Re: Today

Sometimes I want to give up. Period. Like today... there's just this funk about it. The kind of funk that comes from reading ill-casted facebook notes and hearing vomitous words spoken from hardly honest traditions held. These days make me want to go back to a place called "easy." Where all I have to do is sit in a room with a semi-circular table and wait for open minds to come through the door. Where I simply have to choose three or four logically associated lyrically appropriate tunes to string together and inspire willingly led people into emotional highs. Where language arts, background education, and rhetorical skills were afforded more authority than the Holy Spirit's anointing, prophetic spew, or a burdened heart. This day seems more likely to crush me beneath the weight of unwilling hearers and steadfast tradition holders than anything else. Some days it would just be easier to go back to the place of frustration at things that felt less than eternal and were therefore easier to get through. Where a shower and a guitar session did ease the heaviness of my spirit at the disobedience of my friends. Where pursuing an uncommon relationship was the goal rather than the pursuit of a holy one. Those were the days.

Were these days counted? Yes. Was this cost laid on the table and deemed worth every tear? Yes. Was there a moment when I knew I couldn't go back? Yes. Was there a time when I realized that my education was probably all for not? Yes. Was there at any time the option afforded to simply stay and enjoy the temporal happiness of fluid and shallow relationships spend over profane and even evil entertainment? Yes.

So what now? What was that cost counted for? Where is the joyful fruit of nearly two years on the naughty list of people I love and respect? Where is the return of the risky and almost desperate investment in real freedom and empowered speech? Where is the exchange on education for anointing and information for heart cutting truth? Where is the fruit grown from the rain of tears I have let go over lives I couldn't bear watching run down the same path of which I saw death standing at the end?

Where is it?

Oh, it's around. :D

M.M
J.H.
A.B.
D.P.
R.O.
.............................................................

If I Stand
Rich Mullins

There's more that rises in the morning
Than the sun
And more that shines in the night
Than just the moon
It's more than just this fire here
That keeps me warm
In a shelter that is larger
Than this room

And there's a loyalty that's deeper
Than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs
That I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes
For the allegiance
I owe only to the Giver
Of all good things

So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can't, let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

There's more that dances on the prairies
Than the wind
More that pulses in the ocean
Than the tide
There's a love that is fiercer
Than the love between friends
More gentle than a mother's
When her baby's at her side

And there's a loyalty that's deeper
Than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs
That I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes
For the allegence
I owe only to the Giver
Of all good things

So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can't let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

And if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can't let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

www.kidbrothers.net

Decisions

I was told last night by a co-worker who has evidently "seen it all" that at this point in his life he is hoping for nothing else than to "die comfortably." I don't know if I can explain in any amount of words how shocked and absolutely appalled I was. He is admittedly in disbelief of any god or purpose, and as far as his life is concerned now, that's all he wants. He doesn't want the slow, drawn out thing that so many go through. He doesn't want the out of the blue car accident or anything like that. Does this surprise me? No.

My thoughts wander more towards those around me to confess belief and yet chase the very thing my friend is: a comfortable death. Well? How about it? There are thousands of comforts in out lives, things that money affords and things that all kinds of stuff can bring about. I know many believers, some of whom are my closest friends who literally are doing nothing other than "dieing comfortably." Here is my question:

What about the "abundant life" that Jesus Christ claimed He had come to bring? What about freedom? What about fruit?

Is your "abundant life" anything more than "dieing comfortably?" Or is it a drawn out, spiritually fruitful, hell defeating, heaven proclaiming, disciple making, and freedom creating empowered life?

I believe that's for you to decide.

Heartache

*sigh*

It's about 3:00am where I currently am, and I have had an enduring pain in my soul for several days now. I truly wish I knew how to be rid of it, but clearly such relief is not meant for the present moment. I do not know what is next in my life right now... I suppose that is in itself a very good thing. Work in the mountains never gets old (though this heartache does), and I continue to experience a new brokenness for/in my generation nearly every day. I wonder anymore if this pain is nothing more than a distraction... something to keep me chasing my own hopes and whispered prayers into darker and darker, more secret corners of my life instead of simply spewing them into the air and being rid of the heaviness so often befalling my heart. Somehow my voice is bound and unable to share these things with those around me... I am free with only a few people and there have found no resolution.

I don't know what to do. In all honesty the one thing that comes to mind is weep, and as experience has proven before, that doesn't help. I work among people who not only reject the spiritual nature of their lives, but thwart it, starve it, kill it. They drown the cry of their existence in soulish desires and fruitless experiences. All I really want is some honesty right now I think. I'd like to have an honest and genuine conversation with someone about life in general, but alas, most often what comes from the mouths of those around me are lies bathed in alcohol and caressing flatteries laced with self-interest. Those that I love the most seem afraid to share what they are truly going through, as if vulnerability is something I do not respect and protection is not my most natural and fiercest passion. I truly crave honesty more than anything else right now. Other than that (Perhaps even because of that), I am exhausted. My heart is nearly dehydrated it has wept so often in the last week. My mind feels flat for trying in vain to figure out how such lifestyles as I see are appealing or desired at all. My body wonders when it'll enjoy a normal sleep cycle for just one week's time. My spirit sees the many needs and calls in earnest for authentic and holy help, only to see the enemy sweep in and provide a distorted and shallow solution to eternal problems. All that to say, I ache, and I don't know the nature of the sharpest, deepest tear in my heart, which is perhaps more frustrating than anything else.

Rich Mullins on "Love"

Another radical Rich Mullins quote:

If you've ever known the love of God, you know it's nothing but reckless and it's nothing but raging. Sometimes it hurts to be loved, and if it doesn't hurt it's probably not love, may be infatuation. I think a lot of American people are infatuated with God, but we don't really love Him, and they don't really let Him love them. Being loved by God is one of the most painful things in the world, it's also the only thing that can bring us salvation and it's like everything else that is really wonderful, there's a little bit of pain in it, little bit of hurt.

Source: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rich_Mullins

June 1, 2009: Time

Dear you,

It’s been a little while now, hasn’t it… I mean, since this whole thing started. Just about a year ago I found my heart towards you. In the same moment I discovered you were not as much opposed to this love as you were fearful of it. So much has changed, yet still that hasn’t. I think of you and pray for you almost all day long, and literally (right now) all night long too. I watched you drink away the pain again tonight. I hadn’t seen that side in some time. Later you allowed the shallow wooing of a shallow lover to comfort your flesh and soothe the headache you can’t tell is truly of your heart’s origin. Sure, you laughed through the whole thing, but when you walked by late one afternoon and saw the salt trail on your cheek. I still don’t understand. I know you know that, what I don’t get is why you are so afraid. I pray against it every day. I turn my own heart over to our Father every day. I seek His pleasure above my own and truly want nothing more than for you to know Him as He has bled to let you. One year ago I mistook this pain of a loving fervor for the pain of a annoyed cell-mate. Again, how things have changed, that certainly has.

I hold to the hope that someday you’ll be ready to look into my eyes and receive the joy of your heart’s longing being fulfilled. I hold to the hope that you will be free. I hold to the promise that you are His. I do not always know what to do with the pain of watching you self-destruct. Most times I must remind myself of the awakening that comes when you finally crash into the canyon floor and I hope you’ll let me help you clean up the mess. (though so often I am not only ill equipped for such endeavors but too overwhelmed with joy at your lies’ demise to be of any use!) You ask me for things I pray you don’t receive. Can you understand the torture of such a circumstance? I pray that you finally run out of places to hide and yet you ask me to help you search for somewhere new. I pray you run out of energy to hold up your fortress wall and you ask me to help you keep stamina. Can’t you see this is counter-productive? I suppose I could be the one out of my mind and that I am being entirely selfish in hoping you come to the same place of joy and rest that I myself was brought to after a struggle that lasted longer than necessary and a weight I wasn’t supposed to carry was lifted, but I don’t think so. At any rate, this is about one year since and I wanted to write this just to say I still see you and I still love you, at this moment more than ever yet. You have turned just a little bit, and that alone has brought me joy enough to remain awake several nights just smiling. You have let down your guard one the rarest of occasions, yet that moment provides the hope of a lifetime in the same risked interaction. I have no promises, no guarantees, no assurance of any kind, yet I cannot turn away from you. There are no moments with you worth trading for any anywhere else. There is no favor, short-lived as it is most often, shown that could spur my prayers and fervent, humble desire on with pure delight that I accept but yours. Even so, I know that my heart is most often than not, misunderstood and I know that there is a great amount of time and growth to be done before this converstation can even be attempted. Yet still, I must reveal. I can hide nothing from you, though I feel I am through for now.

Goodnight.

-Greg