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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.

* * *
A vision, a dream, a poem.

Letting God be Outrageously Gracious

2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

Ecclesiastes 1 : 2-7

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.
Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 9:7-10

This lent, I am feasting instead of fasting. Fasting would be so much easier because my heart favors justice and not grace. If God told me, Lindsey, wear rags and starve in the street. I would do it, because it feels right. And this is because my heart opposes the God who made it. I prefer punishment over grace. Because the world is not fair and I feel like it's my fault that I have so much, that I'm being poisoned by wealth.

But I'm not being poisoned by wealth. I'm poisoned by my direct opposition to God's scandalous grace in blessing me...and I oppose this grace every time I fast from something because I'm motivated by shame. And so, instead of fasting out of my shame, which would be easy because I have so much shame and guilt lying around.....I am going to feast out of my gratitude for the blessings of my life. which is hard because I'd like to punish myself for enjoying them.

What ludicrousness! I punish myself for the things God has given me like food and clothing and clean water and a home and an education and coffee and milk and chocolate because I believe I'm contributing to the unequal distribution of wealth on this earth? How did I come to believe that it was my responsibility to eradicate poverty with my denial of the body? I think I started doing this sort of thing because it made me look and feel wise and religious.

"Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence."

Colossians 2:16-23

In the same way that Paul was pointing out that those who cling to the regulations of the law have lost touch with Christ, I feel that in my clinging to regulations for holiness in my own lifestyle, I lost touch with the grater reality of the freedom offered to me in Christ.

It's kind of embarassing to think that in my self denial, I was only indulging my fleshly desire to oppose God's grace. I thought I was living righteously because God had revealed to me some special point of view about wealth and the empire and Christ's kingdom coming through his people building a new model for living. But I was only building my own kingdom where I earned God's favor and the right to participate in His redemption and resurrection if I lived a life of self denail. i thought the grace people always confronted me with when they disagreed with my style of living was a cheap grace that didn't require anything of me or cost me anything.....that when Jesus said he didn't know people because they hadn't fed the hungry, that would certainly be me if I didn't get out there with my burritos and prove that I believed God and wanted to obey him....but now I see that God's grace causes you to lose your life because in your joy, you simply misplace it. And that he prepares the good works in advance for you to do, to engage you in a unique service that will be a blessing to both you and to those you serve, not just leaving you to the task of creating your own masterpiece of self sacrifice and service so you could be worth in the end. I always felt that I had to engineer a life that reflected soundly a set of intellectual beliefs I was fond of. Which took a great deal of energy.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Ephesians 2:8-10

I think something about that sort of grace...where you really were free...scared me because I thought it was too good a deal on my end. it was too gracious. it was so gracious it didn't change your life....

but i was wrong.

I am an old shoe. I am a vegetable.

So I've been getting really down on myself lately for struggling so much with carrying on in life. And then I just have to remind myself to sit down and describe things plainly.

I've just started two new jobs. It is my last semester of college, and a full one. I have the responsibility of being independently disciplined for one of my three studio classes, the most studio classes I've ever taken at once. I am now in the process of applying to and deciding on where to go to midwifery school, which is a huge decision. I've just taken on the responsibility of a new ministry. My entire immediate family has moved relatively recently. I've just quit smoking.

I am also grieving a tossed salad of various other assorted upsetting things which feels like a toxic soup sloshing around in my stomach as I run as fast as I can trying to keep up with and cope with all of the above.

Virtually everything in my life has turned over and nothing seems familiar. I have a new phone number. I have a different car. I have different clothes, my hair is a different color. I'm trying new foods, new music, new media in my artwork.

It's like waiting tables, when you've been in a groove for about an hour of serving people you recognize. You might even know their names. Then, all of a sudden they all cash out and then there are these new people and they're ordering new food and you're all stirred up and flustered again.

I had just gotten used to Jim and Nancy and their Teriyaki and the Katsu Don and now here comes this new group ordering up all this sushi and now they want salad and refills and they have names like Jeff and Mary Kathryn......I just don't know how they expect me to go on with names like that!

I have to remember that I need to be merciful with myself here, considering the description of my situation. Otherwise, I'll just hide in my room and not let anyone help me or even know I'm struggling and then I'll just go numb like a vegetable or a worn out shoe, all crumpled and foot shaped and frayed and hollow...and smelly.

I'm trying to let people in. I need people. I need you. Help me. Care about me.

I'm an old shoe. I'm a vegetable. I need love and mercy from the body of Christ.

Freedom

Father of all, we pray to you for those we love, but see no longer: Grant them your peace; let light perpetual shine upon them; and, in your loving wisdom and almighty power, work in them the good purpose of your perfect will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Grant, O Lord, to all who are bereaved the spirit of faith and courage, that they may have strength to meet the days to come with steadfastness and patience; not sorrowing as those without hope, but in thankful remembrance of your great goodness, and in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those they love. And this we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Savior, Amen.



O God, who on the holy mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses thy well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening; Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

because there are things happening in this world that we can't see, and if we get hung up on the startling sights here below, we miss the things happening above.

Because God is Spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM.

and freedom feels like freedom..it doesn't feel like righteousness or vindication or shame or grief. it feels like freedom.