Hurting people hurt.
This is absolutely true.
Everything is complicated.
This is absolutely true.
There is nothing new under the Sun.
This is absolutely true.
Sparing the horrible, seemingly endless plethora of details of that which seemed to put me on a metaphorical emotional and spiritual one-way flight yesterday evening from Hawaii to Antarctica…this morning, as I try to get my sense of self and all that is good, right and spiritually true in this world and all else aligned… I find myself once again like a metaphorical cat falling from a great height spinning and rotating in all types of internal emotional and spiritual and intellectual gyrations hoping to land on all fours… in the metaphorical state of Hawaii, once again.
I am certainly no vapid Christianese-speaking-soul who spouts off sunny-side-only biblical texts, rather I tend to avoid some forms of religious mantra and jargon like the plague.
Scripted responses such as, “God is good” followed by the expected collective saying, “all the time” are not in my personal comfort zone…so when I affirm the truth of God’s goodness and unchangeability, it needs its genesis from some other space…
At the moment, I’m observing the space may be the frigid, difficult, painful place of the Antarctica of our souls…from which such a statement is birthed, again and again…as we struggle to swim the deep waters back to the shore of spiritual Hawaii.
I’m even thinking that though we find ourselves on this seemingly one-way trip into the metaphoric frigid Antarctic realms with no suitcase packed…it is on our way back up that I find myself unpacking my deep spiritual suitcase packed with things needed…
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As I grapple with all that I found myself experiencing within the last 18 hours, I want to tell three stories and then just put in Scripture I found helpful in whatever process I am battling this morning.
The featured artwork in this piece was done by my youngest son around 2003. Both of my sons always had access to art supplies and both were and are quite creative.
My youngest child illustrated and used their 9-year-old calligraphy font to depict Psalm 23. The floating head? That would be Jesus, the Good Shepherd, in the green pasture...the green pasture is that which is of God and is life-giving.
I treasure this artwork and it hangs in my bathroom over the door. I recall he wanted to give a copy to our Pastor at that time and I remember scanning and printing it, and a response along the lines of “this is so dear…”
Conjoined with this memory from around that time are also recollections of this child jumping up and down and dancing at the altar along with a number of other people one Sunday during a worship and prayer service.
Laying aside all possible issues, questions or any positive or negative investment, belief, unbelief, rationalization or otherwise into this experience, this image of my child in my mind’s eye remains very dear.
It was also around this time that upcoming opportunity was set forth for any person in the congregation wishing to be baptized by immersion. Both of my sons were immersed by this Pastor and an elder, along with others, at another local sanctuary which we went to, that had a bapistry.
Again laying aside all potential discussion, theological or other arguments about the meaning of this act or how it is to be done or expressed, the images of each of my sons having private words with the Pastor as I watched from a distance, before they were baptized into Christ’s death and Resurrection, will always remain burned into my mind’s eye.
So much I don’t understand and so much space for my own self to spiral downward into layers upon layers of self-doubt, and self-rejection and personal failures and a sense of desperation about the confluence and multiplicity of the predicaments I find myself forced to participate in or to withdraw from…
As I attempt the long swim upward from this space of a well-formed personal pit this morning, once again I asked myself, “are my perceptions of the entirety of all of this basically flawed yet basically accurate?”
I don’t know. I just keep saying and kept saying…“I don’t know…I don’t know…” while both listening and speaking…
For better or worse, right or wrong, I think I can at least see the shore of Hawaii again and once again feel the necessity to stand my ground, to some degree and for my own sake, on this horribly horrible painful beach…
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To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. (ESV)
139 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
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Bless the Lord, O My Soul
Of David. (ESV)
103 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits,
3 who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The Lord works righteousness
and justice for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
8 The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
13 As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
14 For he knows our frame;[a]
he remembers that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
18 to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his word,
obeying the voice of his word!
21 Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
his ministers, who do his will!
22 Bless the Lord, all his works,
in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
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