Passover Bullets

Has your world ever been so shaken that you feel in one dizzying moment that everything you thought you understood about God was shattered? You stand striped naked of that systemic covering of faith that brings a deep peace even when the world is going mad around you.

 So, what do I call this entry? Thursday night prayer in the garden of agony? Passover Bullets? Betrayal? Or just another moment when my understanding of God and myself was shaken by the gates of hell? 

I glance at this photo of a dark DC street, and I remember that moment. April 9th, 2020, between 9 and 10 pm. Just three weeks earlier I walked out of the front doors of the museum where I work headed home because someone had flipped a switch and the world had gone mad. A pandemic was shrouding humanity in fear, and we were sent home to shelter for two weeks to “flatten the curve.” Now 26 days later people were dying from disease and from rising violence. It was Passover, Thursday night of Holy Week. I was in my bedroom playing video games clinging to a moment when I could escape the real struggles and live in a world where I had power to destroy evil. Then I heard the ffft of a bullet hitting wood and I dove to the ground muscles tense with fear heart beating in my ears as I laid still straining to hear more. 

The bullet had gone through our front door and hit the stairs next to my room. It took months for the landlord to have that door replaced so every time I stepped out of my room, I saw the daylight reminding be of the danger and I was flooded by the brokenness it had caused in my soul. I grew up hearing the story of how God kept His people safe from the angel of death on that first Passover. He commanded them to seek shelter in their homes. As a Christian I was taught that God will protect you if you just put all your faith and trust in him. I had heard stories of others living in bad neighborhoods who would brag on God. He kept the violence and the bullets outside even when it was happening in their yard. But this Passover the bullet shattered my understanding. God had held back death, but that bullet stopped just feet from me, and I felt betrayed. 

 I suppose the Thursday night before Good Friday is a good day to experience betrayal. Two years have passed. I’ve had closer calls with bullets since then and I lost two precious Christian friends to the violence of these streets. So where does that leave the love of God?

 Its passion week again and I’ve been thinking about Gethsemane. The Webster dictionary says the name means a place of mental or spiritual suffering. A Greek lexicon I was looking at said the root of the word simply means oil press. If you think about it, an oil press is a place to squeeze out the good stuff. It’s interesting that the outer shell of the fruit is destroyed in the press. It is crushed, torn, used up in the violent process. That’s what Jesus experienced. He was grieved to so intensely that it pressed him almost to the point of death (Mark 14:33-34). He was betrayed by one he loved and cared for and then began the brutal process of beatings and accusations that ended in his death twenty-four hours later.

 I’m not comparing my pressing and crushing to what Jesus experienced, but now when I read the passion story my eyes see through that pain, and I grieve for him and for me. There is still much brokenness and feelings of betrayal; accusations that I hurl at times towards myself and towards God. And questions, so very many questions. But there is also fellowship in the crushing and in the memories of Passover bullets.

Deserts and Swamps

It has been many years since I started this blog. I have taken a longer break than I intended. I supposed that statement is at the very core of life’s adventures. There are the plans we make, the futures we envision and strive towards, and then there are the unintended realities that actually comprise most of what we do, see, and become.




When I started this blog, I was living in a reclaimed and repurposed desert. Water was rerouted, plants were sown, and buildings raised out of the dust.  I had the privilege for a space of time of dwelling in this city of dust and wonder with around 400,000 others. I loved that season. The struggle, joy, pain; and the adventure and the mundane.


   





I’m in a new season. Now I live in a reclaimed and repurposed swamp. Water was rerouted, plants were mown, and buildings raised out of the mud. Arguably the most powerful city in the world, it swells from 600,000 to 2.5 million every business day. I live within its boarders in the shadow of the powerful. So very may stories. So very much to be gleaned. Shall we continue this adventure and see where God leads?

The value of a life

Genesis 31:1-33:20

In this portion of story, Jacob is returning home after serving Laban for 20 years. It is a very rich passage. He flees in the night because of fear that Laban will take everything from him. Rachel his favorite wife steals the family idols and lies about it. Jacob makes a covenant with Laban. Jacob wrestles with God and is changed forever. In all of this the thing that sticks with me the most is how Jacob puts a value on the people in his life. It seems so cruel. He fears that his brother will exact revenge after all these years and he sends first his servants and then his wives maids and their children. His children, but somehow they mean less to him then his wives and their children. Next he sends his fist wife and her children, but he keeps his favorite, his dear Rachel with him.  He clearly puts an order to hi value of his family. That is a hard thing to embrace. The texts shows later that he does care about all, as he begs his brother to let them come along at a slower pace for the sake of the children and livestock. But he clearly has those of his own flesh that he loves more deeply.

South Side of the Lake?

I'm moving. I will no longer be in the back side of a desert but on the south side of a lake. Lake Erie to be more precise. I think I will keep this blog, and keep it's name because I like it, and because I can. I took this picture last summer when I went on vacation with my family. I had no idea at that time that less than a year later i would be moving to a small town on this very lake. That's kinda cool when you think about it.

Stuck

OK, so it's been a few months since I've written anything. The 3 of you who are following me aren't really following me because I haven't been going anywhere. That makes me stuck.  Hopefully that doesn't make you stuck. I'm still jobless and will soon be homeless, but here is the rub. . .Will I believe God? or will I let myself stay here in this sticky mire?  So today I let God shake me. The struggle boils down to this:

"When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and doubt, I hope and get discouraged,  I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer." (Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel)

I love that quote. I love it so much I need to be careful not to embrace it as an excuse to fail, but to remember that the struggle within me is, well, human. Grace is God's answer to the problem. He could fix it, but then we would not be human and he loves human. Funny tho, that it is the human frailty of me that I hate the most, but God seems to love that about us. He hates the sin, because it destroys us. But, I think maybe it's watching us see who we are and fight to be better that he loves. But what do I know, after all I am not God.

So back to being stuck. In the 2001-2002 school year I endured incredible trials. America endured incredible trial on 9-11 with the attack on the World Trade Center. Then a month later i was fighting for my life. I faced death, but as hard as that was this seems harder. Then I knew that God was carrying me and that if I didn't make it through heart surgery it would be OK because I was in God's arms then and I would still be in His arms, just in heaven. Then after that at Christmas time an dear friend of mine almost died. Yet the whole time I continued with my college studies, and my credentialing and my life was full. full of struggle yes, and pain, but full of hope and faith and love. Full of God.

Now my struggles are different and I am not facing them as well. It is not life, but livelihood. And I kick out against the press, but then I sit in despair also. So I let God shake me, because once again I find myself stuck in a God sized mess. And I refuse to stay here...I just can't get myself out. So I hang onto grace.

A side note: In 2001 I was physically surrounded by a strong community of God who carried the fight and the burden with me.  Today that has changed. I do have a strong community of God, but I am separated by distance and time spent together, I know that makes a big difference because left to our own strength and wisdom, us humans get stuck easily.

Happy New Year

Wow it's 2010 already. Don't worry I didn't make any resolutions this year and I don't think this is an attempt to start a new thing of blogging everyday.... I don't like that kind of pressure. :) But It just seemed like a good day to blog. This is traditionally a time of reflection, at least for me. I've been reflecting on the last year, and it's been a rough one. I've been an umemployed bi-vocational minister for 7 monts now....ouch. oh well. So, my hopes for this new year? I'm looking forward to a new job, I'd love to move to the Parks or the Tower Dist. and I'm looking forward to just simply walking closer to God. So I hope you all have a wonderful turring of the new year and may this year be full.

Papa

When you hear the term Abba Father, or are told to imagine God as a father figure like papa, a whirlwind of visions blow through your mind. Some of us see a protector, some a predator, unconditional love or love to be earned, or maybe you don't know your dad or you wish you didn't, or maybe you have the best dad that ever embarked on the journey of fatherhood. Some of you may feel handicapped because you father didn't give you the best example, but really, we are all on equal ground when it comes to relating with God as our father. You see we've had it wrong for years. Its a common human mistake we make when it come to knowing God. When we look at God in human terms we tend to forget that He came first. God's Abba or father attribute was not modeled after the human institution of fatherhood. Fatherhood is modeled after the Abba atribute of God. You see, what puts us all on even ground is that even the most humanly perfect dad is still human. And our hunmanity is so far removed from God that when you look at the big picture the gap between good fathers and bad fathers is nearly unexistant compared to the gap between human fathers and Abba God father.

So where does that leave us? Well this means that if you want to know what fatherhood is you have to know Abba God and the only way to know Abba God is for Him to reveal himself to you. So go ahead give God and your human father a break and dive deep into relationship with God. Let Him show you who He is and let Him redeem, heal, recocile, and restore your human relationships.
that's just a thought