9-11-01...If We Were to Ask God

"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." -Ralph Waldo Emerson


All of the ceremony of a day like today stirs us to pause and to remember...

Where we were.

What we were doing.

How we felt.

And all the needless loss of life that day.

On this day each year, some will be overcome with thankfulness, forgiveness and hope.

Others will still be nursing hatred and judgment and fear.

If we were to ask God how He feels about what happened, I wonder what He would say.

Because He is "I Am" and not "I Was" or "I Will Be", I think He would ask us to look within and see how we have allowed the tragedies of yesterday and the heartbreak of today to change us and make us look like a truer reflection of His Image. And although I am certain the events of 9-11-01 broke God's heart, I imagine that today He is more interested in whether or not His children are looking more like Him and if we are allowing His image to be reflected on the lost and the broken, the sick and the poor.

These are the things I am thinking of today.

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Desert Places

When all of your writing comes from the deep places in your heart, but your heart is aching, dry and arid, it is difficult to string together words that will bring life to others.

Why write at such times?

It seems that many who write songs do their best work in the dark hour.

Some of the writing that has spoken to me the most has come from people who were transparent when hiding would have been easier, and watching them move forward even when broken has somehow brought life to me.

Hiding is easy and avoiding banal platitudes that are oddly suffocating is far more appealing.

Yet somehow people worth following are the ones who smell like the desert. They have known hunger and thirst and barrenness and can be trusted to bring food and water and life to someone else.

Can you really be an oasis if you have never known the aching need for one?

"All of my servants on their way to the High Places have had to make this detour through the desert...I bring my people into Egypt that they, too, may be threshed and ground into the finest powder and may become bread corn for the use of others."
--Hinds' Feet On High Places by Hannah Hurnard

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Sticks and Stones

I'm not trying to wear out the MJ thing but....

I read recently that, growing up, Michael Jackson was teased a great deal by his father and that he was reported to have said to his son, "God, your nose is big!" In a 2003 documentary, Michael was reported to have said that when performing he would have been happier wearing a mask. Nothing done to a person in childhood excuses adult behaviors and choices, but we often forget what careless words said to a child can do and the lasting effects of those words.

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Waiting for God

"The years teach much which the days never know." -Ralph Waldo Emerson


I do not like to wait for God. This is probably why I spend so much time doing just that...He knows how I feel about it. Not that He is punishing me, He just seems to push me in all the directions which I resist.

For some odd reason the phrase "waiting for God" often reminds me of that Samuel Beckett play, "Waiting for Godot". It has been said that much Christian symbolism can be found in this work but Beckett categorically denied any symbolism at all in his play. I never cared much for the play because Godot never shows up where the two tramps are waiting for him. It is a terrible thing to not show up. If you have ever had a principal character on the stage of your life fail to show up, you know what a crushing blow it can be. The problem is when I then interpret God's timing (which is not at all like my timing) as failure to show up. But He must show up. He promised to "never leave us or forsake us" (Deut 31:6, 8) and He never lies. He is unlike any "character" in our earthly existence. He makes good on His promises. But why does my heart struggle at times to remember this fundamental truth? Because it is the essence of fallen man to doubt God and expect Him to, in turn, misunderstand and punish us. As it was for the first man and woman, so it will be for us. And so we must fight this temptation for the duration of our time here. To run into Him and wait or choose for yourself and then run away. Adam and Eve's choice. My choice. Your choice.

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Dude, You Threw Off My Groove!

I don't know what is going on, but something has definitely thrown off my groove.  You know that feeling you get when you can't quite find normal you and some other foreign, grumpy, out-of-sorts you has taken up residence in your body?  I know, I know...I am weird.  But I am okay with my weirdness.  Part of it is all of the change that has been taking place in my own life and that will just take time to sort itself out.  The great thing about emotions is that they are much like clouds and they just don't hang around for very long.  What do you usually do when you don't feel quite right?

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