Bless the Lord.

Psalm 103

Bless the LORD, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies...

There's not much else to say today!



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Driving through the gap.

I have put countless miles on my truck this last year. Of course, my work is greatly responsible for that, but I've also found driving to be a common past time for me. I love being on the road...and I tend to feel stale and restless sitting at a starbucks these days...so I drive.

I rarely have a destination and prefer to let the moment lead me where it may. Perhaps I've grown a little weary of planning. And while nothing is ever solved upon my return, I feel a strange pressure building on my soul from time to time and the long stretch of miles is like a slow, gradual exhalation.

Last night, I ended up in Fountain Hills, gazing upon the dark silhouette of a mountain surrounded by a sea of city lights, they twinkled in the night like lowly stars fallen from heaven... and I looked for meaning in it all. I watched two young lover clinging to one another, whispering empty promises into the wind and I waited patiently for nothing in particular.

Soon my heavy eyes told me it was time to head back, but I avoided the hurried highways and searched for surface streets, hoping to keep my thoughts from going too deep.

It was late and the city had long ago rested her heavy countenance upon a pillow of soft dreams...eyes calmly closed, a gentle half smile on her lips, she looked so serene but I couldn't relate.

The roads were barren.

I had "The Shadowlands" by Ryan Adams on repeat and opened the windows because the song needed air to breathe...it was cold, but soothing and I wondered where my soul was.

Sometimes you just can't be a man when you're living in the darkness of the shadowlands... - Ryan Adams

Many miles passed before I met another vehicle. I could make out the headlights from a distance, brightly displaced against the evening asphalt. We passed one another like lonely travelers and though less than a stranger to me, the passing cold steal and fiberglass, brought me a level of comfort, reminding me that there was other life out there...

It's been said that God communicates to us in our pain and this is something we must all learn. But sometimes I feel like there is a gap between the time we feel the initial sting and the time we find Him. These are the sleepless nights we spend tossing and turning, the hours we pace the floor wearing out the carpets of our minds... perhaps it is also this gap that causes us to stretch to the eternal.


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Author and perfecter...

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith...
-Hebrews 12:2

I have always sought to figure life out... I guess we all do, but for me this whole thing has always appeared to be like a puzzle, one of those 3-dimensional ones, with about a million jagged pieces. Consequently, I thought that if I could find the appropriate matches for each portion that it might start to all come together...each blob would build upon another to form something definite. Something polished. Life then, was a problem to be solved... and one that could be.

Perhaps this still rings true to an extent, in that there are truths once realized and applied, will provide a more vivid picture of what life is all about and how we might best go about enduring it. But what I'm learning to accept is that it will never come together like one of those cardboard castles, where every piece is used for the very purpose it was designed...and once finished looks just like the picture on the box... No, life is messier than that... through the building process, we will spill our coffee and ruin some of the parts, we'll lose others in the mysterious black hole that exists between couch cushions and some pieces that should interlock, just won't...and often at least in my life, entire sections that we thought were completed will have to be torn down to rubble...and it will hurt and the reconstruction will be slow and uncomfortable.

In the end, we'll have lop sided structures with holes in the walls, doors held in with scotch tape and entire wings will have gone missing... and perhaps this the best we can hope for...that something, anything at all is standing above ground when it is finished... when we have endured the long, arduous journey through the desert. And yet somehow, the promise remains that one day we will be perfected...

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
- 1 Corinthians 13:12

.....................................................................................

Thank You

I spent most of this weekend locked up in a 20'x 20' room, listening to the same four songs over and over again and trying my hardest not to lose my mind as I carried out the sometimes tedious tasks. It took a lot out of me, and it can be quite isolating, but I found a level of satisfaction in my work. On Saturday, I recall feeling lightheaded at one point. I looked up at the computer screen to check the time and it told me that I had skipped lunch and dinner without a thought... Sunday was spent similarly with the exception of service.

Church was thought provoking, it usually is and I've grown very fond of the ministry there. Pastor Don spoke on persecution...and even quoted the portion of Hebrews that I cited in my last blog....I smiled at the coincidence.

I was deeply moved during communion though. I kept thinking about how grateful I was to God for saving someone like me... for being so patient with me over the years...that somehow, in spite of the huge mess of a life that I have led, though my soul is so prone to wander, He still reaches out and rescues me... I felt overwhelmed at this thought and my eyes welled up with tears...under my breathe I whispered, "God, don't give up on me..."

The church band offered a song and I closed my eyes for a few moments to listen to the words. It was a beautiful song.

And then I tried to say "thank you," you know, to God. And though it was sincere, it somehow felt so empty like a feeble attempt at something grand...I say "thank you" when a stranger holds the door open for me at the convenience store...or when a friend buys me a soda...it is so commonplace... But to Christ what would these vague words mean? I struggled for a moment to consider it...how could I possibly express the gratitude that I feel for His amazing grace...?

And then I realized at that very moment, what this whole worship thing is all about.

We live a life of worship...when words are simply not enough...

Archbisop William Temple summed up worship in these words:

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God.
It is the quickening of the conscience by His holiness;
the nourishment of mind with His truth;
the purifying of the imagination by His beauty;
the opening of the heart to His love;
the surrender of will to His purpose -
and all of this gathered up in adoration,
the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable,
and therefore the chief remedy
of that self-centeredness
which is our original sin
and the source of all actual sin.

.

Hebrews

I've been reading in the book of Hebrews over the last week. It's a profound book to say the least. Here is a portion that really struck a chord with me.

...Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned, they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated- the world was not worhty of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground... Hebrews 11:35-38

Upon reading this passage, I began to picture what the early followers had endured...and the suffering the cross embodies. It made me think about the groundwork that has been laid for us. Paid for in blood...and cries of anguish.

Consider the apostles and disciples for a moment. They were human just like you and I, but wanted so deeply to follow Christ and desired so earnestly to spread the truth, that they labored night and day, went hungry, fought immense lonliness, were shackled in chains and beaten, brutally murdered...

and I struggle with giving to others when it's inconvenient or when I'm tired...

I love the part about the world not being worthy of them... it wasn't. They loved a world that they didn't belong to...a world that hated them.

Paul would write this about his ministry:

...known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on, beaten and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possesing everything... 2 Corinthians 6:9-10

That is the foundation that has been laid for you and I that we might know God...how fortunate we are.

Lighthearted.

It's my favorite day of the week again...just kidding. Somehow though, today is sitting better with me... I'm in the quiet of an empty store enjoying a peanut butter sandwich, (not a fan of jelly) sipping on coffee and trying to enjoy a moment of tranquility. I have work to do, but nothing sounds better than putting that off for a time.

It was a busy weekend, but one spent with friends...and it was an active one that concluded on Sunday with an impromptu- 2 on 2 football game...I nearly died because I'm so out of shape. A piece of that conversation:

Me: (Through heavy panting) "dude, my lungs hurt!"

Changsta:(In a tone suggesting an obvious answer) "Why do you think that is Joe?"

Me: "Oh probably the pollution in the air, allergies, maybe the dust...?"

Changsta, Elliot and Ludlum shake their heads in unison. :)

Saturday was moving day for Louie and Vic. There were quite a few people involved and this illicted much laughter. Especially when me and Chris were talking about tasting Louie's "Noni." I know it sounds awfull, which is why it's funny, but it's just a multi-level marketing, dietary supplement with a really poor name. Speaking of Chris, the man never slows down... I kept fantasizing about shooting blow darts at his neck...

I also got to catch up with an old friend last night, Chrissy the playwright who's been living in Brooklyn in a building full of Russian immigrants for the last few years. We had coffee with Chang and Teli and then went for a drive. She makes me laugh and we have a lot of silly memories that make up our history. Like the time she puked in my neighbors lawn from having too many cigarrettes and Tim and I just sat there and watched in disbelief, like it was a side show at a circus. I found it interesting how two people can hold on to very different details of one incident.

I also had hawaiian fast food for the first time, yes in Peoria, Arizona, which is kind of what makes this country so great...

Goodbye

There stands a sign outside the store window, a sign unfamiliar to me. Red and black letters, and the phone number of some realtor, nailed to a white wooden post.

It is a sign that things are again changing in my life.

A few moments ago I said goodbye to a couple that I have come to grow very fond of over the last 2 months. They are snow birds who enjoyed their summer in the valley and today, they will begin their trek back to Iowa. The ice and snow has melted now along the giant miles of farmland and a new found season invites them back to the place they call home...

We shared many a great talks together and their hugs felt real.
I will miss them and with the business closing, my future hanging in the balance of uncertainty, I'm not sure when I will see them again...

There is no permanence...

It was the French scientist Blaise Pascal, who penned these words in his Pensees:

We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us and vanished forever. Nothing stays for us...

Where will life take me from here? At the end of April, the final pages of this story, this business venture of nearly 6 years will be written. It will become a thing of the past, merely a resevoir from which I will draw distant memories...and I will begin to speak about it in the past tense. Too soon, a time will come when effort is required in the retelling of a funny or strange incident that occured and upon sharing such an anecdote with a friend, I will find myself questioning the clarity of the details... I will hesitate and close my eyes and journey through a scattered rolodex...and perhaps mistake real moments for elements of a dream.

I long for eternity today.

Thoughts are dancing...

Thoughts are dancing, but I hear no song.
Thoughts are dancing, like timid shadows on a wall.

Twisting and twirling like fallen leaves and random street litter,
drifting along at the mercy of a dust devil.

dear Melancholy, don't sing me your verse,
nor your bittersweet melody or even a word.
Sit with me in quiet and in stillness we'll find
that everthing fades, if given the time...

Thoughts are dancing like children in the rain,
splashing in puddles, weightless and gay.
While eager parents under rooftops await,
heavenly showers to wash the sins of yesterday.

Thoughts are dancing, no matter how hard I try.
I'm calm on the surface, but unraveling inside.
With discordant symphony and uncomfortable rhythm,
with ne'er any rhymne and even less reason.

Thoughts are dancing, will evening give way?
Thoughts are dancing, but the sorrow remains...

.

Good Friday

I was late to arrive at the realization, but today is good Friday. It's so easy to carry on with "business as usual," but few days merit the attention that I feel this day should, for the believer. Truly, it is a time to deeply reflect.

I spent some time in the gospels...reading about the last night that Jesus spent with his beloved disciples and stopped in John 17, where Jesus prays for them and for the followers to come. How I love this prayer.

...I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you.

Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name - the name you gave me- so that they may be one as we are one...

I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you would take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one...

sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.

May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me...

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world...

"She spilled her coffee, broke a shoelace..."

I once heard that a certain, big name, mega-pastor never has had a bad day in his life...that was according to his wife in an interview. I guess it's supposed to mean he has great joy and faith or something. Heck, I don't know the guy from Adam, or his wife and they might be amazing people for all I know, but I think that statement is full of crap. I think the apostle Paul, John the Baptist, Stephen, Thomas, Simon Peter, Moses, Elijah, Joseph, Mary, David, and Jesus the Lord of glory himself had what they would freely call "bad days."

Today has been, difficult. Details seem entirely superfulous at the moment...here's to tomorrow...