Giving up the Self?

Lately, my thoughts have returned again to self-sacrifice. I have been deep in thought and study for the past two weeks on the subject of faith, justification, and Abraham. Jesus has revealed so much to me through this process of preparing and delivering a sermon on the adekah, the binding of Isaac. This narrative has fascinated me since I first studied in greater depth than a read-through… in my intro to philosophy course. The process of traveling through the narrative again to glean something, which can be applied, to everyday life with me and Jesus in community has been quite the challenging, eye-opening process. The story behind how I was offered the opportunity to give this sermon is interesting in and of itself: here at the theologically Baptistic school I am graduating from in one week, the conviction is commonly assumed that the Bible indicated that women are not to teach or preach to men, at least on biblical matters. I can read words, I see some things indicating something different about women speaking/teaching men than men speaking/teaching men or women indicated in the Bible. What it all means, I am not really too sure… but I aim to teach at a collegiate level, maybe even graduate level someday. Several of my friends here at school are in the pastoral concentration, and so had the opportunity to practice their preaching in homiletics lab: naturally, I wanted to hear what my friends had to say from God, so I went to hear Matt’s sermons, and a couple others.

Our professor, Mr. Baker, allowed me to come and pray “in public” at some of the class sessions… a request that just makes me so nervous whenever issued: Besides being very uncertain of my words handed out in public, I also realize that it is Jesus whose glory I have the privilege and obligation to convey in my words… and also the responsibility of realizing my words will reflect back on Jesus’ name. I have been exploring directions in which I could pour my whole self out before my God for my life… mostly in vocation, but I have also been exploring all the parts of me God has fashioned into my personhood, composing me, the vessel of His worship, in entirety before Him. A lot of different factors have led me towards the pursuit of teaching as my whole-hearted worship, and working with Mr. Baker on an independent study theology course, working on course development, was a really good experience for me. Once while in the homiletic class, Mr. Baker extended the invitation that if ever I would like to speak, I was more than welcome. He and I negotiated so that the presentation would be something like my final project for theology, putting into practice some of the practical theology teaching techniques I had been theoretically playing with. Needing to choose an Old Testament test for this specific requirement, I spent some time pondering, and then settled on the sacrifice of Isaac narrative, which I had preached on in my “chicaletics” (ministry communication for women) class my first semester at Davis.

Through the experience of intense stress over the message of the text, the message my heart desired to convey through it, and the actual responsibility of accurate and clear delivery, I found myself stepping back and scrutinizing my interactions with the community while under what I have begun to think of as “stress,” an intense period of focused study under the burden of responsibility. I set my own standards of myself, as I do with every project I engage in, probably too seriously, above required expectations in some respects. I have struggled with perfectionism ever since I began any sort of serious pursuit of any kind. Coming to this sermon, I was demanding myself to be able to confidently deliver a message that would move and impact… and maybe that is an OK desire, but I was not including the spirit of God in that desire to move. I wanted my words to be the motivating factor, my words to convince. O how selfish, how can I claim I wanted to bring Jesus glory? And yet I did, through what I said and did, but I omitted Him from the actions themselves. Faith works, I cannot assimilate faith and actions done separately. I am weak with speaking words, I know that, and I cannot manufacture some sort of false confidence without an element of pride being involved. So that is how I set out with the whole speaking thing… I guess I was asking in pride for God enable my pride, how stupid. And thanks be to God for His mercy, He showed me what I was doing.

So I had this ambition of convincing, but I realized I could not convince in and of myself. I am nothing, I am weak… that weakness stares me in the face all too frequently, and when I seek to deny it, it returns with reinforcements. So I started praying the words that I was preparing to issue out of my mouth into the hands of Jesus… I asked Him to hide away the self which I was trying to consider dead… the stuff I was driving at that completely went against His glory, and to use me as His vessel. In asking that, I think Jesus gave me the perspective I needed to really see how I was in those days of study, through the honest reactions of my friends and the confusing feelings I experienced. During intense study, I realized that I distance myself from people and situations. This I suppose is necessary for me to mentally engage a subject to the depth at which I find it most pliable to my imagination, yet I tend to become so absorbed in my studies that the rest of life fades away into mere surrounding. To do so for long periods of time as I am wont to do becomes more than antisocial but a hindrance to community. Because I am so removed from feeling within myself, I noticed that I tend not to respond to people the way they need to be responded to. May I tangent for a moment?

My friend Amy and I spent this early Saturday morning out and about adventuring, driving, and sharing life over a cup of coffee. We talked about our struggles with community, our struggles with self… and I think we encouraged each other, because we have enough similar personhood to relate well together and enough difference to rub each other well. One of our similar person/community struggles is over boundaries… I wonder quite often if being like Jesus to the point of where I sacrifice myself with my arms stretched so openly I am crucified is not an absence of boundaries; My rabbi tells me this is not so. So I am seeking to learn what it means to have boundaries like Jesus—He could get so close, but He also knew how to get that close: Jesus let others set the tones for the conversation, but helped make the conversation pointed and direct in order to derive the sought-after answer. Jesus laid aside Himself by fully engaging in whatever the interest of the one He was talking to was. Sometimes He shared those deep things of His heart too, I think, like the Kingdom of Heaven stuff. Wow, Jesus. But overall, somehow Jesus understood that His personhood, His being was not so fragile that if it were not communicated to all, it would perish. Do I think that? Honestly, I don’t even know what in me drives for such an openness. Is it selfishness? Fear? Doubt?

I ask myself why I feel it is compromising to hold back and not be completely open, and I think it may because I am far too much of an idealist, to the point of where I would rather share and be hurt than not share. But oh trust, what a fragile thing… too easily lost, not readily obtained, I fear to lose You. I have tried in spite of circumstances to retain trust, but such hypocrisy between heart and mind resulted in fiasco: I cannot change anything, no matter how fervently I believe a fact to be wrong. So in conversation, I have to accept that I cannot discern from words whether or not an individual is trustworthy- though time spent and sensitivity to means and mode of sharing may indicate more. Yet I am deceivable, how easily broken is my heart. In spite of a broken heart, I must love, and I am willing to keep my heart feeling. Gentle Jesus, I see how I act when I do not trust the Spirit You have placed in me… relying on the nonexistent substance of pride, I fall short, on my face, and am ashamed. Someone can always tell me about themselves… and I am always willing to listen and talk… I will try maintaining “boundaries” that way. But how safe can real love possibly be? Well, OK. But I want the blows of my friends and loved ones… not the kisses of an enemy.

So returning to the sermon prep, I looked at what I was becoming in my community… unpleasant to be around because I was not engaging as needed. So the final night of preparation, partially for my own sanity, but also to deal with my own heart clearly before God before responding to my friends, I separated myself and dedicated a few more hours to writing and rehearsing the message. This entire week I had been devotedly working on the sermon, I had felt something within me rising up in opposition to the conditions under which if felt oppressed in the compilation of my message. I am called to obey in spite of circumstances, so regardless of how I feel, I need to remain in Jesus’ love and beg Him to remain in me. Jesus, I did not trust You nearly enough with this message… it is Your holy word, and You will preserve it in spite of my finitude of words, my inabilities. So I surrendered to You my soul, away from distractions and trying ever so failingly to offer relentless obedience… but there I laid my soul, at Your feet, when I was too weary to work more, begging for inspiration, yet I was unable to think further…I abandoned myself to You after hours of languishing work.

Jesus, please restore my heart to the sensitivity I need in the community… help me better appropriate time in concentrated chunks so that I am available as Your community is needed. Thank You for blessing me with Your touch when I need it most… thank You for those loving enough to confront and direct. Help me grow in You and more as You, my beloved Jesus. I think I am telling You I love You enough to give up this self.

 

Praying Heaven into Being

Here I am again, Jesus, and I think we’re in Heaven. Sometimes, it is just so tempting to wish life would go away. But that, Jesus, is murdering my hope- committing suicide by it. It is not believing that You are with me always and that some day, I will tangibly hold those beautiful hands… Your wounds still running raw… because Your blood pumps just too fast: You are in love with me.

Jesus, I think I missed that that for most of my former life: the understanding of just how You want me, just how much You were willing to let Yourself suffer and die by my very hard—because You love me, I have not understood how very close Heaven is… it is in Your outstretched arms, waiting to wrap me up and fold me into Yourself, those nail-torn palms waiting to sink into my own—You waiting for me to ask You to be near in me, not just to me.

Jesus, I have tasted Heaven now, and I keep wanting more. I have seen Your glory… and I think it will continue to be so tangible as I release hold of my desires to change into what I’ve wanted, someone strong, and allow You to hold me, weak. I know I can’t resist, yet I always try Jesus. I think… I think my trying gets in the way of Your glory: I have caused by my striving others to miss You, Your Heaven.

And somehow when I am weak and fall apart in front of them… when my heart is too full for verbalization and I stammer, when me eyes brim over with tears, Jesus Christ, Son of the Only Most High God, I know You… and others know it too. When I blush and am humiliated by the intensity of my burning love for You—my who being, this soul, nefesh, whatever cries out for You. And You answer: I can have You.

So Jesus I need You here, I need You now or my life is meaningless. I am right here, fully disclosed in my heart to the beauty of Your holiness… I am approaching Your dwelling. Your being in a way where angels fear to tread. And I am doing so now. Fill out my empty life with the hope of You for now: knowing every part of You can be held now, I can be captured and guided by You. You will let me be in love with You now… You will even love me back and kiss me. Wow.

Because I am Yours, help me to speak into being this Heaven: I am with You in this love, even now. The rainy world is glowing: my Jesus weeps with how much He loves me. I am enamored by every facet of Your creation. Of these people, all so different whom You have given me to love and  me to them by whom to be loved. I can enjoy the more of You then, right here and right now. I am seizing hold of You Jesus… You may capture me with Your radiance, but please never turn Your face away from me. Don’t take those bloody hands away from me, or I will be gone, I like dust in the wind. I will go where You guide me.

 

Transferring Men Onto Jesus

“We will approach God as an equal and not as an idol. For all the idolatry of masculine language that goes on among conservative men, it is worth a radical woman’s making the approach without changing the genders: it is precisely a refutation of male authority.” Catherine Masden

When encountering the spiritual issue of divine-human transference by women, one must counsel delicately, being certain to probe into the sensitive areas of past experience even as far as the developmental years to open counselee for an unimaginable divine resolution. According to Proverbs 20:27, the human spirit is the tool God uses to search out the roots of our own desires. Beginning with an understanding that God has chosen to engage the human spirit in a dialog in order to come to acceptance of the true state of self, the counselor facilitating the conversation between counselee and God must encourage self-processing and realization as much as possible. However, in the female specific gender issue of transferring and intimate male relationship gone awry onto the personhood of Jesus, thus hindering closeness and desire for Jesus (perhaps even obedience), the counselor may find themselves engaging God on behalf of the counselee, speaking words which the woman finds herself unable to utter because of her utter distaste for masculinity.

The issue described as “divine-human” transference is definable through several different perspectives: (1) either a young woman grew up with the absence a nurturing father figure in her life, (2) her present father figure was abusive, or (3) she experience some other sort of trauma involving the male gender to such an extent that any thought of closeness with anything masculine is detestable. When Paul encourages his readers to live at peace with all men as much as they were able (Romans 12:14), this includes the forgiveness of personal wrongs by “enemies,” even if those enemies were intimately connected to us (Matthew 5:44-45), inflicting scars upon our very souls that will never fully disappear. God has a specific purpose in mind by including so much father-son instruction in the book, often speaking directly to fathers about their interactions with their children so that fathers do not neglect their critical role in the psychological development of a child.

In the first and second cases of female divine-human transferences, the young woman develops a misconception of the personhood of God based on the example of her fatherly figure: absent or abusive. Before discussing the individual affects of each of these types of father figure during female developmental years, I would like to discuss the affects of such a male in a female’s spiritual formation. From my perspective, there are three factors which render Christianity a more male-orientated faith: (1) the masculine language and emphasis in which the Bible is written, (2) the masculine identity of God and Jesus as Father and Son, including Jesus’ sexual identity as a man, and (3) Church social tradition of preferring men above women in Christian service and personal value.

Noting the predominantly male overtones of the Bible and the archaic sense in which women are spoken of, more as objects and property than individual and equally valuable souls with me, women may experience difficulty personalizing the male instruction of even such a book as Proverbs which contains the dialog of a father to his son, warning about the temptations of a female seductress. The other feminine obstacle to her spiritual formation is the sexual identity of Jesus Christ: no one can deny that Jesus was of the male gender. Seeing the interaction between God with Jesus as Father to Son, and the transference of the same interaction to believers with God through the Apostle Paul’s distinction that we are “sons of God,”  (John 1:12) a woman feels distanced from the same sort of identification males naturally have with Jesus (whom we are called to imitate) through like gender. I theorize that women are able to have union with God to the same degree of intimacy as men, though of a completely difference nature, for a woman “can never have the experience that is freely available to every man and boy in her culture, of having her full sexual identity affirmed as being in the image and likeness of God.” (Madsen) In her spiritual formation, then, a woman understands her spiritual interaction with a male God from interactions with her male father figure.

Would one not naturally assume that hearing God called “Father,” and not knowing what a father should be, that one would understand God’s immaterial role as a father based on one’s relationship with a present father figure? This may be true of both men and women, but women have an extra dimension of difficulty in relating to God when Jesus also is factored in a lover of our souls; having no concept of the male gender (it’s tendencies, distinctions from femininity, etc.), women comprehend the masculinity of God through human male interactions, a transference as natural as that of understanding His relationship as father through a physical father-figure. Since human men in father roles have such crucial roles in picturing for a young girl the personhood of God, it is easy to understand how both an absent father or an abusive father could pollute an understanding of God’s divine masculinity.

Absent or abusive fathers share the common failure of not training up daughters in the way they should go, affecting a distance and certain aversions to this male-personified God rather than the natural closeness which is healthily transferred from a thriving father-daughter relationship onto God. Yet an absent father does not inflict the same sort of damage as an abusive father. If a young girl experiences life without the presence of a fatherly man to affirm her in her psychological development into a woman, a girl becomes distrusting (or overly trusting) of men, avoids interaction (or craves it more intensely), and naturally begins to believe that God is as distant from her life as the human male she calls her father. An abusive father gives the opposite picture to a young girl: by seeing a human male negative reaction to her development, a young girl either thinks God has an aversion to the female sex in general or disapproves of her specifically. Thus she responds to the pain inflicted by her male father through avoidance, teaching herself to be starved of relationship, which may be transferred upon God as inapproachability. In both cases, despite the difference of the emotional baggage which becomes a spiritual weight, a woman is taught from childhood that she must earn God’s love through right behaviors, because He is either too busy to care otherwise or will discipline harshly.

Thus the first two components affecting a woman’s understanding of God are both linked to her paternal relationship, in which a woman transfers the human character and qualities of a man onto God, assuming Him to share a same character. In her formative years, I suggest that the personhood of the Godhead with whom the woman identifies most is that of God the Father. Jesus is not so significant a figure until the pubescent years when a young woman encounters Him with a difference in relationship: as the lover of her soul. How does a woman associate this Son of God, her spiritual lover, with the Father from which He came? Having formed her opinions on the masculinity of the Father from the human father figure of her developmental phase, I think a young lady tends to transition from a parental relationship with God to a more intimate love relationship with Jesus as she develops through puberty, associating her own developing personhood with the different persons of the Godhead. Since Jesus has called the Church His bride, a woman may tend to think of herself as in a spiritually romantic relationship with Jesus. These romantic characteristics of Jesus’ divine masculinity, like the Father’s paternal masculinity, are typically learned through personal romantic experience, equating Jesus’ spiritual treatment of the woman as His beloved with a human man’s treatment of a woman in romance.

There are two scenarios, which drastically change the approach of a woman to this natural development of a spiritual romance with Jesus, both deriving themselves from the character of God the Father, of whom she learned in her prepubescent developmental years. If a woman were to spend those initial formative years if her life with an absent or abusive biological father, she would have learned an unhealthy fear of God and have ingrained in her mind that Jesus’ love was something for which she needed to work if His claim that “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) is really true. The second female approach to romantic relationship with Jesus (paralleling her human romantic experiences) is to have a healthy understanding of her worth and personhood from a paternal perspective. From this background, a woman expects to be loved for who she is, nurtured, and guided, and may be overly trusting that her male counterpart in romance shares the same opinion of her as her father. While this background with a human father figure will alter feminine approach to relationship with Jesus, both can be overwhelmingly overthrown by trauma within a romantic relationship.

Needing a different understanding of God than just her father after puberty, a woman begins her spiritual formation of an opinion of the romantic Jesus through her romantic relationship experience. If she experiences verbal or physical abuse (including sexual abuse), I believe a woman will carry a deeper sort of wound towards God, because she thinks that if He loves her, Jesus would preserve her from those harmful experiences. If she has experienced verbal abuse, the woman will feel trapped between her love for and attraction to Jesus and the inconsistency of His belittling: I theorize that whatever a male lover inflicts on a woman she transfers to the fault of Jesus, as if it were Jesus abusing her. Thus if she also experiences physical or sexual abuse, Jesus too is at fault. Such a traumatized woman begins to feel that her spiritual Lover cannot be trusted, because even though she has given herself fully to His trust, he has still failed her.

Such is the plight of many women today, confusing the mistreatment of men in their lives as reflections of the character of God the Father and Jesus Christ. I think the first step for many women who have developed bitterness or distrust towards God because of male trauma inflicted upon her is to help her recognize that these different men who have hurt her in her life are the causes of her spiritual distance from God. Once realizing that God has been understood through human dimensions, a woman needs to be assured that though God created man in His own image, men (and women, but for the sake of the situation men are here emphasized) exchanged the glory of God’s image for corrupt behavior (Romans 1:23), separating themselves from God. Assuring the woman that God is greater than man portrays Him by the sheer fact that no on has ever known God’s mind in order to offer Him counsel (Romans 11:34, 1 Corinthians 2:16), the question of God’s allowance of such traumatizing events in her life must be addressed.

To the questions of evil’s existence, no acceptable answer can be found beyond that God “works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28) We see Job who believed that even if God destroyed him, God held his best in mind (Job 13:15). The same is true of the traumatized woman: God desires to cultivate the spiritual closeness between Himself and the woman. If God were willing to cause His own son suffering to the point of death so that He might be perfected (Hebrews 2:9-13), of course He allows the same in a woman’s life. Understanding, as the psalmists do by then end of a lament, that the physical circumstances were merely the method by which God drew the psalmist into His arms. Yet this is a difficult belief transition for women to make.

How does one move from realizing that God’s character is not the same as the men who have abused or neglected, into desiring relationship with a God who has allowed such suffering? I think it would be perfectly acceptable in this stage of the counseling, once a woman has realized that she has transferred too many masculine human traits onto God, to begin expressing her hurt and frustration to God. Somehow in the honest expression of her feelings through prayer with the counselor’s reminding her of the Who the God is to whom she prays, a woman I think will travel through the road of her painful experiences to a place where she can feel as if God is approachable, not a malicious threat. Her spiritual problem, if she uses raw honesty in her communication with God after the method of the psalmist’s laments, gives way under the true attractiveness of God. And it is God who much make Himself attractive to the woman, but I believe if a woman implements Matthew 11:25 and honestly calls to God for help, He will fulfill His promise to “answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know.”

The whole difficulty in approaching God because of His masculine identity will gradually fade, I believe, if a woman is allowed time and is honestly willing to express all her feelings and frustrations to God about her hurts. Once willing to engage in this sort of gut-spilling dialog with God, however, a woman evidences her desire to try and trust God again. A counselor can help encourage trust in God by conversing with her on instances in her life that she can recognize God’s perseverance or plan for her spiritual betterment in. Learning how to trust as Job, however, in the midst of physical and emotional pain and scars, is key to a woman’s reuniting relationship with Jesus and the Father as male figures in the Godhead. A woman must learn to let the healing spirit of God remove her anger and bitterness and act as a balm to any physical wounds, being willing to learn something about His mercy through her own pain. Once a woman has learned to trust, John 16:33 encourages her to keep hold of that trust in Jesus despite physical challenge: “…in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”

Work Cited:

Madsen, Catherine. “Notes on the Violence of God,” CrossCurrents.org, Cross Currents, Summer 2001, Vol. 51,  No 2. 13 February 2008. <http://www.crosscurrents.org/madsen0701.htm>.

 

Psalms 91-100: My God, Yhwh, is Enthroned as King

Psalm 91: Maybe this is a reminder to those of us who claim to have faith that we are able to let go of ourselves in the trust we claim. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to think of relationship with God as dwelling in His secret place? If I am hidden in Him, then none of these physical things the psalmist talks about to his audience will have any affect on me anyways…. Or maybe I am reading that wrong, because Jesus said in this world I would live a troubled life, but that He had overcome the world, so my troubles here don’t matter. I am no longer of this world, my nefesh has been made alive in Jesus, my soul, the wholeness of me. So my life here may hurt from those arrows, from the jeering of the wicked: Yhwh says I will remain unscathed, and witness the victory of the Lord… the psalmist says destruction of my enemies, but maybe I won’t live long enough to see that. Yet he says something similar to Paul (V.11) about angels being told to watch over me. So when they carry me in their arms, does that mean I avoid harm? God seems to begin to speak in verse 14-16… assuring the one who trusts in Him long life and seeing Yhwh’s salvation.

Psalm 92: If this is a “song for the Sabbath,” I would expect the psalm to be themed around the rest for the spirit which is found within Yhwh. The psalmist bursts forth in song and exclamation over the deeds of Yhwh—is this a response to a blessing or is the psalmist merely recognizing God in the details, comfortable and not so nice, of life? I prefer the latter… because no matter how much I step away from reality to bask in God’s goodness, there is always something unpleasant lurking around the next corner of life’s labyrinth. I am thinking about how the righteous will flourish like a palm tree—uncomfortably located in the middle of the desert, but able to endure the heat. God as a rock interests me… of course I like the idea of Him being an unmoving foundation, firm and steady. Rocks have a sense of rest about them… they are sure and can be trusted; but I know my God is very mobile. So what do I think of God when my spirit is in torment, still a rock, or is He moving with me?

Psalm 93: If the world is set free and will never be shaken, why did Asaph lament earlier about the wicked shaking and disturbing the world? Is there a difference between the perceived and the actual realities of life? Sure the wicked may disrupt the surface, but if they are truly life chaff, then I wonder if their damage is only as lasting as their existence. Maybe the immobility of this second description of the world. Even the chaos of waters that drown out the noise of the wicked becomes praise to Yhwh, for He has overcome the creation in itself. If the world exists on the words and decrees of Yhwh, then in actuality, the wicked have no power to move or destroy anything… any correlation between the wicked and destruction must be uttered from the mouth of Yhwh, for His “decrees stand firm, unshakeable.” (V.5) The majesty and power clothing Yhwh are the abilities to change and remain unmoved. What a magnificent contradiction, my God.

Psalm 94: Angry name, “God of Vengeance.” I suppose He is the only one with a right to vengeance, but again, God is not claiming what is rightfully His… and the psalmist doesn’t like His leniency with the rules. Has the psalmist carefully considered whether or not he is amongst the wicked? Perhaps the fact of conversation with Yhwh negates that possibility. The wicked, I fear, are among my own people, like the psalmist, do I have to betray them to God? Is the psalmist angry, or is he crying, does he feel they have betrayed Yhwh in their behavior? Violence, death, oppression, to the very name and person of God through such behavior to His heritage. If these wicked are within Yhwh’s own people, they have limited him to their own perceptions—and because they cannot see God watching them, they think He must not be. What foolishness we people believe to justify our own actions. The comparison of Yhwh to a teacher interests me… in my mind it could also put some more responsibility on Yhwh for the disobedience of His people; did God ever do what my teachers do, blame Himself for the lack of responsiveness amongst the people? At least the writer of Psalm 94 has learned to raise his hand in order to get a response from God: I’m slipping! And he is caught. I would hate to be one shoving a son of God over the edge, as the wicked do, for Yhwh “turns back their guilt on themselves, annihilates them for their wickedness…” (V.23). I am sure my life has made some stumble, so I am right there with the psalmist crying for help, because I too am slipping.

Psalm 95:  I like the idea of praising Yhwh as King of the gods: the psalmist weaves throughout this book a fascinating mix of mythology, almost as if he is trying to combat in the readers’ minds the idea that Yhwh is just another god, and they another people among the nations. No, Yhwh being the Almighty God, the Sovereign God… king over the gods shows them how much they can rely on His love. The description of Yhwh forming the land, the sea, the mountains, even man Himself reinforces His role as “first father” the highest of the gods, their Creator. Such magnitude that these people are Yhwh’s, and they should reverence themselves before the mercy of such a powerful God, or they too might be laid low, like their ancestors who did not hold reverence for Yhwh in their hearts. But unfortunately, the last generation’s lessons are never effectively taught to their children—the people may have left the desert, but Yhwh sees in them the same “Always fickle hearts; they cannot grasp My ways.” (V.10) Perhaps these people are on the edge of inciting God’s wrath and losing His rest. Is it possible for Yhwh to recall His wrath once released?

Psalm 96: We have transitioned into praise from warning, and the gods have changed along with the author’s focus: now the other gods are no longer legitimately living, but rather are idols. It’s interesting… I don’t remember one mythology out of many that I’ve read whose God made everything like Yhwh has done. These idols have only partial power… the nations divided up all the aspects of creation between these lesser gods than our Yhwh because they did not understand how such contradictory powers could be held together by one nature. All His people are told because of His greatness to: “adore Yhwh in the splendor of His holiness,” but also to join with all the earth in trembling before Him (V.9). We, His people are even more under His rule than those who refuse Him. I love that all of creation will declare Yhwh’s coming, that it is doing so even now, because the psalmist says that God is on His way to “judge the world with saving justice” (V.13).

Psalm 97: Maybe by the time we’ve reached this psalm ( I feel as if there is some chronological progression through the 90s…) that Yhwh is not merely on His way to become King and bring justice, but the earth is rejoicing, for Yhwh is reigning as king. He has already set His throne on the earth… but why are the clouds, which save and destroy and surround the base of His throne black (V.2)? Maybe the clouds are the result of Yhwh working, sending out that consuming fire which melts and burns, destroying all in its path. That means the idols of false gods no longer even exist, they have become firewood for the wrath of Yhwh. Yhwh has transcended all gods and made His children proud to be His, for when He walks through the earth after the fire has consumed all that was not His and passed over all that bears His name, there are no gods to oppose Him. Thus, He brings “Shame on all who serve images, who pride themselves on their idols; bow down to Him, all gods.” (V.7) Those fires torching the gods and tormenting their worshippers are the lights of dawn for the righteous, most definitely as “unforgettable holiness” (V.12).

Psalm 98: I am still liking this idea of Yhwh’s coronation progressing through the psalms: so in Psalm 97, Yhwh cleared out the gods from His way, He made Himself a kingdom ready to accept Him: these, I think, are the wonders of which the Psalmist speaks in verse 1. Yhwh’s saving power and justice have been demonstrated for all as His purging fire passed over and through His own, binding them together in Himself. The House of Israel can’t be forsaken, even now with Jesus… they are the ones to whom Yhwh has promised His love and constancy… but then maybe this is spiritual Israel the psalmist talks about. Everyone who is left is bursting forth in joy, because the king has made His presence known… and then we end and I find I am still waiting for the full force of the kingdom to arrive.

Psalm 99: My Yhwh’s kingship over people and living creatures isn’t what we thought it would be, is it? I cannot tell whether the shivering of people and animals is out of fear or joy, awe or terror? Maybe all of that? Can one experience one fragment of the emotion possible in the presence of Yhwh and not another? I am mere human, dust, finite… I think I should be afraid of my God! Yhwh is holy, always even when I am not… and yet He chooses to be active in Jacob (V.4)? Humans? Yhwh, why would You want to come and establish a holy kingdom in we who are unholy, as much as we may love You? You have made us the pillars and bearers of Your kingdom… You have made Moses, Aaron, and Samuel, all righteous but imperfect men, Your priests, drawn irresistibly into Your holy presence? How will we survive service in Your kingdom for more than a few moments? Well, the psalmist does note “You were a God of forgiveness to them, but punished them for their sins”(V.8). My Christianity doesn’t want to have to suffer because my sins are forgiven… but You don’t work that way, do You Yhwh? So I will exalt You by prostrating myself before You.

Psalm 100: If I cannot escape Yhwh’s presence, for He is enthroned in my heart, how do I choose to always be joyful, always glad before Him? That would really mean being empty of myself. Joy doesn’t always come naturally to me, but why should I not be joyful? Yhwh has become my king, king of my heart! I need to learn how to always serve Him with gladness… this has to be a different gladness than I am thinking of, because this must be in spite of and in the midst of my life situations. I have ample reason right here, being one of His people, to always live a life of praise: “Yhwh is good, His faithful love is everlasting, His constancy form age to age!” (V.5)

 

Psalms 81-90: His sweetness in my hardness

Psalm 81: Asaph begins speaking for himself, but the transition into Yhwh speaking isn’t quite as obvious as I was first attempting to perceive, but verse 6 seems to be the change in speakers; “I heard a voice unknown to me” (v.5b)… why is Yhwh’s voice unrecognized by Asaph? Yhwh Himself remind the people of all He has done for them—it looks like God reminding His people of how much He loves them: “I’ve done all this for you, I even took you back when you failed. Doesn’t that prove how much I love you?” God warned them against worshiping other gods, but when the people didn’t care to listen, “I left them to their stubborn selves, to follow their own devices.” (V.12) God mourns His people’s disobedience… He knows it is not our best… I wonder about His grief over my sin. I hate to think about it. The last two verses are puzzling, “though their doom was sealed forever,” Yhwh says He would fill them and bless them with all manner of good things. I guess God’s love for His people must go beyond any judgment. How often I divorce my picture of God from that of a father.

Psalm 82: The scene opens with a picture of majesty: God assuming the seat of judgment in the presence of all the other gods, yet He is supreme. The Most High God, we often hear our Yhwh called. Yet in the presence of these gods, the psalmist finds fault with God—that He is rendering unfair judgments among the people. How is God being unfair? He is allowing the rich to dominate, the weak and needy to be further destitute. How did we Christians divorce God from social justice? How did we turn Him into one of those advocating us to succeed, to get wealthier, when we recognize the poor? Where does wealth come from? Even with inflation, there is only so much money out there: if I get more, who gets less? I think of my own people, the Church, when I read verse 5, which I suppose can apply to the rich and the poor alike: “Ignorant and uncomprehending, they wander in darkness, while the foundations of the world are tottering.” In another psalm of Asaph, we had God begging the wicked to stop their wickedness, because it was disrupting and shaking His world, hurting the poor. Not the sun has been blotted out, it is dark, because the world has tilted on its side like the Titanic; it is sinking. My own people are rich and poor—my heart breaks for all those who wander in darkness, which to me means they have no hope: the most destitute poor person can hope in God and it will change their life, as much as a rich man can trust in God and act accordingly. The rich, my people who break my heart in self-consumedness (I am sure the poor do to, focusing on how empty they are), think they are Your sons, my Yhwh, because they are “rich like You”: you are rich like the Spirit of Christmas Present, appearing to my Ebenezer with Ignorance and Want beneath Your robes. We are not rich like You… we look for our riches and pull forth dust: Jesus, I cry… we are not like You.

Psalm 83: Since God is being asked to move, I assume Asaph feels that He is not; and God has enemies? Sometimes I am confused by an enemy, is it a person who hurts me, or one I hate? There can be a huge difference—I am sure I am capable of hating someone who hurts me, but I am told to love my enemies. I guess by Jesus’ definition, an enemy does not necessitate hate, but hurt. Who can hurt God? Those who hurt His people? The psalmist seems to indicate that God’s enemies are those who are trying to annihilate Israel, the dwelling place of God on earth. All the pagan peoples within and without have banded together in a rebellion against God, saying “’Let us take for ourselves God’s settlements.”’ (V.12) Asaph feels that the nations are rising against God, rather than just His people. Maybe Asaph just feels that rebellion against one is rebellion against the other, because the relationship is so close. In plotting to try and overthrow Yhwh, the nations must be pitting their many gods against His Oneness, saying He is not as strong. Asaph begs Yhwh to bring shame, dishonor, terror, death and destruction (V.17) on the nations to diminish their gods before Yhwh, the Almighty, Most High.

Psalm 84: If Yhwh dwells amongst His people, in His people by His Spirit, and His dwelling places are lovely, does that mean we who bear His name are made beautiful to Him? Maybe like the beloved saying to her lover in Song of Songs that no other would find her beautiful because of her darkness of face; the hardship of her work has worn and broken her body, but the beloved still finds her beautiful. Maybe that is how we are to God: His people, broken and misshapen by our struggle through the cycles of life… so He has deemed us beautiful in His eyes. “My whole being yearns and pines for Yhwh’s courts, my heart and my body cry out for joy to the living God.”  (V.2) The first segment of this verse feels to me like a longing for God, who is not present in the seeker, and the second segment the entering of God in unity of relationship with the believer. We remember the “better is one day” verse too much… I think right now, we can’t be in His presence fully, but can “stand on the threshold of God’s house” (V.10) rather than live in the tents of the wicked. Yhwh, I want to be blameless before You, so I can receive what You call good: I want to trust in You no matter where than leaves me in the end.

Psalm 85: From the first three verses, one would assume the sons of Korah are referring to God’s deliverance, which has already been accomplished. God repenting of His anger? My Christianity doesn’t like that very much; I want God to say that He had a purpose in all He did, His painful anger was given to teach me something! I don’t want a God who says oops, the experiment didn’t work out! But verses 4-7 seem to indicate that the first three verses were memory of Yhwh’s previous deliverance, and that the people are still in some sort of captivity right now. The life having been drained away, the sons of Korah speak on behalf of the people asking for new life from God. And then, snap, they expect God to speak, right away, in verse 8! And Yhwh speaks the same message He has always offered: I will save my faithful, for I am salvation. Come to me, and you are saved, regardless of where I leave you, my people. Maybe God is speaking the same message of immaterial Kingdom versus physical “reality.” But there will be a time, Asaph declares, when God’s people take His hand and accept His merciful offer: “Loyalty will spring up from the earth (Yay, the people finally respond with some sort fidelity), and Justice will lean down from heaven,” (V.11) “Justice” looks as if its being used as a name for Yhwh… He wants to be just to His people.

Psalm 86: Is the poor and needy spirit of David because he has fallen into sin again? Oh my, David, I am just like you… God never ceases to pour out blessing on me… but when I take that blessing and try and fashion it into my own image, I pollute it, and it becomes an idol; Yhwh’s own blessing becomes the very stuff of my destruction. Just as you, I cry to my Yhwh all day… I am so sorry my dear Jesus, but I never feel able to make it up to Him. I keep crying to Him over and over about the same stupid stuff because I am sure He hears me, but I have not let Him take my guilt away—I still remember it from time. Like David, I know there are other gods too (V.8)… other powers I could ask for deliverance, but I would be wasting my breath, because none of them can save me; You are the only God who can save! I know You are delivering my spirit, even though You haven’t made clear indication of this, because You are near to me. But my dear God, I wish You would just give my enemies a sign too, so they would known You comfort me; they would be ashamed of defying You and leave me alone.

Psalm 87: This city, I want to think of it as me and my people, for we are the children of God: we are like a city, I think, because we have been built by the bare hands of God, piece by piece tenderly laid by His goodness, caringly designed and put together with sweat and blood. And so He prefers us above all other peoples, all other cities, because we have emptied ourselves of us and let Him be the source of spiritual formation. I think all the listing of glory and people finding their dwellings in the city of God refers to me about something of the collective body of God’s people: among us, God is working, so among us will His people be born and find their homes.

Psalm 88: So the preface note to this psalm tells me it was written for times of sickness and suffering… and that must be the dark night of the soul which is referred to within the psalm. In that night, my soul can’t feel God, and so I just hope my prayer reaches up to Him. On the brink of Sheol, my soul is too confused in the dark to feel God, oblivion is what the sons of Korah call that state—meaningless, emptiness, devoid of feeling, purpose and everything that I crave out of life: where is my God? He has let me walk the edge of death, I am tired of being close to the edge, Yhwh, too much tension… throw me over one side, redemption or destruction please—anything but limbo! By the sickness, the psalmist feels that Yhwh has plunged him into the depths of the grace (V.6)… he is dying already, slowly tortured and pressed to death by Yhwh’s anger. What a horrible way to die inside oneself! The psalmist appeals to God, because in the middle of the darkness, he has added to God’s glory everyday by proclaiming Yhwh’s name; yet the dead do not do so. Maybe the psalmist feels cursed—he has been sick ever since he was young. The psalm ends with his world still closed in darkness… and knowing that Yhwh is God, that He is the cause of the psalmist’s pain… God never ceases to be angry.

Psalm 89: What a contrast to the morbid nature of psalm 88, Nathan praises Yhwh for His faithful love. God has fixed this covenant with David, telling him his dynasty will never end, and binding Himself to fulfill the vow through means of all creation. What consequence would there be for God if He broke His word? What would happen to the stars and all? So if Yhwh has no equal, no even rivals among the sons of god who dwell in the heavens, what exactly is the psalmist using to compare to God? Why would “holy ones” dread and fear Yhwh (V.7)? Maybe God is dreadful because He is so pervasively Holy… with that overwhelming holiness in whose presence none may stand who are not perfectly holy: the tremors of His holiness must reverberate throughout all of creation, because Yhwh has expanded Himself to hold it all together. I think I remember this being one of those elusive messianic psalms, talking about a special son of David, whom none can overcome. But then I read more about the descendents of this king… and Jesus didn’t have any descendents. This is all confusing. At one moment, this king will endure forever, at another moment, this king is being destroyed and “enveloped in shame” (V.45). Does all this indicate to Nathan that Yhwh is hidden? After the bewildering descendant who will reign forever but is entirely humiliated too, Nathan begs God to be mindful of Him and then praises Him.

Psalm 90: Moses is a refreshing break from all the messianic confusion of Psalm 89 and the hopelessness of Psalm 88. Remembering the pithy sayings developed in Psalms class, this psalm reminds us that time is in God’s hands, something we always forget because we try and understand the timeline of God. “All our days pass under Your wrath, our lives are like a sigh…” (V.9) Moses has seen the guilt of God’s people far too evidently throughout his years of formative leadership, and knows the people deserve to be blown away by God. Human existence is not only short, Moses points out, but all of it is a struggle, it is hard to live well before God. So counting up our days… maybe Moses means savor them all, use them all to the fullest, search them out so we may “come to the heart of wisdom.” (V.12) But Yhwh, as we reflect is always moving forward… Even though each day is difficult, maybe a struggle to keep pace with God, Moses asks God to bless our feeble motions: “May the sweetness of the Lord be upon us, to confirm the work we have done!” (V.17) Since I am interested in being empty and letting Yhwh work through me… I wonder how that whole situation truly works out: of course Yhwh’s Spirit must embody me in order to let me work, so what part of me is putting forth effort to make this endeavor of keeping pace with Yhwh so difficult? Jesus, where does me putting out myself entirely become You? Have I not experienced enough to understand yet? Show me, please, for I am an evanescent path of dust. I dissipate when You move. Disrupt, so I may always blow under Your feet.

 

Undignified for my Jesus?

I guess I should wish everyone a happy St. Patrick’s day, as well, and spring break, if you are on it as I am.
As I am facing the prospects of a swiftly changing future where a lot hangs in the balance, Cleveland has been a nice retreat from the normalcy of my world at Davis College; a time to really try and absorb everything I have been brewing in my heart from the lessons learned over the past year… culminating in this question of self:  Jesus says in Mark that to follow Him, I must deny myself, take up my cross, and follow Him. I must lose my own life to save it. The Apostle Paul speaks of becoming a fool on behalf of God, for the wisdom of God is foolishness to men. I almost laugh to find myself confessing that I am delighted to find after two intense years of schooling, maybe I am starting to become a bit of a fool for my Jesus. The question of the day which has been reoccurring in all my thoughts over the past few weeks is that of my relationship with Jesus: how much me is there in the equation compared with how much He is present in me?

I guess from listening to and talking with a lot of people about the whole idea of a relationship with God, it sounds like multiple personality disorder or something cracked in the brain to think that a transcendent spiritual being can be engaged in the most intimate fragments of my life. With the existentialist mentality so ingrained within humanity, it is only natural for people to raise their eyebrows at those who speak of having a relationship with Jesus, this man who supposedly came and died, with the Father God, a supernatural figure of religion whose existence have never been verified, with the Spirit, some mysterious force that cannot be explained, proved or necessarily perceived. I think I am beginning to understand why faith is such a crucial component in the relationship one can have with God, and why it looks like foolishness, why it is foolishness when compared with the logic of human success, the nature of anthropological evolution: I am throwing my life away for Jesus in a very real sense. My ambition is driven by my love; I seek to imitate, to be filled with that evasive Spirit in order to try and be cleared out of the way and let Jesus flow through the self and being of me that He has given.

Psalm 69 came at the perfect read in my Psalms response homework… it is David talking to God when he has reached the end of himself, and can no longer will his self to continue holding out, waiting for God to rescue him. This psalm feels a lot like David’s last breath before slipping off under the waves… for what he fears may be the last time. I can say to my Jesus too, “God, You know how foolish I am, my offenses are not hidden from You.” (V.5) David implored Yhwh to keep others from following him example and being discouraged from their hope and faith because of David’s example. “It is for You I bear insults, my face is covered with shame.” (v.7) David knew what is was to feel the sting of man’s bitterness and rejection for the lack of God’s existential salvation and presence. “I am estranged from my brothers, alienated from my mother’s sons;” (V. At the end of himself, David has nothing which attracts anyone… he has run himself ragged for the sake of loving Yhwh. That’s the catch with having a God who is a consuming fire; One must be scorched or assumed into the fire as well, which though it is love, is a love some call too exclusive to enter into, thus dividing even the closest families. But David understands the irresistible attraction of God, why he is rejected: “for I am eaten up with zeal for Your house, and insults against You fall on me.” (V.9) David has offered himself in an insane way as a living sacrifice to God, to feel through pathos what the heart of Yhwh pulses with: and much of it is grief over the separation which occurs over the Creator’s very name.

In response, in the grief of God, David laments, mortifying himself “with fasting, and find myself insulted for it, I dress in sackcloth and become the laughing-stock, the gossip of people sitting at the gate, and the theme of drunkards’ songs.” (V. 10-12) What were once viewed as deliberate actions of public grief are mocked, because those observing do not understand. The people do not want free speech, freedom of religion, free expression: they want to feel good and have a hearty laugh. Forget morals, forget actual grief over the state of man, those who grieve with God are ridiculed because the people are so drunk or high on drugs that they can’t even feel the separation from God. How sad, how terribly sad. David denies himself to show the people how God feels about His relationship with them… how much Yhwh loves them and wants them back, and the people mock God, they mock David because they do not understand how lost they are without Him.

I see David struggle over the blindness of the people, struggle with his own unworthiness to convey such a tender message of desire from a divine Lover to His beloved, who continually runs away and be unfaithful… and weep, because people still call God foolishness. Philosophy is incapable of proving, and thus men say God is disproved. Science holds no intrinsic evidence of God, therefore He never existed. We draw definite lines in the ambiguity of life, because God, if He is real, confuses all that I want success to be by sending that Son Jesus Christ to pave a way through the grave into life. Death is the road to awe? How can I think so when I live in a culture saturated by the worship of youth, beauty, good food, pleasure… all of which the Teacher Qoheleth in Ecclesiastes experienced and found meaningless. I think whenever I begin to do something, if I commit myself to do it, I do it intensely: what God has given me, He expects back with interest (Jesus’ parable of the Talents). Do you ever ask yourself in the midst of your existential reality: what can be more than this? There has to be more purpose than what I can see and taste and touch… Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is not of this world, not material, though it affects this world. I think the Kingdom of Heaven is my relationships, with God, with others. How much can I immerse myself in a whole-hearted abandonment to His foolishness? let God be true and all men false, I hope I am losing myself in Him… I wonder if I can ever be sure.

In tangible reality, I am home on spring break trying to catch up with those with whom communication has been difficult, trying to prepare for the unknown with regards to next fall, Lord willing pursuing an MA in Systematic and Philosophical Theology and an M. Phil at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. Time at Davis goes too fast… I am running a lot, reading a lot, and trying still to learn what it really means to love someone as Jesus. I am trying to love my Jesus more, and if that does mean becoming undignified to those I respect, Jesus and I will work that out.

 

Multiple personalities: Temple Prostitute for Yhwh

As I explore different parts of me with my Jesus, I consider different types of women, all of which I have allowed some part of me in my hypocritical worship. I desire to be whole before my God, and thus I wonder if maybe I should explore each facet of the personality He has given me in the ways I have divided it up, segmenting different portions of self to His service. But my God wants all of me, thus I feel I should flush out my discomfort with “the memory of the crucified God…” and my falsification of Him “by changing the cross into an idol of our driving practical optimism in various crusades. I have many an apathy in my soul, which I have manufactured by placating my soul’s thirst for Yhwh with everything from spiritual adultery to misguided idolatry in attempt to worship my G-d. To begin, I will start with how I was in my misguidedness towards my Jesus…

I, Hannah, served my G-d as a temple prostitute, dedicating myself to what I perceived to be the most intense form of self-sacrifice I could offer. I have been dedicated to Yhwh since my youth, and learned well that my life had been dedicated to His covenant since my youth; I have believed that as an unworthy woman, the blessing of Yhwh on my heart is entirely undeserved, and as a handmaiden of the gods, I was plunging my whole person in all of my sensory capacity into conveying the passion of my G-d in a religious moment. I gave myself over to the experiencing of Yhwh, seeking to be a vessel of His love: I became the bridge by which others might be united with the Almighty through participating in psychophysical rites. As the lowest of all creation, a woman, my G-d exalts me through my self-degradation—Yhwh consecrated me as the highest means of unity with Him, enabling others to feel Him

At the gates of the temple I waited, an eager servant to draw others close to my Yhwh… Some labeled me a radical, but the prophets of my Yhwh, called for the complete disclosure of self before Yhwh. Thus through me, through my humiliation as a holy harlot, I fulfilled the whole person as Yhwh would…their needs, their desires, their passions. My spiritual harlotry embodied the satisfaction of Yhwh to His worshipper. It was beneath that altar, an image of defiled cross, where I became Asherah the consort of Yhwh to satisfy His worshippers with religious feelings in the forms they found most attractive. And as I worshipped through the sacrifice of my very self, my body and my spirit, I found that I did not feel any closer to this mystery of Yhwh… any nearer to the Lover I craved for my soul. As a priestess embodying the feminine side of Yhwh to the men who sought His nearness, I in turn sought Him in them. But the Yhwh I desired was never present in the men who were to bring me near to Him as I was to usher in His presence through the sacrifice of my self: my spirit only groaned as if bound in torment under the agony of my body.

Did I misunderstand the humility, I who poured out my soul full of passion to pursue closeness with my G-d? My soul lingered at the gate of the temple, growing weary under the berating demands of Yhwh through the men, those worshippers. I grew sick within myself, the brutality of their raw desires seeming less and less like worship each day of my service. But no rest for a slave of the G-d; how could I be rescued from the very Yhwh who gave me life, even if He tore me into a thousand pieces and killed a little more of my soul each day. One day, I leaned against the pillar of the temple, my weak body unable to bear itself up, but still fulfilling my obligation to the G-d. As a worshiper approached, I fished my broken soul up out of the dust, but even the dust was too heavy a weight to lift off in my emptied state. It was a rabbi, one like many who come to this temple to approach Yhwh, though this one walked far too shamelessly to be a young man burning with a passion for “worship”. He approached me—this was one of those celibate types, I could tell, who would never come near enough to Yhwh… he was a ready convert to be experience the ecstasy of Yhwh.

But I was too weak to solicit him, too weak to offer myself up to bear him in the passion of Yhwh. Had I failed my G-d, must I now take my life, having lost the joy of service when all I had ever done was desire that Yhwh’s name should be uplifted in His temple, proclaimed by all who came in went; to usher in His experience and help others realize the bliss through which life might become more real. This was the Rabbi Yehoshua of whom I had heard… who served Yhwh as a heretic, I was told, who refused to enter such temples as mine, because he preached that Yhwh was not bound up with a whorehouse. He preached the kingdom of God as a figment of spiritual relationship, but not one where such self-sacrifice was made. What an opportunity I would have had, I would have thrown away my wounded soul to draw him into the presence of Yhwh. But I was too weak, my feet slid from under me, and I grew dizzy, leaning against the stones where I had poured out my all as worship to Yhwh—but my all, my very self was not enough.

Yehoshua knelt beside me, Hannah, the whore of Yhwh who was so ungrateful as to feel abused by His mercy, which offers me a place in His presence. Child, he addresses me, this is no sort of death to suffer. Your G-d requires you to lay down your life, not to take it up in my work—you are not a suitable sacrifice. I am too broken to argue… my soul knows the truth of his words, I cannot be earning my salvation as an ungrateful sinner, a self-righteous spiritual prostitute who believed with all sincerity that such a life was worship to Yhwh. My eyes are opened… I see a crowd flocked behind Yehoshua; they stare with disdain at the closeness of His proximity to my broken self. I am without hope, I have spent all myself in vanity, I find… and all my labors have done is to dig a hole to deep to extricate myself from.

Yehoshua disgraced himself before me by offering the most humble of offerings to save my life when I could not even realize that I needed saving. Thus he became foolish to me by walking onto my plane far beneath me, and asking me to start moving into the arms of a faithful, Divine Lover when I did not realize all the others were abusing me. You offered to let me find myself if I would be willing to lay it down for You, sacrifice my heart and all I deem success just to go deeper and really love You. Humility, Jesus: You give me this picture of such contradiction: passivity and passion… one who defies all the words I try and use to picture You in my own heart and mind. As I explore Your personality, Your self, I see how You had the perfect personality to love people the way You did; to step out of Heaven and humiliate Yourself on that cross before thousands of people. You defined from me the ideal of leadership… lowering Yourself beneath the very self which deserved a crucifixion for my unintentional idolatry.

I was the temple harlot, worshiping my God through the glorified destruction of self, and yet this was still narcissistic idolatry, because I made myself a co-redemptrix with Yhwh, a businesss I had no part in. My optimistic intent of becoming the self-sacrificing Yehoshua was destroyed through the empty cycle I found my worship to become. I was hopeless and helpless until Yehoshua removed my means of worship and drew me into magnification of His glory. Yet the temple still draws… as sick as it seems, the dead whore can be resurrected through sensitive memory. Close to the hem of Yehoshua I cling, desperate to be near, too easily straying. How long will I stay close to You, my Jesus?

 

Jesus Euphoria: By the Love of His Servants

It was one of those mornings when you think you’re probably too tired to be getting up when you do, but you realize that if you don’t, the day will start completely differently than you had envisioned last night. The way I talk to Jesus, it was late when I turned in for the night—so many things on my mind drove away the thought until my body couldn’t stay awake anymore; ever catch yourself nodding off in the middle of a thought while writing a paper? Somewhat funny to realize. I woke up feeling an incredible heat inside of me, which was funny because the room wasn’t exceptionally hot. Jesus and I had been talking about sensationalism yesterday and how I want too much to feel with my senses the mysteries He discusses in His word… the very immaterial Kingdom of Heaven cannot be internalized as a warm and fuzzy feeling. Within two minutes of being awake and these thoughts running through my mind, I was heading towards Riverside for my 5 mile run which has become pretty typical of my Tuesday/Thursday mornings.

I had an amusing thought when hitting the road about a conversation from Abnormal Psych class, the 2-mile runner’s high: I get that just about every day that I push myself in my runs… that feeling of euphoria. Sensationalism again. Jesus, is possible for me to feel You that same way in my spirit, even though I would like to feel You in my body as well? Lately, my runs have been brutal… something like I wrote in a lament to God, like my soul is nailed to my heels and dragged over the pavement as I’m running. I have run almost mechanically, but with a great deal of effort. If I am honest, I will confess that I have not “felt” much of anything… sickness, tiredness, lack of focus, and even different physical states I have been in made the rudimentary physical concentration needed for running excruciating at times. I think of these as the “dry” times in running, because every time I’d embark on one of those sorts of runs, almost every day for the past month, and come back, physically exhausted and spiritually discouraged… but Jesus has been telling me, especially this morning, that I can’t trust in Him for a sensation: refreshment of my spirit comes on His terms, not mine. Maybe God was wearing me out for a purpose… I thought of Deuteronomy 8:2-3:

“Remember the long road by which Yahweh your God led you for forty years in the desert, to humble you, to test you and know your inmost heart*whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you, he made you feel hunger, he fed you with manna which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, to make you understand that human beings live not on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of Yahweh.”

I think I have been becoming too self-sufficient lately, even as I realize how weak I truly am… I have taught myself coping methods over the years, which get me into very unhealthy habits of relationship… towards God, towards others, towards myself… yet for the time being, the problem itself goes away. Usually that would be forcing my body to run as fast and as hard as it could… but after Sunday’s run where I plowed through those 5 miles with a terrifying force, I realized maybe my friend Jeff from His Mansion was right… intensity does not necessarily mean an increase of speed. I need to learn how to slow down, retain my intensity and persistence, but allow myself to savor the goodness of God and be thoughtful about my interactions. I have spent the past week lost in contemplation about what my God has done in my life… memories of times when I could almost see Jesus beside me… and thinking about how sweet those very difficult times became when I could imagine my Jesus there too.

Saturday, I would really have liked Jesus to show up. My heart ruptured within me, I felt… a return to an old brokenness… and my eyes were pretty raw from crying. Yet I can hide that, that’s one of the coping mechanisms I’ve taught myself… denial. But denial is too dishonest now. I found myself one minute weeping over the brokenness in my soul… something that hurt too much to put into words, and so like a little child, I was crying to my Jesus and my Abba, trying to remember them with me just one year ago… and then the next minute I found myself crying over my hypocrisy in appearance. I cannot always be fine. It may be well with my soul, most times, but when I am struggling with an issue that seems to create distance between me and God, I really am not fine; I am in desperate need of relationship to remind me of my Jesus and His sweetness.

My friend Amy was Jesus to me last night and she didn’t even realize it. I was falling asleep working in the café… for as full as my heart was yesterday, I got an amazing amount of homework done. That’s another one of my coping mechanisms… I go into a performance mode and churn out work like no other time in my life (except when I feel inspired). The day had sapped my strength, leaving me empty and physically weary last night. Sometimes to force my brain to focus, I will vocalize the words of a song or scripture that can bring some sense of direction to my fluttering heart. “I’m offering all of me, Jesus You’re all this heart is living for.” I love Him, I really do. Amy came in to meet, like we’d arranged, and I guess my face was betrayed me, even when I smiled, or maybe it was the heaviness I was having difficulty shaking. She helped me bear my burden by sharing real life and memories of where God had brought both of us, such similar stories. We did crazy things like slide down huge slides at 10pm, getting soaken wet at the end. There was a story I heard recently about a star (personified as a young woman) who reflected the brightness of the sun: when trouble came, the young woman’s light was often cast into shadow (just by those natural circumstances of life) and her shine diminished. But the glow would come back when true love, like that of Jesus was felt. I guess I feel like a star, sometimes… I love my life with Jesus, as weird and peculiar as it might seem to a lot of people… I truly enjoy it. When trouble comes, if I honestly acknowledge what the trouble is and don’t run away, my glow is often overshadowed, and I am challenged to trust God.

This morning, my Jesus was sweet… and I felt that glow be rekindled on my run… I changed how I was running and came before Him in my heart, just the way I was, still a wreck. I opened my mouth this time and besought Him with words, not for some euphoric feeling, but in gratitude for all He had already wrought in my life—for His encouragement of yesterday. The whole weekend was a problem that decided not to go away, but I am engaging the problem differently… and I am not lamenting anymore. My heart feels close to Jesus again… I didn’t look for Him running next to me, today, I looked for Him in my heart. I asked Him to keep me as simple as a little girl, loving and being loved, loving others too. Yesterday I was discouraged about trusting others, today I just need to trust my Jesus and love others as much as I can without obligating them by my trust. I guess true love for another doesn’t need to trust, but I praise my Jesus that He is always trustworthy.

 

Run the risks of growth on the edges of Life

took quite the risk to run this morning… but it was so beautiful I couldn’t resist. Spring is coming under a blanket of snow, and I had quite the heavily weighted mind to run off today. 5 snowy miles later, I praised God for letting me run before more snow fell.

So, I told Jesus that I think He and I need to talk again. A lot has been pouring through my mind, so many thoughts I can’t even process them all. It’s like before Hebrew class yesterday morning… I was in love with Him in His book… I was still stuck in Mark 8 and 9… not sure how to live that love. Jesus, You have been teaching me this whole taking on of your cross… and Jesus, I think I am often too ashamed too. I stood in chapel today and tried to worship You shamelessly, Jesus. Yet, I was not always as honest as I needed to be. I spoke a little over an hour ago, very intensely about how we worship… how ashamed we are to worship honestly in public. What am I afraid of? There’s no reasonable explanation, because my past is on longer excuse: in God’s eyes, the old is gone and doesn’t have to affect me anymore.

Yet, I am still learning about human nature and how we continue to remember things we’ve seen or done that just don’t have any place in our new lives in Christ. I have been playing with the past lately, reflecting on all God has done in my life… just because no matter what I try to remember or how hard I try to forget some other things, they still occasionally come up. I don’t understand much about human nature other than the little I’ve observed in my short years of living or what I have been told by those who have been longer in this world. Because I don’t understand, I trust and hope for the good too much: it has been impressed on me by the reading of the prophets, more mature Christians, and memories of past life experience that I should not trust or hope too much—there is an edge in every human.

I guess I am still discovering myself before God and with others. The before God part is probably one of the easiest dimensions for me, now that I am learning to be honest before Him with even the gross realities of the past. But that is really just two-dimensional if I omit the community from the equation. Over the past two weeks, it has been impressed on me that I actually do affect other’s people’s lives—that may not be such a revelation to others, but somehow, even as I have been learning to discuss and share myself with others, I have never been able to perceive what sort of affect I had on them if any. I guess that led to a lot of the loneliness I felt as younger, and the inferiority complex I see a lot of my fellow students and even fellow believers adopting: we don’t understand the weight of this glory that rests in us as we are Temples of the Holy Ghost. Yet I am still powerless to make anything good: it is always Christ working in me, transforming and fashioning me into a better instrument, more useful to His purposes. I have changed my requests in personal petition lately from “Jesus help me to be more like You” to “Jesus, work in me and clear me away to let me become a vessel of You.” I cannot live like Jesus, but He can live in me, in every moment of every day, in my community.

That is intense, I don’t know if impossible. That is what I want with my God, my Jesus… because for me it is good be near to Him—I long to be one with Him in every fiber of my being; not some sensation only, because feelings come and go, nearness and farness, warmth and cold… but I am learning the closeness of trust: seeing what God has done in others, through the same Spirit living in me, and submitting myself to the will of the Spirit: which I think means a sensitivity to the community, the needs of others… somehow living compassionately. Jesus, You have been watching me try and manufacture mechanisms to ensure obedience, and You have laughed over how silly and childish they are: I do not trust in them to help me remember, Jesus, and I know they need to change all the time so as not to because a mindless routine. Jesus, keep me fresh and alive, always, working within the boundaries of disciplines and principles to always be living differently, letting You move this life in me more and more every day. So Jesus, I think I want to work on a new goal, not just to remember to talk with You more, but I know this Christian life takes work from both You and me: In everything I say, every word I think before it escapes me lips, every action I complete or contemplate, let me remember Your model of compassion and surrender myself to that memory of how You and how You would do life, compassionately. Jesus be that center and cornerstone of my life, the plumb line off which I measure not just my words, but my motivations, because I love you. At this place of my life, Jesus has rather intensely romanced me, and there is not a whole else that matters… maybe He is using this as a change of perspective.

I was thinking about abstract versus practical thoughts yesterday after all my classes, and realized how un-abstract my brain is becoming. It may be weird for other to hear this, but I used to be almost totally abstract in my thinking… abstract in a way that did not relate back to earth. I distanced myself from people, I was impersonal, made my own thoughts impersonal, etc. And then I found myself dry of inspiration, lonely… and I had cut myself off from truly living with this Spirit in me. My Hebrew II classmate Matt and I have been exploring the wonders of child-like simplicity in learning… how we “adults” overcomplicate everything, and shouldn’t we just be trying to build on foundations, both relationally and academically, with that same all-encompassing wonder of a Kindergartener. I think that’s what I do with life… I am interested in everything and amazed at the wonder of it all, and all of it has something to do with the way I live life. Is this faith like a child, asking incessant questions, not ever understanding anything completely, and just seeing how God has led others thus far, and trusting He won’t stray from the character He established for Himself.

But I think God’s dependability is just completely unpredictable. Allow me to stray for a moment into such child-like state of wonder at how God holds time: I received an acceptance letter (conditional on my GRE scores being acceptable) from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, which out of the four graduate schools I have applied to since December, has become my top choice (even over Oxford and Cambridge, though doctoral studies there would be to die for). The humorous part of the acceptance letter story comes in when I mention that I am also seeking God’s help in paying for this education by applying to several grant foundations, one in particular which required an acceptance letter before completion of my paperwork. I had just sent an email to the DSPT admissions office, wondering when I might know of acceptance (if I was to be accepted) right before checking my mail this morning and finding the letter! One of my weaknesses is that I do not know how to honestly evaluate my likelihood for anything, success or failure, so I didn’t know at all if I would be accepted, but I praise God that I have been. If He wants me there, He will provide, be it scholarships and grants, work opportunities, etc. I am planning on doing a simultaneous Masters program, an MA in Theology and an MPhil, 3-4 years of my life (3, I think), beginning my preparation to teach someday, what I feel my vocation is. Do I have a teacher’s heart? What does that consist of? I love God and I love people… I love being changed by people, and I guess I affect them too.

I have been recognizing inspiration in my life lately… inspiration being defined (by me) as substantial thought or action, which comes without my prompting or ability to produce. An example of what I mean when I say I have been inspired is sometimes I will put my fingers to the key board and begin typing with a thought in mind, but words just flow out of me, and I have no idea where they came from when done. Or maybe, out of the blue, I will feel the need to go talk to or hug someone, and when I do, find out they needed it. Is this my Holy Ghost, and be being embodied by It? Maybe, sure… what else could it be? The inspiration I get isn’t always nice, to be honest, I have written some dark stuff before. Maybe that was the voice of my spirit or something else, but more and more, I find that the inspirations I have been “channeling” (scary word, but please understand that I just mean the process by which I act upon the inspiration) have been more consistently like Jesus. And Jesus wasn’t always happy. I naively, firmly, or maybe trustingly believe that all things are from God, they have to be, or else they wouldn’t have the possibility to make me more like Jesus. Every circumstance in life holds the potential from God to transform me into a better image of His Son, a cleaner mirror with more accurate reflection.

I guess that’s what I want to be, a living mirror, not just one that reflects Jesus back to people, but also draws them into Him by living out the compassion He embodied as a man. He is no longer tangibly embodied here… except in me, and others, who are calling ourselves after His name, for He called us by that name first, “I am you God and you and My people..” mirroring our own lives against the illuminating book. It’s been hard for me over the past weeks pouring and pouring over Mark 8 and 9… thinking of how the image of Jesus shows me the practical life I should be living… intense and constant… and somehow as I reflect to others what they should be. That’s scary, a huge responsibility, one I am just coming to terms with. I am terrified to affect another’s life, yet I want to, all by that irresistibly attractive Spirit that dwells in me. Even in conversation about worship, I want to learn how to encourage others to live Jesus more… not just in behavior, but I want the Spirit to so ooze out of my that hearts and minds will be transformed and the behavior will reflect that. It’d got to be more than mind and more than just behavior… it’s holistic life… the Hebrew nephesh, which I call soul: my heart, mind, and spirit… the way I feel, think, and live… all of me consumed by Jesus: He lives in me, we are still distinct, but it is His actions, His feelings, His thoughts in my mind, my heart, my life.

As I told one of my dear sisters Christie this morning, I am in love with God, and thus in love with His people. Maybe I have been projecting my trust of Him to them, but I just don’t know how else to love yet. I love my life, the good and the bad, I really do, because though I may cry, I can see Jesus better. I run on the edge, and I am very intensely there—it wears me out by the end of the day, but I have to live that way right now. It is how I love, how I can love… God and others. I hope I never lose the passionate return of Jesus’ love.

 

Praying For Someone Who Can’t– and My Own Cry

God, God what did I do—did you abandon me or did I abandon you?
I see this Jesus, Son of God, I’m sure and convinced, but after we crucified, did he leave?
How can we claim that His Spirit is here, among us, in us, when our lives still crucify?
God, do we grieve you; have you finally had enough of our filth?
These lives of hypocrisy; we’re riddled with guilt but we continue to sin, we lack any fruit.
Is there presence in our lives? Have we squelched You out?
“I live faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave Himself for me…”
but how can I live with them and love You?

I am concerned with the poor, the hurting, the heart of Jesus in need for change.
Am I simple, that I should hold such desires and ideals, and wish that Your people would simply love and obey. Is it so much to ask?
I have lost sight of my own love for You looking for hope among the people—I don’t even know Jesus. How can I know You if my community does not reflect You?
I am just as bad, I confess, I don’t live You always, but I want to.
As for desire, they are devoid of any: set in their ways, content to judge, abandoned to self rather than of self.

I just don’t know if I can see You at all anymore… Your image has been discarded and trampled in the dust. And so all I thought was You is gone… and we have already forgotten you, just like they did with Isaiah’s servant. Jesus, You’d think that after all the writers went through to show the people how You had suffered: the Roman beatings tearing off Your skin—
And we fat Americans sit around a comfy sanctuary with a donut in hand, complaining about life… the extent of our spirituality is stressing our brains to momentarily care for the welfare of others.

Jesus, I am not like that, maybe I am, but that is not the me screaming out to You inside. I cannot call myself after Your name if that is how I will become. I was desperate once to catch another glimpse of You, another pattern, another way which to live: they don’t live You, and so profane Your name. I cannot identify with the sweet, passive Jesus who allows such horrid blasphemy to go untouched and unpunished. Jesus, be real to us.

I think I know the real You, I can’t be sure anymore… Jesus this Sitra Achra side of You, the real, the compassionate, the violent… the You that will be borne in the image of Mother Theresa who goes out and loves for real: who lives and dies with the people. Where is the self-sacrifice for another, they disgust one another by mere theological difference of opinion. Jesus, if I am going to keep loving You, I need You to restore my hope that there really is a way to live after You, to love like You do, to channel Your grace to those who really want it, who need it. Jesus, I need You to give me  a new religion, a new heart to love… never mind the religion, its dead, all of it.

So Jesus, I want to risk again to call you Lord, but Jesus, I am scared; I think I have fallen asleep inside: wake me up from the shadow of death, this dark nightmare in my soul, to be awake as You cut away the layers of thick disgust and calloused hatred which have built up against the constant rubbing of their hypocrisy. I realize, Jesus, that if I am disgusted with them, I am really disgusted with You, You for letting them profane Your name. But I need to be patient and wait…. Jesus, I need You to restore my hope… help me to trust You again, that someday soon You will reclaim the glory of Your name. That You will make Yourself known in real life.

Maybe, Jesus, You have been waiting for me, to use me and reclaim Your name in me. Maybe I too have refused it by response in sin to theirs. I can only think of one cure and I don’t know what it will look like—I need your love to be exposed in my again. You have to do that. Let Your compassion overwhelm me from the inside out, and let my beat in sync with Yours.
You in me, me in You… as One forever.
I love you, Jesus.