But I'm Scared!

Sitting up late with too much chocolate coursing through my system seems to be a good recipe for a blog post. It has been a while since my last one, but I'm hoping this one will be a little bit different from what I have been putting out there. You see there are levels of honesty we reach when we write these things that make it appear that we are letting you into our lives. Of course, in all honesty, it has always puzzled me as to how we have gotten here when we all know that there is barely a glimmer of the truth to that notion. The internet and all of our other touchless means of communication have left much of our lives as digital residue on the millions of neurons these messages have passed through as they go whizzing around the planet. They don't actually follow the line of senses to be filtered in a sensible manner, they just randomly collide with our grey matter at the speed of light. I am still gazing at a glowing screen in the night, and you'll pocket your smart phone, and get on with your day.

Honesty. I know what the word means. I struggle to live my life according to its bounding principles, and promises of peace. I have suffered under its gaze when the acrimonious bile of its nemesis has seeped from between clenched teeth. I've also known its cooling touch restoring the scorched recesses of of my burnt psyche like a mountain cataract flooding a septic city alley. Seeing its power I have thought to hold it in my hands like a tool at my will's disposal only to find it pressing upon my upturned palms like the weight of the pages written by heaven's very blood. I turn from tool and page to see the substance of their mettle; the form they aped in mere reflection. I see Him.

It was in fact this revelation that finally brought so much freedom to my life. The revelation that these principles we aspire to are not actually disembodied ideals that we can just pick and prod like produce in the day olds section. We didn't come up with them as a convenient way to structure our societies. No one sat around a fire for dinner only to choke on a bone when the 'aha' moment struck, and they realized that we had been going about this all wrong. Hammurabi may have hammered out his view of the reflection he saw, but if he never knew that it was only a reflection then there stands in the Louvre a sad testament of the blindness that takes us as a species. Just as the other pieces of art testify to our desire to grasp at the dissemination of the visual record of the divine character, so to do our ideas and ideals grasp for the intangible. In the recognition of this there is freedom no lawmaker, nor law keeper will ever attain. You've gotta know the Truth.

Here is the hand that both settles heavy on my shoulder and stays my weary, faltering gait. I realize that I do not wield honesty as a tool any more than I forged the truth of the words I profess to the heavens. Truth is the tool that rings in the quarry of my heart to hew out crack and crevice that the promise of flesh may be seeded. Truth is the tool, the hand, the power, and will. Truth is the very Person. Truth will not relent.

Today I awoke with the smell of fresh quarry dust lingering past the falling curtain of morning dreams. He has struck yet again. He has found a place where I have attempted to find some solace that bears only a resemblance of His beauty. Like a child hiding beneath blankets from the deeper comfort of the parent's countenance while fearful thoughts lock little eyes tight. Safety is felt only in the protection from evil rather than the banishment of its very presence. Like this child I too have found a weak and beggarly principle to pull up over my eyes when the boogyman whispers his dark lies. When all my worth is being held ransom I will reach in my pocket and set my fingers about the one currency my abuser must exchange. I will hold out my work ethic. My silly little patch of blanket that was woven against the very curses this tormentor is hurling even now. A work ethic to tell me I'm not lazy. A reference letter to tell me I'm not that same guy anymore. Not the guy I used to be.

How did that happen? Where did the frail cloth come from? Like the child I have forgotten to ask myself where the bed, blanket, and home came from in the first place. Like the child I hear a gentle voice asking me to come out. Come out not to comfort the worries of the Father, but to allow the child to see the eyes of Love. Come out not to give, but to receive.

I only came by any kind of work ethic in my life because of the continuing promise of Philippians 1:3-6 . It only happened because of Him. Were I to pull away the blanket I would see this. If I were to turn away from the schoolyard bully I would see Him standing with me. I will even turn because of Him.

I guess in the end the Louvre can't be blamed for its beggarly reflections, there's no room in the most lavish hall for anything but reflections. As for me I think I'm gonna step out for some air. Peace.