Living in a space can distort thoughts when the boundaries of that space are removed. Some carry on avoiding walls that are not there anymore. Standing outside doors that don’t exist. He will see you now. He is ready for you.
Veil? It’s long gone. No queue, no waiting list, no veil. He will see you now. He is ready.
Like a maze, the outdoor type, where every wall is a NO and every break is a YES. Like the Indica Gallery where John climbed to find a magnifying glass and micro print. The print read YES. Like the post that drips from the letterbox, mostly a collection of No’s with the odd YES.
In my life I whisper YES. It’s not particularly loud, but it is true. A YES that is birthed with hope is dramatically joined with a YES from Him. A YES that lives in my life, affirming me. I am the microprint with magnifying glass. My life is YES. My spirit is YES. The world would want me to think that I am a MAYBE or a NO, the distortion of fear can format anything to suit.
YES is the energy I carry. Hope. Sustained. Restoration. Eternal. Yes.
Beyond apathy or public humiliation there is another way. There is desert graffiti. There is a hem to be grasped. There is a sword, an ear, a rebuke. There is a woman and a well. There are 99 safe sheep. There is a lost coin. There is another cheek. There is a house on the rock. There is an enemy doing more for a stranger than a religious leader. There is another way that was modelled on this earth. Not apathy or humiliation but transformation, one that takes place in the core of ones being. The core, long time fortress, no go area since childhood. The core is where it all lives untouched, undisturbed. Childhood memories, hurts and pains. The core is where He spoke to. The core is where He healed. The core is what He changed in every man and woman that engaged with Him.
A faith not a religious circus. An escape from a life that controled me, wriggling away from the grasp of a sanitised corporate pharaoh. Dressed in a single breasted cut, gold and blue lining, urban pharaoh wears his baseball cap at 2 o’clock and sanctions the deals I never agreed to. He finds a carpet big enough to sweep it all under.
I dont want to be like some of the Kings I read about in March and April, having a 50:50 life. Half trusting in Him and half in their own ability to manage a situation. Do what He says but still call in a favour from a neighbouring country. I do not wish my diminished decision making to cause another human to trip up, to be hurt, to be misled. In my life it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. Just like Paul says of the Corinthians who choose not to eat meat, be sensitive to those around you and their unique journey. What starts off in my mind as a dead mans meal, is toasted in my spirit as a rebirth. See, He makes all things new.
Don’t hold back is what the writer urges the people to do in a letter written many years ago. Don’t hold back from what? From letting go of life, with honesty and freedom. At some point or another what sustains my soul will affect my life, gradually at first and then completely. A total faith. Hope, vocation, the way we model life on earth, all our ships sailing in the same direction.
I dont want to be like some of the Kings I read about in March and April, having a 50:50 life. Half trusting in Him and half in their own ability to manage a situation. Do what He says but still call in a favour from a neighbouring country.
I want to embrace this life, with all my heart, all my strength, all my soul and all my mind.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So no matter what I say, what I believe and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
A proud basket, proud because of the quality of this bread. This bread will be torn by Him. This bread started the day like all breads do, separate, but became whole and now in service, is about to be torn. Just like the day the five thousand or so needed feeding, just like the times when Moses needed the tribe to be fed. Bread is served up. Delivered. Broken. Torn.
My hands, I study. Cupped they receive gratefully. My heart races, my mind caught somewhere in the emotions of a funeral and a birth. I know after the taste comes the spear, the jolt of a memory I never viewed but imagined a thousand times. I arrived at this station by mercy. My achievements haven’t brought me here, just like they will not drive me after my life on earth is done. I have been carried by mercy. My seat at the dining table was never earned out of loyalty, friendship, being a stand up guy, doing the right thing, praying or going to church. My seat was given to me as a gift. A boy walked past me in a crowd of five thousand and offered me some food, a gift. I took shelter from the raining bread in the desert, a gift. Take this bread He said, a gift. Drink this wine it is a gift.
What starts off in my mind as a dead mans meal, is toasted in my spirit as a rebirth. See, He makes all things new.
Over the weekend I decided that I didn’t want to have alcohol anymore. Like an Amazonian ribbon winding its way through my life, alcohol has been an ever present. My childhood introduced a drinking culture like none other; both parents drank heavily. One of them would pour a tin of Tennants super strength (purple) into a glass and liven it up with a cupful of whisky and follow it up with a vodka chaser. That would happen from 8am till 3 or 4pm every Saturday. Passing out was normal. The other parent would drink huge amounts at parties, doused in vodka. This is how drinking was modelled to a nine year old.
I do not wish my diminished decision making to cause another human to trip up, to be hurt, to be misled. In my life it is a sacrifice I am willing to make. Just like Paul says of the Corinthians who choose not to eat meat, be sensitive to those around you and their unique journey.
Reading from a letter that was written for a place called Corinth many years ago, I am confronted with two ways of dealing with a situation. Apathy or public humiliation. The Corinthians or Paul. Where does this register with me this morning? Where is the glimmer of hope sparkling in my cupped hands? There is another way. There is desert graffiti. There is a hem to be grasped. There is a sword, an ear, a rebuke. There is a woman and a well. There are 99 safe sheep. There is a lost coin. There is another cheek. There is a house on the rock. There is an enemy doing more for a stranger than a religious leader. There is another way that was modelled on this earth. Not apathy or humiliation but transformation, one that takes place in the core of ones being. The core, long time fortress, no go area since childhood. The core is where it all lives untouched, undisturbed. Childhood memories, hurts and pains. The core is where He spoke to. The core is where He healed. The core is what He changed in every man and woman that engaged with Him.
Not by ambitious acts, not by big statements but by offering the most basic of routines; sleeping, eating and going to work. Or offering my support and prayers to my local government office? Not by wasting time bickering or empty deeds. Good deeds can be wrapped up in agendas and ulterior motives. I don’t want to be spending time debating about this doctrine or a multitude of other doctrines. What’s the point. Why go to all that trouble to decide what is right for someone else when my own life could need some steering. He said do not judge. For many reasons that is one of the foundations for healthy living. I don’t want to be getting in the way of somebody else’s journey . There is a judge, it is easier for my heart to leave those calls to Him. Life is short on earth. I want to be useful, bringing hope to conversations where there is no hope, bringing grace to situation that there is none and bringing peace where it is lacking.
To serve others. With no agenda or ulterior motive. To serve, because somehow waiting on humanity changes me, makes me less distorted and more human. To serve because I have been served hope that sustains me. To serve others.
Be different. Start again, spiritual and physical knitted together like the word becoming flesh, so my temple forms. Hope. Restoration and forgiveness fashion theses walls. A spire, shooting into heaven as tall and mighty as the grace that freely pulsates in my veins.
Allowing Him to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. The water into wine, the packed lunch of a boy into a feast for the masses. Hope for the hopeless.
