Some Things Will Never Get Better. But They Might Get Kissed.

The gospel can be hard as diamond, painful as fire.

God comes, God does the best he can, God gets himself killed.

Of course, we all know he came back, but only to a few people and then he flew away. Some comeback. What's that they say about comedy and tragedy tangled in the same tree?

I labored a long time under the illusion that a faithful life would eventually be rewarded. Disciplines properly followed would yield abundant earthly rewards. Jesus, a good investment.

This isn't true. This is harder than the truth. Cruel even. Because life doesn't bear it out.

I haven't had many prayers answered. I have been hit. Left. Choked. Tricked.
I have lost gifts, humor, money, mind, friends.
I have cheated, stolen, lied, passed out, woken up to pass out again. Misspelled my lover's name.

The truth is this, some things will never come back.
Discipleship may go from dark to dark to death.

We will experience permanent loss in this life, not eventual gain. This is the gospel we have to tell.
None other.

Even God still has his scars. The bloody lamb opens the book.

Grieve. Remember. Tell stories. You can never go back to it. Whatever it was. A tea cup.

                                                                                                                                       A punchline.

                  

                           A father.




Life can be very long. Let yourself be kissed, one night at a time.

Short Thoughts #6: Drinking like a man.

When I was in Chicago I watched a homeless man down the little cup of communion wine like a shot.

Jerk the head back, open the throat, wait for the buzz.

Thank God I have that memory.

What I saw: Blue collar virtue

The young woman at Value Village, a discount store.

She worked fast behind the counter. Like an octopus she hit price keys, answered the phone and bagged items. And all of this with genuine harried kindness. Her hair was falling out of her ponytail and her cheeks were pink. One would think that this was simply good service. We have been trained to see that way. It was more.

It was blessing and tragedy.

The blessing, of course, was her gifts. She was humble. Her speed on the register keyboard, her double bagging, her price checking. Her breathless courtesy. These were profound gifts of hospitality and humility.

She was trying to make her small space more spacious for me, the stranger.

Blue collar virtue.

It's everywhere and usually presumed upon.

The tragedy is that her beauty and youth were getting used up laying out red carpets on dull linoleum floors. To make ends meet.
For me, just another guy.

She should be out there making the world beautiful with her humility and youth. Stringing red ribbon around sharp corners. Christening wooden boats. Throwing clocks off bridges.

I can't wait until the lion lays down with the lamb and we all have enough to eat and gifts can be shed abroad without fear.

Short Thoughts #5: Listening

I have come to believe that listening is an act of spiritual warfare. Who would have guessed?

Old humble ear. A pathway straight to the heart and no one gives you any credit. They all go for the eye or the tongue or the fingers.

Be patient with the little humble ear, friends. It is a strong lover, fierce and wise.

All around, the strangest things are whispering the name of God. Bad drawings, good songs, pebbles falling back into the ocean, lost footballs, the unexpected jump of a tree, every person that you'll meet, kind and mean.

Of course, we all know this. But it's the forgetting that gets us. This war has been going on a long time.

Don't fret. Cynicism and shame are burned up in the fire of one open and listening heart.

However, I have also learned that listening gets harder and harder the more I commit to doing it. It feels kind of like playing an instrument, skills are bought with sweat, but the best stuff comes after long practice. When I can just let myself go. When I surrender to the absurd hope that all things eventually lead to beauty kissing justice. In front of everyone.

Home.

It can be a long 'eventually'. Longer than the best marriage. Hard, too.

The world is full of stopped up ears. Pray for mercy, listen. It is an abomination to evil that one fragile soul would stop, shift and peer into the underbrush, listening like a kind hunter, for the breath of another fragile soul.

There is music everywhere. Be brave.

Short Thoughts #4: Reality Show Drugs

I, too, have crunked to reality shows. The postmodern colosseum. Daughters and sons that I barely know embroiled in quickly digestible drama. But good drama is never quickly digestible.

I watch them and train my teeth for biting.

This one’s a bitch, that one’s a hero.

Or borderline. Or narcissistic. Or selfish.

And all the while my soul is practicing how to kill with words and find enemies.

My own prayer for mercy forgotten.

How do I stop network editors from becoming my spiritual advisors? How do I resist the urge to hate and label the adolescent adults splayed out across my screen? Vain and bearing, as much as anyone, the image of God.

Short Thoughts #3: Fashion(chr)ista

I think that fashion can be a grace of Christ. I know the difficulties with this. I believe it nonetheless. Fashion can be a invitation to wear something of our secret names right on the skin. Something crazy, something subtle. Holy curtains over holy bodies. 

Ah, this life!  A million ways to say a single name. A place to see and be seen.

       Evil fights hard against this delight (as it does all delights). We get seduced into wearing logos. We are shamed and give in to trends. We get scared to show skin and curve. 

We begin to think size matters. 

We stop being the odd beautiful amateur artists of the body that we know ourselves to be. 

        Or evil simply takes the clothes altogether. (Did you think the only tragedy was exposure to the elements?)

Like I said, I know the difficulties with this idea. 

However, here we are in a time when one exuberant outfit can wake up a world.

Short Thoughts #2: When You're Poor

When you're poor you have to live like

       you're rich one day at a time.

Short Thoughts #1: Baptism

To me baptism is like a wedding ring.

It doesn't mean that much

until you need it to.