Legal movement without dribbling.

a.k.a. The Pivot

Partly, it feels like I've been lassoed mid-torso and my arms are pinned to my sides. Besides restricting movement above my elbows, it is humiliating because I am not an animal.

Partly, it feels like there's a thick, dark sac over my head and I can't see or breathe very well.

It is a velvet cloak, soaked through. It's heavy, it's awkward, it leaves a watery mess wherever I go. It's three sizes too big and the hood conceals my face as if doing passers-by a favour.

It is a parched throat that chokes speech into crackles of nonsense.

There is a thick, slimy swamp that comes up above my hips that is barely liquid. It's so dense and relentless sometimes I think I'm only imagining that I'm walking at all.

It can be very loud and angry. It can be an unsuppressible desire to scream and scream.

It's like a gagged mouth

  It's like a puffed up face

    It is aloneness

      It is hard to express and hard to avoid

It is heavy

  It is difficult

    It weakens and drains and tires

      It hangs off one's neck

        It obstructs and it denies

This is my depression; this is my mood-world.

Partly, it's a mystery that makes anticipating God's work here that much more exciting.

Partly, it's a darkness I can be grateful for as it makes His light that much more brilliant.

Partly, it's a push each day, each morning, each moment to lift my eyes up to the mountains, where my help comes from---when everything else is weighed down, tied up, muted, or suffocated, I can still lift up my eyes.

It is a terrible handicap, but I belong to God: I am treasured and whole, carried and loved.

From Latin meaning "entering the flesh again".

Yesterday, thinking about things I've done to deal with a persistent, difficult situation that started over two years ago, things I should have done differently, and things I very much regret, I re-realised that I seem to believe in reincarnation. The regret is so much bitterer because with hindsight I see how much extra damage I have probably done. (Of course, maybe nothing I did made it worse but I doubt it--and I'll never know.)

I think I first realised in my early twenties that I (seem to) believe in reincarnation when I recognised myself expecting to be able to do high school a second time, changing all the things I now regretted. I have a mirror (a mirrored partition) in my mind; I have a way of processing stages or life events as if what is happening or has happened is only the first time of more than one time. It seems unhealthy when I look at it but it's really hard to remove. I feel like I have the denial barrier of a schizophrenic when I consider the un-partitioned view. As in...I completely irrationally hold on to getting another chance because the thought of not being able to change or redo things ruins me. I cannot face it. I cannot face it.


That said, the Lord has made me less insane and unreasonable since my early twenties. It's getting microscopically better as I realise that my entire life is in God's hands and He will both judge and produce the merit of it.


But until I fully accept that, what am I to do with having only ONE life, only ONE Tuesday, 18 August, 2015?? How can I bear loss and mistakes and regrets and failure and missed opportunities? How can I make it to the end without any scars? How do I live a life that needs no doubling-back?

[Author's note: I went looking for a Scripture passage which would explain how God's grace covers all, and brings good things out of crummy things but none of the passages I could think of were clicking. I take a break from searching, deliberately putting the blog aside, to try to reset and come back fresh. "Not to Us" starts playing in my head. The song's thrust is lifted from Psalm 115: Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness. (v 1) I let the song continue to play and then the solar system shudders as gears grind and earth starts revolving around the sun--it doesn't matter what I do. It matters greatly what God does and what He is like.

This is not the antidote I had in mind. I wanted it to be that God covers or fixes our failures, He helps us overcome regret, He is the reason we don't need do-overs. (I really just wanted emotional balm.) But God changed my view.]

    Psalm 111

Praise the LORD.

I will extol the LORD with all my heart 

  in the council of the upright and in the assembly.

Great are the works of the LORD;

  they are pondered by all who delight in them.

Glorious and majestic are his deeds,

  and his righteousness endures forever.

He has caused his wonders to be remembered;

  the LORD is gracious and compassionate.

He provides food for those who fear him;

  he remembers his covenant forever.

He has shown his people the power of his works,

  giving them the lands of other nations.

The works of his hands are faithful and just;

  all his precepts are trustworthy.

They are established for ever and ever,

  enacted in faithfulness and uprightness.

He provided redemption for his people;

  he ordained his covenant forever--

  holy and awesome is his name.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;

  all who follow his precepts have good understanding.

To him belongs eternal praise.

Adventures in house cleaning and Deuteronomy.

Alternate title: My Saturday

At the outset of the day, I had planned to clean and tidy the house so that it didn't look like I had gone full bachelor the week my housemate was away. (I had.) But a funny thing happened. As I experienced the high that comes from doing things one ought in the time-frame and manner they ought to be done, I enjoyed myself more and more. I liked seeing my work; I liked seeing the place transformed. I also liked that it was giving me CV exercise. This is all rare for me because I tend to clean/tidy in spurts, as I go, like a "P" of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator analysis. But on this day I was experimenting in "J"-dom and decided to knock out ALL the cleaning before noon.

Now the real funny thing that happened was that the more I cleaned, the more I wanted to clean. That is, the more I cleaned one thing/room/area, the more I noticed the comparative uncleanness of the adjacent thing/room/area. It was an eerily powerful motivator. And it wasn't even as if I thought, "I should really do that, too," it was a deeper pull of obligation to apply the new standard uniformly.

And of course I thought of it as a spiritual metaphor.

I distinctly remember sweeping a corner of the kitchen, looking at the winter-wear basket on the floor (and deciding whether I would lift it up to sweep under it), and thinking that this is just how it feels as the Holy Spirit cleans up our lives. As time passes and the Lord refines us, the comparative "uncleanness" or dirtiness of adjacent areas becomes clearer and painfully undeniable. It looks dirtier next to something clean. We begin to wish to have the new standard applied uniformly. (One of the best ways to find out how dirty your hands are is to look at a full pack of cards after you've put the Euchre deck back.)

As a new Christian, I actually didn't think there was very much wrong with me. I still believed the "good person" lie, and thought I was roughly equal to the other Christians I knew. But slowly, faithfully, inescapably, and squirmingly, God the Holy Spirit has shown me more and more of how foul I really am.

Yesterday's sermon spent some time describing the great joy and peace that comes from God knowing those who are His. This is the kind of knowing that is intimate and experiential, not a mere awareness of our existence. Because of this, He knows all our sin--all of it. Because of this, He was able to pay for it all. That's a glorious thing--I really believe it is. But, as I was listening, I felt like I understood the ugly backdrop to what the preacher meant and what he was feeling though there are no words to articulate all of it.

We are so gross.

  We are so gross,
    we are so gross,
      we are so gross.

As he spoke to us and told us how great it is that Jesus knows it all since that means we can have complete, iron-clad assurance [read: confidence one puts in a bungee jumping teacher] that Jesus paid it all, he seemed relieved and moved. He told us it was his great joy and his great hope. But he also seemed to know something of what the Omniscient Lord sees. He seemed to know that what had been revealed to him up to this point in his Christian life was disgusting enough but that God knew how much worse it truly was. We can only be so thankful and marvel so much at God's grace if we know how ill-deserving we are.

As I sat and listened, I thought I might start to cry. I just felt so dirty. I felt so much of my sinfulness that it turned my stomach. It's really bad and it's worse than I can fathom. I'm so sorry.


---


Later in the day I was feasting in Deuteronomy. I found these remarkable gems.

1) I can't give you the context of the preceding three books of the Bible but I can hope you know enough about Moses' time as leader of the Israelites and you know some of what the LORD did for Israel during that time. At the very least there was the exodus from slavery in Egypt (some of that by a miraculous parting of a sea so Israel could walk through on dry land). There was also God not killing them when they rebelled against Him.. there was Him choosing to dwell among them.. there was Him giving them a way to make atonement for their sins through animal sacrifice...there was also all His covenantal faithfulness...there was the gift of Passover and the gift of the Law...and there was Him delivering enemies into Israel's hands, among other things.
(I'll leave two verses of mini context for my passage.)

At that time I [Moses] commanded Joshua: "You have seen with your own eyes all that the LORD your God has done to these two kings. The LORD will do the same to all the kingdoms over there where you are going. Do not be afraid of them; the LORD your God himself will fight for you."

At that time I pleaded with the LORD: "Sovereign LORD, you have begun to show your servant your greatness and your strong hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do?" (Deuteronomy 3:21-24)

Moses must really get it. After all he has seen, he says here at the end of his 120-year life, "Sovereign LORD, you have begun to show your servant your greatness and your strong hand." He has only begun! Just imagine how great this means the rest of God is!

2) For this one I don't really have commentary. It's just a fantastic, gripping, exultant passage.

  To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the LORD set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations--as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. Fear the LORD your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. Your ancestors who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky. (10:14-22)

3) What I noticed in this passage was like finding a note in the bottom of your lunch bag, sneakily placed there by the person who kindly packed it for you.

No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, not even in the tenth generation. For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you. However the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live. (23:3-6)

I think I did a double-take when I read "because the LORD your God loves you" in the same way people in the movies gawk and sputter when their significant other says, "I love you," for the first time but doesn't realise it has slipped out. I think that steeping in the OT for the past two weeks made me expect Moses to say, "because the LORD swore an oath to your forefathers," or, "because the LORD's anger was aroused," or, "because the LORD is holy and just." But... "because the LORD your God loves you"??!? How flabbergasting. I felt really shocked. It seemed quite tender. It reminded me of what Paul said to the Philippians, telling them to throw their anxieties on God because He cares for them (or, because it matters to Him about them)--not because He is powerful, but because He cares. (It is of course a colossal bonus that He is powerful AND He cares.)


--


So,
  put together,

      I love this great God, the LORD my God to whom belong the highest heavens,

and I love what He did for Israel and I love what He did for me. I love that He loves me and how He loves me. He is too kind. He is bursting with compassion and majesty. He is holy and impeccable. He is beautiful, glorious, righteous, and awesome. He is so good.

I'm deeply ashamed of my sin and I believe it warranted death. I wish I didn't have any but I want Him to see all my sin so He can absolve me of every last item on the list. I know I will never deserve this. I know this gospel is a mystery and for that reason I love it even more.

I thank God that He cleanses us--
  I thank God that He shows Himself to us--
    I thank God that He fights for us, provides for us, and disciplines us--

I thank God that He sneaks love notes into our lunches!

      Oh, praise the One who paid my debt

      and raised this life up from the dead!

--


I hear the Saviour say, "Thy strength indeed is small!
Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all."

Lord, now indeed I find Thy pow'r and Thine alone,
can change the leper's spots and melt the heart of stone.

For nothing good have I whereby Thy grace to claim--
I'll wash my garments white in the blood of Calv'ry's Lamb.

And when before the throne I stand in Him complete,
"Jesus died my soul to save," my lips shall still repeat.

  Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe;
  Sin had left a crimson stain--He washed it white as snow.

"Jesus Paid it All" by Elvina M. Hall (Public Domain)