Tag Archives: Jesus

Becoming Human (A Short Story)

21 Jan

Something happens when you come alive and are set free from fear.

You realize existence is messy and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Control is an illusion, a grasping at the air only to fall over.

This reality: It’s bloody, gritty, reality.
Broken hearts and broken bones are just a way of life.

So you begin to realize you don’t have to expend your energy trying to avoid the mess.

(You breathe a sigh of relief.)
Once upon a time, you had this idea everything would be smooth because you were trying to say and do all the right things.

The universe seemed to align and God was on side because you were be moral enough and separated yourself from the world, to be to “holy” enough to avoid being like the others you judged and pitied.

Any trials or pain that happened you blamed on some outside force of evil, or how God was testing you.

But you were terrified to admit when you did wrong, you couldn’t believe you could possibly still be struggling with wanting to lose yourself in something you’ve been told is so wrong, so you denied your desires instead of understanding why you have them in the first place.

But they didn’t go away. You can only shove down your humanity so much. 

So when all that inevitably blew up in your face, you couldn’t help but feel a little crazy.

You may have tried again and again, thrusting yourself into an endless cycle of failure and guilt, but when you finally realized it’s all a sham, you got angry.

So you fought back a little. You did something rebellious.

They looked at you and thought,

“There’s another one lost to the darkness.”

But what they didn’t realize was this was all part of your journey to grace.

So you broke and screamed and let go and let all the pain in.

You accepted the fact you are poor and dirty and dead.

You decided to live a little dangerously.

To embrace instead of exclude.

To dare to be open and see the truth all around you.

And I say, if it’s one step closer to you coming alive, go for it.

Feel all your emotions.

Question what you always thought to be true.

Allow your heart to be broken.

Because let me tell you friend, if you spend your life trying to guard yourself, trying to behave, trying to fit into some religious mold, you will cheat yourself out of truly experiencing life.

You will cheat the world out of what kind of beauty can explode when a human being is actually genuine.

And what happens when a genuine human being allows the spirit of a perfect and loving God to be life within them.

God doesn’t want a robot. He just wants you.

Real change comes not in us trying harder, but in giving up and letting go and realizing the beautiful and terrible truth,

We are broken and we can’t fix ourselves. 

………………….

Exactly.

That’s the entire point.

That’s what Jesus is for. 

 

 

From Starvation to Drunken Joy

13 Nov

It’s hard to swallow sometimes
the sweet liquid that You are enough
it burns my pride as it cures it

but when I get pills stuck in my throat
(self-made medicine
from a factory in my heart
in that smoggy part that doesn’t fully believe)

I can see no other alternative
and I wouldn’t want to

truth is too delicious

because there is no cure
other than Your bread and wine

and that is my sustenance
and my drunken joy

I’ve tried  to get meat
bloody and rare
left overs from an altar somewhere

but it’s a carcass filled with maggots
I  couldn’t see that because I was
so busy counting up
what I thought I owed you

so bent on a payment plan that
I sold my last bit of grain to the poor
only for it to be lost in transport

it was only then
in my feverish aches
in my grand delusions
in my starving hallucinations
that I could somehow provide
what I needed to survive

I finally collapsed and saw
my bloated belly
and emaciated face

(and I knew I was one of them too)

I knew that the grocery stores were empty
I knew that the garden was dead
I knew that the store houses were rotting

only then was I able to be fed

carried to a feast, a banquet, a buffet
endless and guiltless and always mine

because there is no cure
other than then Your bread and wine

and that is my sustenance
and my drunken joy

“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellarful of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred-proof grace-of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel-after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection your bootstraps-suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.”

-Robert Capon, Between Noon and Three (as quoted in Brennan Manning’s, The Ragamuffin Gospel)

Men & Rocks (A Parable)

30 Aug

Two men were walking down an old dusty road called life carrying sacks.

One stopped along the way and picked up a stone called “Addiction,” and put it in his sack. The second man picked up a stone called “Evangelism.”

They walked a little further, when the first man found a rock called “Sexual Sin.” He put it in his sack. Nearby, the second man realized he must be missing something so he found a rock called “Feeding the Poor,” and did the same.

The two men walked on, a little slower this time because of the weight. The first man stopped by a tree and found a large boulder called “Self-Hatred” which he carefully squeezed into his bag. The second man found one just as big called “My Reputation,” and fit it in his bag.

They continued along the road. The first man acquired several more over the miles of travel: “Abuse,” “Dishonesty,” and “Drunkenness.”

The second man also picked up more to add to his load. They were big shiny rocks with long fancy names such as: “Memorizing Scripture,” “Attending Church,” and “Protesting Abortion.”

By this time, both men could barely walk under the load.

Out of nowhere, along came a man with a smile on his face. He stopped and looked at the men, both sweating and straining under their heavy sacks.

“Let me carry them.” He offered, firmly but gently. The first man put down his sack and looked inside. He recognized the rocks were no good. They were jagged and dirty and making his back ache. He closed the sack and handed it to the smiling man, grateful for the relief.

The second man put down his sack and looked in. All his rocks seemed were smooth and shiny, even though they were just as heavy.

“I can’t just let him carry them,” he thought to himself,  “They are my responsibility. Besides, they are not all dirty and jagged like the other man’s rocks.”

So the second man said “No thank you.” He closed his bag, and hoisted it back onto his own aching back. He continued to shuffle down the road, miserable and sweaty, but filled with a sense of self-pride.

The first man joyfully skipped down the road, following his savior, free from all things that had weighed him down.

 

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