28/04/2017

You,

“Solid as a Rock”

Trust waivers. In creeps fear. Temptation prowls on every corner. The world gives you billions of reasons to turn away from God instead of returning to Him. But God in His mercy and benevolence never turns His back on us, even when we can’t find a reason to seek His face, even when we let all the noise over power what we know to be true.

Our hearts may be heavy from all that is occurring around us but we cannot drop our guard. This is no time to give up or falter. It is time to bear down and push through. Not just for us but for the millions around us who can do nothing by themselves.

We are called to a love that is self-sacrificial, that doesn’t turn its back on the vulnerable no matter how near or far, that doesn’t let its neighbour suffer for the wrongdoings of bad leaders. It is a link-arms-and-carry-each-other’s-yokes kind of love. It is a your-pain-is-my-pain-your-joy-is-my-joy kind of love. There is no isolation, no hesitation, no confusion. There is no time to second guess. You cannot be anything less than firmly planted. 

27/04/2017

You,

“Solid as a Rock”

Every day, we turn the news on and cry “mercy heavenly Father, mercy Lord.” The poor and the vulnerable are sitting ducks, pawns in political mishap-plans. And we do what we can then cry “what more is there to do Lord? Why does this keep happening? What more can we do?”

Where do we go in the face of such overwhelming helplessness? It’s enough to shake loose every brick in your faith. What you don’t want to hear at that moment is:

          All things work together for good…

          It is well…

          God’s got this…

          The peace of God surpasses all understanding…

          God loves us all equally…

          We are all His children…

These things are all true but they are of little comfort when little girls and boys are covered in the rubble of another explosion, when families have lost everything, when young people can see no viable future, when hundreds of thousands see no way out except putting their lives in even more danger.

Yet this is the only answer any one of us with our small scopes can offer you. To paraphrase the simplistic poetry of Lennon and McCartney, all this world needs is love. True, real, pure, heavenly realms love. An honest experience of the true measure of God’s love. And all you can do is live there while you step through this world because it will answer every question you have. This is my prayer for you, always. 

26/04/2017

You,

“Solid as a Rock”

There is a constant thing that we find exhausting about this life we are living: the daily check-ups. As a patient of life, it is really up to you to say “I am unwell. I need a check-up. I need treatment.”

No one likes to believe that they are unwell. Many of us don’t particularly care for hospitals. Yet this is what we must put ourselves through every day. “Search me Father. I am unwell. Wipe my slate clean. Make a fresh start. Renew a right spirit.” Every day.

We cannot let our foundations give way to rot and decay. So it must become second nature. How awful it is for a human mind, accustomed to progress, to have to humble itself every day and say: “Not yet. I am not there yet.” Worse still is the realisation that we will not get there in this life, and we have very little control over getting there at all. The only thing you are doing is being conscious and consenting. Nothing is being given to you without your knowledge, nothing is getting taken from you without your agreement. But that is where much of your input ends.

The rest is a daily struggle of “more you Lord, less me.” 

25/04/2017

You,

“Solid as a Rock”

It is a difficult road we walk. It sometimes seems barren even in the midst of bountiful harvests. Fear and uncertainty are always snarling at our heels so we worry that one wrong step could send us spiralling uncontrollably out of the light. It is important to this road that we walk and the final destination we work towards, that we know how to stand firm in all crises.

It is easy to lash out destructively. Nothing appeals to the baser natures of man than destruction and aimless, uncontrolled anger. The truly difficult thing is creativity. It came easy to our Father, who created all that we see in 6 days and took a vacation on the 7^th. That’s his nature: to nurture, to love, to create things of beauty. To make something, to build up, that takes more strength and wisdom than any of us would ideally want to exert. To watch something deteriorate takes nothing out of us.

To do nothing or to fall apart under the crushing weight of this world takes nothing. It is the easiest thing to just lay back and let the vicious waves take you over. But to stand up solid as a rock, to stay firmly planted on this road to the eternal Father against every gushing desert wind, ever violent flame, every torrential storm, that takes just about everything we’ve got in us. And then some. And then some. 

“Tales of the Impending Kingdom”

H,

High words count for nothing without the ‘low’ art of giving a damn. The high treason of Kingdom life is not caring. You should be the cheated and the stepped on before you are  the one who does not care, who shuts ear and heart to other pain, including the one you bear, and pursues a life of careful consideration and self-protection. Now I am not saying to dive into the sea of other troubles just to neglect your own. He is saying connect your own pain with the suffering of others and you will understand both much more. Then look up to things that will last forever for help.

The Kingdom is not a cold and unfeeling mass of creatures who want domination over connection. It does not battle with the ordinary weapons of the human experience so far. It connects. It seeks to bring lion and lamb to the table of peace and set the earth again on the foundation of light and love that was always its destiny. I know this flowery language looks obtuse in the face of fierce words in the book of life. Well, the words there may be tough but so is love. It is oxymoronic to say: “tough love.” There is no soft or easy love. Love as a principle that rules the universe is supposed to cost you everything. It fills up only the empty. So you see, you must always be empty.

The harsh words speak to rebirth. The pain is the last pang of a new earth emerging from the darkness that has surrounded our globe since man went left from purpose.

Yet, those are all high spun concepts that will work out in God. We start with ordinary love. We begin with connection. The easiest thing on earth to do is to find a cold and unfeeling pursuit, like writing a book to gain success, and chasing it to the detriment of anything else. It is easy to take the law of focus and make it all there is. To eliminate all forms of human interaction that does not benefit your stated aims and then make reaching the end of the tunnel the goal. It is good for stolid hearts and closed minds. It frees us from some consequence and it allows us to make progress and take flight away from the thought that we do nothing so we are worth nothing.

This is not the Kingdom though and it has never been. Our very connection to God will make us feel more and not less. He slows down the progress we think we are making to show us we are really in regress. The Kingdom is not a 9 to 5 or a bluesy Monday to freaky Friday occupation. It is not in the things you do but in the person you are. We are told that many will do works and be shut out because they are not known. We are told that we need the right clothes to be granted excess to the face of God. That is to be like Christ not to act like Him. There is no acting here. We have to be and become.

He was not a person who did things to get somewhere. He is the person who is and so does. None of this is against work. He did not stand still. He just waited to be before he did anything at all. That is the mark of the Kingdom. Being and then doing.

To be is connection. To be is relationship. To be is waking up every day to grace, hope, faith and love in God. It seems esoteric until you try it. Then it takes on a life of its own. It will be manifestly uncomfortable at first but it should be. That is just the old you going away. It will try and come back from time to time but it will lose every time. You have stepped into the light. You are becoming. You live in the Kingdom now. 

“Tales of the Impending Kingdom”

H,

We are living and dying through our present time and it is unique to only us. The whole sweep of history is probably full of the same human story with the characters changing places and progress being jumbled together with modernization and being none the wiser. There is no longer any eternity in the hearts of men. We are here for the now without regard to the past, unless it is useful, or to the future, unless it can be determined (read: manipulated). We have become prophets of our decline away from the picture of our wholeness in God.

We have left behind the idea that the truth is whole and nothing can be added to it. What we take away from any sort of suffering is that we are doing something wrong and we have to fix it in ourselves. As if God was this malevolent teacher who wants you to live by your own examples and failures. So we invent tithing, offering, seed, oil, fire, crude exorcism and towers of babel who are all just men with high pitch voices and that barrel of nothing called charisma. We invent the concept of the mind as a way into God. We try to bring the head in because the heart has failed and now we have logic as God as if finite reason could grasp infinite deity. We are the graph for one thing trying to understand mathematics as a whole and ponder how it cuts into all other subjects. Or we find subsets for the soul and try to bring up flames from everything under the sacred sun to feel and to know and to feel spiritual. The experience of levity and the buzz of psychedelic uplifts and sign posts become destination and not pathway.  None of these things is inherently wrong. All of this things separate cannot help our experience. The nexus of mind, body and soul is where find God. There is no short cut to this full experience. Every fibre of our being must be all in on it.

We are empty and we fill up at the fountain of deception in so many ways that we mistake the differing offers of sin and hopelessness for novel answers to the same question.

We have to let go.

We have to let go.

The poet still asks:

We will I always feel this way, so empty, so estranged.

The kingdom answers without hesitation:

No, no, no, no, no, no. here, is a better way.

Dear friend, we have always known the better way. It is living it out that is the fullness. It is living it that is being. It is living it in wholeness that is the grapple with our own worst selves. 

“Tales of the Impending Kingdom”

H,

Life is arranged for us as valleys and mountain peaks. The aim of the game is to, generally, have more mountain peaks than valleys. The acquired wisdom is that valleys are for learning and peaks are for living. This is a useful device in getting on with things, surviving disasters and trying to forge a life out of the loose material fate gives you. The problem is that it does not work as a general rule for all life. The general rule must apply to everyone barring a few exceptions. The truth of this present reality is that many are born into cycles of poverty that are as deep as any valley could possibly be. It is not a bumper sticker that will cure this. An epigram cannot lift a single life from this miry clay and in the end soundbites are not enough to feed a starving child or heal the broken or the abused. And we are all along this spectrum of hurts that go deep and cannot be washed away by positive thinking. We can cover up a deep ravine of pain in material progress but the spirit will need tending at some point or we will collapse under the weight of things unexplored and unresolved within our very souls.

This needless dichotomy between the material and the spiritual is what the Kingdom comes to address. It is heaven and earth united, Man-Woman and God face to face and past, present and future resolved in eternity. It is not about weakness but it takes weakness as the foundation for uprooting the human experience from ego and re-planting it on the solid ground of what will forever be. It sounds repetitive because it is true. It has always been true. There is nothing to add to it.

In our present state, we cry out every day for signs of progress and for songs of hope. We are either getting fat on the fantasies (Yeats brilliantly warns us about the consequence of this: “the heart’s grown brutal from the fare”) or we are getting lean on unfulfilled promises. There is a promise that will be fulfilled though. Our faith tells us this yearning will not go on forever. It tells us the material and the spiritual will merge into one reality that answers all our questions. This is yearning and hope. This is faith that keeps us moving forward through the dark nights. And here is love, the answer to every riddle.

“Tales of the Impending Kingdom”

H,

The poet wisely asks:

Will I always feel this way?

So empty, so estranged

The short answer is no. of course this has to be fleshed out. First, it is important to know that nothing can end this feeling but time. It will be there through drugged states and placebo failings. It will endure through success and failure, in set back and in progress and still be there when you get what you want but also when you do not get what you want.  

Second, it is vital to call out the lie we have been told our whole lives. It is a big lie and it permeates the pseudo-sacred halls of our places of worship and has done so for some time. The lie is believable and it is deep and it smacks one right on the head with the idea of purpose that we want it to be true. And the lie is this: heaven and earth await your own personal decision to go left or go right. Heaven and earth and the destiny of all things are hinged on what you do and how you do it. Everything you do has celestial value and makes or breaks the impact of eternity on the time-folded plains of the now. This is simply not true. It is a beautiful lie but that it is all it is: puff. The truth is the eternal Kingdom of God is impending whether you believe in it or not. It will happen with or without you. You are not the centre of it and neither are we all together the collective expressed thing that must be before the massive revelation of all things that must happen come to pass. Unwieldy sentence, but you know what I mean. It is not that the kingdom must join us it is that we must join the kingdom.

Third, and I promise good things come in threes so this is the last one, all that has been said above does not impeach upon or dim the glorious light of the inherent value of the single human soul. I am not saying that the individual or the collective is of no value. I am saying we have our value wrong. We think we are mere instruments of the divine will. Pencils, even. No. We are much more. The Divine Will needs no foot soldiers. Everything can be a foot soldier for His Will. Your inherent value means that you were born to do anything but to be someone. That person is you in eternity. Your soul is being formed into the very expression of what the Kingdom will be. You are not a tool to make it happen. You are the kingdom expressed. I think this is better. I think this is love. I think this is more of a challenge than being an instrument. You are part of the thing itself. It is too high to reach. Yet, do not worry. This Kingdom is one of Grace. 

14/04/2017

N,

“Consider it All a Test of Faith…”

We have a love so dependable, a Father who is always on time. This is our safety, our blessed assurance. It is important to remember this at all times. When you know who you are and who it is you serve misplaced emotions won’t lead you astray and you’ll never be too proud or afraid to do what needs to be done. No task will ever seem beneath you because you know you have been called to a life of stewardship and servitude. Nothing will ever seem too difficult because you realise that you’re simply the vessel through which his vision is brought to life; all you ever need to do is be ready and willing.

Yet when we look around us in the world the wrong kind of people seem to be flourishing and succeeding. Why Lord would you give everything to someone who is so undeserving?! First, it would do you well to note that none of us deserves a thing. That we have anything at all is the manifestation of God’s undeniable love for His children. Remember that though we are one body we all have a unique relationship with the Father. There is no use comparing.

So whatever thoughts are hidden or folded away in your heart but shouldn’t be there, now is the time to let them out. They are of no benefit to you; all they do is clog you up. Let them out and make your way back to dependable, undeniable love. Take the step away from fear and towards faith. 

13/04/2017

N,

“Consider it All a Test of Faith…”

When we put our trust in God and rely on our faith we become fearless. In the end, all that is really left is the purest of joy and the most irrational peace. From the outside looking in something seems false at best or at worst unbalanced with the way you deal with the issues in your life. It seems unlikely that anyone would be so calm or happy in the face of these trials. But you are and that can throw people off.

Promises kept, promises coming, they provide a measure of strength and a feeling of victory. But knowing the truth of who God is brings you peace and helps you to bask in His love. So clear out the rubble and look upon the face of God. Forego the distractions and focus on Him. Humble yourself before Him. Fall down at His feet in worship. Live loudly for Him. Loudly. How vastly immeasurable is our Lord! 

12/04/2017

N,

“Consider it All a Test of Faith…”

In the immense, overwhelming noise of the world, the thing to give in to is your faith. When things crumble as all things inevitably do over time, your faith is the thing left to hold on to, the thing on which you rely.

Pardon me for taking a turn for the morbid but you must realise that there is a timeline for everything around you, an end to all things. And whether your end comes before THE end or vice versa the reality is as sure as it always was: time is rounding up. Nothing changes: what has come will go, what is coming ahead will also run its course. And on and on till time as we know it grinds to a halt.

Right now it seems to you that you are called to do impossible things. You have been put to task but you have no control, no idea, and not enough resources for the grand picture in your mind. Pictures start small. Buildings start with foundations. The grandest of trees start with a little seedling. Nothing sprouts up overnight, not really.

So take the seed you have been given and wrap it up in truth and love. Set it to rest in your small plot of land. Pick out the weeds. Chase away the birds. Be sure it never strays far from eternal waters. In the humdrum of this crazy world’s never-ending chaos, rest upon your faith.

11/04/2017

N,

“Consider it All a Test of Faith…”

Fear truly brings out the worst in us. It is fear of truly understanding you that has killed my kindness and my love, that has caused me to judge you harshly. It is fear that has blinded me to my faults and highlighted yours. I am sorry.

Without fear or hesitation, four fishermen gave up all they knew – family and livelihood alike – to follow a man whose claims turned their entire reality on its head. I do not believe that I could do that without 2000 years of historical antecedence. My fear keeps me from reaching out beyond the familiar and comfortable.

Fear keeps us up at night, worrying over illogical and improbable things. It eats away at our health and sanity. It alienates and isolates us. It makes us believe, falsely, that not one of the other 7 billion+ people on this earth have any idea what we are going through and how we feel. How likely of a statistic is that? How possible is it that you are the only one in the entire world that hurts the way you do? That is the power we have given to the irrational. It blinds us from seeing that person sitting beside us is feeling the way we feel too. 

10/04/2017

N,

“Consider it All a Test of Faith…”

I have been letting your mild inconveniences erode me. I have let the toxicity eat slowly away at my empathy, sensitivity, ability to forgive, my joy. I have let an unholy anger make its home in my heart. My smiles and good gestures have been shallow. My love has been false. I am sorry.

It has done me no good to think of you as this distant entity separate from me and undeserving of my love. It has done me no good to hold a grudge over every little gripe we might have had in the past. I have acted high and mighty, like I was not subject to my own flaws, like I have not caused you any offence in my life. I am sorry.

I have clenched my teeth through all our encounters. I have placed the blame on you for things as fickle as how I think you make me feel when I am around you. You have no control over that. I funnel all my anger towards you because it needs a place to go. But you are not to blame. I have held you accountable for faults of which you have no knowledge. It is important for me to remember that you do not know any of these things that occur solely in my own head, that you are not to blame, you couldn’t be. I am sorry.

A dream in progress.

“A dream in Progress”

Does failure always spark a renaissance?

Does hunger always front the ravenous road?

Do we only rise as high as the things we are told we cannot do?

Or is it all a case of fate or happenstance?

Perhaps, it is that only one thing matters at all

Inside us is this insatiable beast

Our wants, our needs, our never-do-well

The idea that we are better than us

And success is the key to our sense of loss

We can barrel it  all up

And the dogs loose

Not give a damn or care about everything

Things are solid

Or everything shifts

We can be stuck in that barrel

Or open everything up

Yet

Our dreams never die

Always aching for that something more

New palaver for the store

What will we do with these things?

We always fall short

We cannot afford to give up

We are pilgrims in process

Sick beds and open heart transplants

Changing in the midst of the storm

Finding ourselves at the moment of our deaths

Joined to live and joined to die

In process

In process

In process

With an end

What we must never fear is the idea of regret

The things that have a taste of sting but not the sting itself

We are unhinged creatures learning to fly again

We are in process, process, and process

Never to fear the idea of regress

We are God’s dream

In progress.