reclaim this earth

last night, one of my very intelligent friends explained quantum physics to me. we somehow moved from a discussion of quantum physics to a discussion about how this world is really a dominion for our enemy to pursue us, our brains being the battle ground. someone in the room said something about how everything on this earth, this place that we find our bodies dwelling presently, belongs to the evil one. now, i know from scripture that our adversary "prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (1 Peter 5), but i couldn't help hearing the music of the spheres echoing in my heart...

"this is my Father’s world
and to my listening ears all nature sings
and round me rings the music of the spheres

this is my Father’s world
i rest me in the thought of rocks and trees, of skies and seas
His hand the wonders wrought

this is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise
the morning light, the lily white
declare their Maker’s praise

this is my Father’s world,
He shines in all that’s fair
in rustling grass i hear Him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.

this is my Father’s world
oh let me never forget
that though the wrong seems oh so strong
God is the Ruler yet..."

so whenever the day comes that i can once again go outside without my lungs seizing at every inward breath, i want to be a person who actively reclaims this world back to Him. what can i do in each moment to remember that He is the ruler yet, ever still, and forever... this earth is His kingdom already and not yet come. i want to remember in every sunrise and every crashing wave that He sees this earth, and He sees me. we are the music of the spheres.

out of place

there seems to be a theme in my life lately of feeling out of place. more accurately, i can't find my place. i am so easily persuaded to believe i need something that i don't really need, or that i should be someone i never should be. at some point in my life, i have allowed my identity to be defined by the externals in my life... my friends, my co-workers, my family, everyone except my God. i've become so lazy that it's just easier to let others define me than to do the work of letting my God define me. this has left me at the end of the day without my own place. this has left me with an overwhelming sense of underaccomplishment, and a need for affirmation dangerously close to the boiling point. i have come now to a place where i am unable to believe the affirmation that i do get. i've always wanted to be that person so confident that it's contagious, so strong in self that i don't need or care for others approval. but i am a different tale of mixed contradictions, confident in who others think i am, and yet obsessed with what seem to be my everincreasing weaknesses and lack of identity.

this world will forever define me by what i do. my God defines me by who i am. i have to get back to Him...

are these treadmills reserved for coordinated people only?

i decided to go to gym today, to keep up on my ever-increasing inability to use any of the machines at this gym with any grace or poise whatsoever. so usually i do one of those trendy resistance machines, or i go for a swim (a pool is pretty easy to understand). but i was feeling extra saucy today and decided to go for a run on the treadmill to nowhere . yeah, you can guess that this story is about to go downhill rather rapidly.

all was going perfectly well, i was listening to my del amitri and jogging like any normal person, i think. i mean, what's "normal" jogging? let's face it... if god made us to jog, he would've put tennis shoes on our feet instead of skin, and we would've come standard with sports bras. anyway, i digress...

so i don't have one of those trendy i-pod thingees, or an arm-strapped walk-man. all i gots is my ghetto circa-1998 personal CD player. treadmills don't come with a ghetto personal CD player holder. so i had the CD player delicately balanced on the top of the treadmill. i know, a bad idea in hindsight, but at the time, it seemed an ingenius solution. well, once i started speeding away and running to nowhere at a very intense speed, the CD player lost it's balance and fell. on it's way to the floor, the CD player caught the 'emergency stop cord', which brings the treadmill to a grinding halt with no warning, and sends the jogger directly to the floor in a chin plant. so, this is what proceeded to happen to me. fine. no big deal. honestly, i've done more embarassing things. so i looked at the two incredibly in-shape people on either side of me, the dude to my left was trying to pretend that nothing was going on on my treadmill, and the guy on my right let out a little chuckle. so i leaned over and said "so these treadmills are reserved for coordinated people only, eh?" and he replied "um, not really. they're not that hard". eh hem.

so a few minutes later, yeah. it happened again. the cd player went cliff jumping off the top of the treadmill, pulling the emergency cord, sending me to my face on the convayer-belt-esque treadmill. this time, the dude on my left just walked away and went to another treadmill. the guy on my right said "you really have to stop doing that", in a tone that said "i am waaayyyyy too good-looking and in shape to be working out next to this uncoordinated lady..." i replied "well, i'd stop doing it, if i was doing it on purpose..."

and i kept running.

it's fun to be a klutz.

you can come in

"I went back to St. Andrew about once a month. No one tried to con me into sitting down or staying. I always left before the sermon. I loved singing, even about Jesus, but I just didn't want to be preached at about him. To me, Jesus made about as much sense as Scientology or dowsing. But it was the singing that pulled me in and split me wide open. I could sing better here than I ever had before. As part of these people, even though I stayed in the doorway, I did not recognize my voice or know where it was coming from, but sometimes I felt like I could sing forever. There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food. Something inside me that was stiff and rotting would feel soft and tender. Somehow the singing wore down all the boundaries and distinctions that kept me so isolated...

But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: You let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left...

And one week later, I went back to church, and this time I stayed for the sermon, which I just thought was so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials, but the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or Something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling -- and it washed over me. I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God's own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, 'Fuck it. I quit.' I took a long deep breath and said out loud, 'All right. You can come in.'

So this was my beautiful moment of conversion." - Anne Lamott

there will come a day

"i learned as a child not to trust in my body
i've carried that burden through my life
but there's a day when we all have to be pried loose
if this were the last night of the world
what would I do
what would I do that was different
unless it was champagne with you" - bruce cockburn

"you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
racing around to come up behind you again
the sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
shorter of breath and one day closer to death" - roger waters

why have we always taken such a fatalistic approach... the question is NOT 'if i were to die today'. the question really is 'if I were going to live forever what kind of life would i live'. as if I had eternity to make things right? or as if i had one moment to do this, to love louder and laugh harder... do not choose to "flitter and waste the hours in an off-hand way"...

a choice to love

everyday, i have a choice. once my cold feet hit the floor, i can choose to be a basic human and love myself first, or i can choose to love others first. i awake every morning in the middle of something that has always been going on and will always continue, the Kingdom. i can choose to love. i've been given that choice.

i guess this would apply even before i have injested my needed 2 1/2 cups of coffee. it's hard enough to form consonants before coffee, forget loving others. but i still have that choice.

passionate about nothing

“A friend of mine, a young pastor who recently started a church, talks to me from time to time about the new face of church in America – about the postmodern church. He says that new church will be different from the old one, that we will be relevant to culture and the human struggle. I don’t think any church has ever been relevant to culture, to the human struggle, unless it believed in Jesus and the power of His gospel. If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool Web pages then it is not relevant to culture either. It is just another tool of Satan to get people to be passionate about nothing.” – Donald Miller, from Blue Like Jazz.