A rare treasure, dazzling in delicate beauty

I started to read out loud Sarah Young's entry this morning in "Jesus Calling," but was truly overcome with tears. As much as I paused to choke back the tears, they came anyway and I handed the book over to my husband to read to our two children and me. I tripped on the words "those who yearn for me." They got stuck in my throat. And while I am somewhat embarrassed to tell you why, I think I must this morning because it has so profoundly impacted me today. 

Before getting out of bed this morning, I watched and re-watched a struggling, desperate woman who hugged her friend in that way that says more than I missed you, more than I'm glad your here. She hugged her long, and hard and I imagined that in that moment something about the desperation of life was exchanged... because one of them did not want to let go ... And then in front of a club full of people, the desperate one took the microphone and began singing quietly at first, "Yes, Jesus loves me... Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes Jesus loves me - the bible" - and she more loudly repeated while looking deep in her friend's eyes, "the bible ... the bible tells me so." And in that club somewhere in Hollywood, the crowd went crazy. And I believe that woman was hanging on, you see, hanging on with all that she had to the only truth that remained in her life - when all was said and done, when all the fame came and went, when all the drugs stole everything from her, she rose to her feet and sang the only thing that brought any sense of stability in her life, "Yes, Jesus loves me." Confidently, hopefully, soul-strongfully ... fearfully.

And that less-than-two minute, unfinished song was all as she left that stage and humbly waved off the cheering crowd because her voice was not what it once was. And she knew it. And she knew the crowd knew it. But she had to sing it that night, the night before she died. The very next day we would learn of her untimely death and the world would stop and think of all that she had been through. And our hearts would break because it seemed the demons won.

Sarah's words this morning, "It is a rare treasure, dazzling in delicate beauty yet strong enough to withstand all onslaughts. Wear My Peace with regal dignity. It will keep your heart and mind close to Mine." And I thought of the regal dignity of Whitney the night before her death singing that childlike song, "Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible - the bible - tells me so." And I thought of my own times of quiet desperation when all I could do was repeat that thought, hoping that what the bible said was true - and putting everything I had on that one single belief. And while others may describe Whitney's last public performance differently, I saw desperation - and I get desperation. I know what it feels like to be that desperate, where the only thing you have is, "Yes, Jesus love me." And clinging to friends that care.

"A rare treasure, dazzling in delicate beauty yet strong enough to withstand all onslaughts." 

Lord, may it be.

Help, my brain won't shut off!

So when my mind is not otherwise occupied with the demands of my tenant who rents just a wee bit of space up there (jobs are like that, aren't they? Our bosses rent our brain space for their purposes?)

When I am not responding to our rental agreement, my mind this week has almost immediately gone back time and again to a spiritual wrestling about truth. And I consider myself a seeker of truth. I can never shake this gut feeling that there is something more, something deeper, some innate drive, an inner impulse.

I have to be honest, I have not found this truth in the church - or at least not that often. While I regularly attend, I often leave feeling as if I had a spiritual snack that doesn't always even taste good. The promise is always there, but for me, very rarely delivers. The hunger for truth remains - and I keep seeking.

This week I began reading a 21st century biography about Jesus - He was a person after all. No one denies that the guy lived and walked on earth. The author said this: Jesus was a revolutionary who tranformed the entire Judiac religious scheme into an affair of the heart and an adventure of the spirit. He did not exactly repudiate the law. What he did was to extract its moral code and ignore the rest. Instead of the law he spoke of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom or Heaven. A faithful soul was not one who obeyed the law but one who, by transforming his spirit, "entered" the Kingdom.

And then I thought, why do we get this so wrong?
Maybe it's just me who gets it wrong...

And then I came across an article - because my brain won't shut off - Quitting Christianity to Follow Jesus. The same kinds of revolutionary thoughts were there: "Instead of living out the value of a Christian life, we cling to theology and short catchphrases on what it means to be a Christian ... We wear our Christian t-shirts, listen to Christian music and attend Christian concerts, where we have a true experience of emotion, and thus we buy a lot of Christian-themed shirts.  We go on retreats and return on spiritual highs. We buy devotional books that do nothing but gather dust.  We support Republican candidates because they’re fighting to save the family and to protect us from the evil that is homosexuality.  We abhor everything that doesn’t fit in our “Christian box” because of course it’s evil, and of course we’re supposed to flee from it, never mind that the actual person is a person.  When hard times come along, we cite verses that people normally cite and we say that God’s testing us, or we’re just going through a trial and we remind ourselves that if we just have faith, we’ll get through it all.
"


But get this. The author then writes: "Seems like we’re putting it all in a perspective that just makes us feel good.  It just makes us feel better about things.  Gives us warm and fuzzy feelings without breaking a sweat and putting on a fur coat.  We orient everything so that we don't have to change our way of life.  And we pursue what we want because it's our God-given desires.  We distance ourselves from the reality of Christ's call because that's comfortable."


Wow! I did not learn THAT in Sunday School!

"I quit Christianity," the author wrote.  "I'm no longer a Christian.  I just wanna follow Jesus.  I don't want the demands and the politics of being a Christian anymore.  I don't wanna follow the church.  The church could be great, but it's so uninspiring.  There's no longer any room for imagination, but there's plenty of room for theology and doctrine.  There's not enough space to be limitless and to believe in a limitless God, but there's plenty of time to chain God down into a series of statements and responsive readings.  

The reason that we chain God down and we no longer imagine the possibilities, is because we like to think that we can control God and we can control what the statements of Jesus say.  We can control the message of dilution.  But when we encounter something real, something mystical that defies theological and doctrinal beliefs, we realize that we can't answer things with our prepared cliche statements.  It's not enough."

Gandhi says:  "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

It's true isn't it? We don't look, feel, speak, smell like Jesus.

But I want to.

Honestly, so much of Christianity today seems foreign to me - at least this 21st century Christianity. I don't understand the language that Christians seem to use with fluency but feels isolating. I don't understand the judgment and condemnation. I don't understand the "bootstraps" we are suppose to use to help ourselves not one another. 

As I read about Jesus, I don't think he would either.

Is this part of that inner impulse, that drive for something more?


Seriously?? The tenant is calling with yet another demand. What time is it anyway??