Sometimes I'm Just Lost

Sometimes I switch it up a bit. Take the wrong way to the right place, the long way round to a close one. And sometimes, sometimes I'm just lost and have to find my way back. Saw this church sign the other day on one such very long way wrong way round.

Geez. Of all the obnoxious, smarmy, stupid and banal ways to paint the need for Christ in our life to obtain wholeness of mind. Sometimes when I read these I want to go inside and scream why the particular message is catastrophically misrepresenting the Gospel and God's tenderness that draws the lost to His heart. But alas, business hours were 9-5 daily. I sat there, numb and dumb and full of a greater sense that we are failing in our dialogue with the world. 

My thoughts were all one way or the other after that. You know how you get, the pendulum of emotion. Your heart and will rally behind a noble thought, some great cause, and the next minute your mind waves the white flag of cynicism and surrender. 

Cotton clouds over cotton fields distracted me for a moment.

As far as I could see in every direction, cotton, fields white and ready for harvest. I pulled over to take this picture then closed my eyes, other pictures, creased and faded and colorless, workers harvesting the cash crop 150 years ago. Slaves, fingers raw from the prickly plant, picking next to their precious children. Lives stolen for what? Greed, ease of life for those that won a light skin lottery? 

I am reading Avengers Of The New World. It is the story of the Haitian Revolution, but the author Laurent Dubois does so much more than recount the details of the first successful slave revolt, he chronicles all the historical nuance, all of the minutia of the moment, the pulse of the people who were the prime movers in the French provincial slave trade. He recounts how laws were passed to keep anyone with so much a percentage of African blood from holding office or having other full citizen rights. He details how many of the descendants of Africa were much lighter skinned than some persons of European descent. And that the whole process was as convoluted and circumspect as one can infer by its idiocy. Businessmen and women, professors, even politicians having to prove their pedigree to the ridiculous godless blood-hounds bent on finding out light skinned impostors. Peoples of African descent whose dark poisonous blood would apparently be societies death, an acid bath of blood that would somehow corrode away and crumble the very foundations of white entitlement.

Geez....

So much of history is mired in the subjective. The viewpoint of one country or culture vs. another. So that the truth is hard to really know. But not this, never this. Slavery is evil, will always be evil. And anyone who didn't, doesn't fight against it, they are and always will be complicit. The garment industry has more slavery than any other industry. From forced labor in cotton fields to forced labor in factories. There are millions of children enslaved for the making of the garments that we all wear. Please buy fair trade, direct trade, slave free certified clothing (you can see which companies are doing there part here). And please read this book, it is so very very important as a historical narrative and more, a commentary on the perpetual state of fallen mankind.

I drove away thinking of the church sign, the cotton fields, the guilt of so many so called Christians in the enslavement and abuse, the murder and rape, of countless Africans. I thought, if someone can look at a darker skinned person and not see the image of God, well then they have never seen God. If someone can be so full of hate, well scripture is clear isn't it? They do not know God, who is love.

I drove and drove and then a grey rain came and stayed for hours but also a rainbow...

My thoughts are grey again today, grasping at God in the aftermath of the typhoon in the Philippines. There are 10 thousand feared dead. 10 million displaced, 4 million of them children now greatly susceptible to kidnapping and exploitation. The needs are so great as those island communities search frantic for water and food. Please if you can, donate to our friends My Refuge House in Cebu, Philippines. They will use the money in country to buy food and supplies and get it to families much quicker that way.

I leave for Haiti Monday. Soon I will be near again her sea. I will be back close to the country I love dearly, one that has suffered so long, so needlessly, that others might profit. It is a country still repressed by the lasting affects of political embargoes and aid policies that deconstructed a resilient indigenous Haitian economy while simultaneously creating dependence. It is heartbreaking and was to my way of thinking completely avoidable. I pray the next decade will be one of renewal for the indefatigable people of Haiti and for her unfathomably wonderful children. I'd like you to meet a few...

And meet my godson, Marc Finley!! Who shares my name and has stolen my heart. Oh and the loving lovely Madame Emmanuel, who spoils me so, with home cooked meals and warmth of home and heart.

And the proudest dad you've ever met! Fedeme, my dear friend who works harder everyday with such decency and determination. Can't wait to see him and his beautiful family.

Sometimes I do take the wrong way, the long way round. Sometimes, on days like today, I just feel lost. Sometimes I lose my grip. But Christ leads me round right again, He is The Way, in Him I am found. His is the grip that never slips. And sometimes when I spend my days on a diet of destruction and sexual exploitation and all the other bad news, when I start to wonder if it's a little too late in the history of things to do any good, well I try and remember mine is not to hold the whole world right side up, to keep it spinning on its axis. No mine is to realize the sorry state I am in and let the One who is in control do what only He can do. I guess I just needed to write today, to bleed off a little. Clear some cobwebs, some shelf space, make room for another days ramblings and rants, poetry and pretense. Thanks. Hope you enjoyed the pictures of the kids. Hope you're keeping it between the ditches. Hope beyond all hope you're holding on to Jesus, and if you're too weak for that, that you know He's holding onto you. xoxox

Killing God

I woke with a word on my lips. I spoke it into the cold grey morning as I wiped the night from my eyes. 

"Cross."

Partially because my mind was tired, and perhaps partially because it is a word so threadbare, so shop-worn with use, I sorta ignored it. But all morning it followed me. Into, out of the shower. It was in the first scent of coffee, in the bottom of that first cup. And then the second and third. It rode with me down the highway to pick my sister up for work, and then sat patiently waiting until I finally listened to what it had to say.

And so listen I did and wonder and listen and query and listen some more and I've thought about it for the rest of the day. And here are some things it said.

In an age of spiritual self-determination, where spirituality's highest law seems to be "do what you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else", the cross, the notion of atonement, the belief in a need for atonement have been so dismissively, so condescendingly deemed irrelevant, archaic, and unenlightened. And yes sin, and shame, and suffering were nailed to the cross. Death and it's power destroyed there. But for a world that doesn't much believe in sin, that doesn't see themselves as sinners, doesn't see the need for such horrible a sacrifice, maybe, beyond all these acts of reckless mercy, is something bigger still. Something people of every age deeply desire, and desperately need: that God be killed.

Scripture says it pleased God to crush Christ. God the Father killing God the Son and finding pleasure there. Why? Of all the grotesque and macabre ways...?? I think it's two-fold. God needed to be killed. That is, what everyone that has ever existed thought of God needed to be crushed, ground to bits and blown into oblivion. Every false premonition we collectively share. That God is far off, that He is cold and unfeeling in the face of our suffering. That He is a moral cop, judge jury and executioner. That He is a cosmic killjoy. That He is ethereal and unknowable. That He is a self-absorbed ultra narcissist. All of those false God's killed on the Cross, and secondly only the real God remaining, resurrected and ever living.

Dead the far-off unfeeling God, risen the God who is as close as our own skin. Who felt on that cross what we feel, all of our hurt and fear and shame and suffering. God who is as close as our own spirit where He comes to live when we believe. 

Dead the moral cop, risen the fair judge whose wrath is stayed, who Himself took the punishment for all wrongdoings on that cross. Who condemns no one that calls on Christ. 

Dead the cosmic killjoy, risen the one Sacred Heart where we can finally find true happiness. That place of total acceptance where we are finally free to find our deepest greatest joy.

Dead the unknowable God, Risen the God who gives His Spirit to allow us to know Him as we are known by Him, to lead us into all Truth.

Dead the infinite megalomaniac, risen the One who puts all others above Himself.

Dead every false God of our invention and risen our Hope, our Peace, our One True Love. 

So then the Cross, as foolish as it seems, does not stand in antagonism of modern man. No in fact it answers the heart cries in us all. And the cross itself is not it, it is just a symbol. Nothing magical or mystical about its shape, if Christ had come in these times a firing squad, gas-chamber or an electric chair would have been the altar God used to sacrifice His Son. The thing itself is not it, the whole point is that we were created with an eternal curiosity, it's what makes us distinctly human, and God, on the Cross, answers all our deepest questions, calms all our darkest fears. If only we will believe.

Larger Inside Than Out: Do Right to Me Baby.

Don't wanna judge nobody, don't wanna be judged

Don't wanna touch nobody, don't wanna be touched

Don't wanna hurt nobody, don't wanna be hurt

Don't wanna treat nobody like they was dirt

But if you do right to me, baby

I'll do right to you too

Got to do unto others like you'd have them

Like you'd have them, do unto you.....

Dylan's folk rock rendering of the Golden rule, lyrics from his song Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others). 

Bobby D circa 1979.

This is the first post in a series Larger Inside Than Out on the simple things of the gospel that seem to get so screwed. This post in particular has been a long time coming. I am about to reduce the gospel to one word. One. Simple. Word. 

Empathy.

Not what you expected? To be honest, I never really saw it either, not really until 6 months back. It was the matter of the dirty dishes I think. Yeah, it was Easter, and the beautiful ladies that cook and clean the kitchen had the weekend off. So we all merrily cooked for ourselves and ate and ate and ate....and the dishes piled up. And they sat. They sat from good Friday on. Perhaps, in the spirit of the season, some had hoped for a sort of miracle on the third day...but alas, none such luck. So at around midnight I made my way into the kitchen for a glass of water and the smell and shadow of such a gigantic pile of dishes as to stagger the soul. I was incredulous. Well, mostly I was pissed that there weren't any clean glasses. So after ducking my head under the water cooler I stood staring at the mound of unwashed dishes. And I thought, I wonder what the ladies will think when they come in tomorrow. What this pile of dishes communicates to them, about how we feel about them. I thought, if I were them.....well you get my point.

It took me til 2 a.m to finish those damn dishes. I was so steaming mad by the time I was through. But then, my soul was crushed by the reality of it all. How selfish we all are, how rarely we put ourselves in the other person's position, how very rare the commodity of empathy really is. I can attest to the veracity of this statement. I have been a selfish bastard my whole life.

At the very heart of the heart of the gospel is this beautiful reality, that Jesus understands exactly how we feel. Wow. And then, in the most universally simple way, He spells it out for us...."Do unto others, as you'd have done unto you." Wow.

Scripture tells us that Jesus was tempted in all ways, that he bore all our suffering and shame. He alone can say to each one of us...I know how you feel. As Christians, the body of Christ, the hands, the feet, the heart of Jesus in this world, we are to express the same through our actions. Empathizing with the pain of others, the frustration, the loneliness, the poverty....And then we are to act.

So then, a guy on the street asks you for money. Instead of judging his motives, instead of scrutinizing his appearance, or offering a snide remark about getting a job. Do for him what you'd want done for you.

When you see the special needs child being picked on, passed over, imagine it was your child.

When you consider the 2 million women enslaved in the sex trade, ask yourself. "What lengths would I go to if this was my daughter, or wife, or mother or sister?" "What lengths would I want someone to go to to rescue me?"

Empathy.

When you think of the hungry as they succumb to starvation, as 14 thousand do everyday....

The 163 million orphans...

Empathy.

When you give a treatise on religion to the waitress and then leave a buck and a half tip for a 50 dollar meal...

Empathy.

When you tell the divorcee they should have tried harder.

When you tell the sick they should have prayed harder.

Empathy.

I have been in Haiti for almost 8 months. I have seen how most Haitians live. I have also heard the statements of outsiders as they fly in, take a snapshot, and then proceed to spell out all that is broken in Haitian society, and why, and what would fix it. And yet they are ferried about in air conditioned vehicles, they sleep in dry and temperature controlled rooms. They bathe with running water and enjoy the luxury of a toilet, and a hand sink, and they live a life so separate, so unlike that of the Haitians they are "ministering" to...

We must put ourselves in the other's shoes. If our day started with a 2 mile trek down the side of a mountain, then a 2 hour ride in the back of a pick up, having bathed from a bucket, having hand washed our clothes, having not eaten so as to pay the tap tap, having slept poorly on cardboard, under a tarp roof. Having done the same thing for our whole lives....well I guarantee you we wouldn't show up for work with a heart full of joy radiating all over our faces just to make a dollar and hour so we can feed our kids and maybe, just maybe send the oldest to school. I wouldn't. But that is just what my Haitian brothers and sisters do everyday. Week in and week out. Never complaining. Never.

"This is all they've ever known" one might say  So true, and yet in a the first world, where our every whim is a reality, where we are only limited by our imaginations, we are among the most clinically depressed nations on the planet. 

The gospel does not suggest we empathize, it is the central tenant of the gospel, because if we are following Christ's example, which is the definition of being a Christian, following Christ, and since the Cross is the greatest act of empathy every conceived we are to do the same. The New Testament is crowded with stories of Christ moved with compassion. Empathy is the key that unlocks compassion.

Brennan Manning recounts a story of two drunk Irishmen sitting in a pub in rural Ireland. The one slurs to the other, "Seamus, do you love me?" "Of course I do" his sloshed friend replies. "Then tell me what hurts me?"

"What hurts me?"

Christ knows.

And it is in this fragile state that He accepts us. We must find a way to do the same. To listen before we judge, to walk that mile in the other's shoes before we tell them they are on the wrong road. 

Do right to me baby.

The anniversary of the moment in time when Christ's empathy began, at least in a physical respect, approaches. We celebrate His birth, a day of incarnation, a day of anticipation of when He will come again. And while we spend billions to buy the affections of our loved ones, to placate their restlessness, to anesthetize their sorrow....27  million are enslaved. 200 million are homeless. 

Imagine you are homeless, the reasons, the decisions, good or bad, the tragedies that got you to that point aside, how do you feel about the Christmas celebrations inside the warm houses? Does the celebration, to which you have no part communicate the gospel to you? What would you want the shoppers, the revelers, your fellow man to do? It's complicated you might think. Think harder. You are alone. You are wearing seven layers of discarded clothing. Your stench, your rashes, your finger-less gloves, your frostbit fingers. The rumble in your belly, a dumpster-dive dinner. Sheets of cardboard, rats for bed-mates, one more eternally cold night punctuated by car horns and thick exhaust. Now. What would you want someone to do for you? What if it was your child? What would you do?

Imagine you make bricks 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Your family at your side, your pregnant wife, your four year old daughter, your 8 year old son. It is 110 degrees, double that at the face of the kiln. You eat if you make your quota of 1400 bricks. It takes every one of you, all 18 hours to make that quota. Your little girl, palms calloused, fingerprints gone. Your son, another year without school. Your beautiful wife, bonded with you for a few dollars debt. Your master beats you when the bricks aren't up to his standard, a standard that is an ever moving target. He beats you when you ask to see your debt ledger, when he finally does your debt grows. You are trapped. What would you want someone to do?

The gospel of empathy is radical in every respect, except for the way we are living it. To continue to live the way we want when so many barely are able to survive is more than just an affront to the gospel...it is the opposite of the gospel and the sinister essence of the worst possible hypocrisy. I would know. I've lived this way for most of my life. To claim we are Christians and continue to ignore the great social injustices of our day, to continue to enjoy cheap goods at the expense of slave labor, to live in extravagance when so many have nothing....It proves we have never felt what God feels for His creation. The empathy that radiates from the cross, that disintegrates all isolation, that incinerates all despair, helps to heal all hurts and recklessly lives to break every bondage. 

I could post a hundred images of starving or exploited children. Charts and statistics until the numbers blur and no longer bleed or sweat or cry...but we're big people, with consciences, and intellects, similar hopes and fears. We know how this is supposed to work. And if we call ourselves Christians, well then we know what we have to do. What we should want to do, what sacrificial, joy-filled love compels us to do.

Do right to me baby.

P.S. Since that fateful Easter weekend, and including the  very long, wet, shut-in, cabin fevered weekend of TS Sandy, my beautiful co-workers have washed tons of dishes!

The 27 Club.

I remember where I was when Kurt Cobain died. I remember feeling my generation had lost an important voice. I remember the knot in my stomach for days. I remember going on the air that night (I was DJing then) and announcing his apparent suicide. I remember trying to conjure something authentic, hopeful, some tangible words of comfort. I loved Nirvana. Prayed for Kurt all the time. But that was years ago and time makes you forget. And then today, Amy Winehouse's death was announced and the memories came back around.

The 27 club. Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain and now Amy Winehouse. The Doors frontman predicted it..."it's better to burn out then to fade away."

Today, with the news of a mass shooting in Norway, a car bombing there, trains derailing-32 dead in China, and Miss Winehouse's death heavy on my heart, I walked around New Orleans. I sulked through the D-Day exhibit, saw the worst of what men can do to each other, the death machines, the violated children, the death count unimaginable. I heard the tales of the heroes, the good guys, the liberators...I am thankful for their sacrifice but war stains everyone, scars nations for generations.

Child victim of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The war ended, but the wounds remain.

Later I saw the homeless as they slept under the interstate, as they lined up for a free meal, as they sat, staring blankly into the gray fog of despair and I teared up. I always tear up. I mean I can be in the middle of a crowd and see suffering and I'm choking back the tears.

Then I hear this man yelling at his son, his 4 year old son. And he says. Shut the hell up motherf*&%er" and I'm reeling from the blow of it, from the hate everywhere.

92 people dead in Norway. Some as young as 16, dead! And they are saying this sociopath was a "christian".

Anders Behring Breivik, the 32 year old shooter. The police identified him as a right-wing fundamentalist Christian.

While other "christians" are saying "good riddance" to Amy Winehouse, saying she got what she deserved, just like there were those that reveled in Cobain's suicide, and the rock stars before him. Calling it the judgement of God.

Well I'm tired. I'm tired of apologizing for Christians. I'm tired of people saying they are Christians and using the cross as a blunt instrument. I am tired of the violence. I am tired of the hate. I am tired of the children taking the brunt of our wrath, growing up in a vacuum of lovelessness and then putting guns in their mouths, needles in their arms. I am tired.

I love Jesus. He is wonderful beyond wonder. I believe with all my heart He is the way to the Father. But it's getting harder to be comfortable with being called a Christian.

C'mon church! Love! Love like He loved you. Love without fear, without reservation, with reckless abandon. Take the 163 million orphans and the millions of widows into your hearts and homes. Rescue the oppressed, the 27 million enslaved. Divest yourself from the treasures of this world, invest yourself into the souls of men. It's been 2000 years since Christ showed us how, showed us what love looks like. Since He traded the glory of heaven's throne for a bloody cross, the royal diadem for a crown of thorns, the company of worshiping angels for the taunts and curses of hell's wretched host.

Sorry for the sermon, like I said, I'm tired.

Jesus Christ 2012: The Messiah For President.

So would Jesus run? Would you vote for Him? Would He win? Which party would endorse Him?




Jesus was too poor to be a Democrat and dressed too well to be a Republican...but seriously. Jesus, the King of Kings, wore a crown of thorns and a robe of whip marks and torn flesh for his royal vestiges, and gave His coronation speech on the cross. He never made one political move, never picked a fight with nobody. He got a little pissy that one time in the temple, but that was just cause some fellows were trying to profit off the good news of redemption. (Let him who has ears to ear....)

Christ/Huckabee ticket?

Jesus lived in a time where His country was under foreign occupation. There was a eugenic campaign at the time of His birth which was enacted for the sole purpose to eradicate Him. Such was the fear that He would lead a revolt. And such was the anticipation. His countrymen longed for freedom, for national sovereignty, for the promised age of peace. But he shrugged off their requests. When they chaffed at paying taxes He told them to give Caesar what was Caesars. When His closest friend drew his sword in the garden of Gethsemane, the Nazarene carpenter told him to put it away. This was the chosen one, this was the man from the bloodline of Kings. The political climate was ripe. It was His for the taking and yet...

He never did it. He never chose the path of earthly power and position. Nor did He ever speak a harsh word against the Roman government. His most potent remarks were always reserved for the religious leaders who exploited the desperation of the people. In fact Jesus presumed that it was the sole responsibility of the religious institution to take care of the poor, not the government. Jesus showed the power of submission, the beauty of peace. He knew all of heaven had His back and so he gladly turned the other cheek.



The day will come, the prophet Isaiah says, when the Government will rest on His shoulders, when he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. When the increase of his government and peace will have no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.

But until that day, these are the politics of Jesus: whoever wants to lead must serve, who ever wants to be first must be the servant of all. For He Himself did not come to be served, but to serve, and lay down His life for all. Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Love justice, love mercy, walk in humility with Him. Take care of the widows and orphans in their distress. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, do unto others as you'd have done to you.

Would Jesus run for president? Naw. Would He win? The lobby of the sick and the poor and the voiceless rarely have the strength or the cash or the platform to grease the palms of democracy.

Would I vote for Him? Of course. I love Him. He's the best man I ever knew.

Bin Laden Is Dead.

Bin Laden is dead. The people are salivating. The twitter chatter like a jr. high sleepover, giddy and godless. The facebook statuses like a million little epitaphs, cruel, and callous and cavalier. So why do I feel sad? Is it un-American to say I don't feel better. I don't feel a sense of closure. And the dish of revenge, served cold, tastes alot like bloodlust.


Is this the face of evil? Is the world safer? Is the night through, has day dawned eternal? Does my Savior rejoice tonight? Surely the man was a blunt instrument of darkness...but when we rejoice in death...does life lose a little of it's sanctity? Fascist Islam has a new martyr, our president and his people a new trophy, and hell, hell has another soul on which to dine.

Mr. Bin Laden. You were a real son of bitch. But I never prayed for you. I never once asked God to convict you of your rebellion, your brutalities. I never once asked him for your salvation. Murderers have often found redemption in the heart of God. Moses murdered. King David. The apostle Paul. They killed for some of the same reasons you did. And yet God forgave them. Used them to deliver a nation, rule a chosen people, build the church as we know it.

Am I glad that Bin Laden cannot kill again? Sure. If the war on terror is over, if the great utopia begins, heaven on earth, swords into plowshares, lions laying with lambs and such. Yeah, that'd be great. But the storm is coming. The great storm to end all storms. Pray for your enemies now, while there be few, for the day will come, and it may be soon, when your enemies will outnumber the stars.

Forgive me Father for not loving my enemies. When You set the example, when I was still Your enemy. You laid down Your life for me on the cross, because You are love.

Confession.

Among dusty papers, from a long ago life, I found this confession...

I thought that mine was a blind faith

But it was just the shadow of doubt

That comes like a comforting darkness

And wraps the heart in a shroud

I thought that mine was a pure love
But I was only hedging my bets
Because I knew that what I would give You
Was always less than what I would get

I thought that mine was a strong truth
But I'm weary from the burden of proof
And the doubt in my mind, is of the worst kind
Because my hands have been inside of Your wounds

Oh my faith is, so very faithless
And my love, my love is just pure hate
And all my truth, is dark lies
But in my weakness You're strength
And in my smallness You're great
And in my lowness You're high
And for this new life You died

The Little God Inside Our Heads.

On a church sign near where I work it reads " Like Coca Cola, God is the real thing."




Last night my friend Whitney stopped by. We stood staring at the black curtain of the new October sky and the thousands if not tens of thousands of stars that were visible in our little corridor of space. We stood in silent awe, amateur astronomers, drinking in the majesty of creation.

Whitney spoke first. She asked if I'd seen the man and the woman walking down Hattiesburg's main drag carrying the large wooden crosses. I said I had. She asked in a somewhat leading tone what I thought. As is my particular idiosyncrasy, I asked If she really wanted the truth. Which my friends know means I have a strong opinion on a subject. She smiled. I smiled. And then she answered her own question, insightfully so. She said it kinda makes the cross and the sacrifice of Jesus small.

Yeah. Real small. Soft drink slogan kinda small.

Another friend, Laurel, has a quote from an As Cities Burn song on her Facebook page. "I think our God isn't God if He fits inside our heads" it says.

I tend to agree.

We live in a world desperate for something real. Something more than a slogan, more than a soft drink. Something, or someone that can save us from ourselves, from this path of destruction we're blindly ambling down. The church has that something, knows that someone, and yet we reduce it and Him, to sloganeering, second rate plagiarism, and a bland, watered down hipsterism that the world sees right through it. What if instead of wooden crosses we carried our cross like scripture dictates of Christ's disciples, by dying to our old nature and living the new life by the Spirit? What if instead of the symbols of things we lived those things? Isn't this why we have been warned against idols? Because the symbol of a thing becomes that thing, at least in as much as it becomes small, so easy to fit inside our heads.

What if instead of offering the world a Coke-sized God (and a smile) we offered them the One who created the universe, holds it in His hands, who knows every star by name. What if instead of a soft drink slogan we gave them the Living Water from which no one ever thirsts again.

So for Whitney who said, "I don't even like Coke." Let's buy us a bucketful of those letters and do some vigilante church sign editing....

And for Laurel who is the only person I've ever met who loves the sky as much as me, and for anyone else out there, may God grow larger to you every day and yet ever closer still.

I Am A Little Braver

We live in the fear of being found out. Of being unmasked, of having our secrets spilled, our truth held to the light and exposed for the thin, counterfeit it is. It could be the things we do in secret, the things we hate, but feel compelled to do. It might be the shame of failures that haunt us, that visit us at the most inopportune times and steal our joy. It might be the self-loathing that is borne of years of insecurity or the gray fog of depression that never lifts (and the sunny smile we wear to hide it)......it might be all of these and more.....

And if this were our lot in life.....to struggle alone against the onslaught of so much sorrow....well then I'd of pulled the trigger a long time ago....I'd of run my Jeep into a concrete embankment.....

But as Isaiah prophesied "He was lifted up even though many who were appalled at him. His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and His form marred beyond human likeness.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Men hid their faces from Him, He was despised.

But yet still He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and yet His Father laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth."

Sorrow, shame, self-hate, addiction, depression, disappointment, and despair were nailed into the cross....through the tender wrists of Jesus. And because of that I adore Him.

And because He never said a word, because though He was innocent he did not speak up and cast the blame where it was due...on me.....He is my hero.

And because He ripped the mask off of hell and death and the grave. Because he exposed the philosophies of men for the counterfeits they were. Because He allowed Himself to be stripped bare.....I am a little braver. I can face the day.