Just as He said.

On the 31st of March I developed a severe headache around noon. It is throbbing as I type.

My health these past three weeks has cost me an unexpected $170 and kept me from much of my normal activity, including (deep) thinking and (good) sleep. 

But I don't even care.

Today is the most magnificent day. 

I have been so excited about Easter. I have been so looking forward to celebrating Easter with my family. And today we did. This morning we sang and shouted and clapped because of how good the Lord is and how perfect and powerful and needed the Resurrection is.

Oh. So good.

The sermon delicately and beautifully opened the Great Commission like a time-lapsed bloom. I saw Jesus in a way I haven't before. 

Three believers were baptised. It stirred my heart to witness my brothers and sister in the Lord make a public declaration of their allegiance to Christ and of their putting their whole faith in Him. Staking their whole life on Him. Just mesmerising. So glorious. I felt privileged to be present. 

What more can I say? What can I add? How much fun we had as a music team? How much fun it is to do good work and to work hard as a music team? How liberating and expressive it was to dress up because today is the specialest of all special occasions?

Even the fellowship before and after service, good friends and new friends. We smile big because He is risen indeed. I should write more later but I think there's still a lot of day yet to live.

May I?

Today is the day to give thanks for freedom--freedom from sin--from death--freedom to live in Christ--freedom to live for Christ--freedom complete.

Freedom complete--

Freedom should be a good thing---.

I can't believe the Atonement worked. 

I can't believe it's finished.

(O the bliss of this glorious thought!)

And today is a day to be thankful for forgiveness. Thankful for forgiveness. Thank-filled for forgiveness. 

Forgiven so that I even have eyes to see that forgiveness is something for which to be thankful. Forgiven so that my lungs inflate for the first time. 

I'm forgiven! How is that??!

Today is also a great day to give thanks for mercy which is renewed each time the sun crests our horizon. New, new, new. 

Mercy makes me able. Mercy makes a way. Mercy gives me the go. (Or the keep going.) Mercy is good. So rich!

And love. How does love go? Can I show my gratitude? Can I step inside and shout my thanks? Could I knock politely and gesture wildly? (Behold! What manner...!)

One day.

One day!

I started this post last night for a different occassion. This may be the first time I was glad I fell asleep and had to post the following (very Good) day.

I wish I could blog more but my head hurts.

Every now and then we still go on Princess Dates.

Now they're warmer, cosier, more intimately relaxed. It's less that I'm being dragged and spend the whole time tugging at puffy sleeves and refusing to sip pinky-up. Maybe we're OK. Maybe things are calmer.

How are we doing? How's my worship? What are You like, Lord?

Mathematics Fun with newly elected Snail President

[Disclaimer: Vagueness is for privacy, not for scaring. I'm fine.]

Since Monday:

three doctors 

two needles (one injection, one withdrawl)

two prescriptions

two ER visits

three calls to Telehealth Ontario

three knights in shining armor (read: friends)

a million cubes of ice 

ten electrodes

one (mild) diagnosis

one persistent weird-non-agnosis

three nights of elusive sleep

prayers like a persistent widow

+

something greater than the temple

= 

perfect rest

Je te vois.

I see you.

I see you. I see that rip, that funny tear in the night sky...or this dome as dark as the night. 

It looks like an astronomical delight. It looks awe-inspiring: random to our limited minds but precise and deliberate to a mind that could grasp more.

I don't know if it's light exactly that's behind. And I don't know if it's light that's breaking through. But there is a tear, and splinters or fractures are spreading and spreading like limbs or tendrils. It's alive. It's moving outward, ripping and tearing.

I can see it. Today I can see it. Today--tonight--I looked up and I saw this tear, this mega contrast and today I kinda liked it. It gripped me, to say the least. I know it is moving but I hold it as a snapshot in my mind, a still. We'll see. 

Is ... waiting and thinking things through better??

Who can tell??


I'm going to do a knee-jerk blog post because I want to get rid of the scrap of paper on which I jotted the idea.

In Matthew 26:47-50 I read this:

  While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: "The one I kiss is the man; arrest him." Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, "Greetings, Rabbi!" and kissed him.
  Jesus replied, "Friend, do what you came for."

And though I have read this passage several times, one word leaped off the page at me for the first time. "Friend, do what you came for"??

I read it and immediately thought, with all the indignation, self-aggrandisement, and ignorance of a Pharisee, "How can Jesus call him friend?!" I was legitimately annoyed and bewildered.


Jesus--don't you see how thoroughly You've been stabbed in the back? Do you see that You were betrayed by someone who should have been a close friend? Don't You see You're being arrested on bogus charges because a sneaky embezzler sold You out?

Don't you see it???


Furthest thing from friend. I searched the page for a footnote that might have said "Messianic sarcasm" but couldn't find it. Maybe that's in the updated NIV.

I understand that the word could be lined with rebuke, as it is in the two other Matthean uses but I also understand it can be translated as "table-companion", which would remind Judas of his place at the supper that evening.* I understand it's not completely buddy-buddy but the term is still somewhat soft, if Jesus is not the kind to be snarky, passive-aggressive, or convoluted. 

*I must give credit where it's due. I'm not this clever. France, R. T. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1985. Print.

All of that reaction transpired in a moment and of course the very next moment (thank You, Holy Spirit, who never misses an opportunity to point out my blindness or hypocrisy), I was completely humbled by the knowledge that I'm the sell-out and I'm called friend.

I'm the sell-out and I'm called friend.

I am the one who sold Him out (sold out the innocent guy who came to point me to the Father)

and

I am the one He is calling a friend (friend as well as co-heir, co-laborer, ambassador, image bearer, sister, His people, loved, and dearly loved)

The one that probably would have done it for twenty or twenty-five pieces of silver (or maybe just for a laugh!), that's the one that gets to inherit eternal life--precisely because the Messiah died at the hands of sinners.


 .

     .

         .


What is this??!? It's upside-down.

When I'm called "Friend", it should be lined with rebuke as well--at least on one side of the Cross. (I think this is the first time I've had a glimmer of understanding in why Peter would have blurted, "Never, Lord!" upon hearing that Jesus needed to suffer and die. Maybe I get it, if indeed he had the same THATDOESN'TMAKEANYSENSE in his heart that I have right now.)

And Peter would have understood, in that chilling, soul-shriveling moment when Jesus' prediction of Peter's denial proved accurate, that yes, of course it needed to happen this way. That doesn't make it any less tragic or scandalous. It doesn't. And I'm grateful, truly.


But right now it's a little hard to stomach.
That You should call me friend???

I'm afraid I'm going to lose myself.

(I'm sad that this means I don't trust the Lord enough. If only He were gracious and compassionate enough to stay with me still.)

(because I can't tweet it.)

Twice today I have used the word "theology" without thinking about it. As in, it has descended to third-level vocabulary. (Second-level is where I've studied the definition, some example uses, and I'm on the prowl for opps to use it.) It is oddly encouraging. I have found that word a cruel enigma for too long and now it seems to know me. Well, I will call it probationary third-level because I have yet to use it in conversation with anyone who could correct me! But unconscious word retrieval, I'll take it.

In other news, what's it like to have a life where you can sit down and read a fiction book?

This morning,

in the time surrounding and throughout the worship service with [our] Church,

-two people said, "I love you," to me (sounding uncannily like a brother or sister in Christ might)

-one person insisted on sitting with me, fully aware that I prefer a lone pew (largely so I can focus on listening but critically so I can persist in isolation)

-one person said they missed spending time with me (which warred against my understanding that they had grown fed up or bored with me)

-one person asked if I was in a place to receive hugs (and I said yes because I was so blessed by the framing of the question).

Others looked at me like they couldn't see how detestable I am. No one appeared offended that I hadn't shown up with a bag over my head.

I wonder about you, dark tunnel. I wonder a lot.

It would be incredibly awkward if God stopped being awe-some.

Yesterday when I got home, I very quickly grew very frustrated that I hadn't done enough that day. It was 8pm and I was tired. I was tired enough to sleep but there was too much more to be done. And I wouldn't get through it. And we all know that unless you work your hardest, every waking moment, you're worthless. So... I was frustrated.

I got on with my daily reading in the Word and started preparing dinner. It felt forced and not as rich and lively as it usually does because I was feeling quite closed toward God. I even said aloud, "I don't wanna talk to You," a couple of times when it felt like He was bugging me. Makes no sense... I sit to read His Word because I know it's important and I want it, but I say I don't want to talk to Him. I told Him I didn't believe He was going to make it better. I eventually said aloud that I didn't trust Him because I thought admitting overtly what my choices were implying would be helpful in jolting me onto the right path.

I didn't feel too differently after my admission but had that sadly familiar sneaking suspicion that He was going to win me over VERY soon.

So I read through James and First Peter. I didn't hear all of it but I read it and He poked at my heart here and there. When I was washing my dishes, strains from a song I would have listened to heavily in the years 2000 and 2001 were getting louder in my head. The song had come up a couple weeks ago and also surprised me, what with the huge amount of years that have passed since I listened to it. In fact, I lost the CD before I owned a copy of iTunes so though I occasionally still listen to albums/songs from more than a decade ago, thanks to the magic of the iPod, this album doesn't make it into the rotation.

But the song popped up and I had to listen because the Lord works songs into my subconscious to speak to me. Yes, He does. He does it with Church music and not-Church music. He surprises me. He gets a song into my mind and I just sing along with it before I know it's from Him. It would be incredibly awkward if the Lord stopped being awesome.

I ran the words through a bit but because I was still in peaking-anger mode, it wasn't working on me too much. [I was so angry! I don't think anyone in real life has seen me when I'm like that. Picture Harry (played by the inimitable Joe Pesci) from Home Alone. That. Angry and spewing angry sounds and pacing about and unsettled and bleh.]

So then I remembered that music is a vehicle. I admitted that because the recording isn't as pristine in my head as it once was, I may need to make a trip to YouTube to help me out.

I listened, but I first prayed that the Lord would speak to me whatever He had in that song for me. Because it's not Church music, there would of course be some filtering necessary, but more than that I really wanted to know what specifically the Holy Spirit had for me right then.

Below, I've pulled out the most connective bits. He didn't have the message I expected. I didn't think I was in this spot. But... reading the New Testament these past few weeks has reminded me that love is a big deal, whether I like it or not. So is grace, but that's too big for now.

--

Not sure what else to think. The rest of the evening was a familiar experience, being buffeted by waves of reality-distorting anxiety. It was the cruellest pressing between the most unyielding rock and the most granite-shaming hard place. I wanted rest so badly but I couldn't stop working. It wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. I'm never enough. I couldn't stop but I was exhausted. I cried and I prayed and I questioned. I worked and I stopped to borrow David's tone from the thirteenth psalm.

My housemate came home and I couldn't talk. Brief hellos and small talk and I went to my bedroom. She let me. I cried more. Inwardly I'm screaming, "OF COURSE I WANT TO TALK!" but not a word comes out.

I worked until I grew too exhausted to think well. Then I used the excuse that my work wouldn't be very good anyways so sleep made more sense. I was ready for bed--I was in bed--and I thought I would pick up the book I want to finish by Friday but somehow, because I really had completed many important and time-sensitive tasks, and because the waves had stilled, I thought I was allowed to stop.

Somehow I felt I could stop without feeling guilty. And when I stopped I didn't feel guilty. I should have thanked the Lord more. I guess I just didn't expect the stillness to linger. I was afraid to stop working while my eyes were open because when there's no distraction left, that's when the biggest monsters come. What I can ignore all day will snap and growl at nighttime all of its displeasure over being locked up. Like an abused rottweiler, starved, caged, teased, and beaten all day, when the door is finally opened there is much pent up and much to repay...

Sigh. I'm not ready for it. Here's a steak! Look over there! Nice doggy...

Then the morning comes and I snap the cage's lock in place as quietly as I can (the dog is now the exhausted one trying to sleep) and I leave, thinking today MUST be the day Animal Control is coming. They said they'd come.

--

The song, entitled "This I Promise You":

I've loved you forever
in lifetimes before

"For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will." (Ephesians 1:4-5)

and I promise you never
will you hurt anymore.

"But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one." (II Thessalonians 3:3)

I give you my word,
I give you my heart;
this is the battle we've* won.
*I'll consider this plural to include the Godhead because it certainly doesn't include me.

"When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." (Colossians 2:13-5)

And with this vow,
forever has now begun.

"As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and the Father. And this is what he promised us--eternal life." (I John 2:24-5)

I will take you in my arms
and hold you right where you belong;
every word I say is true,
this I promise you.

"In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory." (Ephesians 1:11-4)

because they matter.

Between Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon I saw an analogy unfolding in my house for something beautiful and amazing.

On Thursday my housemate and landlady read aloud an email from the basement tenant's father. The tenants downstairs had paid February's rent in early March and rent for the current month did not seem to be on its way by that day, the sixth. My landlady has been growing impatient with the girl's boyfriend whose disinterest in finding another job seems to be the reason the rent stopped coming. She served an eviction notice last weekend.

[The vent system in our house is generous so I can add here that if it were my right, I would have more than a few words (and possibly a rear-end targeting foot) for the boyfriend who is cruel and almost like a bully to his girlfriend who seems to have been carrying the couple and making excuses for him for a long time. My housemate who has lived there longer than I have summed up the things she's heard in this chilling way: "He yells and she cries." I don't feel many positive things toward him at present. On a couple late nights I found myself almost wishing he would go too far, thereby inviting me to knock the door down.]


The girl's father wrote to say he would pay the next three months' rent on the condition that his daughter would move out this weekend and come to live with her parents. He wanted to pay for the months she wouldn't live there in order to give my landlady more time to find new tenants.


On Thursday I found the situation perplexing and almost volatile. The wording of the email seemed like the daughter didn't know the father's plan, particularly that her move-out date was that weekend, and the fact that I was permitted to hear the email read aloud several times and the ensuing discussion between landlady, fiancé, and other housemate made me feel weird. I just don't think it's my business. I could be a sounding board for my friend, sure, but other than that I felt distinctly like backing away. So I excused myself from the conversation.


I was washing dishes when the girl and her father came to the front door Saturday afternoon. I retired to a different room as the invested parties convened at the kitchen table. The dad sat and he wrote a cheque for twenty-five hundred and five dollars. I listened carefully to his tone as he verified the maths with my landlady, verified the spelling of her name, and did a half-decent job of biting his tongue when the boyfriend [I desperately hope there's an "ex-" prefix I'm missing there] topic came up.

He sounded decided, if nothing else. He sounded like he might have rather spent $2500 differently but also like this wasn't going to be a devastating withdrawal. His tone was amazingly even and only peaked to a completely understandable degree when there was general lament spoken for the situation. I appreciated that he was not passive, that he didn't shrug the situation off, and lie, saying it wasn't "a big deal". It is a big deal but he was there.


From the email I had figured the father would be furious. I expected to overhear him yelling at his daughter, putting her down, or even aggressively pushing her out of the conversation. I honestly expected him to go beyond a frustrated parent and be outright abusive. But he sat and wrote the cheque and when his daughter (who I assume was feeling smaller than a pea) did speak, addressing my landlady, he did not cut her off. His anger didn't seem inflamed like he was hearing the last excuse he'd endure. He was noticeably upset but at the best of my interpretive abilities, it seemed complicated.


But I didn't smell a single iota of regret. Not one. He came in and wrote the cheque he had to write to buy his daughter out of a bad situation.

.
  .
    .


A good father would not be pleased with the situation and he would see the scope of her culpability, but he would rather give up what is rightfully his so she could be rescued.

I was so struck by his lack of flinching when he said the numbers. He wanted her back at home and wasn't going to leave her to figure her own way out, as he would have full rights to do. He paid what he shouldn't have had to, and he did it easily--decidedly--because she had to be worth it.

She had to be.



It IS a Gospel of grace.


Who is this King of Glory?
  Who is this God that we serve?
    What is He like?

Some kind of Reflection.

This is the first time I've been here since you haven't been here. I thought that when I had seen you lying still I finally knew. But when I walked in last night and saw your library--meticulously organised and unbelievably nerdy--it became overwhelmingly true.

These were yours. You picked them, you learned from them. It was obvious that you had great aptitude in the field and were poised to make great contributions. How far would you have gone? 

How many of these did you read? Which ones were you looking forward to? 

I walked in and there was a book case on every side. Then they seemed to grow like they took up the whole room. I tried to not be overwhelmed, to remember your epilogue, but I hated seeing all the books that you'd never use again. And when I noticed your sneakers on a table of things to be given away, I broke down.

I'm surprised by how much I miss you and I feel a deep, rotten ache for my friend who knew you best. I don't know how to touch it, grief like a piece of hot metal. I could tap it for a second here and there, but can't pick it up or hold it. I guess we wait.

This second-person narrative seems funny but I'm going to leave it because you may be the first person who affirmed my writing before I knew I was a writer.

I'll close with a better narrative:

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found as naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

But I couldn't have come up with a better Gospel any day.

...one where I'm completely free because all my guilt has been transferred (then fully punished)

...one where my life counts, in the highest and most perfect way

...one where my failings are rightly not overlooked but neither do they make me less loved or less lovable--and that glorious place, that glorious inheritance, is still secure

...one where my life is best used given up--even today and again tomorrow

...one where the index of my value and utility is entirely immutable and absolutely none of my responsibility 

...one where the most exquisite, unparalleled joy is found in forgetting self

...one where the wait to see my Savior is a beautiful ache that I'll only ever know only once

...one that gives everything to a someone with nothing.

I try to come up with a different Gospel every day.

...one where I'm not guilty (or not that guilty)

...one where I don't have to give up my whole life

...one where I'm not able to fail but instead I'm taken away already, to that glorious place where there's no sin and no being sinned against

...one where I don't have to give up my whole life--even today and again tomorrow

...one where I'm allowed to be little and to aim low

...one where selfishness is understandable

...one where it didn't hurt so much to not be able to see my Savior

...one that didn't cost so much.

two brothers and 2 brothers

two brothers

(1) Never more have I wanted to read the book of Acts than I did this past Friday. I started reading Luke's Gospel account on Thursday, making this the most compacted reading of the doctor's Gospel that I've ever done.

And because he smelled like the book of Acts, and smacked of Acts, and was just gagging to be continued by the book of The Acts of the Holy Spirit, I had to take a few moments to talk myself into the discipline needed to FIRST read the Gospel according to the disciple whom Jesus loved.

And because I've learned that Luke-Acts is [written/intended] as one work, I save the trouble of applauding my own cleverness at seeing the similarities. I guess I could here note my gratitude that I am familiar enough with Acts to identify something that sounds like it.

But anyhow... I liked seeing it. As if The Acts of the Holy Spirit isn't (aren't!) exciting enough, a cliffhanger tantalising my spiritual/mental taste buds before I even got there was almost too much. Almost too much. I literally grunted an "AUGH!" aloud when I read the last word in the Lukan Gospel and knew I couldn't skip a book to have the cliffhanger gratified.

(2) And so I did. I did read John's Gospel and it was more delicious than I remembered. The only thing that would make it better would be if Jesus were actually alive, and so was God's Word, and the Holy Spirit spoke to me through it in Guelph in 2014, a juncture slightly different than first-century Israel. That would be cool.

*cough*

In the first chapter I read this: 

Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

  "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked.

And I paused to try to slip into the first readers' shoes. My first substitution was based on the look-down-on-itude of the place. "Detroit! Can anything good come from there?" Another sub could be made for a relatively small or obscure town, on a global scale. "Fergus! Can anything good come from there?" 

It helped. How skeptical and scofferly I would be--at least initially--if I was told someone important hailed from Ajax. Hahaha. A king born in Red Deer, Alberta?? Yeah, OK.

2 brothers

On Saturday, because of the flukiest fluke of all time, I ran into the boys. Yes, J and B were there with their dad, looking the same, looking happy, looking cute, looking (GARGANTUOUSLY, MONSTROUSLY) bigger, looking like I remember, and looking like I've missed so much.

I'm not sure what I felt at the time and I'm not fully sure what I feel now. I was aware that I missed them and aware that it was painful to be physically a few feet away but relationally as far as I've ever been. They were comfortable enough but it's not the same. It was not the same and that is hard. I think I want to bundle them up and love them until everything is good. I don't have a neat wrap-up for this post.

Maybe I'll put here what I meant to add to the previous post. I meant to tell the Lord that I was just joking about the holy crowbar. He doesn't get my sarcasm.