Journal Entry, Saturday August 25, 2007

Now that I know the date. Now that it is coming. I am about to fit the shackles once again for my wrist.

I believe these “visions,” if you will, are for You, Oh Lord. I believe it is you being faithful, remembering your promise, and finally acting. With your power, calling me out of my defeat and with that picture of living by the Spirit of God which flashes across my mind in sharp, quick fragments. I can be there. I will have hope. I will stand up from this dust and shake off the bitter disappointment under which I have sat, paralyzed into indecision.

That day, the context of which I can’t remember from so long ago, when as a young boy I was with friends and family in the North on a bitter cold night in the middle of nowhere. Silence gave way only to the howling of a Northern wind. And you were present in it: A moment of experience. You were there that day, the life behind my eyes beating furiously like I was a machine finally, finally plugged in for the first time.

I so want life like that. It is a cocaine, once injected into my veins, embeded deep into my self-awareness, and I am loathed to live without it. All these years have been a wandering withdrawal.

That day when I, as a wolf-cub was moving through a forest of sin, self-absorbtion, fear, and doubt. That day when suddenly, wearily pushing through the underbrush of the wilderness I came into a clearing, and there you were, standing precisely in its middle, the very spot that I thought was reserved for me.

And now my life is destined to get out of this forest as I keep step with you, running parallel to that ancient path you tread, where the Garden of Eden used to be. Some days I nearly fall in step on your flank, like my ancestor walked. Others I am off in that wilderness forest of sin again, miles between us, till even the echo of your huge foot is lost upon my ear. But your voice still moves through my veins and that clearing, that path, is always on my mind. Maybe before one of these predators out here finally overtakes me as I slow, falter, I will abandon this place and join you out of the shadows once more. Perhaps I am now turning and heading that way. Can you call? I need to get a fix on your location, because I’m turned around out here. Let me hear you roar.

You Cracked Pot

Let’s say, you were made of clay
A pot fashioned, master potter, prized collection.
Let’s say your model, long before you rolled off the line, fell into the hands of another.
A less concerned holder of the mold, careless and evil.

And your model, long before you were born, had a crack put into the side.
Let’s say.
And year after year as the mold gave birth to your predecessors, the crack came along for the ride.
Precision-made, hand-crafted, exquisite design, intended for glory, greatness.
Yet fatally flawed, unable to perform its function, broken at the core, at the design level, not by the designer, but by one who came after it.

All the way down to you.
So when Jesus came, promising to make you new, to make you whole, you believed him.
And the initial surge, the plunge, the experience of the power led you to believe the crack was gone.
But you were wrong, weren’t you? After the honeymoon is over, only to discover that the crack remains, breaking you, rearing your inner destruction, your fatal flaw.

So is Jesus a liar? Powerless? Inadequate? Hardly.
Jesus lay on a tree, a death of gruesome crucifixion, vivid enough to engage in conversation with your crack.
And at the foot of his post, row upon row, lay cracked pots, not all clean and pristine, but cracked.

Full of blood. Blood pumped from the heart of the person crucified, the source of which profound love stands immense and immovable.
And the cracked pots at the foot of the cross, with blood all over them, stop focusing on their flaw, but on the liquid love that colours their clay. With the blood present, the crack no longer matters, covered, destined to end another day.

You cracked pot: Discouraged because the brokenness did not go away?
Take heart, notice the blood of Christ all over you,
And know one day,
The crack will go away.
So much so, that today, it is as if it is not even here.

Take heart. It is a brand new day.

GodWrestling

just wanted to post a poem that means a lot to me. here it goes:

I wrestled again with my brother last week,
First time since I was twelve and Grandma stopped us:
"She won't even let us fight!" we yelled, embracing,
But she said talking was nicer.
Wrestling feels a lot like making love.

Why did Jacob wrestle with God, why did the others talk?
God surely enjoyed that all-night fling with Jacob:
Told him he'd won,
Renamed him and us the Godwrestler,
Even left him a limp to be sure he'd remember it all.
But ever since, we've talked.
Did something peculiar happen that night?
Did somebody say next day we shouldn't wrestle? Who?

We should wrestle agian with our Comrade sometime soon.
Wrestling feels a lot like making love.

But Esau struggled to his feet from his own Wrestle,
And gasped across the river to his brother:
It also
Feels
A lot
Like
Making
War.

-- Arthur I. Waskow, Godwrestling, pp. 1-2.