In this haze we live lives of mediocridy. We dream of happy kids and loving our wife. Family picnics by the lake and dream boat cruises to the bahamas. We explore the ends of the earth seeking for satisfaction. From others we look to gain attention in the hopes that that may fill us. In hopes that we may reach that platorm that says I have arrived, I am complete, I have achived success. We desire this cultural version of success. Everyone wants to be different… yet everyone seems to want the same things. Cars, money, happiness, freedom. We want to rise up on wings like eagles, yet we cant seem to get our legs underneath us long enough to take a running leap. We want to make a difference in the world, a change in ourselves to help the people around us, to make the world better. Yet we settle for what we can attain. We live with that which we can hardly bear. We cope with the pain until it becomes numb… not until its gone, just until we reach a place where we dont feel it anymore. We want to be clean, and we sweep our dirt under the rug. We live in covers. We live in Haze. There is something thats pulling us down, a force thats eating us alive. A force that says were only human, we can only go so far. A force that says settle for this because its just a little easier. A force that screams its fun so why not give it a shot. A force that is driving you into the ground until your dreams are gone and you seem to look like the everyone else you never wanted to be.
There is a life calling to your heart, calling to your dreams, something beyond you, beyond what you thought you could be. More fullfilling, more satisfying then anything you could ever achive… The best part is you dont earn it. You follow it, everday, without ceasing. The plans may change, the outcomes are never what you thought, and yet the haze is clear. A life that brings you to a place where you cant seem to see whats a foot in front of you yet it all seems so clear. The haze is gone.
I dont about you guys but unconditional love is a hard thing to acknowledge for me… Nevermind actually accepting it and living it out. Usually when I meet people that seem arrogant, or petty, or impatient, I want to kick them in the face. The kicker for me is usually people that tend to smell. Man sometimes it really pisses me off. I dont why but people that smell just push the PISS ME OFF BUTTON!! ALOT!! Then I sit there and think about how petty, arroagant and impatient im being and realize, man, Im one of them… One of those people I want to kick in the face.
Anywho today I was unarguably one of those smelly people. We had alot of people over for dinner and I was tired and stinking because I had just gotten back from a jog. I was trying to keep my distance, I didnt want anyone smelling me… Funny enough sometimes I like the smell of my own stench, of course no one elses only mine. Because your bad smell sucks and clearly mine doesnt. So im trying to do somethings for my mom whos getting dinner ready and trying to keep away from people without trying to seem like a social outcast. I reach the kitchen. Thinking, alright now I can sneak around the back book it up the stairs and hop in the shower. I put some cups on the counter, look up and I see Laura standing there in front of me. Arms wide open… I look at her and say ” I stink” Shes says “Psh I dont care” and embraces me and all of my stench as if there were no other option.
This is the love of God. The love that calls us to love our Neighbor as ourself… To love their stench as I oddly enough love my own. To love their arrogance, their shallow mindedness, their annoying habbits… because you are that same person. I promise your the person you want to kick in the face. Your the person that smells, your the person that is inadequate, your the person that falls short. That cant live up. The life sucking, needy, whinning, helpless, waek, lowly, clingy, scared, specimen of human like everyone else. You are that person… But there is this love of Christ so desperatly calling to your heart. There is a God screaming to smell your stench. With open arms and all hes saying is “Psh I dont care, Just come to me, be with me, and I will show you more then you can imagine.” I’ll show you what love is, what it means to be full, to be content, and happy. To be satisfied. The love that leaves no other option.
“I found the place caught in open arms, where loves embrace mends a broken heart, here I will stay for all my days… Draw me closer, Draw me closer, Drwaing closer…” *Hillsong United*
Last year about this time somewhere in the deep vault of archived blogs on myspace I wrote a blog about the song “Christmas Shoes” and how it almost made me almost crash my car because I was crying so hard after listening to it. Thus is the reason I titled this blog “Part 2″. Well Tuesday night my brother sister and I were sitting on the couch talking… and it came on again. In mid sentence I of course began to get all choked up and tears began to stream and as always no matter how man times I hear the song I cried. Cried like a child, whos candy just got stolen. Then of course my brother and sister begin starring at me… Because me crying happens, well, not so often. On top of that my sister and borther begen picking on me and by the end of the song we were all laughing hysterically to the point of tears so my tears of sorrow were no longer of the song but tears of the joys that my siblings bring to me.
All that to say I wonder why I only cry during that song… Christmas shoes doesnt only happen on Christmas. Christmas is not the only time the spirit of Christ exsists. Thats an entirely different story but I wonder why the sheer thought of stories about little kids with sick mothers with little hope and no money doesnt make us weep all the time. Maybe our hearts are too hard, maybe its the fact that Ive grown up in such a culture that only celebrates God one month per year, maybe its because we dont think about it… ever. Maybe music just touches my soul in a certain way that elicits intense emotions. I was reading a bio of the band “Newsong” who produced and recorded “Christmas Shoes” I found out oddly enough that the song was a bonus track to pretty much take up space on a Christmas record they were doing, and they never thought the song would become so popular and reach so many people. Maybe the story of hope is so much more powerful then we could have ever imagined. That there is a life better then the life we all live, that we dont have to live a life of fake love, half hugs, and hard hearts that dont want to give because we fear what my happen when we cant rely on ourselves to acomplish things.
Like I said… random ponderings of my heart… to be continued later.
There is something about the massive steel and concrete infrastructure, graffiti and trash littered streets and the steam pouring out from the sewers on the cold winter mornings in the commercial capitol of the world that make me feel obligated to still refer to the city of New York as my home. Even though I havent lived there in nearly 13 years whenever I go back no matter how disgusted with its cold dirty streets, the massive amounts of city traffic, akward smells that flow from who knows where, and a hard street city personality (Yes cities have personalities) its hard for me to not love the unique oneness that comes with being apart of that something so much bigger then yourself.
This morning as we drove home, about an hour into our trip we got into the city. The sun just creeping up over the East and Hudson Rivers that flow into the Atlantic beaming its rays on top of the city. Looking out across the skyline… I dont care how man made all those buildings are there is something so beautiful, so Godly, so spiritual, so humbling, to see the creation of God… The sun, rising up over all that man has built. Every morning God paints this beautiful picture of soverignty for us. That we so often overlook. We forget how much God is over us, how he rises up over his people, and all their hands have done. With effortless ease the sun rises and towers over the tallest buildings in the world… it was so evident this morning. So reassuing, so firm, so concrete.
Spirituality is so much more than prayer, than living a Godly life. Its found in Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen is not made out of the things that are visible.” Spirituality is as concrete as all the sky scapers and statues man can build. It is everything. It is everywhere. It is limitless. It is so much more then we can even imagine. ” What is seen is not made out of the things that are visible” Does that not amaze you? The answer is God. Its always God. He is the rock, the only concrete structure to ever exsist.
Coming to a place where the things that the eyes of man marvel at like the size and power of a metropolis like New York, and realizing that in the eyes of God it is a spec. Merely a freckle on the face on the universe brings you to the understanding that spirituality is so much more stable, firm, so much more concrete then anything man could ever think up.
The human eye is not limited by distance. Sight is determined by the number of photons hitting the retina. I always find it funny how you can look up and see millions of lightyears into the sky and see the twinkling of all the stars… and yet when you head inside after a wonderful night on the porch star whatching, you always manage to stub you toe on the bedpost of your dark room.
I was having a conversation the other night with a wonderful freind of mine who essentially called me out on my lack of social photons hitting her retina. Its so much eaiser to be a shallow person, to not make the effort to go deep, to not be honest about things going on in ones life. Its a cultural habbit. Its a cultural habbit to live in a dark room. To lock the door, draw the curtains, turn the lights off and blind yourself from all the photons trying to get in. Its cultural habbit for everyone to be doing “Good” except everyone is living inside their dark hole of a life and no one really knows what “Good” is. Its just “Good”. Whats “Good” about it? We never want to let someone see lightyears into our souls, and it just seems that we constantly keep running into that dark bed post. Which really hurts after the first time. Obviously because lightyears in… were probably not doing good. Our world is probably a boiling explosion of hell like the sun… Isnt it Ironic that the sun is the hottest, brightest, biggest, object in our universe? I could only imagine that if everyone stopped being good and started being honest… Yeah, maybe the ball of hell would come out, and maybe it would be ugly, but if we kept looking deep, the hell in ones life might not be the main focus. Because beyond the hell there is glory, and truth, and joy. Glory and truth and Joy thats isnt “Good”, Its uncontainable. It out shines any hell, any sun, and everything. It is the truth of our lives with in God.
