A vison, a dream, a poem.

I’ve been battling self-contempt this Lenten season with feasting.

Humans have a spectrum of methods for the sinful evasion of the totality of God’s love and mercy. We are relentlessly sinful and inconsolably ashamed. God is relentlessly merciful and gracious. I am at times so committed to God’s perfect justice that I submit my life to it entirely, relishing the burden it puts on me for holy living that I cannot achieve. I chasten myself with much guilt, ardor and enthusiasm because I love punishing myself. It is the way I cope with my condition of being alienated from God.

The problem is, this is not God’s plan for my reaction to the condition of being alienated from God. God’s plan is to draw me to a joyful and sweetly sorrowful repentance driven by His goodness that is so total it is defeating. Surrender is his goal, not punishment.

“Just admit how awesome I am!!! Come on look at me I am so awesome!”

This is what He is about.

We, on the other hand, can get much more complicated with things. Let's examine.

People are two things:
dignity and depravity.

Dignity is the part of you that is created in the image of God. Dignity is the part of you that it is sinful to punish. Dignity is the part of you that God desperately desires to save from spiraling into death and oblivion and meaninglessness. It is this part of you that He has redeemed as belonging to Him by the sacrifice of His son. Your dignity need not be assailed for your wrongdoings because it has been transformed into something that pleases God if it is covered by the blood of Christ. Things that reflect your dignity as a human created for the purposes of God are things like: a desire for relationship and intimacy with others, the longing to see life count or matter, the desire to matter to someone else.

Depravity is that part of you that is growing like a vine around a washing machine left in the backyard. The vine causes the parts to deform or break or work incorrectly, making the machine unable to fulfill its purpose. When a part of you becomes broken by the force of the vine, that doesn’t mean that this part of you becomes the vine itself. It just means that it is broken. A mailbox broken by a baseball bat does not make the mailbox a baseball bat. It makes it broken.

God has awesome plans for broken things. It is his intention to miraculously restore all parts of his creatures back to wholeness and dignity. It is God’s intention to clear away the vines and heal absolutely all of his creation that has been touched by depravity.

We are self-punishers because our hearts are opposed to God's grace and redemption. We would sooner destroy the parts of ourselves that have been touched by death than trust in God's healing.


A Vision


God and I share a home. The home is infested with roaches. The infestation has become bleak. Entire walls and cabinets are rotting out. Roaches are coming out of the drains in the shower. They fall through the ceiling onto the bed at night. God has promised me over and over again that He’s going to fix the house.

Yeah right. I mean look at this crap.

So on a Saturday morning I get my sleeves rolled up and I put my boots on and I get some tunes on the stereo going real loud and I am gonna get this place PURIFIED for sure. I start ripping out our sinks and I start knocking in our ceiling and I start making a burn pile out of our kitchen.

God comes back from walking the dog and He bellows from the open front door, “HONEY! What are you doing to our house?”

And I say angrily, “A lot more than you’ve been doing around here Mr. Restoration! I’m ripping this crap out so you’ll finally fix it like you keep saying!”

“I did say that I was going to restore you. And I am restoring you absolutely. You are so precious to me. Restoration has no conditions or requirements. You don’t have to resort to threats and self-destruction. You aren’t hopeless and you aren’t a burn pile. You’re MINE and I’m already restoring you. Here I am...with you."

He grows silent. The dust is settling.

"Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?” He whispers.

And now I’m crying and I’ve dropped the sledge hammer and the drywall dust is getting pasty on my face from the tears and the snot. I’m sitting on the floor and a nail is digging into my knee and I’m gasping as I try to get some words out.

“I’m….s….s….”

There’s a long pause and He kneels down next to me and looks me in my downcast eyes and pulls my hair out of my face the way my mother used to do.

“But what about all of those times I told you that our house was falling apart and you didn’t do anything even though I was getting sick?”

“Well dear…..I did try. I called the exterminator. You remember what happened?”
“I locked him out and I yelled at him……bec…ause…”
“Because you said he was killing your pets. You made a big scene and threw his clipboard in the yard.”
“yeah. Well he was a jerk about it ….”
“He was doing his job, honey.” He says with a mixed laugh that makes me laugh too.

"Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for OUR vines have tender grapes."
Song 2:15

It really is comedic. I go to great lengths to undermine God’s good work in my life. In view of His heroic efforts and sweeping acts of devotion, I seem childish and short-sighted a lot of the time.

Punishing ourselves for our wrongdoings is like ripping out our own hearts because they feel shame.

And God is the enemy of whatever or whoever goes ripping through the hearts of his creatures….even if that means it’s the creature itself. Our shame can be fierce. We can deprive ourselves of the joy of being alive and violently demand justice in our spirits without claiming mercy. Love can be fiercer. It does not tolerate anything in the beloved that injures its dignity. That’s why it feels like God is not on our side sometimes…because he’s killing our pet enemies. The problem is not whose side God is on. He’s relentlessly on YOUR side. The question is, Are YOU on your own side? Do you even have the ability to see clearly which side IS your side?

We all want to be pleased by God. We don’t want to worship Him.

How is God going to please you if you are taking enemies as friends and accusing Him of unfaithfulness? He’s not going to please you. You can’t be pleased. He’s going to love you fiercely and be faithful to the soul that He put inside you by destroying the enemy and restoring your joy in His faithfulness. And then you will sincerely worship Him in authentic joy.


A Dream

I am sitting upright in bed at night in my bedroom. There is another person in the room with me, sitting in a chair against the wall to my right. There is a window off to the left on the opposite wall. The room is silent and dark.
We hear a bird begin to sing faintly outside the window. He is staring at me now, the person, watching me listen to the bird, watching as I begin to smile at its song, so clear and shrill in the darkness. He watches as a look of desire for that sweet little bird comes over my face and the song becomes more full of longing. Longing for me. The bird is longing for me.
I look nervously at him, aware that he thinks my smile is dangerous and that our silent vigil will be upset by it.
The bird’s song comes closer and grows louder, more joyful and urgent. I pretend not to hear it so that I can move non-chalantly about the room, rustling papers on my desk, picking up this and that, so as not to arouse suspicion of the truth: I must fling open the windows and see that bird, because that bird is my God.
My back is to the man in the room as I pretend to be busy with something at the desk. He says in a slow voice,
“You know He doesn’t really want you. It’s nothing. There is no bird out there. If you open that blind, He’ll fly away. You’ll scare Him if you try.”
I wonder if he’s right, nervously. I rustle and fumble more urgently now, trying to keep myself from flinging open the window and singing back to that sweet little bird, afraid I might do it.
It is as if he can read my mind because he begins shouting at the top of his lungs that the bird doesn’t want me, that I’ll scare Him away.
The closer I get to the window, the louder he screams. He's reached a suffocating volume and intensity when I finally send all the papers on my desk flying and I yank open the blinds and the curtain and turn with violent anticipation my face to the window.
There is Jesus the songbird, a small, fragile and joyful thing, tapping His tiny beak on the glass, singing wildly in celebration at seeing my face.

"O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; For your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely."
Song 2:14

The enemy shouts as I reach to open the window to let the bird in.
“Don’t do it!!!” He is so afraid.
With a great rush of air the window is opened and I stand with face upturned, arms flung wide. Jesus the songbird floods the room, flying in circles frantically, the walls ablaze with yellow joy, the air filled with hopeful worship and the enemy vanquished, invisible, silent and gone.



A Poem

Doppleganger

Snow white, lemon bright,
Masquerading angel of light.
I’m your glaring justice
Shining in the rear view mirror.
You’re my fleshly counterpart
Running off the road

Who will win this war?
When the battle hymns
And the burning cities
Swell to a boiling roar
Who will win this war?

I am keeping you
Safe as a shameful secret
A curdled cream
A recurring dream
I’m counting on you
Never waking up

Who will win this war?
When the battle hymns
And the burning cities
Swell to a boiling roar
Who will win this war?

And when Jesus the songbird
Sings in your ear
Coming with light,
Drawing so near,
Banging my drum
And shouting my jeer
I’ll expire in the heat
Of grace conquering fear.


I wrote this poem before I had the dream.

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A vision, a dream, a poem.