Adultery

We are the bride of Christ. That's how Jesus spoke of us and Paul and John echoed his language of love.

Revelation says that at the end of things we will sing and rejoice because we will be ready for marriage. We, the church, will be dressed in fine linen. We will have a wedding feast.

But, if we are the bride, I think we, I, are guilty of adultery. Today as I listened to "Called Beauty" by Jenny & Tyler, I was reminded of my unfaithfulness. Here are the lyrics.

Daily I could look at the gold and the fine, fine silver with which You have adorned my arms and neck and fingers.

So I was called beauty in the eyes
these gifts assured me You were mine
so I was called beauty in the eyes of my God and the angels.

Yet I sold all the jewels that you gave to me
and I used all the cash on other lovers I'd see.
Hoping that none would discover this feat
of the muck and the mire I'd continue to feast.

Daily I could take in the scent of the fragrance You've sprinkled on me.
And all the clothes made of cashmere You give 'cause You call me lovely.
Daily I could look at how fair I was only because of You.
Instead I'd forget what You've given, living for suitors I'd choose.

Still I remain treasured in the eyes of my God and the angels.

Oh, do not spare the rod. How I long for faithfulness.
Tell me once again of Your grace and woo me in.
Let not these lovers be more attractive than You, God.

Remind me of love. Remind me of You. Jesus, all of You.

Still I remain treasured in the eyes.

I am guilty of putting other loves before God.

But I want to be faithful. And I pray that everything else may lose its' shine and veneer in the light of the Lamb and the glow of the bridal white.

Real People

You know them.

He's the one in the back with his head down, black hood flipped up. He doesn't dress like everyone else. Some days he smells funny. He's the butt of jokes. You've never heard the sound of his voice. Even the teacher pretends he's invisible.

Then there's the girl- who, for no apparent reason, everyone hates. You've heard the stories, the names. She was popular back in middle school but now- well, she may as well have the plague. She won't meet any one's eyes in the hallway.

They. Are. Real. People.

Her name was Phoebe and she was 15. She moved from Ireland to a new town at the beginning of the school year. She started off well, but things changed after she dated the wrong girls' ex-boyfriends. It was a quick fall to being a social pariah. Names were hurled at her as she walked the halls. The girls' bathroom was not a safe place. The cafeteria became dangerous. Garbage was thrown at her from passing car windows.

Until the day she couldn't take it any more and hanged herself in her family's home. Her taunters were arrested and currently await trial.

Please, don't tear people down. Don't deny anyone their physical and emotional safety at school. Don't act like other people are less than human.

And don't stand by and let it happen. When you do, you are just as guilty.

If you are the kid that gets pushed around, bullied- tell someone. Don't give up.

Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:8)
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Mark 12:31)
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Bling to Blood

Have you ever asked yourself why some people have so much and some people have so little?

Does God love the rich folks more? (so what does that say about those without all the stuff?)

Does God pay for your goodness and righteousness with American currency? God doles out the Benjamins for the extra-holy people and the Roosevelts for the less deserving?

Last night I was at a function for a ministry our college students partner with when we work downtown in Moore Square. Karen Spears Zacharias, author of Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide? ('Cause I Need More Room for my Plasma TV), was in attendance and she shared her heart and her theology as she read from her book.

No, she says to all of the above questions. We can't buy financial blessings from God with our righteousness. No, God doesn't give people money because he loves them especially. No, there is not a formula for working the religious system and filling your pockets.

My heart knows she is right.

(But I think we wish there was a formula.)

(I think we would very much like it if God would pay our electric bill because we came to church.)

(I think we treat Jesus as if we would prefer bling to blood, loot to love, and money to mercy.)

I might be saying the things you aren't supposed to say, but I'm saying it anyway.

What do you say?

Red Blinks.

My Blackberry is named Blinky McGee. He blinks red when I have a phone call, text message, Facebook notification, email, voice mail, Twitter notification, or Blackberry message. He blinks a lot. When he hasn't blinked in a little while, I wish he would.

Because a blink is not just a blink. It is an affirmation that the world hasn't forgotten me. It's a reminder that someone is paying attention to me.

Other times, I wish he would stop with the blinks. It gets annoying and I am immediately compelled to check whatever message might be waiting for me. And all of these messages matter to me too much. It seems silly and dangerous to let so much of my attention, so much of my life, be committed to the persistent blinking of a glorified cell phone.

You know what I mean. I think you feel the same way. Your Facebook chatting, your messages, texts, all of it seems to be a daily report on your significance.

I read today that "The great contemporary fear is anonymity." It's true. All of us are driven by the need to be recognized.

We live for the red blinks that remind us we aren't alone and that we are worthy.

Such a small indication of what could be an epic story.

Broken Songs

I've had Caedmon's Call's album "In the Company of Angels" for a while. I'm pretty sure I bought it when it first came out in 2001. It immediately got scratched a bit in the way my favorite CDs always do.

It is still listen-able though, so I have since downloaded it onto my computer and I still listen to it often. I was just listening to it actually, when I started writing this post. I stopped it only because I had listened to the entire CD, all the way to halfway through the last song, where it always gets too garbled to listen to.

This is the first bit of the song that gets cut off:

All creation moves in a cosmic Danse

Before the Lord her king

and the rhythms, the reason, the rhyme

of the danse pulses within everything.

And the universe wheels and whirls like

a dervish in perfect seven-step time.

The Lord made the Danse,

he taught her the steps,

and he causes the songs to shine.

We must danse, danse, danse,

danse in God's honor.

We must yield all of our steps unto the King.

We must danse, danse, danse,

danse in God's honor.

Let his praises ring throughout the earth.

The rest of the song talks about how in Eden Adam and Eve messed up the steps of the danse (spelling is intentional, by the way) and then how Jesus taught and teaches us the rhythm again. It's a lovely song.

But it is broken.

I find it fitting that this particular song skips and crackles and sounds scrambled. You can't danse to a broken song. It reminds me of my own flaws. My own discordant sounds and my clumsy dansing.

It reminds me of Lent.

I'm Not a Scientist

Really, I just pretend that I understand some fields of science. I'm not too interested in chemistry or biology and I didn't take the prerequisites for physics. I didn't really want to measure the height of a building based on its shadow anyway.



But I do want to know about our universe. And I want to explore the mysteries of the created order. I want to understand what time is. So I pretend I'm some brilliant physicist and read articles that I can only barely grasp. And it makes me think theologically.



Last week it was "What is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory" on wired.com.

What do you think about this idea of a multiverse? Do you think there can be a static universe that has no "arrow of time"?

If this theory were proved true, would we understand God differently?

Jesus in Moore Square

Along with a crazy quilt of other people from Trinity, I spend the third Saturday of every month in Moore Square sharing breakfast to some of the homeless and poor of Raleigh.

Last Saturday wasn't as cold as it has been. That was a relief. In December, we all ached and trembled with cold and wet.

But this time was slightly warmer. We had sausage and egg biscuits, coffee, hot chocolate, and bananas. Like normal, our 80 biscuits were gone within a half an hour.

We don't really go to the park to feed people. You should know that right off. The food isn't the ends, it's the means. When the tattered, burdened, hollow-eyed people fill their bellies up, they soften up. (I would too. It's hard to make friends when your stomach is growling.) Suddenly, they have questions.

Who are you? Why are you here? Are you from a church?

We shake hands. And then they start to open up and tell us their stories.

I'm from Hawaii.

I'm from Winston-Salem.

I was in construction.

I'm good at computers.

I've been to college.

I'm not angry.

I'm a Christian.

I have a family but I don't want them to know I'm homeless.

These people are real. They are souls. Don't assume you know who they are. Don't judge them. Don't call them derogatory names. Don't avoid their eyes.

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.

They are each Jesus.

Eyeballs and Signposts

I've been thinking lately about how we discern God's "way" for us. Anybody else out there ever have this question?

Did you ever need to pick a college and you weren't sure?

Did you ever have to decide about a job?

How about a boyfriend/girlfriend? Any tough decisions there?

Sometimes God just seems kind of silent. Or is that just me? I've felt God's call enough to know it happens. But sometimes...there just doesn't seem to be an indication.

I was thinking about that today when I read this article from NPR this morning. Basically, the article discusses a study's findings about how it is really hard for our eyes and brains to pick out things that we don't see often. Whether it is finding a weapon in a suitcase at the airport, or a tumor in someone's body at the radiologist's, our brains don't seem to frequently recognize the things we don't see very often.

It got me to thinking- are there burning bushes and talking donkeys and divine messengers that we just don't recognize? The author of the study, Jeremy Wolfe says, "If you don't find it often, you often don't find it."

Hmm.

Could it be that because we're closed off to God's direction most of the time, we suddenly can't see it when we decide we want it?

Unspecial

Sometimes I think I'm a really boring person. When people ask me what I've been up to, this is how my response usually goes:

"Oh. Well, you know. School and work. Keeping busy. Same old, same old."

Every time.

And then I read about people like 16 year old Abby Sunderland who left Marina Del Rey, CA three days ago in her boat in order to be the youngest person to ever circumnavigate the globe.

Yes. That's right circumnavigate the globe. Like Ferdinand Magellan. Her brother once held the record but he was bested by a guy from Britain. It's a whole family of spectacularly accomplished people, evidently.

And then I feel even more boring, untalented, and unspecial.

But then I remember that what I do and who I am depends on the choices I make. It depends on how I treat people and how I love God.

So maybe I'm no Sunderland family sailing prodigy, but I'm someone. Someone with a story, with meaning, and potential.

And so are you.

All of the blogs I read have at least one post about Haiti. The unfolding aftermath of the earthquake is the front page at CNN.com. Yesterday at the gym I watched an interview with a Florida woman whose mother spends half the year in Haiti. Her mother hasn't been heard from in days. They have no idea if she is okay, safe, or even alive.

Everyone is talking about it.

Everyone is reminding us to pray, to give, to go when the opportunity presents itself.

A few facts about Haiti:

• The first black republic to declare independence (1804)


• Violence and unrest has marked Haiti's government, leading ultimately to the strong presence of the UN Stabilization Mission.


• Finally inaugurated a democratically elected president and parliament in May 2006


• Haiti is slightly smaller than the state of Maryland


• Lies in the middle of the hurricane belt and has suffered damage from storms


• Environment suffers from extensive deforestation, soil erosion, and inadequate supplies of potable water


• Life expectancy is less than 61 years


• As of 2007, 2.2% of the population suffers from HIV/AIDS


• Only 52.9% of the adult population can read


• More than 2/3 of the labor force do not have formal jobs.


• 80% of the population lives below the poverty line.

The people of Haiti have known suffering. Yet even so, Tuesday's earthquake has devastated them. Many cities are decimated. Hospitals and schools have crumbled into dust. People are sleeping in fields to avoid the still-falling buildings. Others are dying in the streets. Cries come from people buried in rubble.

We are the hands and feet of Christs. So what will we do about it?

Out of Control

I see people begging for money pretty frequently. Odds are, you do too unless you refuse to look at them. They're everywhere. For us, the people who generally get to eat three times a day and have somewhere safe to lay down at night, these interactions are awkward. The mere existance of a beggar is humiliating. We avoid looking at them and stare at the red light instead, hoping the color will change.

We drive away, comforting ourselves with the thought that we don't have money to give them anyway. We convince ourselves that they would really use our money to buy drugs or alcohol. We remind ourselves that we have to be somewhere in a five minutes.

My friend Hugh (who is a missionary to the homeless of Raleigh) was recently interviewed by Karen Spears Zacharias regarding the question of panhandling. You can read the entire article here. Hugh is the asker of tough questions. He says this:

If you are late for an appointment and in a rush, maybe the best you can do is look them [the homeless people] in the eye and give them respect and dignity. Later you can pray for them and, while doing it, ask yourself and God if maybe your life is out of control if it prevented you from showing mercy and compassion to one of God's creatures.

That stings a bit. Because maybe my life is out of control. And maybe my priorities are out of order.

If I am too busy to love someone, maybe I have become someone Jesus wouldn't recognize.