God Shopping

I was reading one of my favourite authors the other day, Don Miller. He's sort of like this pop theologist that says real casual things about life and existence. I was reading from his book "Searching For God Knows What" and he wrote this:

If I weren't a Christian and I kept seeing Christian leaders on television more concerned with money, fame, and power than with grace, love, and social justice. I wouldn't want to believe in God at all. I really wouldn't. The whole thing would make me want to walk away from religion altogether... [I would think],their God must be an idiot to see the world in such a one-sided way. The god who cares so much about getting rich must not have treasures stored up in heaven, and the god so concerned about getting even must not have very much patience, and the god who cares so much about the West must really hate the rest of the world, and that doesn't sound like a very good god to me. The televangelist can have him for all I care.

As much as I love my boy Don, I had to pull a pen and write in the top margin: It Doesn't Matter. It really doesn't. It's like we are all missing the concept of God. Is He not an all-powerful personality? If you believe there is a God, then it doesn't really matter what you think about Him. He's God. It isn't as if you could argue with him, and say "hey I don't like the way you operate." I mean I feel as if a lot of people are trying to tell God that his idea of goodness is a little off or that in order to be just he needs to change his methodology. It's like arguing with Dickens about the thesis of A Tale of Two Cities. "I should know, I wrote it," he would say.

If you ask me, we're lucky God is good. If he were not, it wouldn't matter a lick. You can't ignore God. You just can't. He is everything.

I was talking to my friend Barefoot Brian at Lee one day at lunch as we spooned our sherbert out of coffee cups. I like talking to Brian because he is really smart and isn't judgmental. We were talking about our problems with the Christian faith. He began to tell me why he decided he was an agnostic buddhist. He said he believed in God, but the way we claim kindred to that God is different for everyone. I told him that this way to paradise and higher knowledge is awfully convenient. I told him that for all we know it could be convenient, but it also could be, in our books, unjust, unfair, difficult, foolish, or evil. I told him I didn't think it was, but if God was God then it didn't really matter if I thought he was good or just. If goodness or justice existed, it was because a supreme being wired humans to attract it or repel it.

Once my friend Lila and I walked to the park as she smoked her cigar and we talked about a similar subject. We thought God might have favourites. I've never liked this notion, but it's not about what I like. It's about the truth.

If you believe in God, then you can't believe that he is something you can shop for. There is no off-brand God. There is only one. There is no, better buy, none more durable or longer lasting. There is no "as seen on T.V." God.

There's only God and He is who He says He is, and who He says He is, is good.

Ephesus

To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, I know your works...your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless I have this against you:
 That you have left your first love.
I have a friend at college and he really loves people, and by George, they love him right back. He is my social rival. I say this because I look at life like it's some elaborate movie with characters and that's where he fell into place. So I conjure this imaginary competition between us where we attempt to sequester the love of our friends one from the other. And he always wins. But the truth is he couldn't care less, and I think it's heaps of fun.

Somehow summer became, and with it the colors of my home were sucked from township Portrait. But other colours spewed, fell, and leaked into the little province and one of those colors was the summer residence of my social rival. I was in his room and I told him my story. I told him my sickness.

He knew. He knows.

"Do you remember what John the apostle told the church of Ephesus?"

Of course not, I haven't cracked a Bible in months.

But I found out. I read their mail.

Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.
I want to be good. I try to do good. I try to love people. I try to watch over them. I try to answer their prayers. I try to forgive them. I try to advise them. But I don't have a place to do any of this. I don't have a place for my head under their foot, much less a hand in their heart.

So what? So I did something good one time. People write me poems. Several people. I read a poem recently that was accurate for a change and so did my social rival. We know that underneath a composure that's sickeningly calm there is a broken, lost, confused, sorry (for everything), apathetic, and lonely man.

Call me Ephesus.

Ephesus was the mother church to the others.

I always put the kids to bed before I take up the bottle, and I always sober up before they wake.

We are all connected by the same Roman road. A load of nerved up, pagans puppeting, staggering, and knocking heads in the dark in search for a temple with a little light. I used to feel as if I should pray for people. Now I only feel like they should pray for me. Pray that I will find my first love. That I can believe. That I can love. 

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.

Today Ephesus is in ruins, and its church is gone.

Goodbyes and One Times

(Do you think?)the
i do,world
is probably made
of roses & hello:

(of solongs and,ashes)

                                                              --e e cummings

It is amazing how it all comes flooding back.

Once I was sitting on my bed in my dorm room in college and some big athletic guy had some Asian with a panda hat on in a headlock and the song "We Are Young" by the indie pop band Fun was playing loudly in the room. I had Coca-Cola in my mouth and a Bible in my lap. Someone else was asleep in my floor and some guy I didn't know came in to brush his teeth. Someone outside was screaming Merry Christmas and my phone was ringing.

I thought to myself, In all my ponderings and imaginations, I never in a million years would have imagined this scene in my college experience.

Nothing actually happened the way it was supposed to. In all my composing, I could never have dreamt up such a song. It at once saddens me and thrills me.

So this is life.

And it grew up so fast.

There was never a dull moment. Everyday was a holiday and it was full of adventure, tragedy, and dragons to slay.

What you want to do is think back to each character and remember how you met them and how they changed you.

Life is full of goodbyes and one times. Goodbyes are sad, so are one times. They are memories. But there are no goodbyes without hellos and there are no one times without adventures. I think that's mostly why I'm obsessed with nostalgia and I revel in goodbyes.

I'm faced with the horror of fleeting youth for the first time.

Because tonight we are young, but tomorrow we are not. Anthems aren't something you cue, they are something that happens. They are the moments you sit in and feel and touch but can't keep. This is our story and we have a responsibility to it. It is what we make it.

The truth is, adventures happen to adventurous people. If you keep running away because you are bored or because you can't find experience where you are, then chances are you will never find it. Where you are is the best place. Where you are there are stories untold. It is up to you to tap into them. There are no such thing as dull moments unless we make it so. Everyday has the potential to be tucked away in the annals of the human endeavor. We are the children of God. The brave princes and princesses that are His supreme joy. We have a grail to find, but we aren't to find it with our head down.

Look up.

There's a tree there, climb it.

There's a cave there, explore it.

There's love there, pursue it.

There's a stone there, turn it.

There's life here

Take it.

Goodbyes and One Times are my very breath.