthem of tranquility that quiets my soul.  The air smells of ocean and the breeze wafts scents of greenery and plant life, flowers in bloom; salty and sweet.

I could not ask for a better perch.  A better perspective on the endless Pacific, which, if I go far enough in my mind, takes me in a nearly straight line all the way to California.

I’m thankful to God for this spot, this perch, this rock of contemplation, this perspective of the senses unifying and being awakened to beauty.  And I’m incredibly thankful that I am here, in the flesh, to sit upon this stone, to write these words that will never do justice to the beauty of what I behold.  To be so humbled at my smallness, but rejoice in God’s faithfulness, even to my smallness.

Because I truly have an incredible life.  I sit on this rock and I see the endlessness of the world.  And to know that I am distinctly loved by the Creator of all this that I see before me is almost to much to grasp, or to fully understand.  It IS too much to grasp.  But it is truth.

I hope to be reminded over and over of this truth through His creativity and beauty through His creation.  I have longed for much in my life, some of it good and proper, a lot of it bad and despicable.  But I will never stop longing for this.  I pray that others would be reminded of and long for the same.  To see His faithfulness, His goodness, His creativity and His beauty reflected in the world around them.  In the people they meet, the places they go, the ideas they spark.  That it would reflect off of every surface, in every sound, that it would enrapture our senses.  Today as I sit on my perch overlooking the end of the earth and the beginning of a deep and wide sea, I am again reassured of His faithfulness and love.

And I hope that others find their rock at the edge of the earth as well.  That they would peer over the edge, feel their smallness and then be overwhelmed by the love of the God who embraces us in our smallness and in our flaws, who loves each of us particularly, and I hope that the breeze that is carried to them from their rock at the edge of the earth clears their senses enough to realize that this is not all about us, but it is still for us, HE is still for us, and that is beauty beyond even the deepest and widest of seas.

I have a hard time with the current landscape. I look at the faith community and I generally find myself incredibly frustrated and angry. All we seem to be able to do with passion and vigor is fight with one another about, well, pretty much everything.

And then it hit me…

We are just like them. They are just like us.

I don’t remember when it hit me, or why. It just did.

Read through the Bible and you will see.

They had Rabbis and we have Rabbis.

Who do you follow? I follow Paul. I follow Apollos. I follow John Piper. I follow Rob Bell. I follow Mark Driscoll.

They had Pharisees, caught up in the letter of the law with such intensity that they missed the Point, who was standing in front of their faces, time and time again, saying hey, I’m the Point. We have and are Pharisees, holding firm to our doctrine so tightly and are so focused on rubbing it in others faces that we miss the opportunity to be the representative of the Point to those are are in despair and hurting and hungry and thirsty and naked and could not care any less about your exegetical doctrine powers.

They wandered in the desert, complaining about God, wondering why He didn’t show them, speak to them, save them. We wander the desert, having a prayer answered, an obvious moment of divine intervention, and are back to shaking our fist at the heavens the moment our comfort and intentions are shaken.  The moment God doesn’t fit in our box.

They had stones and cliffs and crosses, we have blogs and comment sections and Twitter.

We are just like them. They are just like us.

Israelites: "So, what exactly does he mean by 'kill'? Is that literal or metaphysical?" Moses: "You know what... screw you guys."

I could go on and on and on.

But here’s my point.

At the end of all this, I have hope. Because if they can carry such incredible stories of God loving them and being patient with them and using them and showering them with grace, despite being royally jacked up, then we, who, not understanding how they could be so jacked up while being just as jacked up as they were can carry the same stories.

What gives me hope is that we are just like them and they are just like us.

My desperate plea is that instead of just repeating the cycle, over and over and over, we actually move to the next chapter, the next series of stories, where instead of drawing lines in the sand of you’re either with him or with me, we can take their stories, and our stories, and reveal a picture of a God who is continuing to woo us, to beckon us. A God who desires us to realize who we are and what we’ve been given, not to raise ourselves up on a pedestal of doing and being and having to be right and be heard, but that the beauty we see in Him may be revealed through us.

And then, I do believe, that love will win.

So I’ve been a bit out of the loop and haven’t written for the past month.  Not sure where to start writing. So I’m gonna write about Rob Bell. I mean, when in doubt, right?

So, here’s the major problem I have with the whole kerfuffle. You have all these people that seem to be desperately passionate about this, right? Outside of the fact that all of this hullabaloo is based off of a book trailer where the man, and I do emphasize the word “man”, all the man did was ask questions. He answered nothing. He took a stance on nothing. Yet we are immediately ready to burn/ crucify/stone him for raising questions about a topic that, if most of us are perfectly honest with ourselves, don’t know a whole hell of a lot about (pun most definitely intended).

Okay fine. Here’s the trailer:

What drives me crazy is that most of what the most passionate and outspoken people on the facebook/twitter/myspace/myplace/faceplace/twitface interweb are spazzing about is a topic that they have such a strong opinion on because… well… because that’s what they were told by their favorite pastor or author. I almost guarantee you that if you were to sit down and ask most folks theologically implicating questions about hell, most of them couldn’t answer in a convincing or satisfying manner.

What is almost crazier is that most of our immediate thoughts and perceptions of hell (my own included) are because of Dante! Yep. Dante. I don’t care if you say you’ve never read Dante. The vast majority of our perception and idealization of hell has stemmed from and soaked itself in our culture from Dante and his inferno. Not the be eye be el ee.

I blame this guy for the kerfuffle.

Am I saying that I side with Rob Bell? Nope. I have no idea what to think because, well, the book hasn’t been released yet and I don’t have super powers. Nor am I Marty or have a back to the future car.

Do you people realize how full of death our instantaneous reactionary culture is and has become? There is no patience of thought. Quick to listen and slow to speak isn’t sexy. Who knows best? I KNOW BEST. Who is the defender of our faith? I AM THE DEFENDER OF OUR FAITH.

Just be quiet. Be quiet and listen and wait. If Rob is nuts, we’ll sort it out soon enough. If he’s stumbled upon a beautiful truth, well, I can only be hopeful for that at this moment. Do you not see why people quickly and loudly sidestep from Christianity? We’re so busy with our own turf wars that we don’t have time for the hurt and suffering of those on the outside looking in. And why would they want to get bloodied and bruised even more than they have been? How is what we are showing them a great hope in any way?

It is not.

Some of you may say that our great hope hinges upon this topic.

Does it? Does it really? (This is my best Rob Bell impersonation)

Christ died for me. I have come to terms with that and I have no way of fully expressing my joy in this. What I believe and why I believe it has no bearing on whether hell is full or an empty void. Because of the realization of Christ’s love for me, I live for Him. I don’t live in fear of eternal damnation. He destroyed that. For me. And for you. I would love to think that this Dante-esque place we’ve come to think of as hell is empty. An old, used car parking lot that had it’s last customers centuries ago. We can get into the theological implications and ideas of a flaming inferno, of a dark massless void of hope and love, etc. etc. etc. But if I’m honest, and probably if you’re honest… you just don’t know.

My desperate plea is this. Let’s not hurry to the defense of hell more than we lavishly express the love and grace and mercy of the One from whom those beautiful words were birthed and personified.

Nashville has been an incredible haven for me.  It’s been a place of healing and realignment.  I have the most beautiful community that I’ve ever experienced.

With all of that it has become far too easy to get comfortable.  I’ve grown to somewhat hate the idea of comfort.  Because I lose inspiration and motivation.  I lose drive.  I’m okay with just being.

And sometimes that’s okay.

But not all the time.

This is not an exclusive idea to Nashville.  It is definitely an easy breeding ground for comfort but it can happen almost anywhere.

This comes from Ran Zilca in an article for Psychology Today:

We live in a society where comfort has become a value and a life goal. But comfort reduces our motivation for introducing important transformations in our lives. Sadly, being comfortable often prohibits us from chasing our dreams. Many of us are like lions in the zoo: well-fed but sit around passively stuck in a reactive rut. Comfort equals boring shortsightedness, and a belief that things cannot change. Your comfort zone is your home base, a safe place not to stay in, but to return to, after each exhausting and exhilarating expedition through the wilderness of life. Take a look at your life today, if you are enjoying a shelter of comfort, break through it and go outside where life awaits.

Ain't no zoo. Y'all.

My hope is that you all are living your lives to the fullest.  That you are taking risks and not being content in the ease of what is.  If the thought has entered your mind recently that maybe you’re getting a little too comfortable, odds are you’re probably far too much so already.

I’ve had too many conversations with too many people that have incredible things inside of them, waiting to be birthed, that never come to be.  Why?

Comfort breeds apathy.

Apathy ain’t no friend of yours and it ain’t no friend of mine.  And listen, I don’t use “ain’t” unless I’m dead serious.  ”Ain’t” is my “verily”.  (just go with it)

So, I’m begging you.  Step out.  Take risks.  Be daring.  Break free from your comfort.  Before apathy moves in and starts redecorating the place.

Once apathy gets that wallpaper up, it’s an incredibly annoying, taxing and difficult affair to tear it down and repaint the walls.  But don’t paint over the wallpaper because it’s hard.  Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.  Tear it down.  All of it.

How do YOU break free when comfort & apathy set in?  What is holding you back from taking risks and living a daring life?

I want to share a beautiful truth with you.  Something I fear I’ve missed for the vast majority of my life.

I grew up in the church. It’s amazing when you’ve read the Bible most of your life how easy it is to gloss over, well, pretty much everything.

I’m on the creative team at my church and we started prepping for a new series going through the book of John.  I wanted to start reading through to wrap my head around the meetings to come.

So I started.

And I got stuck after the first 5 verses.

I’ve read this book dozens and dozens and dozens of times and I can’t remember being smashed in the face this hard by two simple verses.

I love the way the English Standard Version words this.  It sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings.  Speaking of Jesus:

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – John 1:4-5

Don’t gloss over it.  Stop.  Go back and read that again.  I’m serious.

Want to talk about a Truth Bomb? This one destroyed me.

This is what I see in my head when I read those verses. Yes I'm a nerd.

How often do we freak out about anything and everything in our lives?  How often do we go to a “dark place”?  We panic.  We stress.  We lose hope.

Our.  Lives.  Are.  Over.

No.  They’re not.

If you are a follower of Christ, these verses should jump out and smack you in the face.

Repeatedly.

You should tattoo them to the front of your eyeballs.

You should, well, be at peace.

I know life can be hard.  I know it can feel as if you are, at any moment and without warning, going to be swallowed into the abyss.  We’ve all felt it.  I’ve felt it.  I’ve lived in it for far too long of periods of time.

These verses gently but forcefully scream of hope.  A hope that is past, current and final.

In him was life.

And the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness.

And the darkness has not overcome it.

Beautiful.  Exhilarating.  Freedom.

Freedom from fear.  Freedom from stress.  Freedom from despair.  Freedom from helplessness.

From regret.  From shame.  From death itself.

The light shines in the darkness.  And the darkness HAS NOT overcome it.

It may hover all around you.  It may threaten you and challenge you.  It may beckon you out.  It may act as if it owns you.

But it does not, it cannot and it will not.

This is our beautiful, certain hope.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness HAS NOT overcome it.

Celebrate this truth.  Share it.  Dance in it.  It should change the way you live.  The way you love.  The way you  think.  The way you act.

When I go downtown on Monday nights and visit with my homeless friends, do you know what I now see?  Hope in the darkness.  A bright light amidst the shadows.

Because his life is our light.  We carry the light.  The light is with us.  The light shines in the darkness.  And the darkness has not overcome it.

When depression comes.  When persecution comes.  When you’re told it’s a hopeless situation, a hopeless cause.

The light shines in the darkness.  And the darkness HAS NOT overcome it.

This is the beautiful truth we are able to walk out daily.  Let’s straighten our gait and live like we believe it.