"Step Out Onto The Water" - Aaron Espe

2011-06-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

Doug Burr's "O Ye Devastator" Promo from Jon Todd Collins on Vimeo.

Christian, americana, folkster, Doug Burr, brandishes a mesmerizing photo to showcase the artist's 2010 album entitled, 'O Ye Devastator.' The audience peers in at a bride peeling aside her veil with a heavy laden skepticism so well haunting one wouldn't be far fetched to presume the bridegroom to be the whitest of the bunch beneath the altar. However, Burr's lyricism and imagery seem to suggest a very different bridegroom, one that cracked the world open and flipped itself upside down like an eggshell, a marital relationship so entirely different then the fleshly context we're used to. Frankly, the musician seems to be wanting to show us, us, in light of God and His Church, Jesus and His Disciple, the Holy Spirit and human nature. Particularly, how he chooses to portray us is what seems so touching and real. The opening track entitled, 'A Black Wave is Comin'' reads:

A black wave is comin'
A black wave will fall
Touch your tremblin' lips to your pale fingertips
A black wave doth call

So where do you go my lover
And where do you go my friend
When every face you know and every low road
They have all become dark and dim

A black wave is comin'
A black wave will fall
Touch your tremblin' lips to your pale fingertips
A black wave doth call

So what do you see my darlin'
And what do you see my dear
I can't tell, I can't tell in the wild wood a spell
And the clouds forsake the sky here

So what do you see my lover
And what do you see my friend
I don't know, I don't know at Midnight comes a snow
I can't see, but I hear a little hymn

Alas, the final track entitled, 'High Blood and Long Evening Dresses' sings:

Breathtaker, Devastator, Forsaker, Heartbreaker
I don’t know fear, and I don’t know pain
Oh, rider, whiter than snow on fire
I don’t remember the sound of the name

A well written album review from Dick Sullivan mentions how this is, 'Burr’s real story of laboring in desire without knowledge. It’s the story of a bride not knowing how it ends, sometimes doubting the groom’s own promises of good intent. It’s a story that Doug Burr knows inwardly and, by his own admission, often forgets' (http://frontrow.dmagazine.com/2010/05/doug-burrs-o-ye-devastator-calls-the-listener-to-a-public-confession/).

And in there, everywhere, are great expressions of our residing toil.

Despite the victory of the Gospel (Christ' immaculate incarnation, sinless life, miracles & ministry, death on Golgotha, bodily resurrection, call to humanity, and loving promise of return), we find ourselves beneath this consuming facade of a breaking, black, wave. We've been offered a reality nestled sweetly within the arms of our Creator, entirely fulfilled with no chance of a leak (John 4:7-14). At times, we find ourselves unfaithfully more intimately connected to the depths we've been saved from rather then the beauteous embrace that Jesus has restored between us and the Father...rather then the victory and glory we're slowly but surely, not to mention finitely in the breadth of the eternal, immersed in. There is this black wave of wavering trust and forgetful remembrance...a wave so armored in darkness we can't believe a radiant sun breaks beyond its waters. We're prone to these horrific moments in which we feel less like true believers, true disciples, and more like brides with crinkled waists, bowed face down with doubt, hiding behind the veil. We behave plagued by a human will prone to duck beneath the break of the waves rather then to collapse at the foot of the Cross. The Cross of the most beautiful, most awe-inspiring Creator we're meant to know. For this reason, John the Baptist speaks in truth when he says:

He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less (John 3:30).

Whomever is reading, one must understand a particular day that fast approaches my life. It is hard for me to believe that it is so near and it is even more difficult for me to fathom it's blessing. Soon, I enter into the most deafening whisper of God's love through the utmost beautiful spirit of my bride-to-be, Rebekah. I'll stand beneath an altar and await a moment that suspends time throughout all my life: Rebekah, the Bride, approaching me at the altar of our Lord.

I've waited on this day my entire life without even knowing it! I can only adorn this process like that of a young child whom, with hopes of spotting the first star amidst a descending sun, blinks and awakes to a galaxy igniting across the night. In contrast to the blurry Burr portrayal of a bride white with fear, soon enough, I'll be living out an imagery restored with the intent and confidence of Christ' power and love. I'll be unified to my soul's counterpart by the unshakable power of God's Spirit. From that point on, day in and day out, Rebekah and I officially commit to endure life together, beside one another in humility, affection, sacrifice, passion, and thankfulness. When anger and might emerges, the foot of the Cross tramples. When selfishness and thoughtlessness peer through, the foot of the Cross blinds. When sin and darkness deprives, the foot of the Cross atones. Just how the song reiterates, a black wave is comin' and even though the clouds forsake the sky, we still have trouble seeing truth, we still have the propensity to live unfaithfully... but in the darkness, a hymn can be heard, a voice in the distance, calling us home, calling us to discipleship, and soon the sight will be whiter then snow on fire. Rebekah and I will play the role of that Christ-like voice for one another and we will continuously lead one another nearer and nearer to whom we are created for in Jesus Christ. We will do our best to serve as mirroring images of the love of Jesus...that same love that hung from Golgotha in submission to the Father.

Earlier, I was brainstorming as to what I would like engraved on my wedding band. The way I saw it, my parents lasted twenty plus years on their own strength, so what could be a message powerful enough to remind me to rely on His Strength? God's Spirit spoke:

He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground" (Luke 22:41-44).

The imagery of this scene is completely heart-wrenching. I am deeply touched by the utter obedience of Jesus to heavenly ideals amidst the shear terror of humanly ones. So as it stands, Luke 22:41-44, rests beneath the surface of the band. There always to remind me of the answer to Burr's prose: "What do you see my darlin? What do you see my dear?...What do you see my lover? What do you see my friend?"

I don't see the wave yet, I'm not focused on that mirage, and I definitely don't see the bride depicted earlier that's for sure. I see the most beautiful woman my soul can know. I see someone who commits to gift me with the love, graciousness, forgiveness, and beauty of the Cross that Christ offers us all each and every second of our existence. I see the one I give my life to the way Christ gave His. I see the one who held my face in tears and kissed me Love. I see my bride. I see my star.

I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done (Psalms 9:1).

Clasped Hands

2010-06-09T11:19:00.001-07:00

When we are infants we flail and move, but without destination. Our bodies communicate the desire to be touched, to be loved, to have our presence taken care of by someone able-bodied and heartwarming. We are completely incapable of survival and confidence nor the ability to cope and adjust to the anguish we feel in our bodies and psyches. We have a frightening need for the ones to whom we belong to assure us and graciously accept responsibility to coddle our pain. There is so much forgotten tenderness in the life of a child turned adult. When we grow and become increasingly absorbed in the voices of the world, the voices of the home are drowned out. Our adolescence carries us into an age of exploration and devotion of our worth to the ifs of worldly gain. I and a lovely friend of mine are reading through Henri J.M. Nouwen's, "The Return of the Prodigal Son" and he writes so justifiably:

"The world says: 'Yes, I love you IF you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you IF you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you IF you produce much, sell much, and buy much.' There are endless 'ifs' hidden in the world's love... It is a world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart" (Nouwen, 42).

And this truth carries with us important questions. One being: what brought us to such bondage? I don't mean to ask this in a theological or philosophical sense that could serve as a means to intellectualize the answer; I mean to ask this in a very personal way. Initially, I tended to rationalize my answers for this question rather then to intimately and honestly examine how my growth was fostered through the relationships, parenting, circumstances, and happenings of my childhood. Throughout the course of our upbringing the voices from our homes mostly celebrated and adored our presence or disinherited and resented it in subtle or dramatic tones. At some point, there becomes a paradoxical reality in which what we felt we received or needed in the home conflicted with what was truly communicated in the home or from the world outside of it. How often as a child did I insist for permission to watch TV and fixate my mind towards the messages of other homes and other worlds and other cultures (including western media) that could invade the messages that my mother and father wanted to get across!? How often have we experienced competition and the need to build defense systems academically, socially, religiously!? The belief for a lot of traditional families is that at home we are brought to our deepest sense of belonging, love, and affirmation and from it sprouts self-confidence to encounter the outer voices of 'ifs'. Even relatively, healthy people who experience an adequate dose of benediction in their households may recognize a nourishment unsatisfied by the nuclear family; their fellow human beings who might be good, praiseworthy, loving, and self-sacrificing, but limited... but human.

Rembrandt's painting, 'The Return of the Prodigal Son' is inspired by the Parable of the Lost Son (Lk. 15:11-32) and it's inspiration dribbles unremittingly into the quandaries of the spiritual life. As a curiously driven adolescent, my wayward heart ventured into distant country through minor, but certain moral escapades entangled into a thicket of power, self-worship, and instant gratification; absolute zero humility meshed with a lustful hunger to possess what I could get from family, friends, and strangers. From a childhood that made me feel like I was a 'nothing' comes with it the inner struggle of an over-exuberant drive to prove I am without-a-doubt someone incomparably above all other 'somethings'. When I give in to this way, I take up arms, and I give presence to distant country, far off from the voice of our Heavenly Father.

"Consider, brothers, how you were called; not many of you are wise by human standards, not many influential, not many from noble families. No, God chose those who by human standards are fools to shame the wise; He chose those who by human standards are weak to shame the strong, those who by human standards are common and contemptible -- indeed those who count for nothing -- to reduce to nothing all those that do count for something, so that no human being might feel boastful before God. It is by him that you exist in Christ Jesus, who for us was made wisdom from God, and saving justice and holiness and redemption. As scripture says: 'If anyone wants to boast, let him boast of the Lord'" (1 Corinthians 1:26-31, NJB).

I agree with Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche, when he speaks of how people with a disability have a special vocation in the world [1 Corinthians 1:27-29) for each day I live within a world bonded to the marginalized, I realize, as my teachers, those whom I assist in life call me to become more selfless, more giving, more loving, more gentle, more forgiving, more patient, and more beautified in my heart rather then my image. Those who are oppressed and forgotten are the ones who mirror a cry for us to reach deep within our own humanity and discover that which is the Spirit of God, dwelling within, calling us to be vulnerable, meek, and malleable so our hands and feet and mouths may bear His Grace and Love and Life at the tips of it. We are called to be with the lowliest and blessed, not the popular and empty.

"We need to hear that gentle, inner voice of God who tells us: 'You do not need to pretend. You do not need to hide your weakness. You can be yourself. I didn't call you to l'Arche or to another form of community first of all to help others or to prove that you were generous or efficient. I called you because you are poor, just like the ones you came to serve, and because the Kingdom of God is promised to the poor.'"(Befriending the Stranger, Jean Vanier, 17)

God desires for us to claim our identity, our preciousness like that of the relationship of a dependent infant with their daddy, Abba, and to become faithful in that cherished reality as His beloved son or daughter in whom His favor rests (Song of Solomon 7:10; Matthew 3:17). Indeed, I AM a forgiven sinner saved once and wholly by the gracious act of the willingly crucified Son of God, Jesus Christ. I began my walk with Jesus when I ran back home and into His arms from the sheer jubilation of this truth. This jubilation can carry us a long way, but over time there might become a hidden transition from one attitude to another. The journey of the Prodigal Son is not the only call to homecoming in Rembrandt's painting and, frankly, it is a rather comfortable and redeeming role compared to the eldest brother. The Prodigal's strife is a "classical human failure with a straightforward resolution. Quite easy to understand and sympathize with" (Nouwen, 71).

The eldest son in the painting stands upright and self-righteously, taller then that of his father! His eyes look disapprovingly on the embrace of his father and younger brother and his mouth is pursed shut. He remains at a distance with no foreshadowing display of receiving his brother similarly to his father. He has disowned his brother for his irresponsibility and his father for his foolishness and favoritism. He is lost in jealousy and resentment, standing with clasped hands. What was going on here?

"As the eldest son in my own family, I know well what it feels like to have to be a model son. I often wonder if it is not especially the elder sons who want to live up to the expectations of their parents and be considered obedient and dutiful. They often want to please. They often fear being a disappointment to their parents. But they often also experience, quite early in life, a certain envy toward their younger brothers and sisters, who seem to be less concerned about pleasing and much freer in 'doing their own thing.'" (Nouwen, 71)

"He was obedient, dutiful, law-abiding, and hardworking. People respected him, admired him, praised him, and likely considered him a model son. Outwardly, the elder son was faultless. But when confronted by his father's joy at the return of his younger brother, a dark power erupts in him and boils to the surface. Suddenly, there becomes glaringly visible a resentful, proud, unkind, selfish person, one that had remained deeply hidden, even though it had been growing stronger and more powerful over the years" (Nouwen, 71).

In the vagabondage of our spiritual lives, we can commit to being home, a disciple, a lover of God and His children, but must be weary of a heart meandering about, watching over the horizon because it is discontented with home, and someday standing with clasped hands over the things and people that God delights in. The challenge that unfolds before me is now less like that of the Prodigal Son's, faroff-ness returning home and to an embrace, and more like that of the eldest brother, one of resentment and entitlement needing to be let go; needing to choose gratitude and trust over rivalry and praise. The eldest sibling within us needs to embrace the notion that he or she is not less loved, favored, or adored by their Abba, but it takes a steady diet of humble-pie to liberate this bondage. When the eldest son within me becomes unrestrained, complains louder, and fumes over not being given the rightful due for my labor or others being praised for less toil than I believe I suffered, I must clang a resounding cymbal that blares:

'I am no better (or worse) then the other,

I am no less a sinner (or saint) then the other,

I am given no more (or less) then the other,

and I am no more righteous.

I am beloved and I choose to abandon this burden and celebrate!'

Nouwen suggests that Rembrandt depicts the setting of the house and the fields from the Parable in the darkness and light of the painting. There is a smudge of light permeating from the face of the eldest son, but he stands in darkness. His clasped hands are so closely pressed to his underbelly; he seems motionless yet anxious to escape. The father's light brushes up against him, but I get the sense that it is fading; waning away back to the fields. The eldest was done with his day of labor, returning home for some R&R and a meal, probably selfishly proud of his body of work, but he heard music and dancing and became suspicious of all things! After cross-examining a servant, he refuses to go in next!

"Now the elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back, as he drew near the house, he could hear music and dancing. Calling one of the servants he asked what it was all about. The servant told him, "Your brother has come, and your father has killed the calf we had been fattening because he has got him back safe and sound." He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out and began to urge him to come in;but he retorted to his father, "All these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed any orders of yours, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property -- he and his loose women -- you kill the calf we had been fattening" (Luke 15:25-30).

Being born again, we still need to grow up. Often, my self-righteous, angry, resentful, and prideful behavior is symbolic of a deep-seeded notion that God has overlooked, unappreciated, and sideswiped the favor He may once have held in me. This emotional storm puts us in paralysis. It's a vicious cycle that leaves us nowhere; crawling in an exercise wheel for mouses. We get so internally clouded that we fail to receive our brothers, sisters, and even our Heavenly Father as family. The fog gets so thick we no longer notice that Abba came out to us as well and said in the most loving way:

"The father said, 'My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found" (Luke 15:31-32).

Feeling most like the eldest son nowadays, the choice has been offered and the invitation read. Do I stay in the field, as the sun falls, and insist on my resentment for not feeling beloved in the heart of God? Do I reject He whom bled through forsakenness on a cross so that I might collapse into the embrace of our Heavenly Daddy? As enticing as it sounds to stand cold, alone, and forgotten in the fields at night, I'd rather eat, dance, sing, and laugh in the warmth and light of the party. I'd rather sink my exhausted face into the lining of the Shepherds robe, bow my forehead into His Heavenly kiss, and allow the tenderness and uprightness of His touch carry the burden of all the self-righteousness, self-hatred, and resentment that has made each step in life feel o so heavy. I must remain in Him by holding closer to my heart the truth that I am His Beloved then the lie that I am not; that I am only half-loved or that He has grown tired of my shenanigans. In every way, He loves us.

Every

way.

"While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him" (Luke 15: 20).

"My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours" (Luke 15: 31).

One Lovely Moment

2010-03-25T14:13:00.000-07:00

(Photo by: Rebekah Stratton)

"The life of man passes away suddenly as a shadow" - Thomas a Kempis

Our lives are not guaranteed the next breath. We are not presently enduring through the worries of tomorrow or absolving the regrets of yesterday ever. We have one moment; one present and lovely moment to seize God's gift of life and it comes in no other form, but the dual reality of here and now. Experiencing the reality of what is true and what is actually happening is what we can delight in. This is why to be alive in the present breath is so precious and to be elsewhere in thought with any more occupation with the past or future then a gentle foresight is so life exhausting. Almost always, we delight in what we experience more than what was experienced or will be. I've found that often I plead God to be felt, known, glorified,beautified, and present in my presence in the now more than any other instance.

"It is an act of radical trust- trust that God can be encountered at no other time and in no other place than the present moment. Being fully present in the now is perhaps the premier skill of the spiritual life" (Manning, Ruthless Trust, 150).

Too many moments of lavish, precious, beauty have I wasted in the preoccupation of what is not the here and now of what I have been given. In my spiritual life, God's providence seems felt and true less so in the moving of the mountains and more so in things I observe outside the windows of my study: the laughter and smiles of toddler-aged sisters rejoicing in their discovery of flower-like leafs, the birds dancing off the sky as if it were a stage to their ballet, and that overcast sky, pierced with sunlight that blankets the Earth through only pocket-sized breaks in the clouds- that sky that flows like an upside-down ocean in whom it's clouds are like waves that do not crash. And so it is, in these attuned moments, there exists the opportunity of life to be lived fully and for God to be exalted. His goodness surrounds us in both the mundane and the exhilarating, but it takes a special fidelity to the reality we live in, the present moment, the here and now, to be fulfilled in the only moment we have been assured of.

It is difficult when circumstances are not preferential or easy-going. There is too much fiddling with what we desire or dwelling on what we have not received and most times an agony with the present grief of that particular moment. In such moments we are starving for an escape, for what might be next, in hopes that it carries us through the anguish. Our living must long for God's gentle grace to bestow upon us a perspective that is grounded in a romantically, true, Truth: that we are blessed, saved, kissed by His Son and His Creation. We are pinned into a state of Grace when there is harmony with this exact reality and we find ourselves stuck in His love and affection and the compassion that all of life surrounds us in.

Those who are unable to hide the pieces of their brokenness and weakness like the physical deformities or social awkwardness that can be telling of a disability, the aged face of the elderly, the famished face of the impoverished, or the grotesque face of lepers are often marginalized due to the fact that they are living, breathing windows into our own fragility. The marginalized remind us of our brokenness, our weakness, our unlovable deformities. We want power, control, the illusion that life can be seized and in this possession that we are invincibly powerful. Inside this hollow power is a strong hope that it defines my value as great and that that greatness amends my character flaws and deep-seeded hurts. The marginalized walk stripped free of this illusion because they are knee-deep in the reality of their brokenness and it has imparted on them no escape-route. Over time they simply wish to live and to love the most that they are still able to love and appreciate. They embrace their reality, regardless of the circumstances, and this is why they own the keys to a divine love and joy. Their abandonment from non-reality helps them live more fully in every moment so they have the most presence to offer, the most love to offer, the most smiles to offer, and they offer the most acceptance of our brokenness and fragility. The marginalized are natural grace givers and wingless angels- they are Christ Jesus, in whom He associates Himself and His Kingdom with.

There is a man I assist who came into community with a lot of inflicted pain; he had been mistreated and hated and groomed to defend himself in order to be noticed, to be acknowledge, and to feel alive. He finds beauty in the most subtle details, yet he lacked the acknowledgment of his own beauty through years spent in an institutional life. He is desperate to connect; his cry of brokenness is a cry for relationship. In the depths of his inmost, mute, being he cries most every day to feel tied to others and for others to affirm this connection. At L'Arche, he has found in himself a greater peace of mind and healed wonderfully, but there is no robbing ourselves of the special anguish we hold. It is an anguish that reminds us now is not the time in which God's Will is fully realized, the perishable is raised imperishable, and the sting of death is withheld its triumphs. My L'Arche friend's cry for connection can manifest itself in anger and painful outbursts, but most times it is a cry of subtlety and soundlessness. I often take my friend for a walk and hold his hand. My hand is a source of security, connection, and appropriate affection for him. I use to think that gripping his hand tight and powerfully would send to him a primal message of superiority and strength, but learning to love through letting go of control and embracing weakness has become the central theme of my life at L'Arche. Now, I feel the weight of his hand, his firm grip, and I loosen and tighten accordingly to the situation. When he has to take a risky step, he holds tight, but other times he loosens up to enable a happy waive to the planes flying over our heads or to pet a dog that has joyfully approached. There is so much centralized focus in the physical embodiment of love and assurance and security with this friend of mine. He is, for the most part, nonverbal by choice. His choice expresses a difficulty to cope with the trauma of his life and his loved ones who have now passed. It's almost as if a part of his heart numbed in the passing of these dear family members and he wishes not to give it to anyone else in the same way. Perhaps he talks less to connect less after experiencing this heart trauma, but only God knows the whys and what-fors. God hasn't called me to analyze my friend so much as He has called me to walk with him, to hold him, to bring forth an inner peace through an environment of love, acceptance, and care. The primary mission of L'Arche is to love the body; to care for the physicality of our core members first with the understanding that it can transform the spirit. It is our belief that the inner-pain inflicted by societal rejection of disabled bodies can be salvaged and healed in a community of love and acceptance of their whole beings; mind, body, heart, and soul. So first, I walk, I talk, I grasp, I do my best to see his view, to feel his emotion, to understand his cry and to remedy it with something constructive and often ordinary- like petting a friendly animal or getting some fresh air or sharing a cup of coffee across a table. His moments of peace have taught me the necessity to be gentle and tender and in this I realize that when I hold his hand during our walks there is an exchange of intimacy occurring. Not a romantic, possessive intimacy, but an intimacy that helps us become attuned to the present moment; an intimacy that sits and settles and calmly instills companionship. My friend has become my teacher; a teacher to the lifestyle of the here and now, the present moment, the 'all-we-have-left' of today.

Another teacher of presence to the present is the story of a stranger. He is a man I often see who sits in the same seat, around the same hour, in the same coffee-shop I like to attend. He is old, senile, slow, and smiley. I've found myself greatly annoyed by his presence because it seems weak and desperate for the attention of others. He often gets up, walks around, makes small talk with the locals, and returns to his seat. When he gets up from his seat about ready to make his rounds, I imagine a mental image of me crunching my eyes shut, crossing my fingers, and thinking, 'Please, please not me, please don't talk to me! Let me read and study and sit in solitude and silence! I did not come to appease your need for relationship in this day.' Many times I've avoided and squandered his invitation to converse. I have overheard his conversations with others plenty (having a few with him as well) and have realized that as mundane the transaction can be his temperament is symbolic of an inner-peace that I have not reached nor can fully fathom. Children run to him, giggling, seeing in his physical weakness and wrinkled face a tender smile. They bring a human face to this man- a loving compassion for the prized human being he is despite his societal status, but also because he brings these children a human face as well. In all the children's naivety, silliness, and smallness, he regards them as precious beings who deserve the greatest of love because their zest for life and innocence is pure gold. In fact, this man is not simply human, but uniquely human... for he sits and marvels at the world around him. He is not desperate to taste his drink, to brazen an important phone call,to read a book, to type away on a lab-top, or to pay and bolt out of there. He searches and sees out the window a world that must be appreciated, he sees in everything a view to be mesmerized. When a toddler runs to him and acts silly he doesn't demand respect or proper-behavior, he simply rejoices in their joy, pinches a rosy-cheek, and lets them scurry off while he converses with the parents. He is a man who has learned, in all the rugged years life has brought him and that he has brought onto himself, a simple desire to sit and see and experience in a state of contemplative gratitude- grasping the here and now of his life and in so doing, making each breath a song of worship to His Abba. This is a practice that many of us have not practiced well enough.

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thess. 5:16-18)

There is gratitude to be discovered and uncovered in all circumstances; we're being encouraged to give thanks because in every moment there is reason to be thankful. It is not grounded in our illusions or our worldly renowned treasures because they are all what God's Spirit speaks through Solomon as, "a chasing after the wind" (Ecclesiastes 1:14). As Jesus commands the storm, "Quiet! Be still!" (Mk. 4:39), so does He command the storm within us. A ruthless trust in Him can devour our worries in the beauty of the here and now. Jesus tells us to watch the birds in the sky and not to worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will take care of itself; that our days are riddled with enough trouble of its own (Mt. 6:26, 34).

Jean Vanier says in an interview, "The big thing for me is to love reality and not live in the imagination of what could have been or should have been or what can be... and somewhere...to love reality and then discover... that God is present." I hear in these words that the most necessary thing is to love exactly who and what your reality is made of. It can be someone on your heart who is not present or someone fully present whom your heart beats in ignorance of and in this attentive, intentional, gratitude of your reality, God's felt absence or felt rapture entangles our faithful trust to our Abba- similar to those last words Christ uttered before His last breath atop Golgotha, "Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit" (Lk. 23:46).

So when you breathe, breathe with a ruthless trust. A trust that is not entitled, but grateful. Be vulnerable to the worthiness of each passing moment. Be humbled through the knowledge that your life is a passing shadow. Give presence to the present and acknowledge the rhythm of your growing-up son or daughter or sibling or self, the sound of music traversing through nature's wildlife, the motion that naked, winter, branches make swaying to and fro with the wind, the laughter of your present friends, the tears of a loved one or a crying nation. There really is only here and now to acknowledge life as gift and give thanks to the Giver.

Are you listening?

This is it. This is all we have to salvage and to savor. Here and now.

Writing while listening to: David Crowder Band- "O God Where Are You Now (In Pickeral Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)"

The Rabbi's Heartbeat

2010-02-12T17:37:00.000-08:00

"The disciple Jesus loved was reclining next to Jesus... He leaned back on Jesus' breast" (John 13:23, 25).

Brennan Manning restores the weight of such a historical event in his work, Abba's Child: "John lays his head on the heart of God, on the breast of the man whom the council of Nicea defined as 'being coequal and consubstantial to the Father...God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God'...God allows a young Jew, reclining in the rags of his twenty-odd years, to listen to His heartbeat!" (121-122).

I've wildly obsessed over the thunder of Abba's embrace depicted in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). I'm convinced it must be good to be neurotically beguiled by the imagery of tenderness in the life of Jesus. How great the temptation is to indulge the self-cynic and employ that tit for tat, impostor of a god who's identity is less famously known as insecurity, self-hatred, self-pity, and self-worship. There is a faith dichotomy growing in the culture of our Churches and hidden in our self-righteousness that announces, 'God loves, likes, accepts, and embraces me only when I am a good boy or girl.' Fathoming Jesus it is easy to distance ourselves from His heart and get heady because our minds are rambunctious. There is no stillness or freedom from all the inner commotion.

I went searching for a word from God amidst the tranquil beauty of Plum Island beach on the edge of Massachusetts. An odd, off-the-beaten path of broad, bulked, boulders formed a bridge out to the rougher waters of the shore. I perched at the cliff of this path atop the ten foot highth of a center boulder with music and Bible in hand...none of which was necessary. Beginning to schlepp back the leathered corners of my bible, I glossed over an opportunity to see our Abba in the eye of His beauty before a cantankerous boom shivered my sense of security so defiantly it nearly knocked me into the waters of a wintry beach. The boom was that of a crashing wave.

We need to be hushed to hear.

If we are not then all the clamor rips us apart from the birds in the sky and the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:26, 28) or in my case the rage of the sea. All the headiness, all the outpouring of time and energy in performance and persona, all the innocent questioning and pondering can create such a thick babel that we become deaf to the soft and tender nature of His heartbeat. I am envious of that disciple to have physically encountered the thump of our Abba. Perhaps you may recall the quiet oneness of resting an ear on the bosom of a parent or love. The experience can be so infantile and safe...so intimate.

We require such an intimacy to deliver us to a place of understanding that the Spirit is willing and present; that the resurrected Christ has come, ascended, and shall return and who resounds and surrounds us now. Manning refers to this with the term present risenness. I enjoy how Alexandre Dumas, Pere's character, Mercedes, speaks of God in the adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo, "No, He is in everything. Even in a kiss." Mercedes passion shares a sweet resemblance to the words, "I am with you always..." (Matthew 28:20). We are blessed when we receive moments in tune with the present risenness of God because it is this moment exactly where we feel unified to God and comfortable enough to lean back on His breast. We stop fearing Him and all His uncontainable majesty because we caught the simplest notion of His love and adoration for us. It must reflect similarly the eruption of emotion a drenched and well fed Simon Peter had at the shores of Tiberias (John 21:7-22). To build faith in His present risenness one must discover His present tenderness and this might only be possible through trusting the nature of divine Love.

"In love there can be no fear, but fear is driven out by perfect love: because to fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love" (1 John 4:18).

Fear clogs the artery of the Great Rabbi's heart, thus His love will not flow throughout our being. Having faith in God's love bypasses the whispers of doubt circulating throughout our intellectuality. In fear and doubt the feet are like cement blocks that cling us to the worldly. In the wake of the Resurrection of the Christ, Thomas professed his doubt through the knowledge of how very dead the Great Rabbi hung at Calvary:

"So the other disciples said to him, 'We have seen the Lord,' but he answered, 'Unless I can see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe' (John 20:25)"

Jesus sought him out eight days later:

"Peace be with you,' he said. Then he spoke to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving any more but believe" (John 20:26, 27).

It is through passages like these and that of John 13:25 that I believe God is saying to us all: "I am willing to let you touch Me. Hush and come closer...feel My wounds and hear My heart for it is yours. Why are you so frightened, you who have so little faith?"

This profound vulnerability is the God whom my heart breaks for and whom I yearn to be defined under. Defining ourselves as the object of His affection claims the Truth of who we are: "I am my beloved's, and His desire is for me" (Song of Solomon 7:10). Awareness of our belovedness steals us from all the commotion and babel telling us otherwise and we don't become aware without an intention to remain in Him, the Great Vine.

"Our longing to know who we really are- which is the source of all our discontent- will never be satisfied until we confront and accept our solitude. There we discover that the truth of our belovedness is really true. Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ" (Abba's Child, 52-53).

Having respect and awe for God is more than lovely, but too much so can border fear. When we cross that border we live in the heady adult-land that drowns out the beckoning voice of Jesus. How do we receive Jesus like a little child? A child has a silly entitlement to what they want; 'give me this- give me that' and they expect to receive in the most selfish and obnoxious manner. Having that silly expectancy of complete entitlement to the lap of our Abba and His arms and His lips and His heartbeat is what will sooth the soul. I cannot come near to Him without knowing Him as Abba. I cannot rest in Him unless I allow myself to. The only way I can trust myself to do so is to know who I truly am. It only hurts when I live like a slave to whether or not I've been a good boy- efficient, well-liked, righteous, sacrificial, wise, feeling impenitence through counting my penitence's. We must allow ourselves to be subdued by the awe of Calvary and the roar of Abba's heartbeat; to question and to tantrum like a child but at the end of the day lay exhausted on His breast and to understand that it is in the nook of His arms that we are home.

"As John leans back on the breast of Jesus and listens to the heartbeat of the Great Rabbi, he comes to know Him in a way that surpasses mere cognitive knowledge... In a flash of intuitive understanding, John experiences Jesus as the human face of the God who is love. And in coming to know who the Great Rabbi is, John discovers who he is- the disciple Jesus loved" (Abba's Child, 122).

The Great Rabbi beckons, "I am willing to let you touch Me. Hush and come closer...feel My wounds and hear My heart for it is yours. Why are you so frightened, you who have so little faith?"

The Gospel of Grace

2010-01-01T18:13:00.000-08:00

"The American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice" (Manning, 16).

"As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, 'Follow Me.' So he arose and followed Him. Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, 'Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?' When Jesus heard that, He said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: 'Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed I came to call not the upright, but sinners'(Matthew 9:9-13)."

Brennan Manning expounds on the Gospel of Grace in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel,

"The Kingdom is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live there. No, it is for a larger, homelier, less self-conscious caste of people who understand they are sinners because they have experienced the yaw and pitch of moral struggle'(23) and 'The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God. While there is much we may have earned- our degree, our salary, our home and garden, a Miller Lite, and a good night's sleep- all this is possible only because we have been given so much: life itself, eyes to see and hands to touch, a mind to shape ideas, and a heart to beat with love. We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift; it is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous disposition, or our heroic life of prayer. Even our fidelity is a gift. 'If we but turn to God,' said St. Augustine, 'that itself is a gift of God.' My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it" (25).

Sitting in A/C operated, four-walled, roofed rooms, holding leather bound Bibles with embroidered signatures, and fluffing about with our newly ingrained phrases of spiritual or philosophical eccentricity gets old...fast. We get complacent and lazy and treat the heart of Jesus as if it were some mysterious insignia meant only to be poked and prodded with from a distance. Then we dishonorably pass this off as humble and gracious word offerings that allow us to rot selfishly in our own disarray of His majesty and our depravity- never closing the gap. I've done this...and felt proud of myself after. With a string of tiny, inane moments of self-pity and false-worship, the ego becomes covered and canopied with a sense of entitlement to the right hand of God's throne.

I was talking with a friend of mine discussing the realities of what it felt like to go to South Africa [not to imply that one would need to go to South Africa to encounter this] and introduce ourselves to people whom we, in a matter of days, were standing above their graves; befriending people on the precipice of passing. For me, one of the things this made me wonder about was, 'What is it all about? Whatever it is I do in Your name, Lord, what is the point and is it of Your heart?' There was a bare-naked truth to the gospel of grace I had not experienced happening.

No more ruminations in the A/C room about how one felt about a spoon-fed scripture verse were needed- simply prayer, presence, and compassion. Love in the limelight had nothing to do with my part anymore. Realizing this, I felt so caught up in a web of hierarchical spirituality that at the heart of it was the idea that I was not good enough...not old enough...not pure enough...not smart enough...not prayerful enough...not (fill-in-blank) enough to receive the beloved embrace of my Abba and to give it. In other words, there was still always 'work to be done' before I can bask in the effervescing light of The Creator.

Where is Grace?

In response to 2 Corinthians 12:9 [...my grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness...], Manning writes,

"Whatever our failings may be, we need not lower our eyes in the presence of Jesus. Unlike Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, we need not hide all that is ugly and repulsive in us. Jesus comes not for the super-spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don't have it all together, and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace. As we glance up, we are astonished to find the eyes of Jesus open with wonder, deep with understanding, and gentle with compassion" (Manning, 28).

Observing the bewildered and dying in a raw manner forced me to contemplate how big 'my agenda/my role/my opinion' was in the grand scheme of things. We have to constantly allow an inner-death to take place when we confront reality in the backdrop of a cozy discipleship. For those of us who have experienced the lull of privilege, consider yourself blessed when that background becomes front and center. One professor of mine called it being 'broken for the ordinary'.

Some of us are deeply weighed down by the pressures of legalistic Christians. The god of the legalistic Christian is 'unpredictable, erratic, and capable of all manner of prejudices. When we view God this way, we feel compelled to engage in some sort of magic to appease Him' (Manning, 40).

But this is your God- the God of the gospel of grace. He is a God who,

"out of love for us, sent the only Son he ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross, and died whispering forgiveness on us all" (Manning, 40).

There are circumstances in life that place a buffer between much of the world's sufferings and our own and then this blockage transcends us into a guilty discipleship with Jesus. If our hearts can tame that discord though, we can alleviate ourselves from the chains of good works and grow a tender desire to be the hands and feet of Jesus. His heart was not meant to be poked and prodded with in intellectual awe, but it was meant to be consumed and forged in love for the poor in spirit, the weeping, the meek, the merciful, the hungry and thirsty for righteousness, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted in His name [Matthew 5:3-12, Luke 6:20-26], the parched and starved, the black sheep, the repulsively naked, the suffering, and the imprisoned [Matthew 25:31-46].

Service in the name of 'my guilt' is not a reflection of God's love. Many Christians I meet wear a guilt behind their eyes. On the surface they will be talking about integrity, social justice, philosophical observations, things that are comical or fascinating, but things meant to deviate from the source of their pain. They are yet to find a true liberation and grace within the areas of life their soul cries out for. They are yet to allow the yoke of guilt to be lifted. For me I needed to hear: 'It's not your fault' and I needed to hear it over...and over...and over again.

There is a cool song from Switchfoot called 'Always' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85vi2pB1T5c&feature=related). The lyrics go:

This is the start
This is your heart
This is the day you were born
This is the sun
These are your lungs
This is the day you were born

And I am always yours

These are the scars
Deep in your heart
This is the place you were born
This is the hole
Where most of your soul
Comes ripping out
From the places you’ve been torn

And it is always yours
But I am always yours

Hallelujah!
I’m caving in
Hallelujah!
I’m in love again
Hallelujah!
I’m a wretched man
Hallelujah!
Every breath is a second chance

And it is always yours
And I am always yours

This song, so fragile and moving, helps me reflect on where God loves and showers His grace upon me. It did not look like plaques or degrees of knowledge, praise, or accomplishment, it did not look like me punching out Church-attendance cards, leading mission trips, bible studies, or any thing like it.

No.

MY start, MY heart, MY lungs, MY scars, MY day of being born anew will ALWAYS look like 15-year-old, brokenhearted, guilt-ridden, tear-driven, dumbfounded, little Ryan face down on his knees, in the center of a dark bed room, joyous from the whispers of God's forgiveness roaring deep into my bones and completely enveloped in a well of God's grace made sufficient for me in all my unending weakness.

He is always yours. He will prevail through the strongholds of self-induced cages, the shadows of guilt-built basements, and the nooks and crannies of calloused hearts.

There's no need to pick yourselves up by the boot-straps as Manning states. Surrender. Hallelujah, we are wretched sons & daughters given the grace to cave in and the breath to sing and dance a second chance.

This is Love and Grace in the purest, most unabashed form and it's

always

yours.

You Were

2009-12-22T20:13:00.000-08:00

There is something prophetic in people who seem marginal and difficult; they force the community to become alert, because what they are demanding is authenticity. Too many communities are founded on dreams and fine words; there is so much talk about love, truth, and peace. Marginal people are demanding. Their cries are cries of truth because they sense the emptiness of many of our words; they can see the gap between what we say and how we live (Jean Vanier, 274).

It will be difficult not sharing the holidays with my family this year, but my absence from home can't be in vain. Living in community there is an importance to be where I am and who I am with. God can call us else where, with others, and it's vital for us to be intentional about our presence to those God wills us to share it with.

During a season that culturally couples the extremities of 'individualism, materialism, and sensationalism'(Nouwen, 90) to the importance of quality time with others, we miss out on the gift and importance of a 'true being-with'. Our souls seek consolation, but we guise it with hollow offerings to others. We offer a few cans for the food-drive, buy the overpriced gift in hopes for high praise, toss a few extra bucks into the tithing basket [which please understand these things can all be very good, whether given genuinely or not for those who will receive these blessings], but really at the end of the day the soul screams, "What about me!? Who will care for me!? How am I loved!?" Although there are definitely times in life where we need nourishment before we can nourish, I believe Christ certainly dwells within when our innards cry out not to be consoled, but to console; not to be filled, but to be empty.

There are many who have lost confidence in their smile, their words of encouragement, their eyes, their prayers, and their presence; many who have forgotten the bare essentials to being present and available and how acutely transforming these things are. Genuine presence is the confirmation of a love that bears a true being-with; eyes ready to see, ears ready to listen, hearts beating with compassion, smiles pursing into laughter.

At L'Arche many of our core members and assistants return to their families, relatives, or dear friends to celebrate the holidays with one another. Some community members share a grief in not having family to visit or that not many are seeking quality time to be with them- during a season of togetherness they feel isolated. In light of this reality there is a lot of empowerment in being sent off with the knowledge that one will be greatly missed and that their return would be a joyous reception. This is not apart of our job, but apart of our roles for those of us who have set our roots in community.

Some community members might be physically fit enough to be considered mobile, but it is not without a strenuous exertion of effort. For those who struggle with such mobility, I've always found it important to come to them. One of my housemates enjoys sitting on the couch and watching TV before he goes to bed. Each day looks different, but to express love the extensions of my heart come through feeble details. I sit next to him, watch with him, talk with him, and always attempt graciously to say goodnight. When I first arrived at the house he never spoke with me, joked with me, and was clearly stifled by my boisterous personality. Day in and day out I learned the little things that I could do to show him that I was not there simply to sit, to watch, and to let the time pass. My 'being there' was also meant to be my 'being with'. His guardedness slowly turned into a recognition of acceptance and a seed of trust was planted, watered, and nourished between the two of us.

A very beautiful example of the 'true being-with' I speak of is in the movie Forrest Gump. Near the end, Forest enters with breakfast prepared for Jenny to eat in bed. Jenny is fatally ill.

Henri Nouwen writes, 'Death is such a mystery, forcing us to ask ourselves, 'Why do I live? How do I live? For whom do I live?' And also, 'Am I prepared to die...now...later? (101-102)'

In light of this, Jenny asks Forrest if he was scared in Vietnam. The exchange goes like this:

FORREST (while reminiscing on landmark experiences apart from Jenny)-

Yes. Well, I, I don't know.

Sometimes it would stop raining long enough for the stars to come out. And then it was nice. It was like just before the sun goes to bed down on the bayou...

There was over a million sparkles on the water. Like that mountain lake.

It was so clear, Jenny. It looks like there were two skies, one on top of the other. And then in the desert, when the sun comes up...

I couldn't tell where heavens stopped and the earth began. It was so beautiful.

[Forrest looks at Jenny. Jenny looks out the window]

JENNY-

I wish I could have been there with you.

FORREST-

You were.

[Jenny reaches over and takes Forrest's hand]

JENNY-

I love you.

This heartwarming interaction just pulls you apart from yourself. Go out with a conviction to share warmth and light to those whom we have been given over to. Grasp that hand a little bit tighter, reach down and converse a little deeper, laugh harder, smile brighter, hug longer, walk slower and make sure to take the long way home, eat merrier, breathe deeper. Do all of this in a way that depicts that beautiful desire to truly be with whomever it is that stands before you.

May your presence have a rhythm to it. One that stays up late near hospital beds during the holidays, one that sits longer with those who beg from concrete, one that assuredly answers to those who don't want to be alone, who hurt, who rage, who despair, who hunger, and who cry. Think of those you know of who might need to be reminded of what it feels like to be deeply adored, welcomed, missed, and loved. Live with a peace and a grace that tenderly speaks 'You Were'.

Jean Vanier quotations taken from 'Community & Growth'
Henri Nouwen quotations taken from 'Adam'
The last scene of Forest Gump can be seen at this url:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFadFtZ8M-I)

Celebration!

2009-11-19T20:17:00.000-08:00

As I stated before, here at L'Arche we use anything we can to have an excuse to celebrate. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, whatever it may be and yes, it can be stressful, but it really does bring a lot of life, love, and happiness into the equation which is wonderful. So if you ever visit, perhaps Kim from real housewives of Atlanta says it best in her mountains of sage wisdom: do not be tardy for the party (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsoS-RUEbqU&feature=related); please no one ask how I know of this.

Last months celebration was a lot of fun and my favorite party yet so I was hoping we would pick up some steam as a community for THIS months party, ehem, seeing as it is my birthday and at least two other assistants that I know of. This hope was threatened for me after coming down with some good old fashioned influenza. Fortunately I've started to turn the corner and thought I might be up for hearing some affirmations, eating cake, and enjoying the spotlight that I get so little of...Bahaha! Anyways... For the first time in my tenure here as a L'Arche Irenicon assistant:

Community celebration = canceled!

This made me laugh because this crap SO happens to me, I swear. Sidenote: I am also the person who, attempting to lead and get one of the double doors for whomever I am with, pushes the one that is locked and runs into it, while the person I was previously attempting to get the door for uses me as bait and nonchalantly strides in rhythm outside the door that is properly opening & closing. Of course this would be all wrong if it didn't always happen in public too, yay!

Before I left South Africa, I wrote in my journal (not 'diary', Phil) something I was thankful for with every person who made a profound impact on my stay there. In only a few months, the list was longer than I could of imagined. Reminiscing on my time here and the relatively somber blog updates as of late, I wanted to share the lighter side of life. I want to affirm the people who, in a short time, have left my heart full and unscathed. Who have in some small way shared in me a reason to be grateful, excited, and content amidst all the catastrophes!

THANK YOU:
Devin- For throwing footballs and pillows and laughing at me (not with me) all the time

Dan- For being such a cool stud and putting up with my broccoli bantering...but not for leaving me out of your alcohol/cigar/dancer parties late at night in your room

Tom- For being perhaps the first and most persistent 'shape' artiste that I know of

Jim- For always prioritizing sexiness first

Sara P.- For being the glue to the Gandhi guys manliness...you are the Peruvian fire that lights our lives

Vanessa H.- For all that you do, your loving leadership, and tellin it how it is!

Phil P.- Soup de Jour, done

Arthur- For sharing the Red Sox with a Californian

Phil L.- Target-Market-Market-Basket, sing it with me!+awesome photos+I love that sweater on you+eating melted candle birthday cake

Amy- For 'why shertainly'

Fran- For knocking me upside the head when I least expect it

Judy- For remembering, but then unremembering my name, and then remembering it again

Katie- For goofy laughs from the threat of fake pokes

Olive- For the mountains of gummy bears forming in my stomach+guitar fun+surviving creepy chit-chat lounge man with me

Maggie- For the nickname your sister calls you+your Cali/Texas roots+coffee idolatry

Colleen- For your V-neck argyle???+giving Will Ferrell's Angry Boss sketch a chance

Ariana- For putting up with me+Germany fantasies+Your family+telling outright lies about me (ie. who I want to give a bath to)+great conversations+making me cry in public all the time

Joe Kim- For giving me the opportunity to say your name+fashion forwardness+playing basketball in pants

Sister Rose- For being a transparent human being with a whole lot of heart and laughing with me in a short time together

Sister Pat- For that rhythm of grace and faith you call us into+spreading smiles for miles and miles!

Hannah Bell- For your British accent+leaf fights+beach-foam fights+old timer L'Arche stories

Phil Godbout- For being a class act...Your full of love and stories and wrestling!

Donald- For being such an apple-pie head, Haas+being on watch 24/7!

Christine- For being such a sweetheart and your bravery with horses

Debbie- For firetrucks, firetruck noises, anything to do with fires and trucks or the combination of the two

Jane- For good cooking+good humor

Limari- For being a little sis

Jenn C- For being a saint with schedules and sickness!

Ferliannie- For sporting a P-coat that's about half as sweet as mine

Tom Murphy- For bat fights and the inspiration to my follow up book "Death and Isolation"+Woosta instead of Worchester when it comes to Worcester+late night beers with the Grateful Dead

Sara Bara- For newly formed improv case study text messages+whiskey for influenza+fluff fights with my Fletchina

Woody and Dorris- For being full of life+sharing a love for music

Carol- For laughing at me on the phone+pushing me out of the way+silliness

Allison- For grace with timesheets and being such a friendly neighbor in the office!

Pam- For being probably the smoothest and coolest person L'Arche Irenicon could have hoped for in a Development and Outreach Director+making me famous in L'Arche newsletters (To Be Announced)

Swanna- For the job+thinking of me when you needed a burly man help you move a chair into the house+being our community leader (which is an understatement)!

Thanks guys and gals for the memories and really affirming me in my decision to come here. Through our interactions and fidelity in the daily round (Vanier's words), which might seem hopelessly mundane at times, I've felt encouraged to nestle into some cranny of the community and know that I belong. I can't express a gratitude that could envelop all that it has meant to me, but hopefully sharing the little things that have sewn this appreciation can be our common thread.

The Tootsie Roll Center of a Tootsie Pop

2009-10-24T20:16:00.001-07:00

Matthew 26:69-75

Meanwhile Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a servant-girl came up to him saying, 'You, too, were with Jesus the Galilean.' But he denied it in front of them all. 'I do not know what you are talking about,' he said. When he went out to the gateway another servant-girl saw him and said to the people there, 'This man was with Jesus the Nazarene.' And again, with an oath, he denied it, 'I do not know the man.' A little later the bystanders came up and said to Peter, 'You are certainly one of them too! Why, your accent gives you away.' Then he started cursing and swearing, 'I do not know the man.' And at once the cock crowed, and Peter remembered what Jesus had said, 'Before the cock crows you will have disowned me three times.' And he went outside and wept bitterly.

Peter's tears are like a conduit to our own humanity. "And he went outside and wept bitterly"- we should read this line with great remorse. Can we not relate with this defining moment of his life? If Jesus says that murder begins in the heart, how does our disobedience look any more righteous than Peter's denial of Christ?

The temptation to sin seems to nestle beneath our skin, germinating within the wrinkled furrows of our faces, cuddling up with our most intimate desires to do good. It is as inevitable as aging and as discreet as a whisper. Some of the most trivial hardships we will face will come from within. When Jesus fell on his face in the Garden of Gethsemane was he mustering the strength to withstand the affliction of the Cross or the willingness to withstand forsakenness and submit to the will of His Heavenly Father? A beautiful prayer:

Matthew 26:37-39

He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee with him. And he began to feel sadness and anguish. Then he said to them, 'My soul is sorrowful to the point of death. Wait here and stay awake with me.' And going on a little further he fell on his face and prayed. 'My Father,' he said, 'if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless, let it be as you, not I, would have it.'

A few weeks ago I attended a night of prayer and worship near Boston. There I heard Matt Maher bring up this same prayer. He divided it in two relatable portions when we are seeking peace, escape, and to find His helping hand throughout it all. The first of which probably sounds a bit familiar. How many times, in our moments of despair, have we prayed that our Father would "let this cup pass me by" in some form or the other? It is a completely justifiable action and the Spirit works miracles through such a request absolutely. This portion of the prayer is the easier part because it's the natural part- it's comforting to share our desires with the God...

Father, if this Cross does not need to happen that would be great... if this grief and loneliness from losing the life of my spouse can leave me go right ahead... if this pain from cancer could subside please make it so...

The second portion is the hard part; the courageous part; the miracle. Jesus prays, "Nevertheless, let it be as you, not I, would have it."

God is not the giver of evil, but He could make all our troubles go away instantly. In His moment of temptation to undo the will of the Father, of a sorrowfulness to the point of death, Jesus gave Himself over to His Father's will so that we would not perish, but by Faith through Grace, live eternally basking in His love (read John 3:16).

Luke 22:43-44

Then an angel appeared to him, coming from heaven to give him strength. In his anguish he prayed even more earnestly, and his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

Jesus literally sweat blood. Medical terms define it as hematohidrosis. Christ experienced such a physical and spiritual anxiety over the prospect of forsakenness that bloody sweat emerged from his flesh. On the Cross, Jesus would experience the weight of the world's sin and an aloneness He had not encountered.

Matthew 12:40

For as Jonah remained in the belly of the sea-monster for three days and three nights, so will the Son of man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

L'Arche is a community that attempts to partake in the brokenness of both people with and without disabilities. The pain of such brokenness can have a lot of vibrato. There are individuals we encounter in community that are particularly difficult to love. It can vary between ourselves, God, a person with a disability, or a person without. Coming to L'Arche I felt like the most unwavering asset I could provide was a ceaseless compassion, but I see now, in the hourly grind, how conflict can drop seeds of hate and how routine can kill the bloom of our heart's compassion. In only a few months I'm discovering the fairly quick transition it can be for one's mindset to shift from that of a servant to a slave. Sometimes I have struggled to distinguish between disability and burden. My eyes can fail me to an extent where I see not the man, but the responsibilities that might ensue in befriending such a man. Even in this moment I loathe the anticipation of future outbursts with this member of community I speak of. I struggle to partake in the brokenness of this individual. It takes a special breed to live L'Arche in the true Spirit of it's commission and this one person, in the poverty of their circumstances, forces me to doubt myself in ways I didn't imagine. Each passing moment seems to be a hurdle between us and although loving him can be the least of my desires, it is what is required of me without a doubt. What wealth is to humanity is but a fraction of what love is to the Lord:

Song of Songs 8:7

Were a man to offer all his family wealth to buy love, contempt is all that he would gain.

Peter professed a boisterous love "Lord, I would be ready to go to prison with you, and to death" (Luke 22:33). We have these moments of whimsical pride, but also horrible grief reminiscent of Peter's fall "and he went outside and wept bitterly". To put it bluntly, when we disobey we murder Him...we expel Him from our hearts...we become exactly like Peter in his brutal denial of the Christ. In my denial of a particular member of our body it is my version of "Lord, I will go to prison with you and to death" manifesting itself into that of denying Him three times as well. I've prayed aplenty that no outbursts would happen, no fits of rage would divulge, no harmful defiance would explode on me or others in the home and this is in many ways the first portion of Christ' prayer in Gethsemane, "My Father, if it possible, let this cup pass me by." I feel the Lord wants to do a work in me the hard way though. I think He wants to see transformation from the inside out- on a heart level. The first portion is kind of the exterior, the surface, the convenient way out. But the second...well, the second is kind of the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop; it's the underlying, heart-level issues that act as our personal road blocks to loving Him and others more fully.

Before he went to the Cross, Jesus prayed for Peter in Luke 22:31-32 so that Peter's faith would not fail. As Christ foretold, Peter did not pick up his cross with the events that ensued shortly after. We will weep bitterly and face crossroads in our lives that leave us in anguish and shame, but it is important to say to ourselves 'this is where I belong' because God wants to restore us, forgive us, and give us true rest. At that point in the process of repentance, it is no longer about what we did, said, behaved... could of, should of, would of, right? I believe wholeheartedly that after Peter's denial, in his introspection, he was humbled and that it elevated the glory of Jesus even higher. A deep, underlying work had been done in Peter's faith and heart and this readied him to hear the words:

John 21: 18-19

In all truth I tell you, when you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go.

In these words he indicated the kind of death by which Peter would give glory to God. After this he said, 'Follow me.'

In my difficulty to face the day's coming afflictions I've needed to remind myself the second portion of Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane. I've needed to find nourishment in the comparison of Christ' agony to my own so that I can keep my anguish in perspective to that of the Cross of Jesus. I know that each and every day we need to experience the saving grace of the Cross because we beg "let this cup pass me by" so frequently! But hopefully we hold steadfast like an autumn tree in the wind. Perhaps our leafs fall to the ground and furl into their own decomposing graves, but our faith and hope must remain rooted amidst calamity so that we might love... So that we would remain honored to hear the words follow me once more.

Let us not forget, "Nevertheless, let it be as You, not I, would have it."

All Biblical Translations: New Jerusalem Bible

A Prayer

2009-10-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

(Photo by: Philipp Ludewig, In Picture: Devan)

Heavenly Father,

You hear our cries, You suffer our bondage, You bear our burdens

Your presence spreads like the foliage of Fall,

You are the wind beneath the falling leaf,

You are Credence in the sunrise,

You are Love within our mud,

You are Grace within our shame,

You are Courage beneath the fear,

You are Sunshine at the shore,

Abba, My Abba

You are the Glory of the summit,

Shine...Shine...Shine

The Furious Longing of God

2009-10-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

(Photo by: Philipp Ludewig, Location: atop Mt. Pemigewasset Trail, White Mountains, New Hampshire)

Brennan Manning writes in, The Furious Longing of God:

If we continue to view ourselves as moral lepers and spiritual failures, if our lives are shadowed by low self-esteem, shame, remorse, unhealthy guilt, and self-hatred, we reject the teaching of Jesus and cling to our negative self-image. In the fifth century, St. Augustine wrote this lyrical line: Quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem (In loving me, you made me lovable)

I write not for those who are feeling relatively efficient, pleasing, or heroic in their faiths or perhaps simply the projection of their faithfulness. If this is you- simply press the cute little X in the top left of the screen and all will be forgiven.

I write with sheer brokenheartedness for those of us who feel weighed down...heavily.

For all who are feeling how Brennan Manning has so aptly put- downtrodden and bedraggled.

For all who can't stand what they see in themselves, the ones closest to them, their world... perhaps a triple-crown.

For all who waste tears on feeling like waste.

For all who have lost sight of their Abba, their daddy, and the willingness to become that dumbfounded, helpless, little baby whose cheeks may press firmly up to the palm of their not-going-anywhere, never-letting-go, crying-with-contentment, dancing-with-joy, proudest-Abba-our-Abba-could-ever-be, Daddy.

We can be so willing to brace ourselves for the punishment of God's judgment; so inclined to inflict the pain for Him. But when faced with the intimacy of God's love we duck and cover! Our faiths prove to be so frustratingly shallow even in episodes of pleasing pride. How silly is the thought when reminded of our Father's heart in Word and Spirit:

Song of Solomon 7:10 (NASB)=

"I am my beloved's,
And his desire is for me"

Zephaniah 2:17 (New Jerusalem Bible Translation)=

"Yahweh your God is there with you, the warrior-Saviour. He will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you"

Song of Songs 2:10-13 (NJB)=

"My love lifts up his voice, he says to me, 'Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come.'
For see, winter is past, the rains are over and gone.
Flowers are appearing on the earth. The season of glad songs has come, the cooing of the turtledove is heard in our land.
The fig tree is forming its first figs and the blossoming vines give out their fragrance. Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come"

Being present in the tenderness of God's love and longing for us is not easy. Tenderness means intimacy and intimacy with God usually means two things: first, it is life changing and I mean that in a good way, and second, it is not in accordance with our plans and I mean that in an unsettling way. Like the Prodigal Son our worlds churn upside down and the place we once burnt to ashes becomes Home.

It's so hard to believe on the innermost layer of the onion that we are truly lovable, Golden, worthy, radiant. It's so hard to believe that God likes us in moments of uselessness, moments in which we transform aloneness into loneliness instead of solitude, and our passive-aggressive, sprinkled comments of dissatisfaction.

I want to warn/remind you of our ceaseless performance reviews and our habit to nitpick with perfectionism the slightest discouragements of the day. We're blinding ourselves so severely from Jesus that we forget what He looks like and what we look like- all that beauty untouched and unseen! So if you think this might be you just stop and if you can't stop then pause and if you can't pause then SLOW.

What I'm about to say I believe wholeheartedly from the deepest burrows of my human, but redeemed heart: The derivative of God adoring faith is not about what we do or how much we do it, the imitation of the Saints, and all our fancy schmancy discourse. No, it is first the adventure of God's adoration for us. It's about discovering our Abba's insurmountable love and adoration for (fill in this space with your first, middle, and last name) and all the justifiable reasons that He feels so divinely wonderful you breathe this instant.

During this end-of-summer season I trekked up a miniature trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire with a good, new, foreign friend of mine. Fall in Massachusetts is both cold and gorgeous- making it all the more heart warming. In the picture above (click to enlarge) is me; that insignificant spec of a person sitting on Mt. Pemigewasset's summit atop a granite ledge that falls 1,500 feet into the floor of the Franconia Notch.

Staring across a rummage of forest trees crafting a collage of red, yellow, green, and purple leafs, the air was smooth and the sun hid and shined periodically throughout the day. From that view and all the creation involved in making it I was mesmerized with God's beauty. My gratitude extended beyond the thickets of trees in sight.

I thought,"To be apart of this... to sit so deeply high... and to see a view so undeservedly so...I am loved"

What I didn't catch in that moment that I do now is that while I sat mesmerized with Him, eyes frantically pacing to retrieve all the edges of beauty vision could reach, God's eyes were on me... Nothing else but me.

We are His view.

This was but one of many future fragments needed in life that took me from valleys low to mountains high.

If you are wedged in deep below a thought of lovelessness and sorrow, I implore you to hike, to run, to feel, to laugh, to write, to draw, to play, to rest, to read, to sing, to dance...like you never, not ever have once before in your life!

I want for us to rejoice.

I want song.

I want dance.

I want us all to hold our hearts up high even in the midst of our worst worthlessness.

Zephaniah 2:14 =

"My dove, hiding in the clefts of the rock, in the coverts of the cliff, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely"

Father, quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem.

From one, broken, inexcusable excuse of a Christian to another.

Winter Heights- a poem

2009-09-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Wind wiped frozen tears in cheeks
By hands of wintered breeze

Earth made new and newly white

Kites caper cloud to sky
Looping cornered shapes in eyes

By sleight of hand our hands hug
Toes in fortitude of snow and sand

Bones plumb curt in motion
Awoken with the hush of tide

Hallowed ground became the ocean
Kites brush, blush, and shy

Sight made lashes tear, divide
Engraved in beach hopes to fly

The Hour Not of Our Choosing

2009-09-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

(Left to Right: Joe, Vanessa, Ben, and Tom)

Jean Vanier speaks about the calling(s) of Jesus:

The first call is frequently to follow Jesus or to prepare ourselves to do wonderful and noble things for the Kingdom. We are appreciated and admired by family, by friends or by the community. The second call comes later, when we accept that we cannot do big or heroic things for Jesus; it is a time of renunciation, humiliation, and humility. We feel useless; we are no longer appreciated. If the first passage is made at high noon, under a shining sun, the second call is often made at night. We feel alone and are afraid because we are in a world of confusion. We begin to doubt the commitment we made in the light of day. We seem deeply broken in some way. But this suffering is not useless. Through the renunciation we can reach a new wisdom of love. It is only through the pain of the cross that we discover what the resurrection means (139-140).

Our lives are journeys... we have the choice to make them adventures. The first time I heard the call of Jesus in my life- in the quiet of that furious night, I knew that everything from then on will be different. The Spirit of God changed the course of my life in a manner I could not have imagined. Before I was aware of the Truth I feared so heavily the lie of forsakenness; total and utter aloneness that felt devoid of hope. The cross of our Savior has been the foundation of my life ever since. It is the vessel of our communion. This vessel acts as a fountain of our tears- where we can bellow out anguish and anxiety. But it is also a fountain of love- where the source of our heart's salvation rests; where the heart of man can become a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14).

Vanier's words resonate so profoundly true to me it seems like ridiculousness. My initial arrival at L'Arche felt like a wonderful and noble commitment to God, but this pride dissipates quickly. Sacrifice in a mutual community of care like L'Arche is different than other forms. With impoverished communities there are many visible and vital needs such as the fight for justice, food and monetary needs. Tending to these sources of poverty is a bit more practical and over time we realize that our donations of time, effort, tithe, courage, kindness, and good heartedness cannot completely redeem the difficult circumstances that are before those we care for. We learn to transition from being the hands of man's power to becoming the hands and feet of God's love. Our presence with the poor reveals our own poverty and together we unpeel into the Spirit of Jesus.

In the end, the most important thing is not to do things for people who are poor and in distress, but to enter into relationship with them, to be with them and help them find confidence in themselves and discover their own gifts... The promise of Jesus is to help us discover that the poor are a source of life and NOT just objects of our charity. If we are close to them we will be renewed in love and in faith (142)

Befriending the core members of our community who struggle with disabilities is not my token of charity. It is indeed a relationship that requires care, but at the same time fosters inner-growth, healing, and freedom. I am the overwhelming beneficiary of these relationships in both the light and heavy moments. Jesus is asking me to love most the thing I hate about them: they reveal how selfish I truly am...which is such a bummer at times. It shows me how reluctant I am in all my eloquent words, good intentions, and tarnished wisdom to pick up my cross at an hour not of my choosing.

In the day-to-day grind I can feel overwhelmed by the most innocent outbursts and mistakes. There is a living tension that coincides with scheduling conflicts, my mood, the chores of the day, the dull or over-indulgent interactions with others, and so on and so forth. But the ability to catch this reluctance for you and for me is where that living water is welling up. Part of the adventure is about sacrificing when we are not 'on-schedule', at Sunday-service, in-front of others, or holding the mic. Our crosses become the foundation of our faiths during the hours not of our choosing.

Tom can barely speak. Learning how to communicate with him has been fun and frustrating. He uses hand-signs for bowling, family weekend, eating, and says code words like "happy" which is him asking for dunkin' donuts coffee. He is very much a creature of habit and to stray from the schedule can set his temper off. For Tom to express himself and to receive affirmation and affection throughout the day he will sometimes ask me 5-10 times whether it is okay to sip his coffee or take a bite of his toast all in one sitting. Over the long haul this can be extremely frustrating- think about how many meals and snacks there are in a day. The frustration can lead to a resentment that screams "Tom only wants me for what I can give- he just wants to eat, drink, walk, and do it all on his own watch- Tom is selfish and annoying." This is where I pray for God to give me eyes to see and ears to hear- where I beg for his forgiveness in my judgment of Tom. The truth is that Tom can be such an amazing individual. He makes me laugh, he makes me smile, he makes me feel loved, and he inspires me. The line between how we receive others is very thin and ultimately, if we want to be loving, we have to own it. We have the choice to be content, at home, in the Father's house, closest to the Father's heart- in relationship with Tommy...or we can set off for distant country, for abandonment, for self-satisfaction- in relationship with ourselves.

Part of my woundedness makes me very sensitive to judgment and embarrassment. In the past I try to anticipate such situations and bolt the second I fear such a moment in public. I am not Catholic, but this Sunday morning I took Tom to Mass because he is. Mid-way through the service a tithing basket was presented to us and another assistant had accidentally kept Tom's cash. Tom always donates $1 and when the basket came around he did not have it on him. He slowly raised his voice saying 'No' and had the meanest little face going. Eventually he stood up, yelling 'no!' so excessively that we had to get up from the front of the pews and walk out of the service. I assumed that it would not be a big deal... besides, it was "just $1". In my pocket I had $16 worth of cash, and one $1 bill. I could have easily taken it out of my pocket and given it to Tom to donate (and even be reimbursed for it later in the day), but in my selfishness I opted not to give 'my' dollar to Tom. I felt it would only enable his outbursts in the future if I gave in during his episodes. Well Tom won this battle. We left service early because he could not let it go, but how funny is it that I complain about such a thing when I could not allow my one, stinking, dollar to be let go either.

I was angry at Tom for embarrassing me, for having to slowly walk down the isles which felt like walking through a storm of judgment, anger, and failure from the congregation. Then Tom immediately wanted "happy" which on Sundays meant we go to a place called Heavenly Donuts for coffee and donuts. I was upset and was reluctant to be "happy" because I felt as if he was a selfish and immature child that should have known better. He should know not to go off at the risk of upsetting me in the process. This was the hour not of my choosing and it called for me to fall deeper into the heart of Jesus and forgive Tom. Tom will never say that he was sorry and Tom will never say he regretted making a scene or embarrassing me. Tom will only expect for there to be a dollar to donate next Sunday and coffee waiting for him afterward. In the reality of Tom's disability, Tom requires me to rise unto a new height of forgiveness and love. One that clears the chalkboard completely.

Isaiah 1:18: Come now let us reason together- says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool

When we returned home I whispered into Tom's ears that I was sorry for not donating into the charity basket and that next week we will not have the same problem. He performed his signature half-smile with a thumbs-up and walked off to finish his cofee and donuts in peace. I laughed over what a silly mix up this morning had been and must thank God for the discomfort the more I look back on it. Today I learned new depths to my depravity; a depravity that runs so deep that in my wealth I feel as if I cannot afford to give a dollar.

There is a great scene in the film "Into the Wild" where the main character, Christopher McCandless, has been running furiously into the wild- hoping to go deeper and deeper into isolation. Oddly enough, the spite he holds specially reserved for his family is at the core of his passion for both nature and meaningful human relationships. Before he leaves, an elder man that he befriends along the way, Ron Franz, tells Christopher: "When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines through you."

We discover what the resurrection means through the Cross. The pain of my cross came through the humiliation of walking down those isles early. But through forgiveness, me and Tom were both given new love, new light, and new life. Indeed I am the beneficiary of living in relationship with Tommy.

Come As You Are

2009-08-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

(Me & Jim/Big Sexy)

"Come as you are, Ryan. You will be fine here."

These were the tender words offered by Sister Pat. She is one of the founders of L'Arche Irenicon more than 25 years ago. I cannot say enough about my first impression of her as she seems to embody an effortless rhythm of love that one could only develop with years upon years of faithful prayer, service, and sacrifice.

Arriving to one of L'Arche Irenicon's four community homes called 'Gandhi' was difficult. Calling a place home is not the same as feeling home and when you factor in the fact that there are four people with developmental disabilities and multiple other assistants to develop relationship with it can increase the difficulty of settling in. Entering into community life is truly a desired, but frightful experience for me. I felt comfortable going into L'Arche rather than entering into any student-lead community because I felt that many were either elitist or idealistic. A lot of people want to be IN community- they share a desire to experience belonging, acceptance, security, and encouragement that can seldom be reflected on a smaller scale. But it is very important for these communities to have a specific and verbalized mission that brings the people together in a like cause. A friend was discussing how that is in large part the reason as to why L'Arche has achieved the worldwide success that it has compared to many other communities trying to establish themselves on either an organizational or even 'house' level.

Nonetheless, words like Sister Pat's have not proven themselves to me. How does one embrace the challenge of "coming as you are" with both the fears of rejection and the pains of previous wounds? The most basic belonging to community we all share came via the nuclear family and when this key experience has lead us to deep-seeded messages of rejection we become newborn products of brokenness; aside from the infliction done by the nature of the beast (because we all share an inherent desire to alienate ourselves from our Savior). This brokenness passes on a verdict that "I am unloveable and unbeloved". As children we internalize this verdict and develop new walls that teach us that the ones in which we love and have loved us most are not worthy of our trust for unspeakable pain is bound to repeat itself. And so our hearts get walled up and locked away; for some these walls are thicker than others. Do not be fooled into thinking that the failure of the nuclear family is the only 'builder of walls' amongst us- not only can the extent of failure be measured in different degrees and contexts, but the heart of humankind is polluted right down to our spouses, best friends, heroes, and role models.

Living off of an enclosed heart we lose touch with who we are and become so selfish (because we are the only ones we know we can trust) that we die in our lostness. We choose to die alone then to live in relationship. Living in relationship, in community, is not something that we have complete control over though. We often make the mistake that we choose community, but Jean Vanier (founder of L'Arche) is quick to point out that God has already chosen community for US. At Gandhi home I live primarily with Dan, Devan, Tom, and Jimmy- all of whom have not been chosen, but given. God has emplaced me into their hands and them in mine. We are both inadequate to care for one another unfailingly, but there is a common thread that we need each other to live and to experience redemption in our own little ways. For me, to "come as I am" will be an ongoing journey- one small victory at a time.

Yes, Jimmy might hit me because he feared he was being teased, Tom might scream because I didn't give him coffee or money when he so desired, Dan might give me attitude when I help him watch his weight, Devan might act out because I brought him into an environment that is hectic and stressful, and I might digress out of frustration, failure, or resurfacing fears in my interaction with people in the community. These are all part of the growing pains necessary for our relationships to grow and achieve new heights of love. This can entail a mixture of interaction- ones with gentle hugs and ones with harsh behaviors. My woundedness tells me not to risk it, not to take such an imbalance where pain is an expected result, but Vanier says "hope is reborn from the wound" (120). I can only begin to tear down these walls by the beckoning of others. I need them, I need relationship, I need community to experience things that heal. This is one way in which L'Arche has been pestering me forth to mature in my imitation of Christ, embrace His love for me, and show others the love I speak of. It can only be done with the brokenness and goodness of my new found friends and family.

"The spirituality of L'Arche is manifested in the way we live with people who have handicaps and see Jesus in them" (Vanier). I came to L'Arche with the best of intentions... I was going to be a heroic "doer", but we can all rough it out for at least a short time. "Doing" can interrupt the ability for others to "be". Vanier writes, "True community implies a way of life, a way of living and seeing reality; it implies above all fidelity in the daily round. And this is made up of simple things - preparing meals, using and washing the dishes and using them again, going to meetings- as well as gift, joy, and celebration; and it is made up of forgiving seventy times seventy-seven" (playing off of Matthew 18:22).

Changing my way of life from 'doing for' to 'being with' is an entirely different course of action. The doing-for philosophy continues to divide the abilities and inabilities between two people; creating two different distinctions- two different classes of efficiency and worth. Being-with proclaims mutuality in friendship- one that experiences the blessings of each others giftedness, but also shoulders the pain of each others burdens. Being-with acknowledges the distinct poverty of every member in the community and intimately reminds one another of their desire to unite.

Recently I attended a party in which we celebrate every birthday in the given month as a whole community. The celebration was quite fulfilling to experience for the first time. We sat in one large circle and one-by-one chose the name of a birthday individual. After this person was specified we would have them light a candle to represent the everlasting flame in which their beauty burns, then we would sing a song they liked, and enter into a time of affirmation. People were encouraged to speak kind words, to find the good things to say about that particular person, and then we would close with another song. The night went on to be full of good dessert and laughs and eventually we scattered and mingled, but this one event completely embodied the way we want each person of our community to feel: loved. Loved in all their strengths and weaknesses and celebrated for being exactly who that person has been.

We each bring to community our own woundedness and giftedness. The point is not to tip the scale more so in one direction than the other. It isn't about presenting ourselves a certain way or being anything more or less than who we truly are. We have to be grounded in the reality of what we bring, where we can grow, what we are desiring. I'm carrying a broken-heartedness with my arrival here, but I have to remain vulnerable or else the pain I brought from one relationship will handicap my ability to build others unintentionally.

"Come as you are"

At the end of the day I think God is asking us to trust these words and to not look at it like, "okay, I'll give these people a chance, but if in some way they fail to meet my needs or expectations I will give up." He wants more from us because He gave us everything- we wrote Him off, but He continued to lay down His life. We will all undoubtedly miss the mark at times, but community is our gift from God. It is our opportunity to hear a different message- one full of divine Truth and Love- and to rewrite the story. It is what transforms our world into the Kingdom of God.

[Quotations from Jean Vanier's "Community & Growth"]

A Home in L'Arche

2009-07-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

(Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche)

I’ve been blessed to receive a job as a live-in assistant at L’Arche Irenicon located in Haverhill, Massachusetts. L’Arche is an organization that forms communities around the needs of individuals with disabilities. It strives to love and receive those who have developmental disabilities and are in need of not just a home, but a community that values their life and gifts. Mainstream society tends to cast out such people for their inadequate ability to compete with them; dancing toe to toe for popularity, success, and regard. L’Arche doesn't label people as unworthy and considers itself a place "where people with and without disabilities share their lives together, give witness to the reality that persons with disabilities possess inherent qualities of welcome, wonderment, spirituality, and friendship" (http://larcheusa.org/).

What draws me to the philosophy of L’Arche is how grounded they are in the belief that people with disabilities are full blessings; sources of light that act as lamps for our feet in the night. We are quick to identify the external shortcomings of poverty, hunger, and sickness, but hardly those who are poor in spirit. L’Arche sees internal unrest as equal a handicap as any exposed disability. In essence, these homes are meant to heal and bless both those who would and would not be labeled as someone of "special needs".

Jesus taught that love, in the fullest capacity of our heart, soul, strength, and mind, is integral to the spiritual life (Luke 10:27). It seems to me that the greatest handicap of all is the one universally shared- the inability to truly love in the name of the Father like the Son. It is not in our nature to glorify God and others over ourselves easily, but it is a choice that we have the potential to make. Those who form the communities of L’Arche gather together in recognition of their strengths, gifts, friendships, and worth, but also in admittance of their depravity and what they are in bondage to- a broken body or a broken spirit. Through this genuine wholeness of the community they celebrate the humility and love for God that abounds in this decision. They do their best to communally make a choice of love in the name of the Father.

This comes with a hope to enter into mutual relationships that are not elevating one person over the other, but do try to offer love, grace, acceptance, and friendship. The weakness, the imperfection, the vulnerability, and the lesser-ness that we bury become the unveiled pathway towards real community and life. It is a willingness to allow God to be glorified in our weaknesses and paradoxically define that as our strength. From my understanding, L'Arche attempts to go in and through the good, bad, and ugly so that we strive to become truer versions of ourselves. We learn to accept and forgive our own and other's deficiencies and grow in the ability to accept and give relationship.

Core members become friends of the highest regard, people with immense blessings… for they are the meek, merciful, pure of heart, and they are peacemakers (Matthew 5:1-11). The undercurrent of their presence inspires and fulfills. Jean Vanier wrote that we are healed from the broken and the poor. In a mutually exchanging environment of care, grace, forgiveness, and sacrifice we are drawn toward the unveiling of our true selves and allow that presence to step out from hiding and onto the water- responding faithfully to the encouragement of Christ to "come" (Matthew 14:22-33).

It is a healing of the heart that we have so painstakingly feared and desired- one that requires a certain courageousness to become vulnerable, faithful, and the "least of these" (Matthew 25:40,45). Those who have been wounded by rejection find a place of worthiness and acceptance. Those who have suffered from inwardness and contempt, whose hearts have gone searching, discover a home and the embrace that preceded it. We fall into the care of our heavenly Father who, though we were a long way off, waited and watched over the horizon for our return and when He saw us He was filled with compassion- we were run to, held, and kissed (Luke 15:20). This explains why the communities of L’Arche are built around people with disabilities, not only to give, but also to receive these subtle beauties. It is a lifestyle of care- one that is meant to empty oneself while trusting in God to restore us in the process. Discover a life where you find yourself in this embrace and are able to offer it to others.

The Birds Are Composing

2009-07-03T15:53:00.001-07:00

There are precise moments in life where it is meant to be about you. Those 'fifteen minutes of fame' where one feels recognized, accomplished, celebrated, seen, perhaps even relieved. Going to a wedding we focus on the bride and groom, a graduation- the graduate, a funeral- the living, a recital- the musician, and this list could grow more expansive by the minute. These hallmarks of celebration symbolize a communal affirmation of belonging in our relationship toward God and our communities.

These moments might not pan out the way we had hoped- they have the capacity to enrich our lives, but also to cripple. And when the direction of the evening turns awry we can be reminded of past hurts and give life to new ones. The disappointment can pull us into fear and trembling, selfishness and self-lessness. Sometimes they counter-intuitively lead us into darkness, into temptation, into our own brokenness.

Graduating college I have experienced this sense of being adrift. Sure there are plans, hopes, aspirations (hopefully), but life is truly up in the air. As we eagerly await the moment we accept our diploma we unwittingly submit to our initiation into the so-called 'real world'. Some people are just itching to remind you of this- like a sucker-punch. This phrase can irk me because it assumes that the life that has preceded that moment was somehow second-rate living. As if watching people live and die and all those minute happenings that happen in between the two don't matter unless the scholastic right of passage of western academia is placed into my hand: a diploma. The message here is that life starts after I grab hold of a sheet of paper with fancy leather-bound edges and typed lettering that reads 'Ryan F. Birch'. Give me a break.

What is the 'real' suppose to be after all? Is it truly falling face-first into the hardships of economic sustenance the way it is implied? I don't buy that. Isn't 'real' suppose to be experiencing beauty and hardships, hearing laughter and pain, feeling tears slide down cheeks, attending the births, weddings, and funerals of our lives, sitting with brokenheartedness, grief, love, confusion, observing blessings, basking in nature, experiencing the moment? Sitting in the MOMENT- whatever it may behold. It doesn't take a diploma to do that- ask the hundreds of children neighboring Walk in the Light in Harniville.

A friend once said he was a firm believer that no matter the circumstances we always have a choice from moment to moment. Jon Foreman sings that "CHOICE" is the only thing we're given.

I feel pretty feint from any implied dislocation to the 'real world'. I've experienced degrees of both the numbing sense of disappointment and the vibrant enthusiasm of beauty and contentment. Four years accomplished from college, two weeks adrift since college, but twenty two years worth of wounds in my wake. I've realized that whatever that next ceremonial experience may be, there's no running from ourselves. And what I found out even more recently is that there's no running from that 'moment' that strikes you. Those moments that creep. The ones that are not easy or plain, the ones that define who you are, who you want to be, and how you're going to walk it.

Right now I'm walking through a challenging season of life- I'm not sure if it should ever be anything less than that, but still. It leaves me with questions, accusations, worry, uncertainty, fear, anger, restlessness, and hurt. Although it is not due to the post-20's adrift-like angst that many of my fellow peers have shared with me. The fact is that I've had one of those 'moments'- where life caves in- where as much as you look forward in life, to that path you wish to pave, there's that snag that makes you feel stuck and you can't help but turn back. A moment that makes it hard to believe it is simply another circumstance and will pass because the pain is so sharp and old. The pain is aging, wrinkled, senile, but still alive. And when it pays you a visit uninvited it carries grief alongside it. It inflicts pain or reopens the wounds. Yet, I still have a choice as to how I can respond.

Jesus loved us when we were entirely responsible of evil and entirely deserving to wither. When I was, am, and will be momentarily leading withered living- Christ refused to take Himself off of the cross and He did this for those I struggle to love on as well. There's risk involved when living a life that gives too much weight to the ghosts of the past. For me, it is a false message of worthlessness, and I become reminded of my own fragility and brokenness. I've been faced with the active challenge of claiming my own belovedness, to sit in the palm of my Heavenly Father, and one thing that has served as a therapeutic resuscitator is the side-project music from Jon Foreman. Granted, there are more practical things I'm pursuing to sort out the issues at hand, sit with God in the moment, and make steps towards wholeness, but what I want to share- which has the potential to be much more commonly appreciated- is a song that has centered me in the belovedness I speak of.

The fact is that my love, my integrity, my character is made strong through my willingness to be made weak, to allow myself to be honest and vulnerable. Have you ever looked at yourself in a mirror and given up the battle to deny your shortcomings, to stop running from your sorrow and allow it to seep into your expressions? Try it, sit there, stare, and say "Lord, I'm hurt. I'm struggling-". All the sudden the reflection in the mirror begins to unravel and that exterior image becomes a doorway into your heart. The curvature of the face, the brows, the wrinkles, the eyes, they all become extensions of the soul and we see a deeper side of ourselves.

There is only one love, one character, one being, one essence that is strong- Jesus. It is this strength that is founded upon His love and this love that is evident in His weakness that we require to be strong- to be upheld in the face of people and circumstances that break our hearts...moment to moment, day after day, year after year. It is what makes our reflections both bearable and beautiful.

Foreman writes in "Your Love is Strong" from the EP album 'Spring':

Heavenly Father, you always amaze me

Let your kingdom come in my world and in my life

You give me the food I need to live through the day

And forgive me as I forgive the people that wronged me

Lead me far from temptation

Deliver me from the evil one

I LOOK OUT THE WINDOW THE BIRDS ARE COMPOSING

NOT A NOTE IS OUT OF TUNE OR OUT OF PLACE

I look at the meadow and stare at the flowers

Better dressed than any girl on her wedding day

So why do I worry?

Why do I freak out?

God knows what I need

You know what I need

Your love is strong

Listening to this song (which I'm obviously suggesting you go buy it on itunes or something) one part I gravitate towards is about looking out the window and listening to the birds. It sounds like something so small and irrelevant, but to do it requires deliberate intentionality. The interactive behavior with nature that is implied in the song seems to mend the heavenly to the mundane- God in creation. To say that there is some sort of perfect harmony going on around us, if we can stand patiently, looking, and listening- there is not a note out of tune or misplaced, it is not random and it is not purposeless. It takes me from this place of hurt, from deep awareness of pain, and provides me with hindsight. It gives me that slight bit of perspective I so painstakingly lack in the moments where it counts. In the midst of struggle, of a life that can feel as if it is collapsing, there is this opportunity to look OUTWARD. To be self-aware, hurt, and guarded, but to be focused on God, on beauty, and on hope. To make the connection that simultaneously God is intimately calling me in, individually, with a unique voice, but equally calling me 'out' as well- a reminder that it is not 'ME' that these moments are entirely about. If we respond to our 'moments' with a purpose to be driven by self-satisfaction or relief and if we forget to filter our desires with the heart of God and His heart for everyone... we can slowly enter into death. Our lives are not meant to be centered on painlessness, power & influence, self-righteousness and intelligence, the whimsical belief that the reflection in the mirror is meant to satisfy how we would like to see ourselves. We find our lives when we are willing to lose them- lose them to ourselves, to the unloveable, to the difficult circumstances that are unavoidable.

This is the lesson we can grab from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our cross. He died for the most unloveable person we know... ourselves... For me, Myself. That's one testament as to why His love is stronger than I'll ever know.

In our imitation of Christ, we must be practicing this sacrifice, this selflessness, this love, and we must participate in claiming an identity of belonging and belovedness. We're not worthy, but to God, we are. So God made a CHOICE...to defy logic. His defiance was in our favor and it is this grace that makes Him all the more worthy of our following. This is so difficult to do when our circumstances are no longer breezes. This is why in the song we have to ask for the 'food we need to get through the day'. We have to take it one moment at a time- loving the people that are unloveable becomes the redeeming act, on our part, to pick up our crosses, and to own our parts in relationships despite the response of the other half.

I love Foreman's album art for "Limbs and Branches". Obviously, branches are more offshoots from primary limbs- but it shows the fruit of good living. It may begin with something small, the fruit dangles from something weak like a feeble branch, but if you trace backwards, it takes you all the way to the core, to the strength of the tree that is at the center of its life and purpose. We are branches, but we are all part of something greater than ourselves.

Foreman ends "Your Love is Strong" with a well-worded version of the Lord's prayer:

Our God in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Above all names
Your kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven
Give us, today, our daily bread
Forgive us weary sinners
Keep us far from our vices
And deliver us from these prisons

My hope is that this prayer is answered- day by day. I pray we may experience freedom from the things that bind us no matter what the circumstance is. I'm a firm believer that God's love is strong and that it liberates us, no matter what happens, no matter how bad it hurts, no matter who it is- we have a center that our lives branch out from and it is a love that gives us strength- we're like limbs and branches. If we look outside of our circumstances we can hear the Lord calling us to follow Him, composing beautifully, perfectly, and effortlessly. It is a love that calls us to live higher WHILE life is up in the air, WHILE pain is deeply felt, WHILE the moment creeps. It is the orchestrated silence of a love that draws us "in" and calls us "out".

Not a note that's out of tune...

or out of place.

Lord, Your Love is Strong

A South African Farewell

2009-07-03T02:33:00.000-07:00

There's something mysteriously powerful in the grief and gratitude of a farewell. The terrifying sadness in saying goodbye is so touching because it doesn't just express a deep appreciation for one another, but it openly affirms the fact that we have loved life TOGETHER.

We're affirming the other's presence as something we deem life unfit without. We've done all the HUMAN things together: to be imperfect, to laugh, to cry, to love and it is so wonderful when we can't see ourselves without them in the picture ever again.

We've welcomed someone into our heart. That's what it means to be sad in a farewell. That's what it means to grieve the loss of someone's presence. It means they are loved. It means you have been loved.

When arms are being extended to hug that person goodbye they are being invited in, for one last time, to be openly affirmed in a reciprocated love.

I have shared life with miniscule portions of South Africa, Walk in the Light, with you Bruce, David, Phindile, Anne, with you Sabello, Togo, Tandegile, Alfred, Sipo, Pretty, yes you Harniville- and I could not have been more blessed by your presence.

In the waning days of my time with Walk in the Light I could not absorb all that I was being hit with...and I knew it. At the end of each day we would drive through and away Harniville I knew in each millisecond of life that I wanted to take this in; the look, the smell, the road, the people, the homes. Each and every image I wanted to store up so it could act like an eternal photo-album that I could tap into during any second of the day.

Previously I wrote about the 1st man I encountered with HIV/AIDS-his name is Sabello. I left you with an image of a weak, sickly, mysterious person. I sat by his feet and prayed earnestly for the first miracle I ever have in my life.

Perhaps the most all-encompassing, full-circle event of my experience at Walk in the Light can be said in Sabello's story. I sat there, troubled, scared, doubtful, FAITHLESS at times, begging for God to give this man more life.

Several weeks later I was given the honor to teach during their Sunday service ministry. Here I am in Africa with this Zulu translator to my left about to teach these people what they had been teaching ME (humbling to say the least) and who do I see toward the back of the crowd? Sabello. The man had walked a LONG WAY to get to this service, the man who couldn't sit up weeks before was all the sudden...

THERE.

It clicked from that point on that God was divinely there, with us, with me-and that never changes, but this is the moment where I momentarily reached a plain of understanding that is divinely true. I do not know how this man is doing of late, but he weighs heavily on my heart whenever I think back to my experiences... I return to his face.

In Africa I both carried and buried a child of God. I've seen life and death- staying and passing.

Quite the contrast.

During a prayer walk we went on throughout Harniville-the mother of the 17 year old boy who died by the red-hands of his best-friends sat defeated and weeping just a foot to my left. We just stood there with her for a moment, prayed to the Lord for comfort and worship, and sat in a discomforting silence.

The silence you feel when you're next to someone slowly dying on a row of chairs- it's discomforting because it's horrible to feel helpless. It's so discontenting to be up in the air, clouded, in ASHES on things and all you want to do is bring healing.

It's the tension of that moment that the Lord worked in us though. It was the tension of those seconds that felt like hours and months that felt like seconds.

The moments where you wonder where God might be or you recognize that presence so warmly and intimately that you feel blessed to have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Recently there has been a tragic happening to a great man in my community back home. It is one of those things that hits you out of nowhere, unexpected, and unREAL. He is a man of God that lives life from the heart. Upon sudden news of this unexpected happening I was smack dab in the middle of that tension again. I have been ever since. You ask questions like, "what can I do?" And even more familiar sounding, "Where are you GOD?"

Sometimes the most heart-wrenching thing can happen and all the sudden you question if you'll be able to ever feel it thumping in your chest again.

It is important for us to value these moments of tension though.

I'm realizing, be it in prayer with my friend in the WAMU parking lot or a HOSPITAL or a CHURCH, we can always belt out that cry. That ever so familiar cry that Christ exclaims on the Cross,"My God, My God. Why have you forsaken me?"

It's so fitting because it proclaims a universal fear in us all. That we're worthless, meaningless, purposeless, powerless, unworthy, non-BELOVED, randomized creations of a hopeless world. It's the seed by which we sprout from. Whether it be your Dad said you weren't worth it to stay and broke your heart and home simultaneously or the one you love the most is lying on that hospital bed. Whether it be the powerlessness you initially feel sitting next to Sabello or a cry of grief from a sonless Mother.

Christ embraced us for those moments with his own enduring of God Forsakenness; that TOTAL ALONENESS. God embraced us in those moments with his atonement on the Cross and enabled us to cry out from our death-defying fears and heart-wrenching love not just that He can relate to us, but so we never have to endure it. Christ did, but we never will.

I want to speak directly to this specific condition of the heart. Suffering- not because of Walk in the Light, not because of Africa. We have to acknowledge pain, vulnerability, and the fear of God-Forsakenness because in the fast-paced, wreckage of living we can get too caught up in a blissful reality. So it seems quite fitting to bring this whole thing up just to freeze the frame for a second and take in what God has done, doing, and will do for us.

Henri Nouwen writes in, "Life of the Beloved" about this idea of our BELOVEDNESS (good word). This special place that we need to operate out of to; to be capable of love we have to believe that we ARE loved. I want to quote a portion of this book because I think it's something that comes off very passe in our day and age, but we truly need to KNOW it:

"When I know that I am chosen, I know that I have been seen as a special person. Someone has noticed me in my uniqueness and has expressed a desire to know me, to come closer to me, to love me. When I write to you that, as the Beloved, we are God's chosen ones, I mean that we have been seen by God from all eternity and seen as unique, special, precious beings. It is very hard for me to express well the depth of meaning the word "chosen" has for me, but I hope you are willing to listen to me from within. From all eternity, long before you were born and became a part of history, you existed in God's heart. Long before your parents admired you or your friends acknowledged your gifts or your teachers, colleagues, and employers encouraged you, you were already "chosen." The eyes of love had seen you as precious, as of infinite beauty, as of eternal value. When love chooses, it chooses with a perfect sensitivity for the unique beauty of the chosen one, and it chooses without making anyone else feel excluded." (Pg. 53-54)

So allow me to impart a blessing on any of you whom might be reading:

You are GOLDEN.

Whomever is suffering or suffering from watching suffering, know that you and they are GOLDEN. Loved, prized, and worthy. Worthy enough that Jesus died for him or her. Completely cherished by God. Receive this, take it in, allow it to grow on you.

God is there for you...

RIGHT

NOW

Breathe in and take that in at the same time. God is there for you, He is your companion in the pain of a hurt loved one or a hurtful farewell. He's amidst those moments where you absolutely, 100% are grieving for the love of this precious gift God has given you called LIFE.

This is something that Walk in the Light taught me, this is something I have returned home with, and I believe the most fulfilling way I can truly take it in is to share it to whomever might need it.

The complacency of my heart has not met the urgency that this world requires, but hopefully, in the blessing of my words it can serve as a message of love to push I and anyone else who runs across them toward action.

My experience at Walk in the Light tugs on my heart to do more, to live higher, to not forget.

As I left Walk in the Light with my hand suspended in the air- waving goodbye, I realized that my heart had experienced something very tremendous; an outpouring of His presence through truly special people.

Farewell to Walk in the Light and everyone I encountered in South Africa whom I have left for home. If there's one thing I can take back from my experience, it is that you have loved me so undeservingly so and I pray that I have reflected that love upon you as well.

Thank You.

A South African Pan of Ashes

2009-07-03T02:00:00.000-07:00

Job 2:8, 10- “Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes… Job replied, ‘…-Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

6,000 people die a month from HIV/AIDS in Pietermaritzburg alone.

The Walk in the Light director, Bruce, did more than 70 funerals last year.

A set of X-ray results for a young man with Tuberculosis lost at a government hospital (Bruce affirmed that can be the trend).

Informal settlements insulated with mud, covered with metal boards, and held up with wooden sticks.

A woman in the Township of Harneyville, running away from the Walk in the Light staff bringing her medicine. She didn’t need treatment because she heard a ‘voice’ the previous night that told her she was completely healed from both HIV and TB.

A jam-packed clinic that was full of people awaiting check-ups, test results, or meetings to cope with the results. Ages ranged from infants to grandparents.

A dead body lying face up in the middle of the road; shoddily covered with a thin sheet of silver-tin paper kept down by the man’s own shoes. Blood divided in three, thick, streams that strayed from the upper cavity of his chest towards the slant of the road.

Good morning team Walk in the Light (The NGO our service project team affiliates itself: Me, Jenny, Ivor, Eric, Anna, Walker, Corrie)

South Africa has 1st world elements meshed with 3rd world tragedy- as I'm sure most corners of this earth withhold no matter the circumstance.

Never in my life have I seen a place of such wonderful and awe-inspiring beauty, the kind that captures you where you are and forces you to sit with it.

Neither have I experienced a place of such direful depravity, the kind that turns the stomach and swells the eyes.

This is the great paradox of what I've experienced in Africa.

How does one make sense of suffering, especially when brought upon our existence through the wickedness of our own hearts?

It is clear that the ticking time bomb that is HIV/AIDS is fashioned by human depravity unwilling to commit to God, leading lives of sexual immorality. How much of an epidemic would this be if everyone abstained from premarital sex and stayed faithful to one partner?

The African ABC’s tagline is: Abstain, Be faithful to one partner, Condomize.

I would disagree with anyone who thinks HIV/AIDs is GOD’S curse on humanity. God is who warned us, God is the One who heals, comforts, and offers His condolences during times of loss and suffering- and through all this, He is made higher- all the more worthy to love and place our trust in as well as all the more worthy to mourn with. HIV/AIDS is a curse brought on by OURselves. I've noticed a dangerous resistance towards taking responsibility for our actions, especially when it is time to face the consequences, and this makes it all the more trendy to point the finger at God.

I think most Christians can look back at some of the most difficult things in their lives and find that God has used that for good and redeemed certain heart-wrenching happenings.

This is yet one stream of thoughts on many problems I’ve encountered not in Africa, but in us. I’m talking about people, real people: you, me, US. An 'US' without borders, classifications, labels, and elitist distinctions.

Problems such as the devastation of HIV/Aids working against the lives of so many, or oppression similar to the horrors of Apartheid, at first confront my faith with the God I believe in with all my heart. This first confrontation- a doubt in the One I live for- is more deeply representative of the fears and weaknesses of my own heart and flesh, they are in many ways superficial. Grasping for greater attentiveness to the meaning of such problems though, in the face of suffering, can lead me to a humbled but enlightened state. A state in which my pride and fear can meet their (my) match. I learn quickly, the truth of it corroding my spirit, that as much as this world feels purposeless in the face of suffering, so is God redeemed through it. As much knowledge, power, wealth, or pride we can accumulate, so is our powerlessness without God as well.

This is how I felt when I encountered my first HIV/TB victim laying across a row of chairs in the meeting hall at Walk in the Light. He slept, but there seemed to be no peace that went with it. He barely had the energy to acknowledge my presence. I managed to send him a friendly nod before he dosed off in exhaustion. All I could do for him in THAT specific moment was sit next to him… and pray for him-be it medically, emotionally, spiritually, or supernaturally that he be healed and comforted.

This is where David Crowder can help. Here he is talking about the album art off his 2005 CD, A Collision or (3+4=7):

“There's a pursuit in search of the core of existence. When you research a bit, you learn about the atom, this invisible particle, yet we can split that apart as well. But the cover [album art] has [this diagram of] an atom hovering above a picture of a little boy, which was the codename of the first atomic bomb dropped. Well, our own pursuits wind up broken too. So it's really a beautiful cover, depicting the core of life and what everything's all about, yet we're so broken and depraved, we destroy stuff in the process.”

I honestly don't believe in coincidences. That is why I don’t think its coincidence that in what is perhaps one of the most trivial seasons of my life that I am bombarded with the idea of Kingdom.

Depravity, but Kingdom. Does depravity + Kingdom = sense? I don’t know. So I’ll have to just call it what it is. Kind of like Crowder: a collision.

One example: 1st Church service attended at Walk in the Light ministry, held in their meeting hall. A concrete room with beaten chairs, an unclosed roof, and a pungent smell converged by chemicals, dirt, & agriculture. This Church was not about four walls, but the people inside of them. This Church had room for 30, but not for 1. Towards the end of the service David asks the crowd if there is prayer needed. A woman brings a young boy, no more than three years, lying practically unconscious in her arms (due to seizures from not yet known reasons, called ‘fitting’ here in Africa). Dave hoists him into his arms as the mother’s tears begin to stream- and we ALL pray. Since western Christians are all so poignant about their formulas, try this on for size:

A wonderful Church + a suffering family =

God’s Kingdom injected into Worldly depravity

This is a collision between two shades- one dark and one light. These are the directions in which we are pulled towards. Crowder says gravity weighs us down, yet the sky falls all the way to the ground. There’s no space inbetween the two and Christ has made Himself the Lark. Ascending us up, towards God and pulling others up with us.

On the 1st day of service projects I ‘coincidently’ opened up to Matthew 6:25-34 and was reminded not to worry, seeking first His Kingdom. If the birds in the air, the lilies of the field, and the grass are sculpted beautifully in His care, do not be troubled by the necessities of your life- God has it in mind; trust in the Lord.

But what about all the people who do not have these necessities as abundantly as I, yet have great faith in Christ or goodness and love? At the very least they have been blessed in their strong faith due to these iniquities.

The Bread and Wine of His flesh and blood are coming to them. I guess we can say that through the quote&quote ‘coincidence’ that comes with me reading the Gospel of John over this semester- the Holy Spirit led me to John 6:53-58:

“53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."

Reflecting on the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12- helping to define the absolutes of what kind of people the Kingdom is for. A quick recap (each deserving their own space for emphasis):

The poor in spirit,

Those who mourn,

The meek,

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

The merciful,

The pure in heart,

The peacemakers,

And those who are persecuted because of righteousness

And at the end of this, Jesus tells us,“-Rejoice and be glad…”

In the beginning of this note you read a passage from Job. Here we find Job willingly and faithfully given up by God to Satan’s hands with exemption of Job’s life.

Job is on a journey with God- one that didn’t consist of making sense of it all, but to have a faith that can endure...a faith enough to dare to be bold.

Recently, the president of Azusa Pacific University, John Wallace, came and visited us. He left some parting words as to how we can go about these last 27 days in South Africa. These words were meant to encourage and push us to live each day to it’s fullest. These words had to do with thanksgiving.

Let’s split that in two. 1. Thanks, 2. Giving. This is something that speaks directly to my condition, the heart paradox. Wallace went on to say that come later, be it February, March, April, whenever; we’re going to miss where we are NOW.

David Crowder, in his newest 2007 album, Remedy, he helps mesh world depravity with God Kingdom, familiar to the 1st and 3rd world aspects of South Africa. His new album art shines by way of a green medical cross on the front. This was his form of cathartic release and now my own. In one song titled, “O, surely we can change” he sings:

And the problem is this
We were bought with a kiss
But the cheek still turned
Even when it wasn’t hit

And I don’t know
What to do with a love like that
And I don’t know
How to be a love like that

When all the love in the world
Is right here among us
And hatred too
And so we must choose
What our hands will do

Where there is pain
Let there be grace
Where there is suffering
Bring serenity
For those afraid
Help them be brave
Where there is misery
Bring expectancy
And surely we can change
Surely we can change
Something

One album review explains that:

“Remedy focuses on God's constant presence as the answer to our hurts while challenging listeners to be the balm needed in the lives of others. Remedy is a meditation on God's love and unfailing presence. As the album progresses, Crowder takes the message slightly further. The title track acknowledges how God heals his people when they come together in worship, and the acoustic closer "Surely We Can Change" isn't as much a prayer for internal transformation as it is for external influence on the world.”

This is what brings me full circle. Although I am cautious to mimic the intense labeling that many modern Christians are apt to do, I cannot deny my convictions to share but one understanding I have in reading Job:

40 Chapters later, through all his suffering, we find Job in the ashes again, despising himself and repenting in dust and ashes to God. He has journeyed with God, followed through in this one stint, and he is better for it.

I’m in the ashes. I’m covered in them. Sometimes I want to grab and close the distance, make answers (or excuses?), tempted to propel myself from the unknowing into the labeling. Are you in a place like this? May be for you it has to do with love, school, jobs, family, friends, lifestyle, sexual lifestyles, sickness, simply fill in the blank.

The difficulty comes with the understanding that this is where God wants me to be right now. This is where I need to stay, in ashes; if Job hadn’t, he would of never learned. I’m enkindled BY my heart paradox to learn. There’s no shame in that. As Christians, we should learn to embrace the ashes.

See part of the problem is impatience. As our semester group left for Africa there was so much discourse on how we’ll be ‘changed’-‘come back different’-‘be broken’- and to a certain extent we have all struggled to search for that within us. There was all this premature TRANSLATION being done, these futile attempts to specify God’s work via spiritual jargon.

It went like this: brain receives insecure impulses then the mouth opens- continuous talking, acting out, and projecting of spiritual personas.

Rather than going like this: be still, breathe, pray.

That’s what the ashes are all about anyways; it’s about taking your day-to-day life and walking with God with this big, question mark, halo hovering over your head and heart. That’s where learning and more importantly growth can sprout. I find that however more curious and unsettled some people are, the more they want out of life; whether Christian or not, I respect that. I think that desire is what God works through.

It’s about standing pat because you trust God is working in you or me, in Walk in the Light, informal settlements, sickly children, someone you love whom is not there, HIV/AIDS/TB, our sins, the world, and even in the fact that he has worked and offered Himself over to the man lying dead in the street, through His own death thousands of years ago.

Be patient and rejoice in the seasons where you learn to stand pat.

The Kingdom of God awaits this world. It isn’t in Heaven, it’s on Earth. It is both now and future. It is here and is coming. This is confusing, but I encourage you to experience the aftermath of things that trouble your soul. Sit in the ashes of your grief, your worries, your confusion.

Just.

Sit.

When John Wallace talked with us he offered simple words (or word?) that can fit into my experience. Thanksgiving. Give thanks, then give. That’s all I can do at this moment, I can help build Kingdom amidst depravity. I’ll remember this so I can appreciate where I am NOW come February, March, April, whenever.

The experiences I’ve had sitting in the ashes have brought redemption to my purpose. The Lord has renewed my confusion with a reminder that HE is the REMEDY. Amidst suffering, the idea of God’s Kingdom only makes MORE sense to me now. Let us all bring the Remedy.

THINK ‘ashes’ then BE ‘remedy’

I’ll remember this during moments I stand pat at night. Staring into the sky, beneath an African view of the stars. Because I know a day will come when all I want is to be

Right

Where

I

Am.

A South African Rush Through the Lungs

2009-07-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

South Africa.

Familiar sounding, but faint when my mind attempted to formulate a picture of what it looks like. It's in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa and it's overseas-definition complete? Hardly.

Being a newbie to traveling plus about 25 hours of airtime all together, I was hardly thinking about what to expect when I would first arrive in South Africa. I just new that there was a destination in which I was given the opportunity to GO, so I went.

"Why?" the Semester Interviewer Carrie asked back in Spring of 07'. My reply: Global perspective on people, God, culture...true, but lacking fervor. I don't claim any Spiritual authority that God specifically whispered in my ear: "Souuuuutthhh Afriiiccaaa" - but I will say that God made the idea of South Africa move within me and whether he was saying now or later or never, I sat and prayed and said, "I want this God. I want to do this. I want this opportunity to learn about life in such a different manner than I've ever known before. I don't mean to bargain with you, so I'll just tell you right now...if the doors open on this one for me. I'm going." Little did I know He was listening.

In a nutshell, I came here to learn. I wanted to get a taste of a reality beyond my own. I prayed to get here and now I'm praying to BE here. As Kyle Lake puts it in his book, (re)Understanding Prayer:

"So a better translation of the biblical word "believe" would be to place the full weight of your life in something........Take whatever it is you're praying about, whatever it is you're believing. Then apply movement. Perspiration. Muscle. Initiative. Exertion. Arms working. Feet running. Eyes reading. Mind thinking. Anything less is not a whole-life following of Christ."

If we're being honest here, I wanted God to specifically do one thing for me while I flew over a bed of clouds that looked like a second layer of ocean on the plane. I wanted to be humbled and let me take a moment to expand on that.

Humbled. Not in the manner when I comfortably mention in my 5 person bible-study how the Lord is really breaking me, clinging to an insecure need to label everything God does in my life. I mean, HUMBLED.

One thing I've learned is that often American culture see's Africa as this RITE OF PASSAGE for our faith. We go there, help the poor little black suffering Africans and come home like a pompous child hoping for recognition: "oh, look at me Jesus, I'm so GOOD. Did you see what I did over there in Africa!?"

I mean HUMBLED like the version where my head get's taken out of my ass. This version would imply a couple of things: 1) I realize that I don't have a grip on things, 2)I don't know everything, 3)my culture ISN'T the best, 4) and that God has MUCH bigger things on his plate than me wining over a 7 page paper and what Church I want to attend back in Azusa.

This version would imply my 32 year old CCC roommate from Lisotho, Kaama, who sits next to my bed late at night and explains to me how he was beat and left for dead, bleeding profusely, lying on the dirt ground and in his last waning moments of life. As his body is rushed to a hospital in critical care, Kaama's body decides to completely cave in. Constriction. Loss of breath. Death upon him. And as he lay in his hospital bed, knowing that he is done for, as an unbeliever he says, "God I don't know if you are real, but if you are out there, if you give me breath again, I promise I will devote my entire life to you and do whatever you ask of me."

BAM! AND THE VERY SECOND HE FINISHED THAT THOUGHT... AIR RUSHES THROUGH HIS LUNGS AGAIN. Life breathes in Kaama, Kaama breathes in God. And from there, the rest is history. His life is God's and he couldn't be HAPPIER. The exchange of that relationship between him and God completely outweighs the physical damage done to the left side of his body.

Humbled in the fashion in which a fellow CCC student named Reagan pulls me alongside him, in a free, flowing love that circulates through his words with genuineness and grace and shares with me the death of his brother and his brother's child and it's hurtful effect on his family and self. Then as he continues on, he says:

"Don't feel sorry for me. Don't feel like there are two sides of me. The happy Reagan and the sad Reagan that I hide. I have no cover up. This is me. I have learned to merge my scars. I now HEAL THROUGH MY WOUNDEDNESS and it is A PART OF MY BEING."

Beautiful. Little did I know that this bright young man was going to steal two books of mine, read them both in three weeks, one of which I have had for a year and have not read to this day. Little did I know that this young man would decide to drop a note in one of the books for me as a parting gift.

The interesting thing is that when I discovered this note I was questioning heavily my commitment to ministry. Was it something that I really wanted to do (the 1st time I have questioned this since I was 15 years old btw). In Reagan's parting note he explains a prayer he has for me. It reads:

"Dear Ryan...I am blessed indeed by you. I am blessed by your love for ministry and my prayer is that you realize that: Your calling for ministry transcends the boundaries & limitations of the States and even the west! My prayer is that God would bring you out and enrich you with awesome experiences as far as ministry in its totality is concerned. Perhaps we'll meet again...in the business of the Kingdom.

Love,
Reagan"

It may not seem much to you, but whoever you are, you're not ME. And this was ALL I needed.

HUMBLED. Where I acknowledge the poverty that lies 15 minutes away in the Township of Gugulethu or Kyalitsha - where there are literally neighborhoods of homemade shacks built with mud, fire wood, or metal boards - scarce money, scarce water, scarce electricity (if any of these things). Where families LIVE under those conditions, jam-packed in shacks that were half the size of my room where I was staying in Cape Town. Humbled in the manner that saw a certain contentment in the workers of a childcare center in the middle of a township that had little kids, stacked next to eachother with every inch available, napping. The smiles on the caretakers faces were telling. If you ask me, undermanned... WITH babies and toddlers does not equal success. But that just goes to show you the strength and beauty of a woman.

Now let me share an observation. Do these impacting situations that have impressed humility upon my heart for God's people seem like stuff I'M DOING!? NO. And that's exactly the point.

I don't want this experience to become a fairytale of how much I DID or how much I've been through. The point would be entirely missed.

I just want this experience to enter straight into my heart and help me live in every breath...the way Kaama showed me is possible.

I just want this experience to LEAVE from my heart and help me BE. In every language-barrier conversation, every powerful worship experience, every braii, in each exposure to someone expressing their heart sincerely to God. I saw this trait in Reagan's eyes as he shared about the tragic death of his brother. I want that LOOK. That look of appreciating not everyTHING we have, but every MOMENT we have in this life.

As time in Peitermaritzburg expires and the educational season comes down to the end. I'm thanking God for three meals a day, I'm thanking God for good health care, I'm thanking God for an abstaining sexual lifestyle (meaning I don't have HIV/AIDS), I'm thanking God that He works in ways I DON'T understand. I'm thanking God that He is preparing me, readying me, breaking me down, unlayering me to the point of selfless exhaustion and fervent desire to make an impact in our community development opportunities that will be handed to us in just a couple more weeks. I'm thanking God for how tired I'm going to be from wanting to help so bad. All things I never did prior to Africa. My advice: thank God.

Let me just be real with you. I don't have it together and I don't have it figured out and I am NOT fearless and I AM a jerk.

Hi, my name is Ryan Birch, and I'm a Christian.

Your response: "HHHIiiiiiiI Ryyaaannnn"

But I tell you what. God does have it together, amidst the craziness of worldly suffering. God does have it figured out, amidst the doubts we also act off of. God IS fearless in the face of all things evil. God IS LOVE, amidst HIV/AIDS victims, the poor, the widowed wives or brothers, amidst the moments of breathlessness in hospitals. God is GOOD.

I love this MESSAGE translation of Matt 11:28-30:
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

So where I pick up from here is where I leave you off. I'm trying to get away with Christ and walk with Him. I feel like He's beside me, as I watch monkeys run past my classroom, do 7 page papers, listen to friends pour their hearts out in difficult situations, and especially in a laugh or two. South Africa is wrapping me up in the HERE AND NOW and I'm willing to go with that. I'm attempting to be apart of those "unforced rhythms of grace" and finding joy. Not a complacent, disregarding joy, but a joy that resides in knowing God more and more through all of the sorrow and all of the goodness at the same time.

Now that I've received a few defining moments upon my stay let me try this once again:

South Africa.

My humbling teacher. My rhythm of grace. My reality check.

I'm thinking God liked the idea of me coming here after all.