It Is Like

What is it like, this deep and burning love?

Like the wind blowing, hot and dry, taking up the leaves and the tall strands of grass and dancing with them, curving them into the motion already shivering up their spines, pulling each beat out like a thread. It is thick and heavy like the sound of a bell that is stopped, always, on the deepest and most imploring note; a resonating melody only felt by the touch of this wind, hot and dry, taking up the leaves and the tall strands of grass, dancing with them. 

As the movement begins all the colors of the burnt melodies rise up as blush and explode out of my lungs slowly and sweetly, cascading through my veins like thousands upon thousands of grains of light.  But it is rich and full, these thousands upon thousands.  The memories of all the earth bleed out of them and into my own heart, swelling with the warmth of all the ages, overtaking my soul in a bliss that cannot be contained by breath and breath alone.  As the movement begins all of time stops, and the sun spins closely out of control, held by the chasms of air wrapped about it, swinging like a pendulum as fire on a string.  Closer and closer, drawn by the rhythm of the movement to the warmth of the winds blowing through a field, hot and dry, taking up the leaves and the tall strands of grass and dancing with them.  My heart beats with the rhythm of the winds.  My skin tingles at the touch of the stopped bell, resonating through my being. 

What is it like, this deep and burning love?

Swinging slower than all of time, hot and dry, full and sweet, rich and beating.  As my being resonates with all the wind and sound having motion within itself, the air is thicker than blood and I am awakened.  My hands burn with something irrevocable, to feel this wind that encompasses my body so, blowing through the hollows of my lungs, carving out memories of a heartbeat that has always been and will forever burn the echo of it’s voice into the walls of my heart.  It is irrevocable, this passion and burning desire, birthing the sounds of eternity deep within the spaces of my ribs.  The wind blows, hot and dry, and all my bones are taken up like the leaves and the tall strands of grass, swaying and moving with a rhythm not my own.  Bursting out of their white sockets they become living, thriving--consumed by the warmth of the sun that is settling deeply into their core.  They peel back their barrenness and out of their husks come life.  I am resonating with life. Deeply the bones go as they dance and sway and peel back their barrenness while blood spills forth as light, tearing through the shadows of a land that has long slept.  I am being pierced by a wind, hot and dry, taking up my bones, like leaves, to dance, breathing into them the sun that swings closer still, wrapping them in a heat that burns away all darkness.  Deeply moved, the rhythm sinks, seeking all those places which cry out to be found.

What is it like, this deep and burning love?

Only irrevocable; ravaging my heart into what it has always been, seeking out the depths of the world written into the recesses of my core and ruining forever the illusion of naught.  To be changed into that which burns exceedingly brighter than even the sun, which swings closer for the warmth of a single touch.  I am like the wind that blows, hot and dry, taking up the leaves and tall strands of grass, blushing scarlet with the colors of melodies burnt through my skin.  I am like this deep and burning love, for it is in me, on me, and of me, and from it I can never be apart.

Leave Your Weapons at the Door

It is wonderful to be a Christian, to be in a family you can call your safe haven.

Well, it’s supposed to be.

But what happens when our theologies become beating sticks with which to harass our brothers and sisters? 

Our safe haven becomes more like a prison. 

Oh, yes, it has the appeal and the illusion of warmth and love, a place where all can gather and enter through a door way of safety and peace; a place where the broken can slowly undress their wounds and rest tired, weary bodies.  They can take down their fronts and relax, they can shed the tears of their sorrows and come, unhindered and fully welcome, to a magnificent table of witnesses and disciples, sit, and enjoy life together.  And they can look whatever condition they arrived in, because we love and accept them for who they are, not what they are.  Besides, the more time spent at the table being filled, not by food, but by the word of God, being cleansed, not by mere drink, but by the blood of Christ, and being reborn, not by water, but by the Holy Spirit, the more that what they are begins to look exactly like who they are.  This is not an ordinary dinner table and we should not be an ordinary family.  God is certainly not a normal and ordinary God, and if He is, our "Christian walk" would be a lot easier and a lot less worth it. 

            So what is the problem here?  Why are we not doing this family the way we preach is so fundamentally important? Why are we not letting God shape us into what He longs for?

There are many, many reasons, and of course I can’t cover them all or ever fully penetrate the depth and extensive measure of the spiritual warfare happening in these places where we are not paying attention – and where I would even be bold enough to say we are kept strategically indifferent and ignorant to.  All of this, of course, by the enemy.  I do not have all the answers; I do not have everything figured out.  But, I want nothing more than to be above reproach, to spend so much time in His presence and word that I resemble Him in every possible way, to walk in the freedom He has claimed for me and to be unashamed and unabashed to love my Father with everything I have and to TALK about it – yes… even TALK about it -- with sincerity, integrity, and honesty, among this glorious body we call the Church, and not fear others made of the same flesh I myself have been borne of, or have to defend what is innocent faith.  In fact, we should be talking about our relationships with God much more than we actually do.  Because when you’re in love with someone in the natural way, what do you do? You talk about them.  Why?  Because you love them.  How often?  A lot.  Because you are constantly delving deeper into their being, trying to figure them out, spending time with them and eventually, you kind of start to even look and act like them, and you just can’t seem to get enough.  We don’t get embarrassed about that, do we?  No one jumps down their peers throat because they are loving their significant other in the “wrong way”, or “too much”, or because they use the “wrong kind of language” when they talk about them, or spend time with them in the  seemingly “wrong places”.  Yes… maybe hearing about that kind of love gets boring for those of us who haven’t found it yet, but that’s only because we don’t share a mutual love for that particular person.  However, I’m pretty sure that God whom we love and are fashioned after is the same God, the same being, the same I AM.  So I don’t really know why we would get tired of talking about the greatest love story of all time, or why we would get offended, angry, or judgmental about the extent of love another has, or even withholds, for the same being. 

And one of the biggest reasons I see for those sorts of reactions is the fear of being found lacking in ones own love, to not have found the same love others seem so captivated by – because if the focus is always pointed at another’s faults, to all of the individual and broken down details of how another is utterly and completely wrong in the way they pursue God and what they stand upon in doctrine, the focus is never, ever allowed to rest on the place that is hurting deeply for something more – ones own heart. 

            What is this terrible need we feel to bring weapons into the community of God’s people?  To be harsh, to be slanderous, to be brutal and defaming, judgmental and mocking, to those we are supposed to embrace as our own?  And what’s more, to do it all with a great glass shield, one that everyone can see through but no one can ever penetrate, with either words or touch.  Because unfortunately, the implications of this great shield and arsenal of razor sharp words, butchering others relationships with the Most High King in the name of theology and truth, are screaming that the Body of Christ is NOT a safe place, that loving God requires every last effort in our power to defend an understanding of Him that can fit into our hands, and to destroy anyone who comes bearing any thing that differentiates from what we carry ourselves.  To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to really serve a God who I think I can fully figure out and dissect, who I can fit into my pocket, and who needs me to constantly create separate ghettos to herd others different than I into and there silence them, so that I might remain safely patrolling the streets of an empty city, because I find, eventually, that in fulfilling this mandate I put on my own life, I am alone. 

I am not saying that Truth is not important. I am not saying to have a "dumb" faith and to disregard intellect, study, and proper hermeneutics for the word and all its complexities.  The word is important; God created us with brains – so those are obviously important, too, and therefore tools to be used. I do think, however, that if we really have faith in a God whose ways are unfathomable and depths impenetrable, who is that He is, and in that being is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, if we truly believe in Him, we don’t have to worry about defending the truth or finding it, because the Truth IS who we say we believe in.  If we spend time with the Truth and believe with every particle in us that we are reborn in Him, transformed into His likeness, and guided by Him, why are we so afraid that we don’t actually have the Truth? Unless, sadly, we don’t really have the faith we cling so ardently to in what we say is our entire life.  If my life is going to be thrown into the Truth, the Lord my God, then He is what He says is and I trust Him to be faithful in showing His character in and through me, because He can and says He will.  Because if we don't believe that,  what God are we saying we follow and give our lives to?  Discernment and wisdom are uncompromising abilities we must possess as Christians – but if we have faith in this triune God, then we trust He will bestow these upon us through the Holy Spirit, and from there move forward in a Christ-like manner, with these Christ-like gifts placed in our own beings. 

            Imagine what would happen if we put our weapons down.  Suddenly, our hands would be open and empty, because they would not be wielding objects having little to no use.  And if our hands aren’t occupied, our minds are suddenly clear because we don’t need to concentrate on how to best formulate our next attack.  When not thinking about our next attack, our hearts become softened because we are not moving out of bitterness, shrewdness, anger or fear.  Suddenly – we become workable material to be molded and shaped by someone more powerful than our weapons. Our hands can be lifted in praise and our eyes locked dead and center with the eyes of the coming King, because instead of trying to focus on all the things wrong with the way others represent Christ, we are actually looking at God.  Funny thing, isn’t it?  For the focus to be on God?  Maybe then something can get done that glorifies His name.  Maybe then, instead of just watching the process of transformation in others lives and trying to desperately mirror it behind our own glass shields, we can actually experience the transformation ourselves.  Because then our lives themselves become the weapons and are fully possessed by God, and the focus isn’t on ourselves or the faults of others anymore.  Instead, it is in being empty handed and humbly submitted to Yahweh.

           Unfortunately, we are required to drop our weapons when we enter the presence of God and His family.  Our family.  Or is it unfortunate?  Because it looks a lot like freedom, to me.