to an unknown god

To those that may be offended; I am sorry. But its how I feel. Whatever sort of "ism" that I just read in the 800 some pages of my theology textbook that says that God must be unknowable... I don't believe it, but I feel like it.

In the movie Luther, Johann von Staupitz tells Luther that "we preach best what we need to hear most." Does that mean that we have a hard time believing what we are preaching? Regardless, tonight I preach to myself........

For a long time one of my favorite songs is Yearn by Shane & Shane (which is am listening to as I write). I love every lyric:

Holy design... this place in time. That I might seek and find my God. Lord I want to yearn for you. I want to burn with passion over you and only you. Lord I want to yearn for you. I want to burn with passion over you and only you. Lord I want to yearn. Your joy is mine. Yet, why am I fine? With all of my singing and bringing grain in light of Him. Lord I want to yearn for you. I want to burn with passion over you and only you. Lord I want to yearn for you. I want to burn with passion over you and only you. Oh you give life and breathe. In You we live and move. That's why I sing... Lord I want to yearn for you. I want to burn with passion over you and only you. Lord I want to yearn for you. I want to burn with passion over you and only you.

I sang it because I meant it. I want to yearn. I want to burn with passion. And, yet, it always seems to stop there for me... my favorite part is the bridge but I never feel it. I didn't feel like He gave me life and breathe. I didn't feel like He makes me life and move. That wasn't why I sang. I felt like He didn't uphold His end of the bargain. I felt like Jesus didn't really tell the truth that "blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Don't burn me at the stake until you read the rest :)

So I looked up the Scripture passage that those words come from (Acts 17:25-28). It says this:
"24"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

Its verse 27 that is smashing me to bits tonight. My heart and emotions precisely. And its the word "perhaps" that is precisely doing the smashing. God did all that (creation & redemption) not because He needs me but He did it so I would seek Him. But not just seek Him. "And perhaps reach out for Him and find Him".

I think that's it. I have been seeking. And those who seek will find. But I now see the thing in between seeking and finding. Reaching out to Him.

Parenthetically, these last few days have been such a struggle for me. Working to break the bad habit of having a bad attitude has been far more spiritually and emotionally exhausting that I would ever have expected. Ugh, its like a little pocket of poison that sits inside me that just infects everything.

I confess. I have been bitter. I have been negative. I have let myself and God down. I have let Staci down. But I want to yearn... and not just yearn, but burn. I have just been bringing grain when its the love of my heart that He has asked for. Not Bible studies or Christian music. Not seminary. But my heart.

I am finding it is much harder to truly give my heart away than anything. For the first time in my life I am being vulnerable. I am giving my heart away to those who have earned it. I am giving the love of my heart away to God. Its His. And in so doing, I have found it easier to give my heart to Staci as well.

Its so scary. I feel lost and found at the same time. Like I can see but what I am seeing is misleading. And what I hear isn't really the truth.

But I reach out. Because thats what my King asks me to do. Seek Him and reach out... then find Him. But the verse says "though He is not far from each of us."

Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path...

So I guess my heart still beats... even as I am feeling it being wrenched from my body and given to the great Healer. But I will trust is His unfailing love. Oh You give life and breathe...

The Dream

So occasionally I get into this mental groove where I dream alot, which occur both during the day and/or night. I recently had one of these day dreams that I wanted to write down. Now to set the stage for this dream, I want to adust your expectations just a bit before we continue... I do not dream stories and I do not dream long. My dreams consist of very short-lived bursts of some strange conglomeration of thought and emotion that wake me up at night or make me half-asleep during the day. So there ya go... I am a crazy.

One other disclaimer: This discription of my dreams will be completely inadequate... (dreams seem to have a language of their own... its like trying to use words to describe a taste)

Oh yeah... a second disclaimer: This dream is actually a two-part dream of which I will tell of the second part first... (The first part was a day good dream and the second is a night bad dream)

And now to set the stage........ So I had the privilage of having a long drive on Monday which are one of my favorite things in the world. For some reason or another, I was pondering about how I might respond if I were told that I only had a few months to live due to some terminal illness. I want to marry my love. I want to have a family. I want to make a difference in peoples' lives. But that is not the focus of this dream. By dream actually began because I thought to myself, "Gee, if it wasn't for the hopes to have a wife and children someday, I really wouldn't mind receiving such news from the doctor." The reason is this: I have a hard time holding high expectations for this world in which we live. And with that thought I was launched into a world that I hope to be a part of...

I began to (day)dream of a world where things are right. A world that was filled with good things. I dreamed of taking a walk through this world. As I walked through this world, this strange feeling came over me. Its the feeling that I always got when I could get into my sun-warmed car after church on a brisk autumn day. Its the feeling that overwhelms any stubborn heart as they gaze upon a warm sunrise or a sunset. Its the feeling that follows after recognizing my favorite smell. Its the feeling that comes when watching something heroic. Or miraculous. Or truly amazing. Perhaps its even the feeling that comes when watching the broad muscles ripple in the shoulder of a galloping black stallion. And yet, perhaps, it may even be the feeling after falling off your bike and skinning your knee. This feeling is so hard describe because it doesn't just involve one thought or emotion.

So I continued to walk through this land where love was so real it laid on the ground like dew on the grass. I could pick it up and it would sit in my palms for a minute and then cascade off my hand, down my wrist and back where it belonged on the ground. I could smell mercy, compassion and relief blowing in the wind. And not just a faint smell, but a smell so bold that it was unmistakable, yet soft and subtle like the smell of my childhood home. The air was loaded with the smell of mercy and the humidity carried this love. But it wasn't my senses that made me want to stay.

The most amazing part of this place was something that saturated my whole being. It was more confident and lasting than a thought, more stable than a feeling and more powerful than simply an act of will. It was this knowledge and sensation and feeling and purpose that was more welcoming than a cup of hot chocolate and a fuzzy blanket. It was raw. Real. Delicious. Fulfilling. I ached for more. And there was plenty to satisfy. Warm. Right. Bold. Gentle. Heroic. I belonged. I had this feeling that I knew what was around the corners of life.

So I spend the last few days wishing I could have that. Wishing that were really true. But no, it was just a silly dream of mine. Probably from reading The Great Divorce too many times. It made me angry and frustrated and unsatisfied and wanting to turn the corner.

Now onto my second dream.

I hope up in the wee hours of the morning last night in absolute terror. I felt so alone, so hopeless, so vulnerable. Most of all though, I felt so terrible because I had this feeling gnawing at my deepest heart that anything that glorious, beautiful or right can't be out there. It was like the feeling that would overwhelm an astronaut if he or she would ever begin drifting away from the space shuttle in outer space with no possiblity of rescue. Irrecoverable. Lost. Dark. Empty. Cold. A perpetual gag. Just drifting and hoping for death to come quickly. Far worse than a nightmare. Worse because I never felt alone. I felt surrounded by something that wanted me that way. Like it was happy I felt that way. Taunting. Biting. Like its prey. But mostly just plain hopeless. I just prayed myself back to sleep...

But isn't that what I claim to believe? Overwhelming evil that wants nothing else than for me to be lost, overcome, destroyed, dead and tortured, yet a far sweeter, stronger, generous and benevolent paradise that is far more real than any dream I could imagine.

But, oh, to be free! Thy will be done... on earth as it is in heaven.

This picture I shot summarizes this. I remain in the shadows eagerly waiting for the sunlight to come as I persevere down the muddy, cold, wet path. Oh, there it is. It will happen. It must happen. HE promised it will. Yet its around the corner... and I'm not there yet.





But I guess there is a reason they call those sneaking doubts sneaky... they have certainly earned their sneaky badge. Yuck.



Honestly, I don't know what to do with this dream. Probably nothing. But I thought I would share it. I do admit I want it back. Feel free to comment...


And the beat goes on... da da dum da dum da da

The Log

So off I went on my long hike to take pictures and spend some time in the woods. I hit up Dillon State Park and then checked out Blackhand Gorge Nature Preserve out east of Newark. Most of the pictures on my facebook album came from Blackhand which actually turned out to be my favorite of the two places. Although I never actually made it to the gorge, I was able to take some good pictures, enjoy music on my iPod and come across someinsights... as usual.


As as I was walking along in Blackhand, I began to get annoyed about the season. I realized that my natural inclination is to take pictures of nature; green plants, bright flowers and scurrying bugs and animals. However, winter in Ohio does not actually bring any of those things. So my eyes began to look at different things in the woods. The pictures of roots and the river began to saturate my mind and imagination which left me with several wonderful thoughts. For some reason or another, the least exciting one of these thoughts caught my attention and the goal of this post is to figure out why. This picture captured this thought.......






One disclaimer: I am 99% sure that anthropomorphism is the wrong word, but please allow me to commit a sort of emotional anthropomorphism on that log.

This is what I have thus far: decay creates room for growth. Honestly, that's all I got... but I want to explore more. Hmm... let me ponder for a second............

I must have walked past a hundred rotting logs like this but it wasn't until I reached this one three hours into my hike was I able to put a finger on the sentence "decay creates room for growth." That bright red rotting wood caught my eye, though one can hardly even call it wood. (I would venture to guess the woodpeckers don't exactly squawk to their friends about that log.) But this log. Why this one? To be honest, the first thing that came to my mind was that I identified with it. But its not that I feel like I am a rotting piece of mushy, gross, wet wood. But its that I empathize for the log (Out of context, that sounds like the stupidest comment in the world). So why?

I feel like this log should be using its last ounces of life to yell and shout and despair about the injustices of the cruelty of the decay that gnaws it away to nothing. It makes me angry to think that its "just a matter of time." Before long, the bugs and worms and moss and rain will complete their determined assault on the remaining life that the fibers of that wood struggles to hold on to. I just want Charlie Brown and Linus to come along, help the tree up, wrap a blanket around its roots and nurse it back to health. But the roots are gone. The bark is gone. The leaves are gone. The glory of a tall, beautiful tree is certainly gone. All that is left is the blood red insides laying bare, raw and exposed to the enemies.

Shouldn't the remaining life be shouting for and insisting that things be right once again? Shouldn't the remaining life be remembering the days when it stood tall, as a bold presence in the forest? Shouldn't the remaining life be angry that things had to turn out this way? Shouldn't the remaining life be bitter towards everyone else that stands strong around them?

Needless to say... my emotions got the best of me. Just just now as I write this, I noticed something which, up to this point, annoyed the photographer in me. The sun cast a shadow which, inmy opinion, took away from the picture. I first simply wanted the sun to totally shine through and create a magical Disney scene as it warmed all surfaces with its glow. But then I thought it would look more interesting and raw and real if the sun would go just away and we would be left with a gray (serene not depressing) scene in which we could just see a simple, peaceful forest.

And it is just now why I realize why I identify with the picture. I find myself, like the log, shouting out at the bright light to do what I want. I want it to come or to go. I want it to do this or do that. As I became more and more lost and trapped and in despair about the things I want, I simply lost sight of what was truly going on....

I knelt. In the woods. Moist rocks. Barren, hibernating trees. Fallen leaves. Crunching sticks. Cool, soft wind. But I missed it when I was there. And I missed it up until now..... The Light still shone on my back. While I groaned about decay I chose to focus on, the Giver of Life warmed my back. Literally.

Things grow. Things decay. Things decay. Things grow. But the sun still shines. The Light still warms. The Redeemer will redeem. Our hearts will be healed. Charlie Brown has and will come. He will.

Maybe someday I will sit under that fallen tree as it stands tall and proud and loved in Heaven.

So there you have it. My heart still beats. Strange how a log can speak so much to me... although I have a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't the log... but the Logos. Ooo.