Friday, June 01, 2007
We Do It
"What are We going to do about it?" Jesus asks. It takes time for me to get used to the idea of having help. What a radical concept. I'm not alone in this?
Of course, there's a funny aspect to this. Jesus accepts me as I am, as no one else has ever done, and yet his very presence in my life is the cause of change. Just by being who He is. Sunlight on the little plant inevitably causes growth. When identity comes from an unswerving commitment to avoiding the world's traps and distractions, change is a real threat. So many want to dissolve my thoughts, erode my resolve, assign me to their belief systems. The attack started when I was young and never let up.
Well, actually it did let up but it's very hard to get out of that old way of seeing. The attack could come at any time.
God is the very embodiment of the ultimate attack. What is the Holy Spirit in my heart if not the greatest danger of brainwashing I've ever faced? He could make me think anything He wanted to. I'm a mouse before the locomotive, defiantly waving a tiny fist, staunch defender of a kingdom that is, although nearly uninhabitable, mine.
Well, somehow God wants to make the kingdom no less mine but also His. Thousands of years of tradition say there is no God, at least not in the real day-to-day sense. If there is a God, He can't be bothered with one person's feelings.
But what is life if not feelings? We are of a piece, memory, intellect, emotion. We talk of muscle memory in the allowable devotion to physical prowess but what of spirit-memory? You walk past the houses of devotion to Elephant-as-Partial-Idea and eventually get to the ones who've given up and say the Elephant died some years back. The idea is foundational. You don't have to look too deeply into the houses of the partial idea to see the base layer is the same: We ascribe words to the Elephant but we no longer expect Him to wrap his trunk around us.
Well, remember John. Reclining against Jesus' very real chest. Fishermen deflected from a life on the water to a life on the land.
Of course, there's a funny aspect to this. Jesus accepts me as I am, as no one else has ever done, and yet his very presence in my life is the cause of change. Just by being who He is. Sunlight on the little plant inevitably causes growth. When identity comes from an unswerving commitment to avoiding the world's traps and distractions, change is a real threat. So many want to dissolve my thoughts, erode my resolve, assign me to their belief systems. The attack started when I was young and never let up.
Well, actually it did let up but it's very hard to get out of that old way of seeing. The attack could come at any time.
God is the very embodiment of the ultimate attack. What is the Holy Spirit in my heart if not the greatest danger of brainwashing I've ever faced? He could make me think anything He wanted to. I'm a mouse before the locomotive, defiantly waving a tiny fist, staunch defender of a kingdom that is, although nearly uninhabitable, mine.
Well, somehow God wants to make the kingdom no less mine but also His. Thousands of years of tradition say there is no God, at least not in the real day-to-day sense. If there is a God, He can't be bothered with one person's feelings.
But what is life if not feelings? We are of a piece, memory, intellect, emotion. We talk of muscle memory in the allowable devotion to physical prowess but what of spirit-memory? You walk past the houses of devotion to Elephant-as-Partial-Idea and eventually get to the ones who've given up and say the Elephant died some years back. The idea is foundational. You don't have to look too deeply into the houses of the partial idea to see the base layer is the same: We ascribe words to the Elephant but we no longer expect Him to wrap his trunk around us.
Well, remember John. Reclining against Jesus' very real chest. Fishermen deflected from a life on the water to a life on the land.
# posted by Larry @ 06:45 
