Frame 1:
I am a firm believer that God comes to us in ways that are unique and specific to us; ways that make our knowing the divine voice easier, clearer. Like many others, I have found God and grace more deeply in the basement of churches than in the sanctuary, experiencing radical grace surrounded by the salty saints who claim the title of ‘grateful recovering alcoholic.’ I have seen and felt God’s movements in subtle and not so subtle ways through the words and lives of men and women who are being transformed through the stories and struggles of sobriety.
Hearing and seeing God’s movement in those spaces has been one of the most powerful spiritual movements of my life.
God comes to each and every one of us in personal ways I am convinced for one reason: God longs for relationship with us and through us. And when God does come to us we are asked to follow in ways that are inviting, safe, and ever deepening. But far too often, I confuse “inviting and safe” with certainty and being comfortable. In my mind, certainty is a form of arrogance that stagnates my spiritual journey, closing me off to the essential ingredients of an earthy Journey: awe, wonder and curiosity.
Jesus said we are to come to him if we are burdened and weary, afraid and sacred. Far too often, I have seen and experience people (who in the name of God) wrought fear and terror, telling me of a God I should more fear than adore.
It seems however, that Jesus always points us to a God who is so much more than we could ever fathom or were taught. And I am not speaking of the “more” of addiction, that shrill voice that screams out like the Black Flag song, “Gimme, gimme, gimme. I need some more. Gimme, gimme, gimme…don’t ask what for!”
No, I am talking of the more of abundance – of joy, of embracing all of life, more of God. We are called to let God have more of us day by day, hour by hour so that we can co-create a life that is way beyond what we ever thought possible or imagined.
God always calls us deeper, always calls us to more, and always I believe to that one end of being in deeper relationship with us.
Frame 2:
I wonder often why I write. I mean, I know I write because I need it and it’s a conversation I am having with God that is being overheard and documented. It is also a conversation with myself as I wander and fumble for clarity and healing.
But who cares? Who really cares what I have to say? Just today (January 13, 2015) there will be more than 1.8 million blog posts, so why in the hell would I think that anyone really cares what this little peanut has to say?
The truth is no one does.
I say that not in self pity or false modesty, but in clarity. At the end of the day it truly does not matter if anyone cares what I have to write or my perspectives on God and the like. I write because I must. I write because most of what is coming from my finger tips are the very things I am struggling and striving to believe, hash out, understand, and live out. Most of the time I do not write from a place of clarity or the comfort of 20/20 hindsight; most of the time I am in the muck, somewhere betwixt and between the already, the not yet, the maybe-never-will-be and the Eternal. Truth is most of the time I am writing I am in the dark; I rarely write when I am basking in the brilliance of it all sad to say.
And out that darkness hopefully comes some glimmer of light, some knowledge that maybe, just maybe, I am on the write, oops, I mean right path. I write because maybe just maybe I can be of service and live out my calling of helping people grow spiritually. And that is my calling – growing spiritually and helping others to do the same. I have known that for decades. I’ve also run from it as well.
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