enchanted angst

 It's kind of funny how you act like Love is weak and frilly shallow and silly a little puddle to walk through  on your way to somewhere else Like it must be qualified, nuanced, tempered down not so fast not too much balance it out with anger and fear If His love is so puny to you Something to scoff at, something to envelope in wrath to dilute with fear and a thousand drops of caveats He loves you, but.... (is not good news FYI)

 Black mourning clothes they say grief is hidden under all the anger so I keep following the anger like some miserable rainbow to the pot of gold of grief at the end Will I ever find it? the anger ebbs but then there is numbness nothingness Black like bitter coffee is there only stains at the bottom of the mug? I wince and sip it's lukewarm now is there grief at the bottom? And if there is what then? will I merely trade anger for tears? Haven't I cried enough? Where do I find healing? I long to say I'm past it to wear the colors ditch the black but the dreams keep coming the anger flows back What do you do when you long for God's wrath instead of his mercy? I am ashamed to want it for the ones who have betrayed me The Jesus answers come swiftly but those answers do not drain the cisterns of my anger.

My hot take is that whenever God is reduced to a commercial, a blip, a sound bite - He is grossly oversimplified. It doesn't matter what the commercial says. It doesn't matter if it has four points (but if it's really four points, why did Matthew have 28 chapters?), doesn't matter if it slaps you in the face and calls you the worst of all sinners. The God of this world will not be commodified nor objectified, and no one has claim on Him or who He is.  There are many who are passionate about communicating our fallenness and sinfulness as a necessary step to salvation. While I understand the desire for this emphasis, I guess I believe that when you encounter something so purely good, your undeservingness needs no articulation. You just know you're out of your league when the goodness of a wild and loving God descends upon you. Just as when you look at your perfect newborn baby, no words are needed to express how unearned this gift is; those words are drowned out by a...

How do you not have a god that you disagree with? You're telling me you don't argue with him? You don't knock and knock and demand to understand  the discrepancy of this tragic life? How do you not have a god that you can wrestle with? I meet Him on the mat so often, It is my sanctuary The altar where we emerge both bloody from our duel living, writhing sacrifices. Your god doesn't have scars from you? You don't have a limp from Him? You call Him holy, other, unique, and yet there is no difference Between your opinions and His Are you sure your god isn't just yourself? You talk about fear of the Lord But there is no fear like facing the vastness between His doings and our desires And plunging straight in.

 humanity is so audacious mere specks in the universe yet believing, knowing , we are so valued we cannot look into someone's eyes and only see iris and pupil but rather the ocean that is someone's soul we cannot endure the various events in our lives without infusing a meaningful storyline to make sense of it all we cannot be thrown into this earth's inevitable woes without kicking and screaming, demanding reprieve from whatever deity we imagine some of us put words into books in just the right way so that others of us will read them and be moved to tears, to anger, to action. others of us spend hundreds of hours  practicing, painting, training for concerts, games, portraits that the rest of us specks decide are very important we demand more than this world could ever give us justice rightness love belonging. As if tiny dots can demand something from our whirling planet And yet, somehow, we know we can. Rather, we must. Something within us claims that love is ours. Justice...

 You make it sound like I'm sending my kid to hell Or violent combat Rather than public school. You make it sound like they're forsaken by God  As they roam the halls of their school. As if the love of God cannot course through  those very halls. As if that old dingy school Isn't utterly enchanted by His presence. I want her to see for her own eyes That she cannot flee from His Spirit. That it isn't found just within the walls of home or church That it isn't accessed through a carefully curated education But that it awaits her in every classroom Dances around her at recess Fills her belly at lunch. I guess I don't want my child to see "the world" As an argument to dismantle or a theory to disprove but as a bunch of human beings Glorious, messy, valued that she belongs to them And they to her. I want her to practice seeing God's image  in every single person. Is her school really a war zone for which she must be dressed for battle? I wonder this as ...