TRASH
There is this idea that we become what we expose ourselves to.

This takes time.

What complicates the best of intentions is that we have all this trash that keeps coming up. It's like maintaining a bunch of old hefty bags full of reeking, putrid refuse in our heart. Have you ever drove past a waste dump?

So God seems to be saying, "look, bring it all to me and I will clean out your trash". But where and when? Many times I find myself wanting Heaven right now!! I want everything to 'feel' right. I want all my trash and the result of it, the grime, the smell, the goo, the feel, all gone. Forever. But some things I put there by choice.

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I filled my life with a bunch of trash. It takes time to really be changed by all the bad stuff that you do. That is why it is so tricky. One day you realize that you don't like yourself anymore. That the person you have become is utterly destructive and horrible. But by then its too late. Things seen have been branded on the brain. Things done have been recorded in your heart. The 'bills' start rolling in. Now you have to pay. And 'you' has changed.

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When I was four, something happened to set this whole thing in motion. A little girl, innocently, pointed out that I had no dad. This was true, in a sense, because she had never seen my dad who lived in another town. My mom was single and it was just me and her. My dad came around once in a while and took me for birthdays and holidays, but was generally inconsistent all of my life.

My response to her pointing out that I obviously did not have a dad was to argue, "Yes I do!" But at that moment in time, it dawned on me that my life was completely different than anyone that I knew. Everyone else had two parents who lived with them. All my friends had dads. Then I realized that what she was saying had some truth to it. I believe this was my first really deeply painful public moment. Shame. Crying, inconsolably my mother and my friends mom asked me what what going on and we told them. 'Of course you have a dad' was the reply. And then they went on to try to explain to two children what the situation was.

I was ashamed of who I was. Wanted to make an impact, wanted to be somebody else. Cowboy suit. But I'm ready to take the Cowboy suit off and exchange it...  ¶ 3:26 AM 0 comments

  PITY

So let me share with you a situation. I am sitting in what feels like a demon stronghold, like Frank Peretti's "This present darkness". It feels 'dark' and my soul feels suppressed by some unseen things. I am at work. It's a place that highly values spiritual things, but not in the way that Christians do. They admit that religion is very important and the spirit is undeniably a part of all of us and should, no, must be taken care of. The way that we interact with the cosmos and the psyche; the dance of the body-soul-rhythm; the tearing down of the patriarchal father etc..


In this place there sits to my back a woman. She is aged (gracefully). She is having surgery at the end of the week. She cries, everyday, but I can't understand why. Surgery is not a big deal to me, even though I am thick regarding these sorts of situations, I know that my response would be 'If God wants me home, so be it. If He needs me to live on for a while, oh well, I'll make the best of it.'

The utter hopelessness coming from her is really scary to me. She has no family, only a 'boyfriend'. When we met for the first time, she bowed to me, hands together, in tradition of an eastern religion that escapes me (maybe taoism). She is softspoken, yet I have heard the 'f-word' come out of her (I was standing behind the door as she walked into the room, she apologized). Her eyes show a life of being beaten down, oppressed, abused.

I would tell her so many things yet, somehow, I wonder what good it would do. If I say that I will pray for her, that means nothing particularly 'Christian' anymore. If I tell her that my God knows her and will be watching over her, I wonder if that may be a lie. So, for now, I hug her and tell her that it is good to cry because it releases chemicals that reduce stress. I tell her that I go to church, and that I believe in helping the oppressed.

I wonder if she feels the compassion I have for her, or is it pity? Because I think, maybe, if it was compassion I would offer her rest. If compassion, a Savior. Compassion, Jesus. See, Pity is simply feeling sorry for someone. Compassion is doing something about it.  ¶ 3:18 AM 0 comments