Our Greatest Wound

Brother and Sisters,

I will not lie to you this post was prompted by my reflections on Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer. I have read this book a number of times over the past 4 years and the last chapter is the sharpest blade to have cut into my pride save the scriptures. Needless to say I recommend the book to all of you and as a bonus it is only 100 pages long! Seriously though you should consider reading it.

Now where were we?

Loneliness ah yes!

Loneliness will always find us. Our days can be plagued with attempts at quelling the lonely reality we inhabit. Maybe we call, text, refresh facebook, or plan hours and hours of experiences with friends. Fellowship is good, but it cannot overcome our loneliness. At some point we all must face a lonely hour, maybe this has not happened to you. Let me share with you part of mine.

One year ago I lived off campus with three close friends. The house we rented was large enough for four to comfortably inhabit. We cooked, cleaned, sang, worked, lounged, and lived basically together. In that house there were more hours spent together (with at least one other housemate) than there were hours spent in solitude. That solitude inevitably came though and with it came the brunt of my loneliness.

In that solitude came self-worth issues, and even tears. You see I have a knack for over-thinking in my loneliness I became my only topic. Those doubts you have of yourself are quite loud in the silence of loneliness. Hours feel like days and you are exhausted when they are over.

Why not go find someone or something to fill those hours of solitude Vince? You may be asking this question by now, and believe me when I say I asked that question constantly. For a while I told myself it was not a big deal to be the only one home. Later I learned that it was a small part of my role in for the house and my housemates. Being the first one home meant I could make sure the door was opened for my brothers. It is what we do with the reality of our loneliness that matters.

Maybe you still deny loneliness convincing yourself that you really only need that perfect man or woman to like you to no longer feel this nagging pest. Maybe you think you only need to pray more. Maybe you think if you were busier you'd be happier and less lonely. Read this next statement carefully. Loneliness is guaranteed to us until God's redemption is fully realized.

In our loneliness we come face to face with ourselves. Our vices, virtues, past, present, and the unsure future. It is frightening to see it all walk before you like that. We have a hope though. A hope that our loneliness can be redeemed not into some pity party, but that God can heal us and others by it.

As Henri Nouwen put it our loneliness gives us the ability to withdraw from a space of ours and let others enter and make of it what they can. We give space to others to explore and learn. We don't have to be addressed to know that we are loved. You see, because at the end of your loneliness you will find that Jesus is there. He smiles and embraces you then sends you out with his love.

So go.
Go tell of your loneliness.
Go tell of your sins.
Tell of your pride and arrogance.
Tell of your hope and love.
Tell of your Lord.
Then withdraw and wait and see what comes to the Lord.

Blessings

Small Perspective

These are a collection of writings that I first wrote down between 2 and 5 years ago.

I pray they do for you what they have done for me both now and then.

Obsession

Starts small and insignificant.
Dwell upon it for a while.
Leave it and let it grow.
Come back to it and enjoy it some more.
Subconsciously try and attain your obsession.
Wake up and be captured by it.
Dwell on it until it become viable.
Consciously try to attain it.
Sell out to have your obsession.
View time as your enemy.
Attain your desire.
Find a new desire.

Obsession is a vicious cycle of misplaced love.

What love does to you.

Love commands you! It takes you by your ankles and swings you around and then holds you there for a while. Yes at times you may get sick. Sometimes love is quiet and waits for you to make a move. God is love but love is not God all of the time. Love is timeless and yet always in the present. The most unusual attribute we can put to love is its universality. When God takes your heart you will be shaped to be more like Christ. This to me says you will begin to love those on the fringe. It is not a love born out of sympathy, but it is a love that simply loves the person for who they are. God's grace is sufficient enough for all that accept Him as Lord. The question remains can we as believers show God's love in our actions?

Honesty

Honesty can explain your first thought with tact. Brutality is blunt and hurtful. Honesty builds trust in a relationship. Brutality shatters a part of the relationship. With trust comes a sense of peace and a foundation for love to grow. Wisdom comes from the honest thinker/leader/doer. A wise person knows enough to know that knowing is not enough. It is true that works will not save us from hell, but what is this life really for? Life is to honor God in honest worship of our loving God. We will not always get it right. However we must remember that we are examples and are the salt and light of this world. Let's bring the good out to love and honor our God. Let us thank him for his grace with our works. Let us start with love and honesty.

Beauty

We are bombarded with images of pseudo beauty. We are so battered by this bombardmwnt that we mistake glamour (beauty's twice removed cousin) for true beauty. Beauty is not simply form, like glamour is. Beauty is more about the function and purpose of a person or thing and based on how well that person or thing fits and thrives. When that person fits and thrives beauty is most fully seen. The sad story is beauty is largely ignored. We say things like, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." We make beauty relative to ourselves. I believe beauty is, and the beholders out there are for the most part blind to it. Beauty is not a scantly clad cheerleader to be gawked at. No, beauty is so much more than that. Beauty is a 50th anniversary surrounded by children and grandchildren. Beauty is saying everything without opening your mouth. Beauty is stepping out of the spotlight to wipe the tears from your friend's eyes. Beauty is the cross and the rolled back stone. Beauty fits.

You are beautiful.

An Ode to all those

To you who will never be in the history books and even to those who are, may we never forget the one who strengthens us.

To you who weep, may you find solace in a friend.
To you who fight, may you cease to hate.
To you who are indifferent, may you be moved to passionate living.
To you who gripe about insignificant matters, may you construct a significant solution to share with all.
To you who wander this world, may you find peace every night.
To you who are too small, may that never stop you from achieving your dreams.
To you who already follow Christ, may you draw nearer to him each day.
To you in authority, may you  always remember your responsibility.
To you who suffers, may you never forget Him who suffered first.

A Personal Aside

Commonly, people assume I am tired. It must be something in my eyes. Sure from time to time they are right, but usually not. I carry my internal dialogue externally. That's good if it is recognized for what it is. Maybe I need to let people in more than I am now. Lord I ask that you provide time and relationships in my life to address this weariness I carry. All this in your name.
   Amen

Enough of the Noise

Connect.
I am unlimited.

These are two mantras used by a new advertisement selling me a cellphone and a data plan to go with it. People want and need connection. To know and feel wanted and loved. Whether you are introverted or extroverted is not the issue here. We are all of us wired for relationship. Our most prized inventions of the age are geared towards creating connections. This keyboard, screen, server, and software all work together so that my small voice might have a place on this great public forum known as the internet. A series of lights, sounds, and code all go into making what I want to say legible to a wide audience of which you are included. Strange isn't it? You may not know who I am or what I look like but we have achieved something together be it small and mostly one-sided (granted you could leave a comment at the end and we could see what happens? I leave that up to you).

My goal with this blog is to get beyond just surface talk. In the past year or so I have had a rocky experience with technology. I logged off of facebook for about two or three months last year and then went to work in a National Park for three more months which habituated me to phone calls and snail mail it was glorious! Having now been back in the land of wifi waves and colorful pixels I've been experiencing withdrawal effects. Friends, don't post on my wall or allow me to passively tell you how I have been through a few witty status updates. I don't and I won't.

I've known for some time now that I am most myself when my pen is to paper. I like the strain of a long letter on my right hand. It reminds me of the work a relationship takes even in the small acts. I like the smell of the ink. The sound of folding the paper in thirds to fit in the envelope which I taste so slightly that my work might make it to the intended destination unsoiled.

I work on relationships in my life. I am limited in my ability to connect not because I choose to be that way, but because I am simply finite. No phone, computer, or pen will change the fact that I cannot relate to all of you the way we both deserve. I have to choose who I will relate to in time, because I am nothing more than one singular person in one place.

I am trying something new yet old with some of my closest friends. This new practice will continue to grow and mature relationships. To grow and mature in relationships we have to stop asking ourselves what we will get out of a relationship, but how is this relationship changing us. We must contribute a piece of who we are in relationships if there is to be any meaning in it. Failing to do that will simply make us consumers of one another. We will literally suck the life out of one another. I cannot contribute to some forms of communication much anymore, because I resent the ease of it. The ease of facebook erases the joy and pain of relationships. I easily forget the physical distance circumstance has made for me and my friends when I am on facebook. I was not pained by the reality because the reality was I could just stare at their profile picture and remember a few good times we had together and feel as though we got it together. I want to work for my relationships and really feel the pain and joy that comes with them. This has led me to challenge my limited self to connect.

The challenge is to write and connect. This blog is only the surface of what is going on in my head. All of us attempt relationship and want to be wanted by others. Relationship is when a connection between people causes them to change one another. Relationship also highlights who people are already and accentuates the character of everyone involved. Relationship is an amazing force in all of our lives. Are you relating to people? Are you being transformed in your relationships? To what end are these transformations leading both of you? Reflect on these questions. Are you both pained and joyous in your relationships?

I am keeping this blog. I'll be on facebook little. I invite you to connect with one another. I challenge you to value your word and your relationships. I ask that you step away from the pixels now as I prepare to walk away from the keyboard and remember that you and I both have the opportunity to relate to those around us and dear to us. Be present.

Be Blessed  

The first semester of Seminary. We are only getting started people!

Finishing the three hour Church History Final on the eve of your Hebrew Final.



Yeah.

Rejoice for God is with Us!

The cost was counted twice over and the action began.

I choose a life of love and obedience. The questions that brought me to this point were recently raised by my love. I realized that my mind was split between obedience and love. I thought in order to obey the calling on my life I had to sacrifice investing in relationships. I also thought to a point that if I invested in too many relationships too much I'd be unable to obey the call on my life effectively. I went so long thinking this way I became callously miserable. I was busy counting the cost between two things that actually do not compete in the dichotomy I understood.

The answer to this mess I've made is quiet simple. The greatest commandment is to love God with all of who you are and love neighbor as yourself. In the Christian life loving God is as natural as breathing. This love for God has and will call you to obedience. Like Elisha you may be called to heal an enemy (2 Kings 5), maybe you will go before people you love and tell them of a coming calamity like Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1), you could be called lead a numerous people like Moses or Joshua (Exodus 3, Deuteronomy 34), you may find yourself leading your family to the unknown like Abraham (Genesis 17) you may face giants like Joshua or David (Numbers 13, 1 Samuel 17), regardless of what you are specifically called to do at any given moment you are called to do this in love.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge; and have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not love, it profits me nothing. ----1 Corinthians 13:1-3

All of the acts of faith that you or I could do in obedience amount to noise without love. You and I could have such a fearless faith that the mountains are removed leaving a gash deeper than the Grand Canyon, but if there is no love to and from us, we amount to nothing. I could sacrifice all of me, but without love the flames profit me nothing.  I could spend decades obeying God to the word but if I have not love it is all emptiness. A void of action. A black-hole faith that consumes me and all those around me until I collapse on myself.

It is shocking how quickly we can hurt one another if we do not love and obey God. All of our relationships and the actions therein can only be couched in God if we expect life out of them. To place myself outside of the love of God is to certainly die. To love God is to be found in hope. A sure hope.

Therefore being justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through who we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we  stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. ----Romans 5:1-5 

Friends, we have been called to love. We have been called to love God. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We are patient because he first shows patience. We love, because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

Love and serve God and you will find yourself loving the work of Him who created. You will learn to love others as yourself.

We love, because He first loved us.

Blessings