The Spirit

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth,

      and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

      born of the Virgin Mary,

      suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried: He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting.

Amen

Have you ever had a moment when something takes ahold of your soul? Its as if a hand, invisible yet strong, has reached within you to pull at the very base of who you are. This happens to me from time to time. Sometimes I know the cause, a death, the struggles of a friend, or even just the weight of the worlds sin. But there are other times, when I am not sure of the reason. I like to think this is the Spirit, dragging me by the very strings of me heart, calling my being to prayer. Perhaps this is strange thinking of a physical push from the Spirit. Yet I am certain of times in my life where the Spirit has pushed me or guided me. 

My junior year I had the chance to study acting in Ireland at the Gaiety School of Acting for a month. Patrick Sutton, the Schools Director, asked us a question very early in our time studying with him. "Where is your soul?" Some of the class pointed to our heads and some our hearts. Patrick shook his head and pointed to his stomach. "This is your center, the center of your being." he said.

It is strange but I still think of my soul as the center of my being, resting next to my ever hungry stomach. My head is where my mind and thought rest. It is the place that my reason sometimes takes me on dangerous paths. My heart is where my emotions rest and often, to often, are the dragged around. But my stomach is the center balance wise. Its also where I feed the bases part of my physical nature (the need to eat). The Spirit speaks not just to my head and my heart, but also to that center. 

I often wonder what it would be like to invite God into the very center of my being. Not just into my intelligence or into my emotions, but into the deepest part of me. The Spirit of God comes in like a rush of fire on Pentecost. It is the power of Christ, living in us poor flesh here below. When we speak of being born again, we mean that we are being born in the Spirit (John 3:6-8), that we are no longer just flesh and blood, but Children of God as well. That we have invited God to live within us. 

C.S. Lewis in his Space Trilogy, writes about Eldil, beings made of light. The Eldil can come to a planet but they are really beings who belong to space. Thus they are not bound by gravity. They look to be off kilter to those who's center is a world, because they're center is something else (God). When I think about inviting the Spirit into the center of my being, I am talking about asking God to be my center of gravity. I'm asking God to be the thing that drives me, rather then the needs of my flesh, my emotional heart, or my mind. This doesn't mean that I will no longer eat or cry or think. Rather all I do will be alined to God's will. My life path becomes diverted to his. 

I believe in the Spirit, because he is what realigns me towards God. This is the part of God that gets inside of me and guides me. And hopefully, with the Spirit's help, will ever draw me towards the face of God. 

Fighting Curled Up in My Bed

Again I take a break to think through somethings that I have been dealing with lately. It is one thing to state belief, another to seek relief and help. I have struggled between speaking the truth of my faith and the realization that I am riddled with sin. 

Zephaniah 3:17

"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

Romans 8:13-14

"For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God."

I realize that I'm playing a dangerous game. Its one that I play often. I seek comfort of sheets and blankets and climb within my mind. My mind is a dangerous treacherous place filled with dragons and slimy slithering things. I have found within myself a strange lusting creature. She seeks the breath of passion and the kiss of hope. I build fantasies in which I take part, dreaming my wishes and leaving the reality of life behind. It is a struggle to leave this place once I have ventured within. Dragons are dangerous creatures who's wisdom is matched with malice. The slimy slithering things grab hold of me and drag me deeper within myself.

On Sunday, the sermon was on the Romans 8 passage. I was struck, more like pierced, by the realization of the depth of the sin with which I have tarried. I find that I have needed to seek the Spirit's help to keep myself clear of that easy to enter place. My creative mind beacons, offering what it has gathered within its dark expanse. The problem is that my creativity is not free of the dark depth of my sin. I create in the hope for glory. I create in the hope of escape. I create so I can be outside of myself. The problem is that my creative sin has spilled over into my reality. See if you release the dragon, it rains down destruction on everything and nothing is free of its seeking fire.

So I have found that I need to die to this part of myself. And it is a daily dying. I do not wish to live by the dark wishes of my flesh's nature. I have been bought at a dreadful price. I wish to live by the grace and power which is the Spirit. And in that Spirit I will find life, true and real.

At least that is the hope. The doing is harder then the writing of these words. Which is why I have decided to take the words of Zephaniah along with Paul's. "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save." I have to believe that this daily dying will find its joy in the might of God. I have to rest in the realization that I am a heir to that which Jesus gave up in order to save me. I must continue in this dying seeking the growth of God's identity growing within me. For it is not the identity of sin (death its true form); but rather the life of God's Spirit and the promise of sonship.

Apostle's Creed: Ascended, Seated, & perfect in Judgement.

Another long spell between posts. This has become a habit I'm afraid. I am working on a novel. But there is also three different knitting projects, a long lingering cold, and the stress of work to blame. I have, I fear, found myself living on the surface while I wallow in darkness struggling against my flesh (most on that later).

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth,

      and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

      born of the Virgin Mary,

      suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried: He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting.

Amen

I sat in the dark church gathering the darkness. The last bits of the setting sun glancing through the colors of the stain glass in the church. The carpet is red, and in the gloom blood colored. The alter where candles normally light the grace of our forward facing eyes, is covered in black cloth. Placed on the stairs leading up to that black drenched table, is a cross. Its wood is rough, a row of nails is set half driven into the flesh of its length. A hammer lays on the top step full on malice, because I know what it is for. This is the Good Friday service of my childhood. 

I looked back at the giant window, in which the figure of Christ, stands his hands open walking forward. He seems to beacon while he moves, drawing you upward. During sunday mornings his face is peaceful, full of grace. His hands show the wounds of his pain, this is our Lord in his glory. But at night the face disappeared as if the window makers had thought to make him faceless for his death. This death that we practice ever year. Punctuating the night is the sound of the hammer: a passage is read, a character turns away from the Lord, a nail is pounded, banged into the flesh of the cross in corse bitterness. 

As a child I found it easier to understand this Christ, the one who goes willingly to death. I understood death, had touched the cold lifeless hand of my great grandmother as she lay on white sheets in her final bed. I had watched death take animals and plants. I knew more of this death then my parents could understand. Christ the son of God sent to death. 

However, as I have grown back towards that childhood faith, I find it isn't the Christ of death that I cling to. I cling to the Christ of the living. In childhood the fact of his death held finite importance, the fact that he would have died for me, a strange wonder. Now I linger on the reality of his life after death. He leaves the form which he presents to his followers, wounded and light filled. He is gathered up into the heavens, leaving his followers with a promise of a coming fire. It is the glory of his place next to the father that I prostrate before. The judge who will divide the goats from the sheep. The Son of Men, who took my place and writes my name in the book of life. 

The glory of God is strange and wonderful. It is what makes me tremble, seeing the life promised beyond that death I learned of early in my life. I had to learn, am still learning, the daily death of my sin before the throne of God. I am reminded, shuttering, that I am a fleeting flower quick to bloom and quicker to pass away. Still I seek this death to that which is death to my soul, in seeking the life of his glory. "We are therefore buried with him through baptism into the death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live in new life." (Romans 6:4)

Without his death there can be no raising. Without his life there is now freedom from that which he died to. Without his glory, there is no hope in the future of being in that glory with him. In this glory I dance in my spirit, knowing this hard crumbling form will someday be perfect within him. 

Returning to This Whole Blog Thing... (And dealing with Fear)

So obviously I am struggling with writing on this blog. But to be honest it isn't the blog, it is my devotions in general. They are haunted, ghosts and memories of thoughts, which I remember. I see them from afar, but I can't seem to touch them. I haven't given them flesh and blood for what feels like an age. So here is my return to devotion. I plan to finish my look at the apostle's creed, but at the moment I have other thoughts in my head, other words I would like to share. 

I wrote this piece last night. I was stuck in the narrow space between hardness and rock. I apologies if its a little rambling. 

Ps 144: 1-4
'Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my shield, in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me. O Lord, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow."

Ps 145: 1-5
'I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts. They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works.'

I was unready for the battle. Napping, I was napping. I had spent the morning lazy, trying to keep my dreams long after my body was awake. I had risen late and gone to work. Menial work. Cleaning the bathroom not because I like to clean, but to feel some realness. To feel some sense of accomplishment. My mind seemed stuck else where, some place dark. I was unready for battle.

I eat lunch late, suddenly realizing that I was late to eat by three hours. My body telling me its blood sugar was low. My motivation dwindling, my mind already returning to dream. Tracing familiar fantasies, unwilling to deal with reality. I choose to return to my mind, to my dreams. To sleep away the long daylight hours.

I was awoken by a phone ring: a bugle calling out the march.

I was unready for the battle, but it came none the less. A voice, a call of deep overwhelming need. Reality. Blood in teeth, sweaty palms holding a blade, a slap across the face, all my dreamed battles. The real one is different, deeper, harder, bound to undo me. My heart falls. My soul cries out.

That voice. The voice of a friend I have long called sister. The voice of a soul seeking relief from a pain caused by memory. I tremble, keep my words even, but I am already destroyed. My heart is bleeding. Every pore expels pain. This voice, this sister who can so easily draw me, quarter me. I feel her grief. Know without being told her pain. I enter the battle to stand helpless at her side.

All my depression, all my thoughtless dreams, I build like realities to guard me. Even the little faith I cling to seems unable to keep at bay the on-slaw. My words steady. But once the phone is down and the sister voice removed by miles of space, I am helpless. The fear. This slithering thing which I hold at arms length, comes coiling up my arm, to weave itself thru me. To choke me, pull me under. The storm releases through my eyes. Its thunder my sobs, shacking me, tossing me. I am a boat with out anchor. A tumble weed loose in a cyclone. A warrior shieldless, armor-less, and sword-less, standing in the fiery breath of a dragon.

I was unready for the battle. Removed by miles of road, and car-less. I can not venture to find that sister voice. I can not reach her through electronical pulses, satilights, singels. You can't hold the crying form of a friend through the internet. And my words seem empty, voiceless. I know not what to say. My heart screams a silent prayer. Tumbles into a avilanch of emotions. 'God please' the prayer of the helpless. 'God help' the prayer of the needy. 'God why?' The prayer of the faithless.

I have felt this anger before. 'Why?' I want to cry, gasping, grasping for something real. God always seems so near in those moments. Yet never without his veil. To feel, but not touch. My anger mixes with my fear as the wine in my mouth mixes with my saliva. I'm drinking to numb myself to the fear. And it is the fear I dread. The endless relentless wave which pounds against my sea wall. The searching fingers of water which seeks every crack, to enlarge, to flood.

'God' I cry. My every fiber seeking that endless being. My little faith, the small stretched rope on which I walk. I return to the words of David. 'Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands to war, my fingers to battle.' I wonder at those words. I pour them out and over my angry hot coal heart. 'He is my loving god and my fortress.' I shiver. Dare to climb inside those words. Seek the assurance of that God. The God who called creation to being. I crawl into His reality and claim his shield my own. His rock my foot hold.

The fear is now a braying dog at the door. Ferocious but outside. I lean on the door, pressing myself against its grain. Stay out, stay out. And I pray. Thoughts not words. I have no words. Only knowledge that in him, all will be right. That he holds in reality, that sister voice I can only touch through technology. That he holds what is true. And I write what I hope and pray. To think. To exist outside of myself. I'm halfway through a second glass of wine, still terrified. I cling foolishly, but with abandon, to the truth which David sung all those thousands of years ago: 'I will exalt you, my God the King: I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. His greatness no on can fathom.' 'Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands to war, my fingers to battle.'

I was unprepared for battle. I was unready, taken by surprise in fear.  But I shall write this and pray my heart will read it as truth: The Lord is Love. He loves me deeply. He loves my sister friend as much and better then I could. He is well prepared for the battle. He has already fought the war and won. He is the rock on which my feet find rest. He is the sword in my hand, the shield on my arm, the fortress sourounding me. 'Man is like breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow' But the Lord is without end, without beginning. He is a God who created and knows all things. He is, thus I am delivered.

I was unready for the battle. But the one who stands with me is great, his love surpasses understanding. His greatness, beyond knowledge. His love, unending. I was unready for the battle, but the God of the universe has already won it for me. And my friend, this sister voice, is held within his great loving hand. Whom, What, Shall I fear?

He Arose

I apologies for the long spell of silence on my end. I am forever getting caught up in the bustle of the world and pulled in a million directions. Recently I finished a couple of short devotional for my church's advent devotional. I'll share those one the whole thing has been published. For now I'll continue with the Apostle's creed...

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth,

      and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

      born of the Virgin Mary,

      suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried: He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting.

Amen

What makes Christianity so different? So special? C. S. Lewis wrote: "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." So if true why is it of infinite importance? That on 'The third day He arose again from the dead.' 

So many people look at Christ and see a Good man. One who's speech of love and mercy give warmth and little else. Christ's life and death mean little by themselves. All live and all die. But to rise from teh dead is abnormal, if not impossible. And it is this impossiblity or miracle, that takes Christ from a man to God. Having suffered the death of our sin and true separation from God. Christ goes to hell and returns with the keys to the gate. 

Every Good Friday my parent's home church sings a hymn which always chills me to the bone. 'Were you there when they Crucified my Lord? Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? Were you there when they laid him in the Tomb?' The questions always cut across my realization that I take part in the death of Christ. That it is my sin that kept him on the cross, not the nails. 'Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.' But the hymn doesn't end with Christ being left in the tomb. There will be no worms in his flesh, no maggots. No the hymn ends with another question: 'Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?' 

This is what rests at the center of my belief and understanding of God. That he is not just another victim of this world's darkness, but rather a victor over death itself. 'Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.' 

A Little Creative Writing: I have stood...

I wrote this today and wanted to share it with all of you. It's not really related to one scripture or even the Apostles' creed, which I will return to next post. It was more of a thought or image that I had at work and I had to write it. 

I have stood at the pinnacle at the center of the city's heart. I have felt the beat of that air deprived expanse. The life blood of this city is lies and crumbling facades. The beautiful destruction of souls and the degradation of the flash, mix with the self surveilled multitude.  The grime, which can’t be washed off with water, clings to builds, people, and hearts. And people slow dig their graves in the bowels of lust and false hope. We build our pedestals on others. And make our own selves the pedestals on which we place those who we would worship. And we worship daily, becoming zombies in front of our laptops and flat screens.

I have stood at the pinnacle of what makes us great: all our flesh and mighty dreams. I have felt the coming wind of our desolation. I have seen from afar the brutal hurricane which will destroy this look out. We have decided to be the city in the valley, a shadowed, crumbling mess. We weren’t called to this perpetual falling. We weren’t designed to keep falling down. I have stood at the pinnacle and known the deepest pain and seen only the coming of deep night. I stand there no longer.

The pinnacle of men’s desirers is forever to be higher. To set ourselves beyond the grime of our dirt made flesh.  I have knocked down my pedestal and claimed the clay my brethren. I have met the grime and feed it. I have seen the red eyes of broken lives and the slobbering mouths of the hopeless. They are my brothers. I have sat with the short skirted women, whose faces are no longer pretty and knelt with the track marked rattled bodies of the unsatisfied. They are my sisters. In the shadow of the pinnacle, I have found the face of God. And that shadow making tower, has become an ant hill of foolish wrath.

No longer will I seek to compete with God’s great wonders: to build my own small tower among the many others. No longer will I seek a pedestal on which to demand worship. I will worship on my knees with my fellow clay and dust. I will sing a hallelujah along with my brothers and sisters. We will seek the face of our salvation in the grime of the forgotten. The bones of the dead themselves will dance with us, for death is no longer binding. I have stood at the pinnacle of all the horrible glories of human desire. I will stand there no longer.

Apostles' Creed: Man and God

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth,

      and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

      born of the Virgin Mary,

      suffered under Pontius Pilate,

      was crucified, died, and was buried: He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven,

      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

From there He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

      the holy catholic* church,

      the communion of saints,

      the forgiveness of sins,

      the resurrection of the body,

      and the life everlasting.

Amen

Belief in God is all well and good, but what really distinguishes Christians from the rest of the religions is our belief in Christ. All other religions give various ways in which to come to God or find heaven. Normally it is through deeds, sacrifices, prayers, meditations. Christianity is the only religion in which the way to God is God himself. Namely Jesus, the son. If Jesus isn't in the picture then we have nothing. 

Christ's position as God son makes him high enough to actual save us. While Christ's position as a son of Mary, means that he understands the reason we need saving, because he had live like us. More then that he suffered the death that we were meant to die. Without Christ being fully human and fully God, there is no divine salvation, nor human understanding. 

I could get into the impossibility of a Virgin giving birth, of God taking up the flesh-clay of his creation, and the impossibility of one man being both God and man. But I don't have the words to convince someone of those things. I believe them because there is part of me that understands the impossibility and still believes. Because if Christ is not a man, there is no way that he could suffer and understand death. And likewise, if Christ is not God, how could he have any say or power over my life? Christianity needs a God who is willing to sacrifice his only son to save the willful flash-clay of his creation. Christ is like an author who writes him/herself into their book. The characters in the book only know the author by what the author writes of them-self. The Author is the only one in the book who has the power to write the story and understand fully the lives and choices of the characters. 

The power of Christ is in the duality in being God and Man. As a man he walked the earth. As a man he ate, lived, loved, befriended, helped, served, and lead others who shared that flesh-clay. But unlike us fallen creatures who have turned from our potter, Christ was a pure image of God. Christ's ability to perfectly love and know the heart of men (and women), meant that he spoke into our flesh-clay what would truly give us life. So often people see God as a judge, in the way we think of judges here on earth. A slap of a gravel and we are off to jail or worse. But God's judgement comes from his love for all that he creates. And Christ took that judgement so that we could be free from it. So when we look on Christ we see the one who having know the Father and seen the face of the Father, took the Father turning his face away, felt the complete separation from the Father, so that we would never have too. The beauty of Christ is his ability to bridge the gap between our fallen crumbling flesh-clay and the glorious restoration that is God.