Aweikinin 31/10/2014

From Romans 12:1-13

H,

Well, that is very much against every nature I know. We can share for applause and many have, on the surface, a generous nature but I have barely met anyone who gives simply for the sake of giving. We often tie expectations to our generosity. There is no spontaneity to it in the sense of moving on from the donation and not expecting something in return though that something may be just the buzz of helping out. If things go sour when we give then we regret the gesture, as if our gifts were the light and it never goes out.

It is a different, radical king of donor that our faith seeks to promote. It is one who gives according to need and in obedience to the higher nature of Christ not the lower nature of man. It is funny that in certain Pentecostal-evangelical settings being poor is looked at as a failure to seize the day or pull one’s self up by the metaphorical boot straps. The Darwinian principle has set in. There is no room for weakness, struggle or any form of material lack. We act like we are elevating Christianity and showing the stereotype is wrong: Christians are not church rats, we say and Christians can thrive in the ‘real world’ we proclaim. These are not the tools we are given. We are here to overcome and not to thrive. It is almost impossible for a rich man to go to heaven, that vivid analogy of the needle and the beast proclaim. When a ‘righteous’ rich man approached Jesus in all his tithe-paying and rule following pomp he was told to go and sell all he had and give to the poor so he could come and follow the man of sorrows who was changing the nature of reality without money. The rich man went away sad. He did not return. Lay up your treasures in heaven, we are told. It is not that being rich is bad. It is that it puts the human soul in a bubble of fear. It elevates and the elevated man does not want to fall down again. He becomes protecting of his material condition and you cannot serve both masters. Money is a defense but it is a bad one. The specific quotes we use to justify our greed (“use money to make friends”) do not nullify the overall message of foxes having holes and giving liberally and giving all to God. If it did Christ would have told that rich, good man to use his money to make friends for himself. The gospel does not need money. It needs giving hearts and those hearts will, in God, provide the resources. With no coercion, we are told.

It seems harsh, I know but this is the problem: our hearts are made to be conduits of grace and not bastions of lucre. The human heart is so ravaged by time and sin that giving any advantage it will fall into superiority complexes and judgmental stances. Are we not prime examples? Guard your heart, we are told. Those early fathians had all things in common. It is not that they did not realise the differences between them materially. It is that there were led to that higher form of life where all needs are met because all hearts are open. I know you will call me a communist or commune prophet or Tolstoy when he went a little unhinged and ultra pacifist. The difference here, with the possible exception of Sir Leo, is that God is king of this enterprise and the life is in Christ. Much of what we find hard in Christianity we leave untried. Too bad for us.

Aweikinin 30/10/2014

From Romans 12:1-12

               

H,

Well, that is the difference between high ideals and low reality. After all the talk in the world there is still a life to be lived. It does not seem to respond to good intentions and self help anecdotes. There is a level where being positive is always superior to being negative but if we are honest about the whole brunt of life then we know that there is a glass ceiling where wishing wells cannot reach. We all come face to face sooner or later with the mountains we cannot climb and the stars we cannot reach. Life will eventually present us with the joy-stealing reality of the limits of our control and influence.

In this dark room of doubt there is only hope, only joy and only prayer to sustain. When people say that Christians live in a fantasy I always chuckle. You only have to read the bible to capture a seething realism that runs through the whole glorious book. Who starts a fantasy by telling you: “in this world you will see many troubles…”?  Who encourages a person’s ego in dreaming of himself as good or god  with words like: “I know that in me (us) lies no good thing”?  There is a reality to this faith that is oddly refreshing but only when you reach the end of your rope.

Hope? It is in the words that follow: “in this world you shall see many troubles but be of good cheer (joy) for I have overcome the world.” It is realism with the hope of a brighter day. I know we have all these rough days now where the instability within leads to unstable acts without. The source of our joy was never meant to be external factors. Again, the story of the birth of Christianity is littered with prison and pain and crosses and death. They faced much more physical danger for what they believed but the bible bubbles over with their obvious joy. They knew the end of all things. They had joy in the present knowing it was not the forever. They connected with each other and, together, with the nature of all reality above. They took that report from heaven as sacred and the famous “reality on ground” as passing.

That we would learn to do the same.

Aweikinin 29/10/2014

From Romans 12:1-11

H,

Tedium sets in easily over the simpler tasks. It is easy to get into that mind frame that considers work as ‘beneath’ and ‘above’. The work we think we are better than is beneath us and the work we consider suitable to our talents is above par and serves some higher purpose. I have found myself living that lie recently.

The truth is all work is above. There is something more than a work-life balance in Christianity. We are told to do all work toward God. We are told He is the employer above. We are told to ask for grace to do it well and with honour. We are told to do it with the right heart or not to do it at all. There is no tedium in beneath  work when all work is seen as part of seeking things above everything else. The balance in God is always wholehearted commitment to Him. The overt showing of that is seen in the way we live our daily lives. Love is a verb because life is a verb also. It is not lived in definitions but in actual living. The life of the mind is a glorious thing but it is only the subtext for an actual life of the life. We are told to guard our hearts because what we store up in there will manifest in how we live.

Speaking of “storing things up”, one of the reasons work for so many is a burdensome load is that it is all done for money. This is not what God recommends. This is not what He commands when you begin to follow Him. It is not that we cannot find joy in the most seemingly menial task if we find joy in God first. It is that if our whole work-life trajectory is based on the ‘toys’ we must have and the occupation is for that end only. We are not in a faith that looks for a place to fit in. We are of that kingdom that seeks to put the real light out into the world. The gospel is a cross we bear. Our decisions will cost us something but that thing is so superficial when we compare it with things eternal. Of course, right now it does not feel that way. Fear and fear of failure rule the roost. It is time we re-assess what we do, everything we do, in the light of the path we took, so narrow and scenic, when we said yes to be molded into eternal forms.

In the end, when we go about our daily tasks, most of our life will be spent doing some work or the other, we must look up at the one who really runs things. There is only above work with that thought in your heart. We approach it as worship and it becomes joy. There is only the certainty of a material cul de sac if we look at it any other way.

Aweikinin 28/10/2014

From Romans 12:1-10

H,

Love is a hunger often left unfed. Yes, it does sound like the start of one of my windy poems. Everybody is a critic. Do you know how many clichés are actually true? That should explain why they are spun a lot. Common webs and all that

This particular web however is more frontline than most. The unusual courage of common love is the root, branch, tree and fruit of all belief in God. There is nothing to say if we do not act in that light before we open our mouths. It is so dear to the God-life that we are told not to pray to God if we are in the middle of a fight with all these people along our way and in our life. Love is all the character the Christian is.

It is elusive, though. How do we act patient and kind and suffer and not react? Where do we stand on if we cannot be angry and cannot be snobbish of the idiots and hurters around us?  We love because we are first loved. Our love is always a reaction to a higher love. It is no coincidence that the golden rule states love God with all of you and then love others on par with loving yourself. Our loving God is the reaction we have to realizing His deep love for us and obedience to His law of love is borne out of this ‘good infection’ we get by accepting His love first. We cannot love because it is a good idea. We love because we are loved. We must love because we are loved.

There is truly no other way to live in God. There is no brand of theology or exposition on philosophy that can avoid the duty to be better with others. Friends and enemies get the same treatment. Threats and overtures bear the same idea of reacting in love. The freedom to be who we are truly made to be is in the submission to the being who framed everything in the spirit of love. He is not just a teacher or mystic or guru or exemplar of love. He is love himself.

Aweikinin 27/10/2014

 From Romans 12:1-8

H,

Do all good and perfect gifts come from God? I tend to think so. I do not mean the desire to be gifted means that everything is a gift or that all things gifted are above all things human. The mistake, I think, is to make the gift the point of life. As that great writer once said, and I paraphrase here, gifts are a support system for life and it is never the other way around. I would add that, in God, the gift is for others and frequently trains the giver in the capacity to love much and seem to gain little. What you really gain is God.

The other day I went on about Bach’s Pachelbel’s Cannon in D major and you said something silly like “there are many others”. Of course they are but there is nothing like that glorious piece of music. I am back to jazz and classical compositions. No more bum bums bigger than Bombay for me. Hehehe. We will see how long that lasts.

It is such an overt gift Bach had. How do you transcribe emotion into musical notes and then sound that says so much without any actual words? Genius. Perhaps that is the problem; the curse of the overt gift and the silly idea of competition and degrees between gifts. Music must have a composer and tone deaf listener like me. Gifts need a giver and a receiver. The best example here is that if gifts were food we feed each other. All bring something to the table. Not one is greater than the other. We think in castes and structure not in body and church. Many seek the overt gift because we forget to say there is no such thing in terms of quality. Some speak, some sing, some write, some organize, some encourage and some have a hold on that devil called money. All build up, all add up and all make the body more complete. There is no exhaustive list of gifts and as you walk in one particular gift others occur in you. They all are the service of love. The thing we give the most is love. If you do not give in love you might as well not give at all.

Aweikinin 24/10/2014

From Romans 12:1-5

                      

H,

I have to admit that you are right. This is no place for superstars and charlatans. A life in God is often, from this view of eternity, a soap opera with a cast of villains being made, slowly and sometimes painfully, into super heroes. It is all these stories we instinctively know to be true. All our aspirations to be good and great and known and make something of ourselves and advance and leave a mark and be in joy and love and truth, all of our very best aspirations and the creepy shadows they produce subsumed into this weight of glory.

It is does have an important caveat. It is a bit like that political rumour we heard when Obasanjo was about to be president. As usual with our political system, the rumour goes, the presidential aspirant had to make deals with different ‘regions’ of the country to protect those so-called varied interests. So, he made the same deal with all of them. If all are in then no one is out.

We are promised this great life and it is advertised in all these high places and on very nice billboards notably by that pastor in Abuja who operates on a different level of grace than others (it would be interesting if we were pastors in some grand church. The scandals alone would be fodder for the sun and affiliates. We would have no robust reply either).  Yet, like a once wise rumored president, God offers the same deal to everyone. All are called to be great and good and loved and leave a mark and all that. It is not our sense of these things but the truth of what these words really mean. Greatness in God resounds in all eternity. It is not about being prominent but about being of value or, rather, recognising your value and living within the grace-space it provides. We all have our parts and paths but they all lead to one whole and one destination.

This is not an action film. It is very real. This is not food for the common ego. It is the foundation for the uncommon life. We are all together in this. We are joined as one to one head in Christ. There are no lone rangers. It is an advancing army of the light. No man is an island but no Christian is a Christian outside the body. There are no private rooms in the great hospital of God. We need each other. We must come together. The greatness is as one or it is just like any other flaming comet of heroism on earth: gone too soon. We need each other. If all are in, as love demands, then no one is out.

Aweikinin 23/10/2014

From Romans 12:1-4

H,

The call to serve God has to be the most humbling thing of all. I am struck by how it gives no space for the growth of the destructive part of individual pursuits. I am often struck by how polarizing the truth is. If you were to only speak in honesty heading to truth and outside the need to please every individual in the room in some way you would not get that spurious food of the speaker: applause. You might get a polite nod or a knowing wink. It will not go the way you want. It is not supposed to.

The thing is we are not all supposed to be speakers. Or preachers, to be less accurate and much more coy. This is the body of Christ not Enron. This is not the company of saints out to be one thing and one thing only. This is not a caste system with Billy Grahams at the top. This is not about the most popular or eloquent or effective or competent or ambitious or intellectual or consistent. This is a ship of fools who we will make it only because the captain is the top of all things. There is space for stragglers and pitters and agars and win stops and, yes, fools.  No one qualifies so everyone is qualified.

It is not that there are no standards. It is that these are the highest standards that exist. No one can make it up that ladder. We all have to be re-made. The image, put together, is Christ but we are all parts of that classic painting of who God really is. We are all here as individuals linked together by grace. None is better than the other and the degree in distance to the light is largely irrelevant because all will be there in full by eternity.

This is not a place to feed that ego that must die for the truest things about it to truly come alive. As individuals we all find our role in progression. We give up our lives to God. In part and then in whole. We have our minds renewed. In part and then in whole. We learn by not pushing our own great need to succeed. In part and then in whole. We learn we are part of a body but we have our own particular colour to add to the painting for the ages. In part, and then finally, gloriously, in whole.

Aweikinin 22/10/2014

From Romans 12:1-3

H,

It is all this darn worrying that creates panic. Half of the things we worry about make no sense to anyone else. They are a matter of personal pride. The need to appear a certain way to a certain set of people and to seem to be rather than truly be. It is a common trap even when we do not recognize it. The specifics are different but the pull of it is the same. There are parts of us that think money is conquered and so our faults move on to something else. It is not that other things are ‘conquered’ but we are taught early to always put forward our best foot. This will not work in God.

Of course we should all chill more. A life lived in God is a study in growing more peaceful. The delightful context of eternity gives a real silver lining to every sullen cloud. It does not make us less interested in the ‘right’ things but much more aware of perfect things. Our mistakes may sting but within that passing pain is the awareness that we are no longer asleep. We are in it. These things inside us will change. These challenges outside us will follow suit. There is no need for panic or worry or fear. We are better today than yesterday even if we do not feel it. We are, not necessarily the problem or the pain or the issue or anything physical, getting closer to the sun of all existence.

It is healthy on this walk to never begin to think we are enough. It is healthy that we all have this self as a thorn in our side to tell us the journey is still on and there is much more to see and to become. We are talking about an eternity in God. The things we are absolutely bad at are the things that should come out as our ‘best’ foot. Here, we start with our low so He can give us His high. It is not that acting humble will get us in with God. It is that being humble will leave us open and ready for the constant trajectory of grace meeting need and sin. When we own up to God He takes ownership of our weaknesses and faults. He takes up our cause when we decide we have bungled it enough. This is not just the entry point of a life of grace but the daily habit of a soul living in grace, hope, love, faith and the light of companionship with God.

                          

Aweikinin 21/10/2014

From Romans 12:1-2      

H,

This holiness business is deep stuff. It is also round the corner hard. There are always new bits to it and there is an undertone of outward reliance that does not bode well for the pristine buzz of self righteous indignation at the slow pokes of the holiness game. In other words, when you think you are hot, with God, you are not.

It is all this giving up stuff that gets to me. This necessary renewal of the mind to expand itself into the will of God and all that Coltrane music. I struggle with it quite a bit. The mind is such an intimate space to give to God. He already searches it without a warrant. What more does he want from the doppelganger me? The question is the answer or the answer is in the question: all of me.

Like I say, I struggle with it. I just want to know where I am going and when I will get there. I also want to know that I thought it all up myself. I laid out the tracks in my mind. Of course, this all means I am in mid-renewal. I have accepted the first great premise of all life but I still struggle with the logic of the road. I have been told that there is a path to the fulfillment of all these longings and hopes and dreams and lust I feel for life. I have been told this is life. I agree. The other things make no sense to me anymore. I could never go back. I could have a binge and fall into trysts (…hmmm…on advice of counsel, I say no more for fear that I might incriminate myself by lying...) but they no longer have the sting of the holy.

This is what I am left with now: a daily turn and turn into the heights of goodness and the depths of brightness. It is a heart wrenching quest into the very darkness you hide as private thoughts. We always cry: God what is your will? It is time we came to the slow awareness that His will may (or shall?) not occur to untamed minds.  

Aweikinin 20/10/2014

From Romans 12:1

H,

It is hard to quantify the weight of sin. It is a strange weight, isn't it?  The ones you feel are more heavily are the closer and more personal faults. The ones you are blindsided by are the ones you do not believe add up to much or do not even recognize. The ones you criticize the most are the ones you think you have ‘conquered’ and cannot stand the poor fools who have not done the same. In truth, all these weigh down and leave us unable to offer up our best to God.

Yet, is that not the point? Why do we not offer up the most precious parts of our constant shame? We forget too easily that we are not in a beauty contest that God is judging over. We are with the doctor: we must say what is really wrong with is. I remember going to the doctor when I was younger with a dread of injections. I got so accustomed to the diagnostic conversation that I could avoid speaking up about symptoms that would get me that accursed needle.

That is sort of how we act now. It seems better to appear well than to be well. The agreement with friends seems larger than the will of God. The omniscient presence we cannot hide from seems less urgent than the eyes of people we love of people we ‘lead’.  We hide because we want to be regarded highly by the low ideals of others while we play hide and seek with the only ideal that matters.

Here we have the call to give up ourselves to God in all things. This is where we start. Sins confessed on the knees. We give up our faults to God like we give up everything else. There is nothing to hide from the all Seeing Eye above all eyes. It is that thing we always say to the point that is now bordering on being a true cliché: the cure to personal darkness is MORE and not less of God.

Aweikinin 17/10/2014

From Psalm 14

H,

I have been thinking of that line “enmity with the world”. It sounds awful and unfriendly. It may create the elitist impression that we are some superior sub-culture on the fringes and destroying “all ye sinners” from within the rocky beads of earth.  The first problem of course is that we are sinners also. Redeemed and all that but from outside that circle, who sees that? Christians mess up all the time. To say we are the moral compass of the world, in purely black print, misses the point of salvation.

Also, we are not enemies with people. Individuals are not at war with God, even though they think they are. Christ went around doing well to sinners because the saints were scarce. Hehe. The gospel calls to all people. The world we are in conflict with is the system of the world. The way it operates. The “me-first” culture of the thing that does no good to me or anyone else and leaves me the unsatisfied and others robbed.

Dare I mention the devil? We cannot pick and choose theology. It all has to run together. The prince of this world is the enemy. The poles and points and hurdles he sets up here and there to keep us running on the mill and ignoring God is the very system that keeps us slaves in a spiritual Egypt. How many times have we heard a Christian say: “If I was not a Christian, I know where I will be”. Have we not thought or said something similar ourselves? Like those blind Israelites on the way to Canaan who could only see slavery as a constant meal with variety rather than the constant crushing of their vital wills  are we not in the same trap now? Seeking the legendary comfort of human achievement against the holy construct of living for that forever day?

It is a subtle trap that ensnares us. If we get enough money or job satisfaction or romantic love or purpose or peace then we will be able to look back at a worthy life when the end comes. These things are not bad in themselves. They are just not all there is. They are parts of an eternal plan that does not end with the getting of these transient reminders of something greater. To say: no, I want more is not to disregard these things. It is to put them in the larger context of what they mean for the soul. It is to admit they are on the road to something more but they are not the road itself nor the destination. They are not eternal things.

Aweikinin 16/10/2014

From john 15:4   

H,

It is hard, as you say, to stick to the things you find relevant and important. On one hand, life is arranged in this straight flow of light and magic, it finally resolves and you can see the right way after all those failed attempts at living. On the other, you wake up the next day, all burning with holy oil and righteous rage to give a new face to the world. But nothing has changed. You are still the same old human being you always were. The steam of the new awakening may take you a few steps but before holiness, or wholeness, becomes habit, you have many other habits that will make your life miserable in comparison to the life you seek.

It is not time to panic. This is normal. The ascent is more like a collection of valleys and tops rather than one endless summit. The endless summit is still ahead. For now we are questing through the highs and lows of the ordinary life being turned into something brand new. That change is painful but it is real. It is the eyes being opened again and the second sight tells you all you knew about the first world was false. This second world is spiritual, it is where hearts all come to lie and it is the reason behind everything you do. It contains the most romantic story ever but it also happens to be true. You now know your place in it. Got it?

We do not. Old habits speak louder, eventually, than new beliefs. Something stronger must take over the insides. A savior, a son, a king and His abiding spirit must take permanent residence in the houses of our hearts. We must let Him in to change. This is between you and me so we know we let Him in a long time ago. But we cannot go wandering off into other parts and think that it is enough to have him around. He is not a background for a pretty house. We must sit and fall in love and learn and share all things. Our new habit must be intimacy with Him.

After much failure, I have hit upon the idea that this is the way to be. It goes back to something He already said but I had to live a little to get back to:

“Live in me and I will live in you and you will become like me.”

The truth is we do not want that yet. Who wants to be born in a manger, whatever that is, be a carpenter’s son, unknown till thirty, live in caves and sleep on boats, have only friendly company, never marry and be killed at thirty three? Even that might sound appealing because time reached a crescendo with this man of Bethlehem. Yet our hearts are not content with the after-knowledge when there is a beauty part in this life.  The world offers so much for us to chase and get busy with. “Friendship with the world is enmity with me” He said. He meant it. This world and all it offers cannot be enough for the Christian. It cannot be anything at all. He calls us to something deeper. He calls us to sit with Him again. And then, stay there.

Aweikinin 15/10/2014

From Psalms 15

H,

I always saw the man described in psalm 15 as incredulous. Don’t you think? As constant failures in the exploits of the divine (and not so divine) pursuit of being, you and I always avoid this man of the psalm. He is a bit annoying. He is who we are meant to be.

In another sense, He is who we will be. Christianity is being like Christ. This is what our narrow trip toward God is about. Everything else is ancillary. To share in His glory is to share in His nature. We have all that theology sorted out. But the now…the brutal now and all it’s falling down. It makes no sense that all my hate and anger and want and wrong lust will ever cease. I skipped writing to you yesterday because I was on the verge of giving up the whole charade and letting the currents of self carry me where they will. Communication is so often a remainder of the things you truly believe. We do not live up to those things. Why bother?

Well, first because we believe there is nothing else. You cannot put your body and mind through the disciplines if you do not think that this is utter reality. You should not do so unless you believe. There is a certain rock bottom of the heart that is the starting point of Christianity. It may not be the way you get in the door but it will happen. The giving over of that last bit of dignity of self to God is the beautiful surrender that breeds grace. There is us emptying out and there is God filling us up with Him-self. When we give up the traps of the world we get the sense that we are now in bore town.  That is just half the story. The other half is God giving us His nature over the years we live and into the non-years of eternity. It is not smoke and mirrors. It is not a magic trick. It is the eternal story of man and woman and God in absolute unity.

 Yet, what of now and all the things we get wrong?  They will continue in degrees. I know it is unpopular to say this. The pop gospel wants us to breed holiness in ourselves like all that right needs is the will not to do wrong. When everyone is alone in their own hearts we know it is not true as individuals or as a body. We mistake our shame of hidden sin for helping others ‘not to fall’ or not slandering Christ. Fools we are if we think there is a better slander of who He is than the false sense of covering up the insides so the outsides can preach a gospel without power to change. We are only helping ourselves when we do not tell the truth about who we are now as well as the journey we are undergoing ( most of it in that grand hospital called Grace) to reach the very heights of the God experience.

                          

Aweikinin 13/10/2014

Aweikinin 13/10/2014

From Psalms 119:8

                          

Hey h,

I am hung up on the idea of addiction. I know it is pop psychology now to say that we all battle with some overt or covert addiction (that this is popular does not necessarily mean it is wrong). Still my deep and purely intellectual (hahaha) foray into the HBO show “the wire” had an interesting sub plot in the character “bubbles” and his journey throughout the series. I came out of my ‘studies’ with a new respect for the idea of AA and other bodies that deal with addiction in practical ways.

I guess when you become a Christian you quickly realise your one addiction is sin and from this all others flow. It is degrading to note that while day in and day out trying to look up at the sun. It is like that almost physical drag of sleep while you are trying to come awake. We can deny sin all we want or cover it in coping language but no one comes to God and is still comfortable with sin. When you have been shown the high heights, the low valleys and stretches may call you back but your heart is forever in Everest.

The cure to sin is more of God. The silly thing to do is decide you are not worthy and to give in to that fool talk. Our worthiness was never the issue. Our pride tells us that we are better than this. Grace tells us we can be and we will be but perhaps not now. We will fall and stumble and battle these things and perhaps perfection comes when we rise up again from the last sleep before eternity. I am being diplomatic with that last bit; perfection will only come when we wake up into God.

Pride is always before a fall. The idea that we are above sin is only true when we live in God. To obey Him and follow Him is the start of our renaissance. After a weekend of debauchery and illicit behavior spurred on by bottles, in those valleys we love, we are confronted with the mountain of all mountains and the high vistas of God.

Back to Him we must crawl.

In the words of Hozier: aaaaaaaaamen!    

Aweikinin 10/10/2014

From Revelations 22:17

Hey h,

I read your firebrand approach to the problem of sin with a lot of laughter. I know it is a grim subject but what a catholic soul you still have. Now, do not attack me yet. I do not know enough of catholic doctrine to have an opinion fully formed. The part of your Catholicism I am referring to is that friend of yours, at the seminary college, who answered your doubts about sin and consequence with that immortal line: “hell is real and no thinking and wishing about it will make it less so.” All right then.

Of course we have already made the mistake that precludes us from lofty sermons back and forth. We have told each other some startling truths about flaws and quirks and events and many, many sins. The mudslinging can commence or we can speak in love and kindness. I came with two guns, ye rascal, pick the latter or former and I am ready.

I am more concerned about the effect than the act right now. I could be humming along with life and then, suddenly, fall into a ditch. Am I okay to just get up and keep walking? Is it all still a ragamuffin grace? Did I sprain something? Is there a limp in my steps henceforth? Did I miss the bus? Will I be the sinner who never rises out of what the apostle called the milk of “forgiveness of sins”? I seem incapable of putting a foot right in any direction. I seem unlike Him. I feel lost.

A big part of this is pride, of course. I did not think I could fall. I think that I am immune from the petty longings of being human. I am not. I am the same old me just going in a new direction. I am thirsty and hungry for life. My hunger is incredible. It cannot be filled by doing good work or reaching material equilibrium. Writing does not cure it nor does getting what I want. I suspect that if I write down all the things I think will make me happy and chase them for a year, and get them in that year, I would still be hungry and I would still long for water. My long list of sins and their aftermath have already shown me the folly of getting what I want. It is never enough. God promises the answer. He says this adventure can fill me up. He diagnosed it right so I am able to trust that He knows the answer. Then, of course, He tells me the medicine; to come in to Zion and be filled up with a new life. Something eternal and sure and full to the brim with the strange taste of un-hunger and un-thirst…

Well, brother, it is Friday. I got drunk once and swore never again. Perhaps it is time we got drunk on something else.

Aweikinin 9/10/2014

Aweikinin 9/10/2014

From 1 John 4:7-8

H,

I got into some Coltrane this morning. I know I should work my way up the masters, not being a jazz fan and all, but what a way to start. I was inspired by this quote I saw of him talking about the love supreme. It hit me in ways that made me want to experience this curious wildfire that is horn and trumpet and stinging piano and that rough edge. Rough yet smooth, like the whole thing is filtered through refined sand.

The funny thing I find about jazz is how background it can be. It can be so into the mood and shape the mood of a place that the events around it seem like the main thing happening. It creates this rare atmosphere then acts like it did not. Here come the drums that rattle and sizzle. It is so evoking of something that it has to be felt. It has to be listened to on its own terms. You cannot force it. At first it sounds like they are just making up stuff. Which, they are, of course but it has the strange other sense that this is not planned, like this is brilliance happening on the spur. You know how I like lyric in song above the music but this is all about the music. And it is supreme.

Of course, God is the love supreme. Coltrane’s quote says as much. Love as a concept or high ideal or personal vendetta against life has been the cause of much pain in the world. But love as action, as things to do and places to be and way to act and music and words and consideration and, finally, freedom from self can only do wonders in this fractured world. I remember in university when we would all gather in the middle of the house and listen to ungodly music and talk, mostly, about godly things. I would always fall asleep. That is love to me in some action: where I am comfortable and I can sleep. When that hellcat I love comes around and we settle into a cuddle, I fall asleep. That has happened with no other before. I usually need a community of friends to feel that safe. Of course she complains. She thinks we should be talking and arguing and being cattish. She has no idea that in that semblance of God, we both touch the love supreme.

Aweikinin 8/10/2014

From psalm 68 verses 1-10

Hey h,

I woke up thinking today about change or about trying to change. I used to think that morphing was one of my strengths. I could adapt to anything and become anyone I needed to be. Recently, in some texture within your reply to my last letter, indirect or unintentional, it came to my mind strongly that morphing is not change.  The morphed object or person does so to conform to an immediate shape and once it/he/she does not need to be in that peculiar shape anymore, the true form comes back strongly.

This tells the tale of how many changes in  Christian community are not changes at all but the worst form of peer pressure that has nothing to do with the real change that is conforming to Christ, which is a lifetime pursuit grounded in honesty. We morph in Christian circles much more than we change.

This is understandable. Change is hard. Habits are ingrained as places of comfort. The other or outer versions of ourselves God seems to speak of or want read like dreams of another plane. When we are hit with news we roll back to the familiar. Not only overt addicts but all of us find a quantum of solace (hehehe) in being as human as we have always been in times of trouble, finding that self made lightning cloud or resting in the sea of what has always been. We seem unable to wrest ourselves from all the things we pick up along the way to help us cope with the trauma of being along the way. At best, we are told, we can control our bad habits. We can subject them to high purposes or delay their gratification to a more worthwhile time. We are constantly morphing to stave off the worst consequences of being addicted to self and the pleasure that is “feeling alright”.

Ironically, the place where we can swap the great morph for real change is the same place I picked up the former act best. Yet, like our brothers, sisters and I, the God we believe in is rarely the one we speak of or act out. We believe in a God who transforms hearts and minds. His change is far reaching and mostly uncomfortable and lifelong. We cannot deny that it is difficult for the human heart to change but we believe in the truth that the maker of all things human has the resources at his disposal to make us who we must forever be.  

7/10/2014

From psalm 18 verses 1-5

Hey h,

I feel like it is always a genuine terror to wake up. Dreams are such an escape and since I rarely have nightmares, they are safe places to hide from the ugly shadow of the world. I know you think I do not like to face things. You are right. I would be asleep. I would rather dream.

I know I cannot live that way. I woke up today from a tangled web of sleep that included lusty hopes and limited quasi-happiness. I have always had an ‘other’ sense about me. A genuine idea that I was more than my name and more than the space, considerable right now, I take up in the world. That this is just a shell of me, a covering, some sort of weak armor, a conduit for what I have to say to the world and I know that sleeping through life is not the solution to finding who I truly am in this mass of flesh and terror.

To be sure, as a Christian, my identity comes from Christ. This is why I have the attempts at kneeling and the scripture above. I am no poster boy for what that is. I am too much in repair for anyone to look at me and say I am salt of anything and light of anywhere. In pride, I guess, I am surprised by my sinfulness. I am upset and discouraged by my major faults. I regret many things. Yet all that regret makes me unable to stop dreaming and start living. They are like a pre-destined noose around my neck and the more I strain the more I choke and the more I fall into the death of soul and spirit that comes from merely dreaming. It is that thing about hope that is endless; it breaks the heart. I need to wake up; H and I hope you can see this. All this is doing me no good. As my sponsor you may have to listen to some ugly things but be rest assured that all of this is recovery and not a relapse.

We always speak of those early days of glory where God seemed to walk with us in every step. Then it seemed like the great drought appeared and growing up seemed like falling down. I think now that the walk became natural. It is not a drought as much as it is being made up into something. A change of diet from milk to meat. A dose of radiation to fight the cancer of sin. Or maybe this is just what it feels like to finally wake up into God.

Amen.