Grace doesn’t give us the ability to do supernatural deity-like feats of perfection. That would just make us more selfish. Instead, grace gives us the opportunity to lay down on the altar, die, and let Jesus be perfect, in us and through us.
I guess she had to do it. She didn’t know any other way of making the separation happen. The separation is supposed to happen, when a child grows up. For some reason it didn’t happen with her, not the way it is supposed to. Like when you’re 12 and you inch away from your dad because you don’t want anyone to see you with him. You love him, and you know you couldn’t live without him, but you just don’t want anyone else to know it. Or when you’re 15 and you sneak out to smoke cigarettes and curse with your friends and you know your mom would kill you if she found out and that’s why you’re doing it.
She never did those things, and I think she got stuck. And she had to do something about that but she didn’t know what do to do, so in a moment of desperation and super human adrenaline strength, she picked up a big boulder and lodged it firmly between her and me. The boulder is high and wide and deep and neither one of us can see past it or around it and it is too high to climb over. And we are separated now. Not much to be done about that. But I supposed it needed to happen. Just not like this.
And so she’s not stuck anymore but I am. It’s on the holidays that it seems to matter most. She’s not here, and not just in a physical sense, but in an emotional sense. And she keeps going further away and there’s nothing I can do. I don’t know whether it’s intentional or not, but the way the boulder landed made it so that there’s nothing left for us to talk about. And on days like today I miss her the most. And I’m stuck like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense. Like he didn’t know he was dead, I keep forgetting that she’s not mine anymore.
Am I the only one who gets so deeply impacted by the cruel ironies of life like this? How cruel is it, God, that you give us children and ask us to pour into them our very life, and we are the most important thing in their lives, and you give it a good couple of decades to really sink in, and then you take them away? And we become irrelevant. I walk around looking into the eyes of others to see if I can see the pain.
My children have left….
I am divorced now….
My youth and my beauty have faded… no one sees me anymore…
Everyone I work with is younger than me and my ideas are boring…
My husband is dying…
This is my Memorial Day. I look into the eyes of my children, the ones I have left. I hold their hands, trying to memorize the softness. I look into their eyes and see the trust and love. I try to carve an indelible memory but I know it will fade like the others. All the other thousands of moments… the first step, the first time she read to me, learning to drive… it all fades into a hazy blur and all I have, once again, is this moment.. no this one… no, this one.
Today I will probably get irritated with my kids and tell them to leave me alone.
Jesus tells us over and over not to be afraid.
Fear of the unknown can drive us to do many things to feel safe, not the least of which is to surround ourselves with unnecessary structure and rules and people to tell us the right things to do so that we never need make a mistake. Or if we do err, it is someone else’s fault because we have transferred personal responsibility. And once we have surrounded ourselves with this high towering structure that we can see and touch, we no longer need have faith. Because, as scripture tells us, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of which is not seen. We have an example of what can happen when we desire a king that we can touch - this is what happened to Israel. God wanted to be their king but the people wanted a king like all the other nations. Someone to go to battle for them. Someone to protect them. This grieved God’s heart. But he gave it to them. He didn’t come up with the idea, but he went along with it. That’s not the ideal.
Inserting ourselves into structures led by kings that we have asked for, which God has given us, is not his ideal for us. But this is what we choose because we are afraid of being unsafe. We choose the good instead of the best, in the name of safety, when all along we have been safe because we are in the hand of God. We choose to put mediators and messengers and vessels between us and God. We choose Moses instead of Jesus. We choose the law instead of the Law Fulfiller. We choose a veil, a curtain, to shield us from God’s glory, when God himself has torn that curtain so we might go directly by way of Jesus to him.
We expect God to be safe, when in fact he is not safe at all. God is good, but he is not safe. If he were safe, we would not need faith. Yet our spirits are safe in his presence, because of Jesus. Not because of a man or a church. But because of our faith in Jesus.
Worshiping God is not a matter of going to a certain place or doing a certain thing. That is how God operated before Jesus was sent. Jesus fulfilled all of the going and doing. It is left to us to believe and follow and worship in spirit. It is not our job to follow rules, but to follow Jesus.
Exodus 20:
18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”
Jeremiah 31:
31 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to [d] them, [e] ”
declares the LORD.33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”35 This is what the LORD says,
he who appoints the sun
to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars
to shine by night,
who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar—
the LORD Almighty is his name:John 4
19“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
John 6
63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit[e] and they are life. 64Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”
Many of us are victims of hurt from other women. Most of the time it comes from a childhood hurt. For me, it was rejection. Cold, unfeeling rejection from two girls that I thought were my best friends. Many years later, I realize it is possible that neither of them meant to hurt me. But their actions left a lasting wound that perhaps only now is healing.
Women are often suspicious of each other. I have found that whenever I talk about my former “issues” with women, it strikes a chord with other women, who tell me that they have given up and just decided to hang out with men.
The root of this is the kind of childhood hurts like I experienced, coupled with the messages society delivers about what makes women valuable. These messages literally pit us one against another in an endless competition to be the most beautiful, the sexiest, the youngest looking, the best dressed, the most well off, and to get the man. Even if he is someone else’s man. Even if he is yours.
So after we experience the sting of childhood rejection, then they pile on with the news that we have to watch out or some nasty but beautiful vixen is going to snatch our husband or boyfriend out from under our nose, especially if we are not thin, smooth-skinned, and large-breasted enough to continuously captivate our mate and any other man in our presence.
This is not a good environment for friend-making. We don’t trust each other. We’re insecure, and we think everyone else is making us look bad. Just drive to work and you’ll receive hundreds of messages designed to make you feel bad about yourself so you will buy something.
I am convinced that because we women are constantly receiving the message “not good enough,” we see other women not as friends, but as dangerous rivals. We put up our defenses, just waiting for the first slight. If someone else is having a bad day and snaps at us or ignores us or says something insensitive, we take it as a personal rejection. Many times we snap back, or take our hurt and go hurt someone else with it.
My prayer today for all my sisters is that we would recognize our need for healing in our relationships with each other, and our need to overcome the deadly message of Madison Avenue. I know you all think I am “smoking something” with my posts on stepping out of the matrix and not following the systems of this world, but let me tell you that you are better off without these things. Living the message of Madison Avenue brings death to the things that are really important - the things that, when we get to the end of our life, we realize are the things that matter.
I got to be 40 and realized I had this hole in my heart that was missing friendships with women. Since I have begun to heal from my past hurts, I have discovered the nourishing quality of relationship with the fairer sex. With my female friends, I can be mothered. I can also mother and mentor. With my girlfriends, I can be a child. I can be myself in a safe environment where I know they love me. I can grow. Oh yes, we step on each others’ toes sometimes and it hurts. But “wounds from a friend can be trusted,” goes the Proverb. When it comes to friendships with women, “Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?” In other words, we will get angry with each other, but anger is born of true relationship. When we are envious of others’ status, that destroys relationship. Anger can make our relationships stronger, as long as we work through the anger and keep on trusting each other.
If you are one of those women who just don’t “do women,” I get you. I used to be you and I know that it feels safer to just avoid the issue of female relationships. I also know that there is an ache in your heart to experience the God-given blessing of healthy relationships with women. I am praying for you, my sister, to overcome your woundedness and reach out to that motherly woman who needs a daughter like you. Or to pick up the phone and call that mother who needs a sister, or that young girl who needs a mother. Don’t reach the end of your life and realize that in protecting yourself, you have missed what is really important in this life. In giving of yourself you will receive so much more. It really is worth the risk.
I make it my business to avoid the systems of this culture and this world as much as I am able to see those systems and recognize them for what they are. If you’ve never seen The Matrix, then maybe you’ve never thought about the systems of this world and how they conceal true freedom and spirituality with a deceptive sheen of “the good life,” or “social norms,” or “what is best for us.”
Think about all the routines and activities we are expected to participate in. Dress, political systems, homes, educational and medical systems, transportation, medical care, religious structures, careers, what we eat, what we feed our animals, what we allow others to shoot into our veins.
If you’ve never thought about these things before you may wonder what in the hell I am talking about.
Let’s choose just one item from the above list: our educational system. Did you know that human children learn and grow without much interference from us? If we love them, feed them, and give them shelter, their minds naturally grab hold of the information in their environments and they process it and learn. This is how God made them. They learn how to talk and walk and control their bladder. If exposed to reading material and people reading, they learn how to read. These things happen on individual timetables, depending on the individual. Did you know that the schedules for learning these things that we impose on our children are artificial?
Many people will tell you it is crazy and unnatural to simply let children learn as they will, on their own timetable. But have you ever thought about how crazy and unnatural it is to put 30 children all the same age into a room together and expect them all to process information the same way, at the same time?
Many people will tell you that children must “be educated properly” in order to have the best opportunities in life. Do you know how many people get college degrees in all sorts of carefully calculated arenas and never do anything with them? Perhaps even more important, do you know how many people never even graduated from high school and are highly “successful” (according to the systems of this world) in fields that many people think you could never get a job in without a college degree?
Many people will tell you that parents are not qualified to educate their children properly. Properly, meaning according to the artificially created standards of the systems of this world. Do you know how many children in public schools cannot read? Perhaps even more important, do you know how many children are “unschooled” who can read circles around their public-school educated peers?
All of these “rules” about educating our children exist simply to disguise the fact that we are wonderfully fashioned by our loving God, who created us as learning machines. Our humanistic society tells us instead that children must be subjected to the system, whether that system is public school or its imitators, private school and school at home, in order to learn properly. A God-denying culture says that unless we “play the game” we cannot function in society and we will never succeed at anything “important.”
The truth is that people who have not been submerged in societal norms for education can still participate in traditional career paths. For example, someone in my immediate family who was “unschooled” at home through high school and does not have a college degree, was just promoted to Assistant Vice President of a local bank. Not only that, but I myself dropped out of high school and never went to a day of journalism school, yet I manage to make a good living reporting and writing.
Even so, who says that being an officer of a bank or a journalist is a measure of success? These too are artificially created standards of success. If you’re raising your children with the idea that you must provide them with just the right education and pay their way through college, you’re missing it. If you think that making enough money to have a good mortgage, nice car, and plenty of insurance is success, you’re totally bought into the matrix.
There is so much more to this idea of systems. It truly is a case of the emperor’s new clothes. The more one delves into this and spends time thinking about it, the more disturbing it becomes. If you read this blog, you’ve already read some of my thoughts about the religious systems and you know that my family has stepped out of those systems with great joy and growth in our spiritual life and, yes, even in our fellowship with other believers, despite those who claim we are “lone rangers.”
If you spend some quality time thinking about what the world expects from us, and how much we automatically participate in those things without even realizing that there is another way, you might start asking why. And if you start asking why, your world will never be the same. Or you could just take the blue pill and keep right on with your nice little existence.
Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes…. Remember, all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more….
From Sterling Hayden, a passage that has given me pause this morning:
To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?
Do you ever listen to The God Journey podcasts? These guys speak a lot of Truth, so if you ever get the chance give them a listen. I caught a recent episode while I was walking on the treadmill this morning. Brad Cummings was talking about how he was teaching his little girl how to snow ski, and comparing that to how Daddy wants us out of the ski harness and learning how to fly down the slopes of life untethered. Just like Father, Brad was always there with his little girl making sure she was safe, but he let her decide which turns to make. The institution seems to have a vested interest in keeping us in the harness well past the time it is needed. Just like Brad’s daughter was afraid at first, we’re made to be afraid of all the bad things out there that could befall us if we ski through life unharnessed. But Daddy isn’t afraid to let us fall in the snow sometimes, because that’s how we learn that we’ll be OK if we keep pressing in. Then we can all ski together, unharnessed, and we’ll never be satisfied with the tether again. Take a listen: Beyond the Harness
Sometimes it’s the simplest things that bring me back to a place of wonder. We finally received our harvester ants in the mail yesterday. I’m sure the women at the post office were thrilled to place in our mailbox an envelope proclaiming “live harvester ants.”
We brought them home and tipped them out of the test tube into the blue gel of the ant farm. After a brief period of adjustment, the ants got to work doing what Dad created them to do: work. Apparently things like sleeping, eating, and relaxing don’t matter to ants too much.
They worked all night long tunneling in this hard, blue gel-like substance that was created by NASA scientists to house ants they took with them on space missions. They’d attempted to bring ants before, but the tunnels were always destroyed in the process of takeoff and zero gravity. This “space gel” solves the problem of collapsing tunnels and also provides moisture and nutrients for the ants.
It is fascinating to watch these creatures communicating and performing their roles, and so beautiful to see in the clear blue habitat. It makes me realize once again how creative and just amazing God is, and my heart is led to worship Him both for the creation of the ants, and the creation of people who design these wonderful little habitats where we can so easily observe the ants at work. Thank you Daddy.
For me, it’s just gotta be heart.
How can we put God in a book and tell him to stay there?
Sure, there are facts we become aware of - they are few: Jesus, the Son of God, crucified for my redemption, resurrected for my eternality. But where we store these facts, where we plant those seeds, determines whether they will grow or not. The mind is rocky soil, mixed with so much thorny, puffed up and prideful proof of righteousness, that facts planted there often grow stunted and produce haughty fear-fruit, if they even take root at all. But the heart, what rich soil unhindered by vanity and the pretensions of intelligence, that produces a lush harvest of love for our brother Jesus. What trust, what longing, what unconcern for details, what abandon, that follows him even to death. The head cannot conceive of such unsafe behavior and instinctively condemns and shuns the rebellious, libertarian heart.
Sometimes I use “not caring” about something as a defense mechanism. Not caring becomes detachment, which becomes a place that feels safe. For instance, we have to find a vehicle because my previous automobile was totaled out by the insurance company after we hit a deer. So in the process of looking for a suitable replacement, I have settled into a place of “not caring” what we buy. I have detached myself completely from the process, because several times already I have had car preferences that my husband has had to tell me wouldn’t work for one reason or another. In order to avoid the anticipation/disappointment cycle and possibly acting in an uncharitable manner, I have chosen simply to “not care.” I realize that this puts the entire responsibility for finding a car in his court. But to me, it feels like it was already his responsibility, (because he knows more about cars than I do and because mechanical concerns trump appearance preferences) so why not make it official?
I was thinking about the “not caring” thing this morning and comparing that to Jesus’ admonition to us not to worry. What’s the difference? I know there’s a difference, but I didn’t quite get it yet. But I think I may have hit on something:
The reason “not worrying” is right and “not caring” is wrong, is because worrying happens when I am not living in the moment, and caring happens when I AM living in the moment. To expound, worrying happens when I am thinking about something that COULD happen or MAY NOT happen in the future. Conversely, caring about an issue means that I am prepared to deal with making decisions IN THIS MOMENT, without detaching myself.
When Jesus tells us not to worry, I believe he is telling us to live in the moment. The evil in worrying is that in worry, I am never present. I might be living my entire life five minutes in the future, or years in the future. I am missing out on the only thing that is REAL, which is life right this moment in the presence of Jesus.
But caring means that I am facing this very moment and being present in it. If I stop caring about what this moment holds, I am placing myself into some other time or dimension, and once again I am missing REAL LIFE.
Today my life is a perfect practical application of this principle. Today, I seem to be bent on worrying about my relationship with my daughter, even though right this moment she is not here and there is nothing I can do about our relationship right now, and so my worry is focused on some nebulous concept of future events. Today, I also seem to be bent on detaching myself from the decisions that need to be made regarding purchasing (or not purchasing) a replacement vehicle, detaching myself from the work that needs to be done today, detaching myself from interaction with the people who ARE here.
With both of these behaviors, I am pushing myself out of the moment and out of real life.
So today I have learned why worry is wrong but caring is essential.
