Reason Breeds Insanity

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.

Genesis 1:1-2
In the beginning, when God began to create the heavens and the earth…

Genesis 22:1-18
What struck me when I read this passage this time was the way that the writer keeps stressing that Isaac was Abraham’s son, his only son. What happened to Ishmael? I know he and Hagar got sent away, but damn, he still exists. Maybe this is where some religions get their strict idea of banishment. Once someone is sent away, it is as if they no longer exist. I mean, check it out, three times Isaac is referred to as “your son, your only son.” And once he is referred to as the son “whom you love.” I mean God promised to make Ishmael into a great nation, too. Right? Why the stress on Isaac’s only son status?

I guess I wasn’t entirely clear on what I was trying to say about this passage. I was thinking as I was writing this that there are always more ways to understand a passage of scripture than first appear to meet the eye. I wanted anyone who read this post to contemplate the other view point. What happened to Ishmael? Isaac isn’t Abraham’s only son. There is also Ishmael. If you read this post, please also read the comments that were added by an anonymous person, who I assume to be Islamic, for another viewpoint about this moment in history.

Exodus 14:15-15:1
I am so ungrateful. Perhaps, saying I am always skeptical is better. I always wonder how this happened. How did the sea part? Is it a metaphor? If the sea was wide and deep enough for the Egyptians to drown in it, how could the Israelites see their dead bodies on the shore. Did they float across to the side the Israelites were one? I am not knocking the power and grace of God, but I wonder how. How? I’m voting for metaphors.

Isaiah 54:5-14
“…the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer…”

Isaiah 55:1-11
“Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy, and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost.”

“…my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Ezekiel 36:16-28
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to follow my laws.”

Romans 6:3-11
Wow, Paul. I have nothing intelligent to say about this passage because I am confused. It seems important and heavy, but don’t want to venture a guess as to what it is about without studying it in depth. I am pretty sure that Paul is simply saying that by having faith in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, we, too, benefit from it. We are dead to sin, and alive to life. Jesus died without sinning and therefore conquered sin, so we can live in grace knowing that Jesus already conquered sin and death. I think.

Matthew 28:1-10
The women clasped his feet. I love that so many times the women in the gospels are so into Jesus they fall at his feet. These women had no ordinary story. They were the bearers of the gospel. They were the first to know the Easter story. They had a mission to go and tell the others. The angel of the Lord spoke to them: “Now I have told you.” Yet, they recognized the source of the story and stopped to worship him.How many times have I been so moved by Jesus’ presence that I fall at his feet? Would I fall if I met him face to face? If I looked at every person I come in contact as a person in God’s image, as Jesus’ earthly body, would I be moved to fall? Would I find myself prostrate before the King? Before you? Before a homeless man? Before a prostitute? How do I view people in light of my relationship with Jesus? Do I see people as Jesus’ image? Do I recognize the presence of the divine in my fellow humans? How many times do I find myself so excited about the story that I have to tell, that I lose sight of the origin of the story? Do I even get excited about my story? Would I clasp Jesus’ feet? Would I fall to worship him? What if I would? What would it do to my faith if I paused and fell face down and clasped Jesus’ feet? What would it do to me?

I have decided to stay the BUX. I decided to do this for my own personal stability. I cannot imagine one more upheavel in the midst of my life right now. I love my new manager. He just did my evaluation, and it turns out that I’m not just some worthless drone after all. I got some threes! And he actually put that I am very good, or the best, at some things. Wow! All this time I was thinking I was SBUX pond scum, who couldn’t do anything right. Who knew!

Isaiah 50:4-9
Matthew 26:14-25

Exodus 12:1-14
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-15

Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9
“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
John 18:1-19, 42