Let's Go Down to the Crawdad Hole

White flecks of foam raced towards her feet as she dipped one milk colored toe into the cool liquid. Her face lit up with pleasure at feeling the water wash away winter’s gloom. It was the first day of spring, a warm day, a perfect day to go imbibe sunlight and the creek’s icy therapy. Abandoned of shoes and dignity, she jumped into the water, wiggling her toes as her feet found the soft green moss lining the creek floor. Minnows swam alongside her. They nibbled at her toes, then hid under plentiful rocks as she moved down the bends, searching for crawfish to unearth. 

Above her head, she felt the sun kiss her shoulders and nose, leaving its calling card like red lipstick upon her arms. Her hair played tag with the gentle breeze, while the soft baby gurgles of the water caressed her ears with melodies yet unsung. Frogs sang bass, birds soprano, as geese added dissonance to harmonious chorus of praise. She, she quietly sat. Silent. Inhaling the simple pleasures of life like the firefighter newly emerged from a burning building. Breathing it in as oxygen for her soul, a prescription pharmacies forgot to restock on. 

Flash back twenty-four hours and you will find the same girl frantic with worry. Her phone has disappeared, her ipod is dead, and her life is completely and utterly ruined. She feels naked, tragically alone in the world, without a friend to talk to and facebook far out of her reach. Her fingers ache with the need to communicate to her friends, to let them know she still cares, still lives, still remains part of the community she has so carefully built up. She wonders how she will ever make it in this foreign land, far from home, without the modern necessities of the college life. 

Yet twenty-four hours later, one charged ipod laying idle on the shelf, one found phone sitting listless in her purse, she still breathes.

This is not my typical allegory you may remember from previous entries. It includes no  deep philosophy or intellectual achievements. It simply stems from a forced technology detox and a quiet trip to the creek to remind us that even the trees of the fields and the creatures of the land sing praises to the Lord with the voice He has given them. The bird’s song and the wind’s whisper all reflect the image of their Creator in the unique way He created them to sing. Maybe, its time we start getting back to our own voice, the voice God gave us, to praise the Lord instead of relying on the latest Jesus Culture album or biblegateway.com. Maybe by simply inhaling the beauty of His creation, whispering a prayer of thanksgiving as we bask in His universe, we can truly be still and know that He is God. Maybe then we would remember what it is to simply give thanks for being alive, instead of needing all of the latest consumer gambits to satisfy our old natures.



 “Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.”
Psalms 46:10

Maybe this is the sweetest praise offering of all.  

Let Go of Pretend

The young girl walks slowly onto the scene, her eyes flirting to the man on stage left. She empties her mind of all pre-concieved ideas, all thought-out movements and simply thinks upon the words she will say. She lets them rise up within her spirit as she imagines once again all the wrongs this man has done her. As the lights come up she walks cooly across the stage and hurls her first dart directly in his heart, using the words to direct the torrent of emotions flooding her soul. She allows her hands to hang loose at her sides, only moving when her body chooses the expression of her anger. Suddenly, as she tells the man goodbye for the last time, her eyes well up with genuine tears and she runs off stage, shaking from the most realistic work she has ever done.  

“The reality of doing.” My drama professor’s favorite definition for good acting. None of the pretending, fake crying, limp noodle stuff preformed at your local theatre by a low class operation. He believed instead that one should not attempt to conjure up emotion from a storage room next to your heart, but that each time you walked out on stage, the emotion should be fresh, real, and a hundred percent energy. It took awhile for us to understand what he meant, but the lessons I learned from his class impacted not just my acting methods, but the way I viewed my spiritual life as well. In this highly unusual blog I would like you to examine with me some acting techniques and their worship applications for the church. 

The first thing our dear Professor taught us seemed highly unconventional compared to my other directors, but revolutionized all of us by teaching us that the lines were not our focus. In fact, for the first part of rehearsing scripts we simply had to say our parts in our own words instead of memorizing them, concentrating on what lay behind those pesky phrases. We quickly learned by this that in order to express ourselves, we had to realize the words weren’t the lock to a great performance, they were only the key we used. The emotions, the passions behind the words that moved the lines through the currents of the scene, those would open the audience’s eyes to the realism we conveyed. When we  learned this, we could finally allow the words to touch our hearts, not just our heads from memory. 

Once we learned this however, a new problem arose as we quickly shut the lock after discovering that true emotion does not allow for control and habit. Instead of a clean performance every time, each time the words came from our hearts something different could happen because we let them speak for themselves. In a nervous twitch, not accustomed to the power of feelings inside us, some of us (myself included) would use body movements such as pacing or arm-flailing to release some of the pent up things within ourselves. Only when we learned to be still and wait for the emotion to dictate our movements, giving up control again, did we realize our natural human reactions would not steer us wrong if we let them lead us to a heartfelt action instead of a pre-planned habit of movement. Acting became reacting to our hearts, not simply a mind-control trick to convince ourselves we were someone else. We learned reality in the world of make-believe.  
Now one may say, I am not an actor. This blog is useless for me. However, what if we, as believers, applied the same principles to worship? What if instead of treating worship songs as words that we have memorized and sing out in carefully choreographed dances of deception did we allow them to become a tool for our actual worship instead? What if we realized that the words themselves were not the worship? The truth behind the songs, the raw emotions that come from the depths of our hearts when we allow those words to guide us to a place of complete vulnerability, that is our offering of praise to our Savior. Raising our hands in praise is all well and good, but we still are in control of ourselves by choosing to preform the action. What if we could finally stand still and know that God is God and we are not, allowing His Holy Spirit to take charge of our worship and direct our conduct? If we truly trusted in His presence we would not be afraid of what He would do through us, for the Holy Spirit is a gentleman and will not allow disorder in His work. We must stop "trying" to worship God deeper; just do it by allowing ourselves to lose control, getting lost in His glorious presence in the present.
Yes, the words of our songs are powerful and effective. But they are merely tools we use to touch our core spirit and connect with the face of God. If we could just simply allow them to penetrate our tough skin, and let the Holy Spirit control every part of our being, we could truly worship God in spirit and in truth, letting the world see how real our relationship with our Father is. It's time to stop pretending and just start letting the reality of doing shape our worship to God. 

Baby Possum Tale

"Daddy can I please keep it? Please?"
My first words as I trotted down the hill carrying the furry ball of varmit in my arms.
It was a cool summer day in the foothills of West Virginia. While visiting my grandparents, my uncle had asked me (the six year old version) to go check his traps with him. I agreed warmly, eager to escape the stuffy adult conversation surrounding the old kitchen table and danced out the old white door, my short crop bouncing in enthusiastic meter behind me.
We climbed up the treacherous trail by the old creek bed, and walked about a half of a mile until reaching one of his traps, used to catch coons and other small creatures inhabiting those ancient conifer homes.
Imagine my surprise when a whole litter of adorable baby possums and their mama lay quietly in the wire mesh surrounding their temporary cell! My uncle quickly bent down, not wanting to hurt a mama and her babies, and sprung open the cage door, allowing them a speedy exit. We turned, ready to trek back down the monster hill, when I heard the faintest sound, almost like the meowing of a kitten just born. It came from the wire cage we thought, until now, had emptied itself of its prisoners.
There, huddled in the corner all alone and forsaken, lay a tiny baby possum about as big as a grown man's fist. It complained loudly, waiting for its mother's rescue to appear, but the mother and other babies had already disappeared into the forest, leaving the young one behind. We tried to coax it out of the cage, but it wailed in terror at leaving its familiar prison alone. My uncle finally shook the cage until he caught the trembling creature in his fist, and handed him over to my eager arms.
Soft warm fur assailed me, and I wrapped the shivering baby up in my t-shirt as he clung desperately to the thin fabric. I had adopted the little pet for better or worse when I stared into those helpless blue eyes and knew I could be its new mother. All I had to do: convince my dad.
The reply came swiftly as you probably have guessed dear reader. "No." So, I found myself trudging back up the hill to abandon my poor baby possum, crying loudly all the way, bemoaning the injustice of it all.
Yet, standing on top of the hill, waiting patiently among the trees, stood his own possum mama, waiting for her prodigal son, waiting for him to come home to his real family as his adoptive one left him there wishing that for once, she could have been a mother.
Now to my ever present analogy in the mix: How often do we as Christians trap ourself in cages of sin and despair because we refuse to follow God's will for our lives. We build our own prison walls, seal them, and then bury ourselves in a corner, dreaming of seeing the light of day once more. Then, when someone comes to let us out of our prison, often instead of following our Father out into the light, we instead have become so comfortable lying on our prison mats, stuck in an endless drudge of complaining and apathy, yet never realizing the door is open for our release. There lies the truth my friends. Forgive me if I preach a little, but our Savior Jesus has opened the door of our prisons. We no longer have to lie in our filth and rags. He wants to lead us into the light of day once more, and he waits patiently for us to follow him, even if we take some detours along the way. Are you ready to trust him to lead you through the door to freedom today

The Notorious and the Needy

The sound of drunken revelry fills the air. Cups clang together in high-pitched choruses of joviality and frivolity as men throw back earthen goblets of sweet crushed grapes. From in the midst of the crowd reclining around wooden tables filled with stale bread and sour figs comes the solitary wail of the flutist, soon joined by the jingle of bells as a figure slowly untwines itself from the huddled mass. Flashes of red shoot across the open air as she dances graceful with her ringing cow-skin to the front of the crowd, writhing, weaving, jubilantly expressing her rebellion against the empty heart she wears on display. The men applaud enthusiastically and the women turn away with disgust at her public spectacle. Flute’s sad screams and bells’ merry rings come together in an antithetical dance of desire; her desire to free herself from the opposing longings within her heart. 

Suddenly, however, she gets a glimpse of a man who has now joined these social vagrants of the lowest rank. He walks in with many others, some more attractive, others bearing the weight of muscle gained from their days aboard a boat, yet he alone attracts the attention of the crowd, and her sudden interest as her ankle bounces beneath her surprise. What could he possibly be doing here? The words cause her to lose focus as she struggles mightily to continue her dance. Obviously he is not one of this crowd. 

As she continues the host stands up, a paltry man who weaves as he greets the newcomers with surprising decorum, considering his reputation as a fink and angry drunk. The man embraces the host, who quite silently returns to his seat, now devoid of his drunken roar and boast he once displayed. 

Intrigued by this strange man, she begins to dance like she has never danced before, hoping she can impress him, maybe win his approval, though she can't understand why. Yet she has lost her audience, for everyone in the crowd's eyes remain fixed on the man who now converses quietly with two notorious prostitutes and a wretched beggar. At that instance however, she happens to catch his eye, and instead of the lust and desire she usually sees in men's eyes, her heart stays suspended in time as she catches a look unlike any look ever before seen. It is a look mixed with disapproval (her feet fall), understanding (her eyes begin to fill) and pure, wholesome love (the tears overflow). The look sends her to her knees on the floor as the carousing crowd freezes, whispers filling the air like mosquitos at noon. 

She stays huddled in a contorted mass of shame on the dirt below, the red of her dress now streaked with brown. She suddenly starts, looking up to see tan, leathery feet in front of her as a tear- stained hand thick with calluses reaches down to pull her up from the ground, up into new life. 

This is the Jesus of Scriptures from my understanding. The Jesus who didn't sit on the curb waiting for the paparazzi because he advertised free healing or a fish bake at noon on Saturday. The Jesus who didn't have his committee to form a calendar of events but simply instead went to where the people were and loved them, truly loved them whether they . In Luke, it says that Jesus went to Zacchaeus's house to eat with him and "the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled." (Luke 19:7) Yet time after time in the gospels the authors record him eating with sinners, fellowshipping with them, and loving them right where they were. Luke never records Jesus condemning and lecturing Zacchaeus over his shady past, yet Zacchaeus suddenly stands up and makes everything right simply by sharing a meal with one who loved him in spite of himself. 

Now please, I am not saying Jesus did not condemn sin. He did most ardently indeed. Yet, the facts still remain that notorious sinners are recorded being changed simply by seeing love in ways they never knew existed. Jesus never required the woman caught in adultery to repent before he saved her life. He instead said he didn't condemn her. He saved her, loved her, and then told her to sin no more. 

What if we could say the same about how we witness to those on the outside of our faith? What if we went to them where they stood in their sins, and loved them so desperately and purely that they could want to repent simply by seeing the love of Christ we bear. Yes we must disapprove of sin, but making sinners pariahs because we might catch their sin never saved anyone. Instead, we must go forth shielded in the love of Christ to a world lost and broken and extend our hand into the fire, bringing up the sinner and ourselves unscathed by His mercy, grace, and unfailing love.  


Note: This is not a story contained in the gospel. It is based on Mary Magdeline, but really could be any woman whose life Jesus could have touched. Remember John said that there are more stories about Jesus than could fill many many books. 

Swings and the Spirit

First a confession: The blog you, dear reader, are about to ingest is personal rather than profound. I know, you hoped for a literary leap into some deep allegory, or a ocean's worth of political commentary, but sadly, tis not possible today. Instead, allow me to take you back to the years of braces, ugly hairstyles, and annoying opposite genders-- let us journey to the swings.
The bell rings loudly in my eighth grade classroom. My feet hit the ground as I make my way quickly towards the door without appearing to eager to leave my favorite teacher's world of knowledge (West Virginia history). I tug my jacket on and turn to a thin boy with glasses and mussed brown hair. "Bet I can go higher this time," I throw out, waiting for him to catch the challenge. He sticks his tongue out like most junior high boys do and sprints out the door to recess (freedom) yelling "Yeah right!" as we both bolt for the metal towers of danger and adventure.
I run for a short distance, then slow down upon approach as I reach the sacred spot, showing my respect for my favorite friend. Second seat from the right, the one with my initials carved everyday in the dirt beneath it. I look at my partner in exploration, my best friend and most competition, and grin as we thrust off into uncharted skies. My feet leave the ground and I toss my mane back in the wind like the wild stallions of Chincoteague Island do after being released back to the beaches every year. My feet paw the air as I struggle to gain altitude, desperate to beat my long-legged contender. Finally, after gaining advantage, I relax, close my eyes, and listen to the North Wind sweep her long graceful fingers through my hair and strum the chords of my soul, relaxing all the stress mounting within. She whispers peace into my confused existence as I let her catch up the fragile seat and carry me through her transparent self. I allow her embrace to enfold me until the bell rings once more, this time a harsh sound, unwelcome, as I head to Alcatraz's cousin Algebra, her sweet voice still whispering in my ear.
Now, I am somewhat grown up I suppose, yet I still love the freedom only a swing can bring me. The ability to defy gravity, to sweep air in the undertow, to lose all cares about the world, makes me wonder why more psychologists don't recommend it for adult therapy. There remains something exhilarating and uplifting in the way we lose all the confines of the earth in the embrace of the wind. Perhaps this is why the Bible compares the Spirit of God to the wind after all.
The wind of the Holy Spirit does much the same as my old friend the silver swing. When we release all cares and inhibitions by taking our feet off the ground and allow Him total control over our course, He charts out new skies we never dreamed imaginable. He is the one who takes us soaring to such great heights, allowing the mundane cares of the world to sweep under our feet. He comforts us with his soothing touch, allowing us to forget conventions as he sweeps through our normal view of life. After our swing experience with His presence, we may not have the perfect appearance we had before (I can only hope you to imagine my hair after my adventures) to those around us, but maybe that is because we have had a distorted view of perfect. After all, Christians, those who have experienced a new birth in Christ, were not created to live like little ants tediously walking the ground in search of morsels to feed on and support their traditional way of life. Instead, we were created to soar in the clouds, to defy what man thinks is impossible and to embrace the unknown, the encompassing wind of God's presence that takes us to places we never thought to go on our own.
Perhaps thats why having a child's spirit is a good thing, Jesus said. After all, we will never experience God's peace and presence unless we are willing to shed our adult inhibitions and simply let our hair down, allowing the Spirit to sweep us off our earthen thrones into eternity.

Welcome to the Zoo

I walk into the nursery, absorbing the mirage of colors battering my senses as thirteen four and five year olds run toward the door, all fighting to greet their favorite teacher with loud exclamations of joy. I breathe in the familiar smells of crayons and lysol as I attempt to restore some order to the chaos surrounding me. Finally I bring the class to attention for a short recess of noise, before telling them they have fifteen minutes of playtime before our lesson.
They eagerly disperse throughout the room, grabbing Lincoln logs and plastic food, legos and puzzles to let their imaginations soar, but soon I have a problem on my hand. Harry and Sally have just grabbed the same gold sparkly ball I sent out on the desk to play hot potato with. Their little palms struggle viciously as they both shout "Mine" at the top of their lungs. Harry attempts to hit Sally, hoping she will drop the ball, but she lifts one leg daintily back and swings her flying pendulum forward, connecting with his shin.
The other children gather around as Harry begins unending howling, while I separate Sally and the whipped conqueror from each other. I ask each what happened, and get dissimilar responses as Harry excitedly tells me he needs the ball for his basketball game, and that he most assuredly had it first. Sally then primly explains that Harry snatched the pretty ball out of her hands and that as a lady, she had a right to play with it first.
After attempting to reason with both children, I finally reached the point of hopelessness. I quickly remembered however that I had brought two balls, one gold and the other tie-dye, in my bag. I handed the tie-dye ball to Harry, as loud exclamations of "Why don't I get the tie-dye ball?!?" erupted from Sally's side of the room. "I thought you wanted the gold ball?" I asked, my patience waning. She answered "No, I want this one" and coquetted across the room, hoping I would grant her request. Instead, at my breaking point after Harry stuck his tongue out at the girl, I ended up sending both children to a corner, giving instead the balls to the brother and sister in the corner whose blessed silence had made my day bearable in part.
This story may seem juvenile, and rather pointless. After all, kids argue like this all the time about getting what they want, and learning to share. Yet I would like to take a new look at this and point the fingers back on us, the Christians of our giant playroom of life.
You see, God gives each one of us talents and abilities that He wishes to shine brightly for his glory. He gives one the gift of singing, another the gift of healing, and another the gift of compassion. As Paul tells us, he enables the body with different organs all working together as a unit with Christ as the head. Yet somehow, our childish spirit of "If only I had..." never quite goes away, and we must attempt to intercept the prize God intended for someone else to have. We make up any sorry excuse we can imagine, using such logical fallacies as race, gender, age, and time to excuse our greed for what another has, but none of us seem to acknowledge that there remains a tenth commandment "Thou shall not covet." (Exodus 20) we may be impeaching upon.
God gives each one of us a different gift or even multiple ones to use for the kingdom in the body of Christ. As in the parable of the talents, he asks us to use these talents to increase his kingdom while we still remain on this earth. Some he gives more talents then others, or ones that seem more important to the body then others. We cannot dictate which talents we receive, only what we do with them. Somehow however, a fight most always breaks out between members of the church as to which talents they have been given or have not received. Never satisfied, we grapple like ducks fighting over a piece of bread in the water, not realizing their benefactor has been tossing more pieces out all the while they fight.
You may sit now, nodding your head assuredly with a emphatic amen to everything I have just said.
Good. I'm glad you can see what I see. Now what will you do about it? Like preschoolers in a classroom must learn to accept whatever color crayon they are given to use, we must take our talent, whether writing music or cleaning toilets, and start making our mark on the paper called life we have been given. If we learn to color inside our own lines, we all as the body of Christ can present a piece of artwork worthy of our Father's glory at his throne someday.

The Gardener's Gift

“Gorgeous, crimson petals 

Reaching, grasping, kissing

Beams of light streaking red, 

Colors fall teasing grass below”

Anonymous 

Roses. The ultimate symbol of true love. As Valentine’s Day approaches, I find myself breaking my own rule on using hackneyed symbols and talking about the one thing most people think they have information overload on. However, in my defense, I would like to focus on a different part of the story. I would speak of the gardener, not the gardened. 

Picture with me an old stone cottage in the woods. Thickets line the walkway leading up to a mossy structure that seems uninhabited since the dark ages. An ancient doorframe carved with winter’s marks leads in to a small room in which lives an old, decrepit man. This man has lost his wife, children, and social standing; all that remains of his former self lives on inside his dreams. His back, twisted now from age, cannot handle the work of taking care of his property any more, his feet cannot abide going to the meadow beyond the wood to see any life or beauty. The one symbol of his past blooms beside his doorframe, a single rosebush planted by his wife many years ago, tended to while her heart expired. 

Although he can barely make it to the door each day, all of his pent-up affection and love gets lavished on this one bush. He waters it, feeds it the best sunlight, talks to it, and cherishes it. However there is one issue: the rosebush never blooms. For thirty years this man has tended this stubborn creature of nature and yet every attempt has failed. Yet to give up on it, unthinkable. It, a gift from his true love, must live. 

Now picture the man with shears creeping slowly out the door. He bends down over the plant, shakily grasps its stubborn thorns as they piece his leathery flesh, and winces as he cuts off all of the dead branches, apologizing to the suffering bush. He throws them away and whispers a quick prayer that this might restore his long dead love. 

For weeks it seems his effort has failed; no growth can be seen. Yet, he faithfully pulls himself out of his bed each morning to continue caring for the now totally decrepit looking plant, a jumbled mass of thorns that feed on his precious life blood each morning as he untangles the mess.

 One day, however, he gasps as he looks out his ancient door. For there, in place of the scraggily bush, red crimson droplets have appeared, red as his ancient blood, red as the harvest moon. For the first time in years, through all of his patient waiting and tending, beads of life appear on the stubborn old plant where once only thorns existed. The old man sinks to his knees, crying tears of joy as he embraces the smooth petals of hope, born out of his long cherished dream of finally, finally receiving his price: blood-red roses, born out of suffering and death. 

Now some of you may realize that I refer to an allegory of our spiritual birth, and that God is the gardener. Believe me when I say I mean no heresy. I do not view God as an old man, nor do I think of him as a hermit in the woods. The parallel only exists in my mind as I envision God, the holy and just maker of the universe, trying to work with these stubborn people on earth. He loves them, tends them, gives them all the nourishment and energy they require to live, yet they respond to him like a child to mashed turnips. He persists in loving them however, lavishing his affection on the very thing His Son died trying to save. Finally he must prune the stubborn people he loves, allowing their suffering to finally allow new growth to spring forward. His blood and constant care finally produce the blooms, if only we allow them to grow. 

The question is: Will we accept the sacrifice of Christ and the suffering we must endure to be made beautiful? Or will we continue to resist the pruning we must endure, ending up as charred remains in the fire. We have a choice to make, a symbol to call our own. True love, or tragic loss? It is up to us to make the decision. 

Note: This story is an allegory, not to be taken literally. Read John 15 for more details.