Selah.

I am not who you think I am.

Recently, I have been handed a lot of responsibility.

In a month, I am going to be the speaker at a week long children's camp.

In a month and a half, I am going to lead 14 people on a missions trip to Haiti.

In two months, I am going to be the new youth director at my church, leading both the youth group and the bible study.

And I'm so scared.

Do they know I've never spoken at a camp like this before? Do they know I've only been on one mission trip when I was in grade 11, and have no idea what I'm doing leading this one? Do they know that I am 20 years old, feel like I'm wandering in the dark, and have no idea how I'm supposed to lead an entire youth group? Do they know that I'm not as confident as I look? That I don't really know who I am? That I'm not sure if I understand the gospel? That some days I'm not sure about this Christianity thing at all? That I'm constantly failing to battle my demons, Despair and Cowardice?

Do they know how filled with disgusting pride I am?

How weak and unprepared I am?

How little I resemble Christ?

Sometimes when I go to step out my front door, I can hardly breathe because of the fear. And that whispering voice in my head, always present, is saying,

What are you doing here, little boy? We both know you're pretending. You can't help these people. You can't even help yourself. Go home, little boy. You know nothing of this world.

Sometimes that whisper can be deafening.

I can't do this. I can't.

I am not who you think I am.

And as all these thoughts were spiralling around in my head today, I went and grabbed my Bible from my car to do a devotional, forcing myself to go through the steps of my hollow spirituality. I'm currently reading through the Psalms; a book of prayers penned in the tears of the saints as they cried out to God for answers to all the pain and fear they felt inside.

Sitting on my bed, I pulled the Bible out of its case. I turned to Psalm 62, the next on my list.

And then something unexpected happened.

I realized that the pages of my Bible were warm to the touch, likely from sitting in my car all day. I was astonished; I had never held a book with such heat pouring out of every page.

 As I slowly ran my hands along its cover, I began to think of all the fear that had been overwhelming me. I thought about the fears of the writers of the Psalms, as they cried out to God in their own inadequacy. I thought about the idea that for the last 3000 years, million upon millions of people had turned to these same pages, searching for a response to all their unanswered questions.

And as I gently ran my cheek along the open book and felt its glow, I began to cry. My fear completely overwhelmed me. I desperately cried for help, but felt totally alone.

And as I sat there weeping, I noticed my tears slowly rolling down my cheeks and being absorbed into my bible.

Slowly, patiently, the warm pages dried up all my tears until not a trace of them remained.

And as I wiped my eyes, I looked down at Psalm 62 and read,

Trust him at all times, O people;
    pour out your hearts to him, 
    for God is our refuge.

Tonight, I don't have any answers.

I'm no stronger than when I began.

I can still feel the fear inside.

But I do know that God saw my tears tonight.

And because of that, I will keep on going one more day.

Lazarus and The Rich Man.

There's a theory that I've been stewing over for the last couple years, that I thought I would share. Its a theory on blind spots*.

I think that in the last 2000 years of church history, we can look back at almost every distinct period and find a blind spot. By blind spot, I mean an area in the church that looking back at history, we see as an obvious evil, but at the time, was not discussed or questioned. Right now, I'd like to review three of these blind spots.

From the 12th to the 16th century, the torture and execution of "heretics" who did not agree with the church was common practice. In fact, there were many in that era who truly believed they were doing the work of Christ by killing the likes of Jan Hus, Martin Luther and countless others. They looked into their Bibles, found verses to support their views, and in the process completely ignored the message of Jesus.

Another example. In the 17th to 19th centuries in North America, it was perfectly normal to be both a slave owner and a Christian. Somehow, a whole country of people were able to read their bibles, pray, and attend church (all of these with good intentions!) while using God's Word to treat humans as property to be abused. If a Christian wanted to be "charitable" and show some of Christ's love, he would go with joy and buy an extra chicken for his slaves on Christmas. Mind-boggling.

My final example is a little more recent. In Nazi Germany, pastors and priests were told to cooperate with the state and support Hitler's regime. Incredibly, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was virtually the ONLY voice who stood up against the Nazi resistance and publicly decried the treatment of the Jews. Almost all Christians in Germany either befriended the Nazis or said nothing in resistance.

After these examples, the question begs asking: How in the world could a people claiming to follow Jesus' message of love, mercy and equality ever participate in such evil? Unfortunately, the answer is that they rationalized it. They saw what was easier and twisted the Bible to agree with them. Easier to say nothing and kill heretics, easier to stay rich with slaves, easier to say nothing then be thrown in a death camp. They willingly allowed things to become blind spots for the sake of comfort. And so we look back and hang our heads at the atrocities done by our fellow Christians, all in the name of Christ.

Its very easy to leave it there, refusing to turn the microscope on ourselves, refusing to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, we have a blind spot as well.

I'll cut right to the chase. Without hesitation, I think the blind spot of the North American and European church is wealth.

I'm so afraid that in 100 years, people will look back on our lives and say:

"How in the world could those Christians have thought it was alright to own big screen TV's while upwards of 20,000 children died every day? How could they have owned ipods, laptops, expensive SUV's and video game consoles while more than half of the world barely survives on less than two dollars a day? How in the world could they have looked at the Bible, with over 2000 verses speaking of God's love for the poor, and spent their time debating creationism vs evolution in their million dollar church buildings?"

How will we respond? By emphasizing that we gave 10% of our money to the local church, who gave 10% of its money to the poor? Sounds a lot like an extra chicken at Christmas to me.

 We've chosen comfort and thrown out the gospel. What if a man calling himself a Christian lived next door to a family who owned nothing and was slowly starving to death? And day after day, the man saw them starving and acted like nothing was wrong. What if, as he heard their screams of pain one night, he went on to finish his daily Bible reading and then went to bed. Could we call that man a follower of Christ in any sense of the words?

You know what's different between a family dying next door and a family dying in Africa?

Absolutely nothing.

Here's a sad reality. During all those times in history, preachers would stand at their pulpits sunday after sunday and preach on everything but the blind spot. It happened in the 12th century, it happened in the 18th century, it happened in the 20th century, and its happening now. I've heard so many fluff-ball sermons on how "its not possessions that are evil, as long as God is your first priority". Completely true. And completely allowing millions and millions of Christians to continue on in their lives, feeling totally justified.

This isn't a rant just on the state of the church. Its about the state of my heart. I'm one of the guilty. I knowingly choose comfort over Christ. And I'm tired of being able to call myself a follower of Christ while doing it.

I believe history gives us two unavoidable options. 

The first option is that we can be another generation of people that our grandchildren will have to apologize for when they go and evangelize, another generation that people will point to when arguing why they don't like Jesus. 

Our second option is choosing to be the Martin Luther's, the Quaker's, or the Bonhoeffer's of our day; abandoning our comfort and security and becoming truly radical. I pray that we choose the second. I pray that I choose it.

We need to shed our excuses and see Christ again, having given up all his wealth and honour in heaven, hanging on a bloody cross so that we could live. And we need to go and do likewise.

Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 

                                                                                                                   - Matthew 10:38

* My ideas are not in the least original, I have borrowed them from many authors.

Grace

Grace, she takes the blame 
She covers the shame 
Removes the stain 
It could be her name 

Grace... 
It's a name for a girl 
It's also a thought that, changed the world 
And when she walks on the street 
You can hear the strings 
Grace finds goodness in everything 

Grace, she's got the walk 
Not on a ramp or on chalk 
She's got the time to talk 
She travels outside of karma, karma 
She travels outside... of karma 

When she goes to work, you can hear the strings 
Grace finds beauty in everything 

Grace... 
She carries a world on her hips 
No champagne flute for her lips 
No twirls or skips between her fingertips 
She carries a pearl in perfect condition 

What once was hurt 
What once was friction 
What left a mark 
No longer stings... 
Because Grace makes beauty 
Out of ugly things 

Grace finds beauty in everything 

Love Wins?

First off, sorry to all my loyal two fans (thanks mom and Ivy!) who have waited for me to keep blogging. I'm sorry I've avoided it so long... I guess I now appreciate how tough this really is!

So I recently read Rob Bell's controversial new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, And The Fate Of Every Person Who Ever Lived. Basically, the evangelical Right is calling Bell a false prophet, Bell is calling the Right's theology "toxic", and unity and love are being thrown under the bus.

 Yup....that pretty well sums it up.

Since I don't think I'm in either "camp" at this point in my life, I'm not going to crowd up the internet with yet another opinion on the issue when others have already done that quite... passionately. Go unity!

What I did want to do was show you guys a little excerpt from the book that I thought was really sad and true. I hope it makes you think, and maybe you'll join me in being a little sad.



So is it true that the kind of person you are doesn’t ultimately matter, as long as you’ve said or prayed or believed the right things? If you truly believed that, and you were surrounded by Christians who believed that, then you wouldn’t have much motivation to do anything about the present suffering of the world, because you would believe you were going to leave someday and go somewhere else to be with Jesus. If this understanding of the good news of Jesus prevailed among Christians, the belief that Jesus’s message is about how to get somewhere else, you could possibly end up with a world in which millions of people were starving, thirsty, and poor; the earth was being exploited and polluted; disease and despair were everywhere; and Christians weren’t known for doing much about it.

If it got bad enough, you might even have people rejecting Jesus because of how his followers lived.

That would be tragic.


- Love Wins, pg. 7

**Note - When I wrote this post, I didn't realize how poorly the above quote could be taken. This IS NOT a subtle shot at evangelical theology right after I said I'm not going to give an opinion on the issue. This quote just saddened me because the world IS that bad, we DO do so little, and people don't follow Jesus because of his followers. That's a tragic thing. That's all I wanted to say. Thanks!

Politics, religion, and everything else I shouldn't talk about.

In the year 2003, the band U2 began work on their twelfth official album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. 


Initially, Bono intended the album to be highly political, complimenting his recent involvement in organizations calling for debt relief and response to the AIDS crisis in Africa. However, as he began to reflect on these global issues, he realized that he could offer no true solutions without going to the root of the problem. 


That root, of course, was the human heart. 


And so in U2's most political album ever released, Bono sang about...... a mothers love for a son? His wife? God? His father dying? None of these were very high on the world's "most-need-fixing" list, right?


Bono felt that to focus his attention on global social issues was a band-aid solution to something that went so much deeper. Bono concluded that one could not talk about our relationship with the governments in third-world countries without first talking about the relationships closest linked to our souls.


When I read about this for the first time, two things immediately came to mind:


Malachi and John Lennon. 


(Confused? Good. I was going for a


Rob


Bell


reference


there.)




First, to Malachi. Last book in the Old Testament, written 400 years before Jesus arrives on the scene. A little book rife with talk of a future savior, the deliverance of Israel and coming judgment. The Jews are a defeated people - slaves to Persia, with no power or might to their name. Now God is constantly giving this prophecy that one day the people will be rescued, that essentially they will be good with God again. And so the Old Testament ends with the unfulfilled hopes of a people looking forward to a day of freedom and victory. And what's the last thing God says before 400 years of silence? What's his big national plan on how he's going to do it all?


"...See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers..."


And that's it.


I can imagine a few eager Jews hearing that for the first time and awkwardly looking around, shuffling their feet and murmuring amongst themselves:


"What did he say? He'll turn our hearts? That's his plan? I'll play a little game of catch with my kid, and then we'll be free?"


If you're looking for a big mantra to base your life on, this isn't it. It seems... petty. Maybe something to put on a greeting card, but definitely not what I'm going to yell at the Persians as I stab some throats and gain independence!


But God is thinking so much bigger than that. He's figured out the same thing Bono did. (Hey, God stole Bono's idea!) There's a much deeper slavery that must be dealt with first. There's something broken inside each of our hearts that needs to be fixed. Until we can figure out how to reconcile the relationship between a father and a son, we will never truly be free. 


Now let's go back to John Lennon. I recently watched an interview done with his first son, Julian Lennon, which made me quite sad. In the interview, Julian reveals that John was a poor father who largely ignored him, never made time for him, and only yelled at him when they did speak.


For all John Lennon's talk of peace and love, he never managed to show kindness to his own child. He never managed to fix his own heart. He focused so much on the big issues that he forgot to deal with the root.


And this is why I buy into this "Christianity" thing. I buy into it because when I look at the poor state of our world and hear the cries for peace and justice, I have to only look into my own heart to see the truth. I love my selfishness. I want to hate, want revenge, want to inflict pain. I am a wretched man. I simply can't buy into these visions of peace when I see how awful I really am.


But I've found this God who understands that. And instead of throwing stones, he offers me something too good to be true. Or perhaps, too good to not be true.


He offers me a new heart. A new spirit; one of peace, not destruction. As one ancient writer put it,


Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!


Amazing Grace is a film about William Wilberforce, the man who almost single-handedly eliminated the slave trade in England. In a heart-wrenching scene where William is deciding whether to go into ministry or politics, his friend William Pitt asks out of exasperation:


Do you intend to use your beautiful voice to praise the Lord.... or change the world?


William Wilberforce pauses, and I answer with him, 


I would change myself first.

Egypt

This is a story I enjoyed writing in Mount Carmel. The assignment was to put yourself into a bible story as one of the characters - I chose the 10 Plagues in Egypt. My character is a non-jewish slave woman in the Egyptian empire. I know I should probably explain or defend the views expressed in the story, but I think I'll let it stand alone.


So if you have 10-15 minutes of down time, feel free to read on. If not, just skip right past this post. Enjoy! 

It was a cold, fragile, winter morning when I was taken. 

My husband and I liked to sleep in on those fierce mornings; mornings where the wind swirls around the tents, reaching with icy fingers for any crack it can invade and snapping in frustration when there are none to be found. My husband would gently play with my hair as I pulled in closer under the blankets to feel the warmth of his skin and the familiar scent of his body. Life was good that morning. Life was so good. 

It started with a distant shout, an indistinguishable interruption in our sleepy valley. I thought nothing of it until the ground began to shake, shake with the thunder of a thousand gods marching to war in the nether-regions of the earth. Suddenly, our tent canvas was ripped back and a dark, hardened face appeared where sunlight should have poured. My husband scrambled for his spear as the man attacked, stabbing my husband over and over in the chest, times beyond count. As he spit nonchalantly onto the bloody, broken corpse of a man I no longer knew nor recognized, time slowed to a crawl. It was as if the sun itself had halted in the sky to sing one last lullaby to the sad, frozen earth. Before a single tear could fall unto the blood-soaked ground, the darkness overtook me, and I knew no more.

    How long has passed since? Fifteen years? Twenty? Time has become nothing to me, nothing but a distant melody played by fools and young lovers alike to the heavens above. I once counted the time in tears, each day measured by the rolling of sharp memory across my cheek. That all ended when one day, my eyes simply ran dry. I had nothing left to give; I was only a hollow husk of a distant thought. I felt nothing; not the wind caressing my cheek, nor the chill of ice or the heat of flame. 

    I was a slave, one the ‘privileged’ few who were blessed with the task of building the great empire of Pharaoh. I had been hit on the skull from behind that morning so many years ago, knocked unconscious and then dragged out of the tent into waiting wagons. We slept most of the fifteen day trek to Egypt, huddled together in our over-crowded wagons. I do not remember much of that trip; I do not choose to remember. Those freezing nights are now almost completely forgotten; utterly alone, and yet a nose-breadth away from thirty others. 

     We were told that Egypt was the Land of the Gods, the place where the moon itself lay its head. We were promised milk and honey, shelter and clothes. And it was all true. They did not utter one lie to our faces. They simply did not mention the chains. The chains that chaffed, that dug, that stripped away both flesh and dignity with every single step. 

     I worked hard in this land, worked every single day without complaint. I learned how to walk, how to move, so as not to bring unwanted attention. When water was needed, I fetched it. When stones needed moving, I lifted them. When a man demanded comfort, I gave myself. Again and again, for longer than my father’s chief god, Anubis, held up the pillars of the earth during the forming of the land. 

    This existence did not change until one day, I was found to be with child. When my stomach began to grow, I did not seek out his father (it would have been impossible to know anyway) or question the will of the gods. I felt nothing. I did not dream of holding my baby; I said nothing of its existence to anyone. I did not sing to this little one. When my baby boy was born, however, something pierced my shell. Call it love, call it hate, it does not matter. Defining it is only a vain attempt to capture something beyond words. I held this precious little being in my hands and I felt hope for the first time in years. Here was something that nobody, not even the gods, could take away from me - my baby’s first smile. I named him Tëlé, after the god of the Eastern wind which blew new life unto the land every spring. And it was good. 

     It was around the time my son turned six that the events started happening. As I was drawing water from the river Nile one day to use for washing a palace official’s clothes, a horrible stench filled my nostrils. Before my eyes, the entire river had turned to rotten, fetid blood. I vomited as my senses were engulfed by the sweet, piercing odor of the river. Leaving my earthen jar still stained with the blood, I ran to my house to find my son, lest he accidentally drink this water. The streets were in chaos as people knelt retching, blood staining all of their clothes, reminding them of the loved ones they had seen die before their eyes, crying out to them with the pain and anguish of thousands of murdered children at the decree of Pharaoh more than forty years ago. I found my son behind our house, innocently prodding a beetle he had found and overturned in the sand. I held him close and explained that he was not to drink the red water, not ever. 

  Seven days passed without change; we were forced to dig shallow trenches beside the river for hours in order to amass enough water to survive. During this time, nobody knew the reasons for this occurrence; most claimed that the gods, or Pharaoh, were very displeased at us all. I did not try to argue with them; what did I know? I was only one body in a sea of faceless slaves.

    After this first plague, they began to happen more rapidly, like a stone picking up momentum as it rolls down a hill. Next came frogs, then gnats, then flies. Other than minor inconveniences, none of these plagues had any drastic effect on our community’s everyday life - certainly not the effect of the first. That is, until the fifth plague struck and all the livestock died. It was around this time when the common people became aware of an altogether strange truth - it seemed as if some slaves, seemingly at random, were being spared from these devastating happenings. Entire communities had not had any blood, frogs, gnats or flies. In fact, it was soon discovered that the only livestock untouched in the whole of Egypt was that of these slaves. 

    One day, as I was tilling the wheat fields to the south of Pharaoh’s palace, I bumped into one of these ‘un-touched’ slaves. I asked her why she had been spared while even Pharaoh’s personal herd of cattle and sheep had all fallen sick and died. She replied that it was because their god, Yahweh, intended to deliver them from Pharaoh’s hand and free them all from slavery. She spoke in hushed tones, with a glint of real hope in her eye as she looked side to side to make sure the guards were not within earshot.

    “I think this is it. After being raised from childhood as a slave, my baby boy will get the opportunity I never had - to dirty the knees on his own tunic, to eat food from his own harvest, to rest without fear of beating. I am so excited - praise be to Yahweh.”

    I was confused by this encounter and dwelt on the short conversation for weeks. I certainly could not blame the woman for these plagues; in fact, I could not help but to think well of her, for she had ended our meeting by giving me half of a loaf of bread she had been saving for her own son. 

    “Don’t worry”, she laughed, “we have plenty at home. Give this to your boy, so he may grow brave and strong like his father before him.”

    I laughed, but not for the reason she thought as she hurried away. His father... brave and strong. If she only knew his father, or any of the men who could claim him to be their own. Cowards all of them, clutching hungrily and roughly in the loneliness of the winter nights. There was no bravery there, no strength. 

    A few days later, I realized that the death of our livestock was almost a blessing compared to the pain that was to come. 

    Soon my son and I grew boils on every part of our skin; boils that grew and burst at the slightest rubbing or friction. I held my crying child for four days as the pain drove both of us to our beds without desire for food or sleep. After that came hail - luckily enough, my master warned us of its coming and allowed us to spend the day preparing our homes for the onslaught. Some of my neighbors were not so lucky; their masters chose to ignore the warnings in the name of productivity. The mother of a boy down the street that Tëlé liked to play with was one of the unlucky; her body was found, marred beyond recognition, in a shallow ditch with a shovel in hand. In the end, they lay her down in that same ditch to save time; there were just too many bodies. She had dug her own grave. Two days later, her son was dead as well, perhaps from loneliness. Nobody could take him in, there were simply too many orphans to support, and so little food. So little. 

    After this came locusts to destroy the last of our food and darkness to destroy the last of our hope. Those days now seem as a blur to me. Every now and then, as I sleep, come flashbacks of those cursed months. The smell of death, the sound of wailing, and the ever-present whisper to give up. I’m sure the only reason I continued in those days was for the sake of my son; I spent hours rocking him back and forth, comforting him and assuring him of good things to come. One day, as he lay in bed in a delirium of cold chills and hallucinations, he begged for food to fill his empty stomach. I could not bear to hear his cries any longer, so I held his hand, told him that I had found some honey to eat, and fed him three mouthfuls of clay. He ate it without protest, and his convulsions slowly became less frequent until he finally slipped into a deep sleep. I cried myself to sleep that night.

    My baby boy is gone. My ray of hope, my drop of sunlight, my only. Gone. I am told by the Hebrew slaves that he is gone to Sheol for eternal damnation, that he must pay for Pharoah’s stubbornness. I am told that it was my fault he died, that if I had only put the blood of a sacrificed lamb over my doorpost that night, he would have been saved. I am told that I too will join my husband in eternal torment for my sins and those of Pharaoh if I do not repent. I am told that in Yahweh’s infinite mercy and kindness, he had managed to save his dear children from their oppression. I am told many things, and I am left with nothing but questions.

     What sin had the boy done to deserve this? Why must he pay for a sin he had not committed, to suffer because of one man’s hard heart? How could I have known that I was supposed to sacrifice a lamb to save my son? Even if I had known, where would I have gotten such a lamb? All of the lambs in the entirety of Egypt had died at Yahweh’s hands only weeks before. As a slave, I certainly would not have had the money to buy one from one of the Hebrews. What sin had my husband committed that was worthy of such torture? Was his sin allowing his wife to be captured, for dying when he should have protected me? I am left with so many questions. 

    Where is the kindness of Yahweh? Where is his mercy? What had I ever done to him? Why is one little boy killed while another is spared on the basis of where they were born, based on their skin color? I am certain my son would have apologized had he known, would have promised to stop being different, to stop being born in the west instead of the east.

    I am left with nothing. I am told to worship a god who has killed my son and my husband for sins they did not commit. I am told to kneel in fealty and recognize that his ‘love endureth forever’. But I will not. I cannot. I would if I were able, but I am afraid that Yahweh has made my heart harder than stone. I am undone.

The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

- Exodus 34:6-7

Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill...

- Exodus 11:5

I still haven't found what I'm looking for...

"I have heard of people having life-changing, miraculous turn-arounds, people set free from addiction after a single prayer, relationships saved where both parties 'let go, and let God'. But it was not like that for me. For all that 'I was lost, I am found', it is probably more accurate to say

'I was really lost, I'm a little less so at the moment.' 


And then a little less and a little less again. That to me is the spiritual life."

- Bono, U2 by U2