Vindication

I am a man who enjoys his vices. I know as a christian I’m suppose to abstain from such carnal activities and in the grand scheme of things, the wickedness I indulge is far from what most would consider evil. To me it is a mystery that many people will dismiss every word from my mouth just because I smoke and drink (not heavily mind you). It’s as if the moment my corruption is discovered any moral standing I have is lost like a pebble swallowed by a rapid water. My vices cause no ill against man nor inspire any unnatural lust; so it still amazes me that when some people discover my taste for beer and tobacco that i am judged unfairly for these transgressions. As aggravated as I may become, I fear that I am guilty of the same sin.

It seems that we humans tend to down play our own depravity and exalt the sins of others. This is of course done in an effort to vindicate ourselves. I have never like the idea of free grace; it is at times an issue that keeps me firmly rooted to the life of a transgressor instead of living a life of a forgiven son of God. I don't like charity unless I’m the one given it. I like to earn my own way and pay my own debts. Of course living this way in dealing with faith will earn me no favor or good standing with our heavenly Father. The idea of the blood of Jesus is great in theory but putting it into practice is far more difficult. On this subject I do not stand alone; people will spend the all their lives trying to be a good person when, as Mark 7 says, our hearts are corrupt to the very center and we alone can do nothing good. You see the very thing I try to avoid is in fact the very thing, the only thing I need. Charity done in the pursuit of self vindication is a blemish on our souls and serves no purpose. This and all other vices I have acquired unites me with man kind.

Forgetting

What does it mean to forget? Is forgetting something we do by choice or is it more? I heard somewhere that we humans have a hormone that makes us forget intense pain. That this is why women will have more than one child. That makes sense and explains why my sister has eight kids. If this hormone is designed to help us forget physical pain I wonder what it is that helps us forget the emotional pain we go through or the pain we go through cause of bad choose we have made. I only bring this up because it seems that forgetting is too easy for us. How many people have climbed out of painful experiences only to forget what it was like while in the midst of the struggle. We see this every day. the man who overcame poverty and is now successful walks into the coffee shop to buy his $6.00 latte only to stick his nose up at the family with a beat-up car broken down in the parking lot. He has forgotten what it's like to be in need. I know I am guilty of driving by the car that is stalled on the side of the road saying, “I would help you push it buddy if I had time or didn't have this bad knee.” Meanwhile not long ago that was me just wishing someone would stop and help. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think so. The greatest and gravest of human flaws is forgetting. Forgetting what it's like to be hurting, to be hungry, to be lost. When we forget we lose what it really means to be human. Or we at least forget that part of our humanity that was meant to be divine. This is everywhere throughout history. Moses forgot and it cost him the promised land. It's so easy to forget. If we forget then we don't have to be responsible; responsible for our past mistakes or helping others through those mistakes. What I'm saying if I'm saying anything is that forgetting is an offense against ourselves; a terrorist act against the soul of humanity. We must remember what it was like to doubt and to rage against God. Because if we don't we cannot help anyone, we cannot help this fallen world we live in find hope. We won't be able to help them find Christ. We have all hurt and cried, we have all accused God of being heartless. What the world needs even more than a answer is for us to say, “I have been there, I know what you’re feeling, I remember.”

Perpetual apology

I live a life of perpetual apology
In constant repentance for those that came before me
At dawn from the same bible they read as me
By dusk they were hanging black men from trees
We both claim salvation by the man who bled for the lost
a freedom from death
for them a right to stand behind a burning cross
From histories books I read and weep
Seeing the "Crusades" were done in the name of him with pierced hands and pierced feet
I live mindfully sorrow of the pain my "Christian" brothers cause as they murder murdering doctors all in the name of Moses and his laws
I hang my head in shame when I look at all the yesterdays on which we have stained
I wonder if his is enough to cover the blood on our hands which still remains
I listen to the bigot from his box of soap on on about hell and sin never mentioning grace love or hope
For the terror and offense we have caused I can not make amends
I can only pray his blood is mighty enough to cleanse
Penitence is what I seek
Knowing tomorrow someone will be repenting on behalf of me

courage

Not unlike most young boys I grew up idolizing heroes, namely super heroes. I grew up on a street that did not have many boys my age to play with and with a older brother in high school I was forced to make a decision; either humble myself and ask my sister who was close to my age to let me play with her and her friends or choose another hobby. I think it is obvious which I chose. I began reading comic books; all kinds, any thing I could get my hands on. From the greats like Spider-man or Batman, to the not so greats like Antman. So thus began my obsession with the super hero. I like the stories of these heroes because no matter how many bad buys or super villains they face and no matter of much power the villains had, the hero always made the right choice. Batman could not be swayed by Joker no matter how long he choice to monologue. In these stories and now in these movies it seems that the lines of right and wrong, justice and injustice where as clear as the wrinkles in my grand mothers face. I don’t remember at any time wondering if I would join the Joker’s plan to brain wash congress or stop him if I were batman. These heroes had unshakable courage in deciding what was right or wrong. In their eyes there was no gray, only black, white and maybe some blue and yellow for the costumes.
This has always frustrated me because it seems like that the line is never as visible as it was in the stories. That the courage it took to web-sling into a burning building is not the same courage that I will need to walk out my faith. I don’t think I will every be tempted with brain washing one or more members of congress. As black and white as theses stories can be it seems that my life is that gray. So where does courage fit in to my life? In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses narrates at the end of his life as he passes on to Joshua the duty of leading the people of Israel. He tells Joshua to be strong and of good courage, that the people will need him to be brave. It was in reading this that I understood that courage is not as irrelevant as I thought it was in the culture I live in, I thought that courage was only something told in stories. But as I read the scriptures I realize that courage is a very important part of my faith. I have begun to understand that courage is not the absence of fear but the heart to run toward those fears. Fear is a funny thing. It seems to never take a back seat or choose to sit quietly. It always has to be the center of attention. It must be heard and never ignored. You see the thing is, with fear it will either define you of drive you. You will be remembered as someone who never took the risk or that lived life by risk. No one wants to be the kid who climbed the diving board but was too scared to make the plunge; what most of us become is either the one chanting him on or booing him off. Fear will always be a nagging voice in your head, but its courage or lack there of that defines you. You either run from fear and in so doing give in to it or we run too it, throwing the “what if” factor in to the pool and embracing the “why not” factor. It takes courage to stand for injustice; it takes courage to speak out for morality and it takes courage to take the unpopular route and love like Christ. Like our heroes we too can make a difference in this world of beauty and darkness, if we only have the courage to do it. So whether when you get up you dress with a cap and knee high boots or just jeans and sneakers. What define you are not your fears, but your courage to fight those fears.

saints and monsters

I once heard a pastor talk about how much faith it takes to just believe in God, about how much science is out there that disproves there is a God. That we must have faith to face these lies and still believe. All though I understood where he was coming from, I'm not sure I believe that it takes much faith to believe in God. There have been many books written on how science proves the existence of an intelligent creator, people devote there life to this. Growing up I never found it hard to believe in God, even when I didn’t like him very much and it would have been much easier to just deny his existences, I never could. The fact that there was a God was as obvious as the fact that I had a mother. Believing in God was never a problem for me but believing that God cared for me took the majority of my life to just except to be true. It’s a very different thing to believe there is a God and believing that He loves you. For most of my life I could not imagine God even knowing my name never mind loving me enough to die for me, I guess I have also assumed I was grandfather into the whole salvation thing. That I was only able to see heaven not because of who I was or how much he loved but of what other people are and of how much he loved them. I could not understand why Christ would suffer on my behalf but I could see why he would for mother Teresa or guandi or Billy gram, I knew why he loved them how could you not love someone like mother Teresa and every thing she did. I never knew her but I think I would die so she would have the chance to save all the life’s she did. But why would God love me? If anything I’m not even a bug on the windshield of life, I’m three week old French fri under the passenger seat. This is just the way I thought, I built all these defenses around my self because of this way of thinking and with out knowing it this is the way I acted and treated most people. All this begin to change when I heard my brother say that God loves Hitler as mush as he loves Billy gram. I was very puzzled by this, how could God love that monster as much as he loved that saint, and if this is true where do I fit in with theses speakers of truth and killers of millions? Do I get a place in this? Or am I still sitting under the passenger seat waiting for the vacuum to suck me to oblivion? That night, the night I heard my brother say that I did something I had never dreamed I would ever do, something I had been terrified of. I ask God to show me he loved me, I ask that if what my brother said was true and if he really could love Hitler then he must be able to love me I need only introduce myself. As I laid down that night I remember thinking what if it’s true, what if god really does not care about me. When I woke up in the mourning I didn’t feel any more loved than I had the previous night. In fact nothing seemed to change I don’t know what I was expecting but I was still surprised when it look like I might get nothing. But that night I was reading on the beach and I watch the sun set, I remembered thinking that God must be an artist to paint something so beautiful. I ask myself why would God create something so beautiful I was soften that the beauty in heaven must be far greater than this so I don’t think he would do it for him self, then I heard something I have not heard since I was a child something that seemed to come from inside me, something I know now to be the voice of the holy spirit what I heard was him telling me that God painted this for me, that is why he put the stars in there place why he made the beach and the maintains too so you can see how much he loves you. You can see it in the beauty he gave you.
over the months that flowed I begin to believe what I heard that day, and not in a general since I begin to see it so very personally, that it was no longer about the ones who I thought deserved salvation but it was about me the one who didn’t, some how God stop being there savor and closet friend but he became my savor and closet friend. I don’t fully understand it myself all I know is that his love for me is bigger than any doubts I have in myself, and its stronger than any fear I may have of the darkness that lies inside of me, his love seems to drive it away seems to give me hope. What an amazingly disarming thing love can be, it can break the strongest and give the weakest confidence, and it can destroy or create. My prayer for you is the same as it was for me that night, that God would show that he loves you, that he would make it more obvious than you can stand, that just the hope of such a deep and profound love will drive you deeper towards, that it will take you home.