Reason Breeds Insanity

So I have implemented what I call the Starbucks Wellness Program. This plan involves drinking two Iced Venti Green Teas every shift I work, and drinking only one grande nonfat drink of my choice, and eating NO pastries. I have lost five pounds in one week with little other effort. I will keep you posted. I would like to lose some weight, but if I don’t, I’m okay with it. I think I wouldn’t normally even be concerned about weight, etc. but with everything that has happened with my dad, I am thinking more about health. And it is summer, so I feel alive again. I probably should quit smoking “those vile clove cigarettes” as well.

Have you noticed how some things just make you feel happy on the inside? Some things that make me happy are love, family, a person’s mouth just before they laugh, a good cigarette smoked on a sidewalk in a big city, a dish of vanilla ice cream, a new beer that I’ve never tried before, a walk in the woods, and red heads. Yesterday, I went home from work and fixed a grilled turkey, roast beef, and cheese on pumpernickel and a bowl of soup. I love the crunchiness of the bread and the little tickle of the rye in the pumpernickel. If I had to choose just one bread to eat for the rest of my life, I would hope I could choose pumpernickel. Some things, I think, just remind us of childhood. Whenever I eat warm soup and grilled sandwiches, I remember school lunches. One of my favorite school lunches was the one that was made up of tomato soup and grilled cheese. I loved to dip my grilled cheese in thick tomato soup just enough so the bread would get wet but not smooshy. I also loved the chili and peanut butter sandwich days. I dipped the sandwich into the chili. I pretty much dip everything. I am a dipper. I am a food addict as well. I love food, which is why I have to implement the Starbucks Wellness Program (SWP).

My other new plan is related to my Lenten Blogs. Because it is now after Lent, and we are rejoicing the resurrection of Jesus and our renewed lives, I decided to include my daily readings in my meditations here. I may comment on them. I may not.

Today I am reading Psalm 140, Isaiah 29 and 30, and Revelation 11 and 12. Here are my thoughts.

We need to live toward a renewed Kingdom. So the world is fallen? Does that mean we need to live like it is fallen? I think it means we are called to live toward a perfect Kingdom. We need to live toward what we know is right. We need to overcome the Fall not live life, using our Fallen status as a crutch for all the things that are easier not to fix. Life is easier lived within the grain. It is much easier to live in a Fallen world than to live against it. Pushing back against war, poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, hate, apathy, and Evil is more difficult than just sliding along saying: “It has been this way since the beginning of time. There have always been wars. There have always been poor people. There have always been racial problems.”

Many times, I wonder if people secretly, deep down, want there to be rumors of wars, so that they can watch the end times unfold. In order to be apathetic about war, etc. I think it must be necessary to believe in books like the Left Behind Series. Do I want there to be war? No. Do I want to be part of the solution? Yes. How can I do it? I can live toward a new heaven and a new earth, rather than live complacently in a fallen world: “Brought low, you will speak from the ground; your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth; out of the dust your speech will whisper.” Isaiah 29:4 In the next chapter, Isaiah warns the obstinate children who go looking for comfort and safety in Egypt, “But Pharaoh’s protection will be your shame, Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.” To me, this means that when we look for help in the wrong places, we can never find the grace that we could find if we look to God for it. Our solace and comfort from other sources eventually becomes our downfall. If we look to politicans, the media, other people to provide us strength and comfort, we will never achieve wholeness. Or holiness.

Trying to live my life in this sort of way, with a focus on peace and justice, has frequently put me at odds with those around me. Sometimes I can relate to Isaiah: “They say to the seers, ‘See no more visions!’ and to the prophets, ‘Give us no more visions of what is right!’ Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel.” I think we, as a people, do not want to hear prophetic voices or visions of right. We want the media and the authorities to assuage our fears by placing an illusory band-aid on the world’s ills. I can’t stand it. Shit is fucked up and we want people to tell us it all doing just fine—we are all fine here now, bye, bye.

Interesting: (Isaiah 30:22) Throwing away idols like a menstrual cloth? I feel a t-shirt design waiting to happen! 😉

April 12
630PM-8PM
Cornerstone Center for the Arts
ENG 409 Reading
Be there.
For more information:
CLICK HERE.

Sometimes I have to keep reminding myself that today is a new day. Yesterday’s worries, tomorrow’s worries, they don’t figure into today. What was done yesterday is done. What will be done tomorrow hasn’t happened yet. It doesn’t impact my day today. What does impact my day today are my actions and reactions. I cannot live my life camped out in the desert like one of the desert fathers or mothers for several reasons. As frustrating as it may be, I cannot imagine my life without people. I cannot imagine life without interaction with others. I frequently say that life would be fine without the nuisance of others. I care too much for them, the others. I want to know why people walk with their heads slung low. I want to know why my stomach leaps certain people cross my path. I want to know why I can walk right past a homeless person and then weep at church on Easter Sunday. I want to know why there is still injustice in the world and why I am part of it. I want to know why I can’t leave people alone. Why? What is it about people that draws me to them? Is it their reflection of the divine? Is it the image of God hiding within them? Today is a new day and I will recognize the whisper of the divine in humanity. I will seek it out with diligence. Where divine flame are you hiding?

We call one of our cats, Mimi, a “food whore” because she will do anything to try to get a bite of food. She chews through plastic bags, jumps up on the counter, and has even opened the zipper, yes, opened the zipper on my backpack to get at the muffin I smuggled home from work.

Mimi is my cat, and like her I practice harlotry. I am a book whore. I think the worst thing for me about not having money, or being poor, would be not having books at my disposal. I know the library is free, but I like to own the books. Selfish? Yes. I write in them, I dog-ear the pages, I do all those things Mrs. Heinkel my middle school librarian taught us not to do. I even eat Cheetos while I read because they are my books! I just ordered a new round of books from Amazon, which is a thing I hate. I hate the impersonal nature of ordering books online. I want to hold them and fondle them and love them in person. I like to do it in public with other people who love books the way I love them. I love hardbacks with no jackets. And I love paperbacks with their soft, fresh flexibility. I love independent bookstores, coffee shops, etc. But I also love a bargain. I preordered the new Harry Potter book, and I ordered three other books, Sex God by Rob Bell, The Gospel According to SBUX by Leonard Sweet, and Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott. I couldn’t resist them. They called to me from the computer screen.

Becky and I are eventually going to try to buy a house. One of my requirements is a room that I can use for a library/study. I am sure that it will have to be on a ground floor because I have so many books that I am afraid they will collapse a second floor room. She makes fun of me because I have this phobia that I might fall through to the floor below. I am pretty sure that my books would compromise the integrity of the structure of our house. I already own about 14 cases of books.

I say all of this because I am currently rereading a book called Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America, and I am rereading another book called the Irresistible Revolution. I do not feel guilty for my wealth, my ability to read, my book harlotry (okay, yeah, i do), but I do feel a strong pull to part with some of my books. I feel like maybe I could donate them, but I have worked in a library and I know what happens to most of the books that people donate. They end up being discarded in the annual booksale. They are then purchased by people who will not love them like I do. People who will read my notes and touch my pages. People who may throw my books away when they are finished with them. I have this vision of driving all over the country and placing books in public spaces for people to enjoy at their leisure. But I can’t part with my books.

This is warped, I know. I know they are just books and maybe, just maybe, one of those books would change a life, but they are mine. There. It is out. My struggle is my ability to part with “my” earthly belongings. I could have nothing, but I have much, and those to whom much is given, much is expected. Maybe, I should by a VW bus and start my own bookmobile?

Acts 10:34-43
“God does not show favoritism.”

Colossians 3:1-4
“Set your hearts on things above…set your minds on things above.”

John 20:1-9
“They still didn’t understand from the scriptures that Jesus had to rise from the dead.”

For forty days, we experience the longing, the depression, and the soul wrenching agony of Jesus’ last days on earth. We turn our lives over to intentionally focus on suffering, injustice, and death. Just when it seems like we can’t stand it anymore, there is this amazing event and our lives are turned upside down. The whole system is turned over. Death no longer rules, and life is no longer the same. Jesus defeats death, rises from his tomb, and shows himself to those he loves. For forty long, dark days, I have walked head down, contemplative, and today, the darkness falls from my eyes and I am blinded with His marvelous light. I raise my head up and feel it shining on my face. I see nothing but amazing truth. There is this sense of scandalous grace, revolutionary faith, and an ordinary radicalism. My life has been spared. I am not dead. He is not dead. And together, we live a new life in a new world with new rules. His body was broken, his blood was shed, and my faith was sealed.

Today in worship, for the first time in a long time, I could actually feel the presence of God. As I sang, I wept. I wept for the last forty days of pain and suffering, I wept for a lifetime of hurts, and I wept for the death of an innocent man. I wept for the joy of Easter, I wept for a new lifetime of reconciliation and healing, and I wept for that same man’s resurrection. My soul was moved within me and my spirit leapt for joy. I wept because, even though I know that my spiritual life’s health does not hinge on feelings, it was nice to sense the presence of God in a church. Instead of trying to escape church to feel God, I can go again to church to find [Them].

I also felt this strange sense of longing. Perhaps I wanted to bring everyone I know into this presence. I wanted them to feel this odd compilation of dread and hope. As the dread was ushered away by the brightness of newfound hope, I wanted my friends, my family, and my acquaintances to be able to feel it as well. I wanted them to feel the sting of the cross and the healing of restoration. I needed them to be in the presence, too.

My other reservation probably comes from something that Lumby Dave alluded to in the sermon today. I don’t want to go back to fishing. I don’t want this to be a trip back from summer camp. I don’t want this to be a high felt at a concert. I want it to be my life. I want to live with Jesus pouring out of me. I don’t want to read this next year, and have to say to myself: Yep, you really should cast your nets on the other side of the boat, because you are still coming up with nothing. I don’t want to look back and see that for a whole year I have tried to fish with no success, only for Jesus to say to me: Hey, ummm, you might try the other side of the boat. I want to already be fishing of the right side of the boat. I want to be tight enough with Jesus to know which side to cast on. I just want to work with Jesus. I want Christ to be my life. I want to make a difference. I want to be the difference.