Unshakeable

"His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ." - Ephesians 1:5 (NIT)

As the parent of an adopted child this piece of scripture has significant meaning to me. Truth be told when I was younger and trying to decide between Buddhism and Taoism as my spiritual path for life, I kept running into a problem. There was this guy; about thirty or so, beard, beige cloak, peaceful demeanor, crown of thorns and all that. I just couldn't dismiss him. I also just couldn't understand him, or his death or why any God of the universe would seek to sacrifice him for my sake or anyone else's.

I wonder if any of us could sacrifice our child to save ten billion people and counting. Especially when the "sacrifice" was mostly figurative, not literal in an eternal sense. Taken from God's perspective He was just bringing Jesus home, to heaven, to a place much better than Earth in every way. The ending was brutal and yet we humans - the object of all His tireless efforts - have a tendency to mostly focus on valor and glory only when they are properly framed in the right measure of brutality. Whatever. So be it. Lesson given. Example displayed. But why?

In adopting our child, Maxime and I had to pay a price and make some choices: we had to be willing to change our lives and mess with our son's singular identity as an only child. To be honest, he was kinda digging that role. But Anthony had to be on board with the whole idea and we as a family had to find it in our hearts to reach out to another human being, another human life, a little girl as it turned out, and bring her to us, and take her in and love her no matter who she wanted to be or how she turned out.  Yet Sophia could have come to us blind, with a genetic or emotional defect of some kind, or of a race that we weren't sure we were equipped to raise, or even drug dependent in some way. In short, she wasn't "blood" (as if that really ever guarantees anything, but you get the idea). We just couldn't be sure what we were getting. As you can see our adoption was very human, in many ways, filled with human thoughts, human conditions, some selfish concerns, a ton of hope and not a little bit of fear. We had to try and transcend all that, and get as close to faith and unconditional love as we possibly could, just like all adoptive parents have to.

But in adopting us God did not have to pay any special price. But he did. Why? To get our attention. God says "Look at the price I will pay to adopt you into my family." We see the sacrifice of Jesus and then what does God do immediately after that? "Oh, and thanks for noticing that sacrifice. By the way, here's a little proof of heaven. He's resurrected. He's fine. He's now appointed as your savior. All you have to do, just like Doubting Thomas, is reach out." Once that happens God's adoption occurs and it is like no other, because God brings nothing but love to the table. Nothing. You are adopted into a family like no other; one that is full of grace, that does not judge, that is unshakeable and even free of death. What an amazing gift that is.

Open Highways, Big Skies & Islands

I remember when I had no faith. It was a lonely time. Cruising through life, with its wide open highways and big skies, as the only person in the car is a little scary. If we're honest most of us don't know what to do if we break down on one of those wide open highways or if a massive storm blows in across those big skies.

When I was young I figured it didn't matter. No breakdown could not be fixed, no storm could not be weathered. I was naive enough to believe that this was my way of thinking, instead of the way I had been programmed to think as part of the world in which I was growing up in.  As I got older and met people from other cultures I began to realize that Western Society - though special in a lot of ways - is very weak when it comes to building a sense of community, of shared values and of common efforts.

I have now come to realize that the "go it alone", the "my way or the highway", the "be your own man and others be damned" mentality that we still have in this great country of ours can be a dangerous thing indeed. It's an individualistic concept pumped into us at an early age. We are told that the best way to win the "wars of life" is to count on ourselves alone. Ironic isn't it that this is the very opposite approach used by the military, who fight real wars, with real lives at stake. No. From the first day of boot camp they erase all that silly "me, me, me" stuff and hammer away at loyalty to things outside of self (unit, country, God). Why? Because the military knows that for every Washington there are a hundred thousand Custer's, and most of us will make one last stand after another before we die in the vain hope that things will change if people will just listen to us.

Some of us get past that when we get older, some of us not. A lucky few will figure this out way early in life. The truth of the matter is we were not created to go it alone. We did not create ourselves, we do not create each day and even our own endings our mostly out of our control.  I firmly believe that the evil in this world that takes deepest root is that little whisper which convinces us to stay within ourselves, to not share our dreams , or our hurts, or our burdens. The quote "No man is an island entire of itself" is a famous one, and for good reason, and that John Donne would say later in that very same same poem "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee" is no coincidence.

Joy Division

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, [2] where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.” – Luke 4:1-2

Today is Ash Wednesday. Many of you are preparing for Lent season and will give up something important to you for the next 40 days to commemorate the 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert. We sacrifice for a little while as he did his whole life and, indeed, even unto death. For many of you this is such a beautiful and special time to offer up a sacrifice to God, a gesture if you will, of thanks and reflection. I respect that to no end and I encourage you as you do it.

Then there are some of you, like me, who won’t really do the whole sacrifice thing. That doesn’t make us bad people. There are 325 more days of the year to hold the line in other ways and I don’t think that God necessarily cares if I give up Diet Coke or ESPN for a month or so.  I come from a very large Italian Catholic family and I’m sure a shudder just ran through their entire rank and file. But maybe not. As an Evangelical Christian they love me but most likely think I've lost my mind anyway.

Instead I want to feast on God’s word the next 40 days. I hope you will too. Maybe you have a bible nearby all the time. Maybe you will have to dig around and find one at home. But do it. I will, because I want to reflect on what an amazing display of faith, strength and courage Jesus gave in that desert. I mean…many of us cannot even watch a movie with some caricature of Satan in it without freaking out, so can you imagine being all alone in that vast desert, squaring off with him face-to-face like that?  Confronted on all sides, with every temptation imaginable, Jesus withstood the assault. He was God, God blessed, and on display for us all. He was leading by example. For this wasn’t a battle of angels and demons; ironically it was a very human battle, it was a battle of wits. 

And that’s a huge clue, I think. Ultimately, the battle of good and evil, the very battle for our souls, is mental. In our minds we must stand firm. There can be no division of our faith, and no division of our joy. When you find yourself lost, afraid, tormented or depressed stop for a second and notice what’s going on…in your head.  

Then remember the man from Galilee who held the line…for you, for me, for all of us.

Two

There's a reason why God paired everyone up on that ark, a reason why the bible tells us two is better than one (for one can help his brother up when he falls), a reason why even Jesus called the twelve disciples to his side; in short, we aren't meant to go it alone. There is force in numbers.

I marvel at people who try. I think they are equal measures brave and crazy. Some of them will say they are alone not by choice, but by circumstance. I don't know about that. We can make friends in a number of places, re-establish contact with old friends and - if you are single - wait for love not in despair but with the heart of a warrior-poet, fighting versus while writing verses.

Solitude is a good thing in very small doses. Beyond that one can become so encapsulated in their own little world that things only get worse. Before long loneliness usually marches in and with it sadness. There's a song out now by some guy called Gotye that says "We can become addicted to a certain kind of sadness." I totally agree. Sadness is just as insidious as cocaine or alcohol. It's a quiet disease and it can cripple a life, a marriage and all sorts of other things.

You need to remember that you are never alone. Never. Even in the dark, in your bed at night. Above you are a billion stars and one pair of eyes just waiting for an invitation to join you. He never misses a call, never forgets to show up, never is pressed for time to see you. Some of the best rest you will ever have in your life will come on those nights when God talks you to sleep.

Remember, you are never one. With God you are always two.

  

Clay

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” – 2 Corinthians 4: 6-9

There’s something to be said for knowing better. We make a lot of mistakes in life when we should have known better. That means we did, but we did it anyway. I read a quote the other day that wisdom is learning from experience, but true wisdom is learning from the experience of others.

We go through life and we accumulate lessons, thoughts and ideas, some on our own, but most I think with the help of others. I have learned some amazing things from some amazing people in my lifetime. From my grandfather I learned to never forget where I came from and from my ten year old son the other day, wondering aloud at the meaning of life and what he wants to be in this world, I learned to never stop wondering at life. Because, really, where you came from is only as important as where you’re going, right?

The bible tells us that we are jars of clay, holding the treasure of God within us. I think that is a beautiful analogy because, well, clay can be molded. It can be touched and shaped, and fingerprints can be left behind to identify those that have helped to make us who we are. Yes, some of those marks will be rough, some will be outright gouges by those who have hurt us, but from that glowing light within even these marks can be smoothed over and given meaning.

Between our birth and our death thousands of hands will touch us. The magic of the journey is in allowing ourselves to be touched and, looking down each day at our own hands, remembering that we too are touching others.

"P" is for Perspective

 "Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them." - Epictetus

When life overwhelms or the hurts and fears begin to mount, when you finally feel ready to analyze a moment/relationship in your life to see what it tells you about yourself, remember to withdraw a bit and be still. The mind is not unlike a teacup; it rattles easily. At these moments I think we are all simply feeling the limitations of our "humanness". In short, your perceptions have taken over.

Perception is defined in two ways:

1. The ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.
2. The state of being or process of becoming aware of something in such a way

Call me a nerd (and many of you will) but I find it fascinating that the very word is defined in two ways: in a physical sense (becoming aware of something via the five senses) and in a sort of spiritual sense (the "process" of becoming aware of "something" in such "a way"). Perception is how we see the world, up close, through the singular paradigm of our own existence.

But I think God expects more from us than to simply take our own existence and create an army of one. It's why so many of us end up at war with ourselves. In the Bible, time and again, we get examples of people forced out of their own limited views of the world and into a greater perspective (Moses, Noah, David, and Solomon to name a few).


Perspective is defined in five ways, I have chosen these two:

1) The state of existing in space before the eye.

2) The state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship.

Call me a head case (and many of you will) but I find it maddening that I have been created to take what I see in this existence and process it, through my thoughts and ideas, my memories and experiences, my neurosis and paranoia's, until I must (by mental default) form an idea or opinion of "how things are" vs "how things appear". I have spent most of my life getting this wrong.

Perception without perspective is a wild gamble. Many of us live our lives at this particular crap table every day, rolling the dice. It's easier to just view the world how we see things and everyone else can  kiss off. But by viewing the world only through our own lenses we often can get a distorted picture of life and, by default, stunt our growth both as human and - more importantly - spiritual beings.

"D" is for Distance

^"Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” 
- Matthew 26:38-39

I opened this piece with a bit of scripture that shows that even Jesus, who could command angels and demons, needed to get some distance from things at times. The notion of stopping everything to draw away to a quiet place, to think, to breath, even to pray is difficult for us to comprehend sometimes. Actually, it's something that most of us simply refuse to do, caught up as we are in the day to day hustle and bustle of our lives. There's always "something else" to get to, "someone else" to call or "another email" to respond to. 

We'll watch T.V. for two hours a night, caught up in the fantasy lives on the screen or the fortunes of one person or another on a game show, but we give little or no time to a little "peace of mind" and even less time to God. Is it any wonder that most of us are stressed, depressed, frustrated or confused? We want to know what life is all about but we don't really study the question or, worse still, the author of the subject. How can we ever know what life is all about if we don't study what life IS and who CREATED it?

If you think about it we have plenty of clues that getting some distance on things is beneficial. How many times in life have you faced a conflict, maybe at work or in a bad relationship, that just dragged on and on. People around you may have advised you to let things go or to make a change but you just couldn't (wouldn't) hear it. Then months (or years) later you changed jobs or broke-up with that bad ex.  Do you remember that feeling that came over you? Like a cloud suddenly lifting you could finally see things for how they really were. What was acutely painful to even contemplate before was now but an afterthought. "How could I let myself be treated that way? What was wrong with me?!"

What was wrong with you was that you didn't have distance, the very thing that Jesus models for us in this passage, because without distance Jesus knew you couldn't really have something else, even more important, which he modeled for us while dying on a cross....you couldn't have perspective.  Which I hope to cover tomorrow.