Truth and Meaning

It's been a while.
Blogging is good for the soul but there are times when even I...
yes I...
am so far deep in the muck that breathing is the only landscape.
Face down.
Planted.
Full length.
I guess it's better than 6 feet under looking up at the dirt... pushin daisies...
But some days I am not too sure.
This emotional... feeling... experiencing... life...
is at times beyond expression... and the pain is soul deep.
Inescapable.

What is the truth?
Where is the meaning?

Am reading a book.
Again.

"Searching For God Know's What " by Donald Miller, who is also the author of " Blue Like Jazz" and " To Own a Dragon". ( fantastic reads all around)

Among other things he talks about how we have reduced the bible to a Self Help Manual or a treatise on right and wrong. We have systematically created lists and systematically go about checking them off.

Really.
Just think about it.
God has somehow become like Santa... he's making a list and checkin it twice.
Naughty?
Nice?
Check your list of do's and don'ts for the day.
Do pray.
Don't yell at your kids.
Do go to church.
Don't steal.
Do honor your parents.
Don't kill.
Do... don't ... do... don't
They did.... ooops..naughty naughty...
I didn't... way to go.... two thumbs up....
They bad.
Me good.
Me right.
Them...wrong.

Check the list.
See?

What if you made a list of the physical features of your lover? Your parents? Your best friend?

Brown hair.
Green Eyes.
Slim build. Small feet.
Long Eyelashes.
Narrow waist.
Full lips.
High cheek bones.
Long legs.

What if you carried it around with you everywhere you went.

It is all true.

But has no meaning.

Separate from relationship.

Miller talks about how we have managed to separate truth from meaning.
What is the purpose of truth?
What is the purpose of the Bible?
What is the meaning of it all?
What are we missing?
What am I missing?
He goes on to speculate about what drives us and I think he hits the nail on the head.

We are desperate for something to give us meaning.
We search for it every second of the day.
We seek it out in our family, friends, co-workers, classmates.
Our religions.
We try to find it in our gifts, talents and percieved strengths.
We try to avoid it in our weaknesses and failings... obsessions and appetites.
We whisper it in the dark and scream it in the car on the way to church.
We wear it... read it... record it... watch it... advertise it.... hide it.... broadcast it
We collect it around the watercooler...
Gather it in our bank accounts.
Document it in our preformance reviews.

Someone tell me again who I am.

It's why we work so hard to make the rules... keep the rules or break the rules.

The problem is... it never lasts.

Human love...value... definitions... must be given over and over and over...
They are incapable of satisfying.

Think about it.

Telling someone you love them once is never enough.
Hugging someone.
Praising someone.
Encouraging someone.
Sexual satisfaction.
Emotional satisfaction.
Physical satisfaction.

These are vessels that constantly need topping up.

Why?

Can it be as Miller puts it that we need to look through the truth to find the meaning?

Was this what was lost in Eden?

Were we separated from what gave us meaning?

Are we so deep into self-help...self-worth...self-esteem... that we can't get it?

a painting does not give itself worth.
a pottery urn doesn't assign itself value.
a crystal vase does not fill itself.
a rare orchid cannot give itself it's rare status.
a diamond has no capacity to define itself.

A husband is incapable of bringing meaning to his wife.
A child has no power to establish worth to its parents.
A father is powerless to bestow value on his children.

I cannot give myself meaning.
Thus....
I cannot deprive myself of worth or value if I cannot bestow it in the first place.

So.

If I cannot give it.
I cannot take it away.

I am not a list.

What if it is all about relationship?
All of it.
What if it is all about restored realtionship?
What was lost.
Is lost no longer.

What if God.
Who gives all things meaning.
With intent.
Has always.
Eternally.
Been about.
This.

Love.

Meaning.

Us.
HIM.

Together.

No wonder when Paul wrote the " Love chapter" in his letter to the Corinthians of the day, he said it was possible to understand all mysteries and have all knowledge.... and be without love.... and it was all nothing!

Getting it right and knowing true things was not what it was all about.
Truth without meaning reduces everthing to a list.

You have to look through the truth to the meaning behind it.

What am I searching for?

Someone to tell me who I am.
Cause I can't.
Neither can my husband, my children, my family, my friends, my enemies...
No one.

It is only the One who made me that has the power to explain me..to give me meaning.

God.

I pray a lot.

I have to.

It seems like my whole life has become a prayer.

It's not about self help.
It's not about fixing the messes.
It's not about understanding everything.

It's about meaning....

try it.

You just might find yourself for the first time.

The Truth about Juanita

Noah.

I have been thinking about Noah lately.

And Elijah.

And David.

And Gideon.

But primarily Noah and Elijah.

I am reading this book.

I am always reading a book.

((((side note)))

Those of you who know me well know that beside my bed is a stack of books overflowing and sprawling on, under and around my bedside table.

The library .

I love it.

Seriously.

I get books out and can't even read them all.

I get them out because I can.

I plan to read them all at some point in my life.

But just having the ability to request them and have them arrive...wow!

Picking them up and stacking them beside my bed..knowing that somehow they will impact my life...they are like good friends...provoking friends...but friends none the less.

I love the possibilities.

Libraries.

And second hand book stores.

Rapture. Divine. Euphoria.

ok..moving right along.

This book: GOD.COM (James Langteaux)

It gives me goosebumps...

total wreckage.

You know that statement in that movie..with that guy who married Katie Holmes..you know..the one where he is that soldier..lawyer person..who is defending two young soldiers and he is questioning that other famous guy..who played in one of the Batman movies..you know...ummm...Jack Nicholson... who has this line that is now famous and is overused by many guys when facing down the women in their lives:

the line that goes:

" You want the truth???? You can't handle the truth!!!!!!"

Well.

I am starting to believe him.

Not only can't I handle the truth.

I am not quite sure if I can tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth...even to myself.

See... I am too attached.

To my family.

To my friends.

To my comforts.

To my reputation.

To myself.

Hence my focus on Noah.

One against the entire world.

ENTIRE.

Complete.

Total.

Today that would be 1:6billion.

And I hate it when the dog doesn't like me.

This book has me over a barrel.

It is all about believing....what we believe about ourselves..and God.

And it is honest.

Brutally honest.

Uncomfortably honest.

ShOcKiNgLy HoNeSt.

Convictingly honest.

DAMN HONEST.

deadly honest

It is killing me.

It is resurrecting me.

God cannot inhabit a lie.

I have discovered many lies rooted within me.

established.

flourishing.

reproducing.

They are lies about me.

They are lies about God.

A friend called today and read me a quote from another great book: Irresistable Revolution.

We got talking some more and he asked: but how do we do it???

How do we reconcile this and merge this with what we are already doing?

This is an age of remodeling and renovating.

We can totally gut a house and leave the foundation and frame intact and renovate almost anything.

Rarely is there total demolition...

A complete removal.

Hence my focus on Elijah.

On the mountain.

With the bad dudes.

All the other prophets of the MOST HIGH had already been slaughtered.

Not good odds.

Builds an altar to re-establish the foundations of Israel in the face of their years of Baal worship.

( at this time the lines between the Israelites and worshipers of Baal were blurred)

Stands there while gallons of water are poured on the altar and the wood and the sacrifice until the water fills the trench around the whole thing.

When the fire comes...nothing is left standing...not even the stones.

This is where the truth about Juanita comes into play.

I make sacrifices.

I throw my sins on the altar.

I offer up many things to God.

I make sure the fire doesn't get out of hand.

I wear oven mitts.

I don't want to be demolished.

Undone.

Consumed.

Unmade.

I don't like dying.

Death by fire..... is not my cup of tea as my youngest would put it.

I like mergers.

Blending.

Creaming ingredients together.

Shading..

You get the picture.

The guy in God.com puts forth the idea that we CANNOT give up our idols independently.

We are too firmly attached.

They have their claws deeply embedded in us ...but we have our arms wrapped just as tightly around them.

Both idols and idol worshipers belong on the altar.

Total consummation.

Total wreckage.

See...

I am an eternal soul.

I emerge from the firestorm.

I stand amid the ashes.

Undone.

Remade.

Reclaimed.

Again.

and Again.

If I limit myself. I limit God.

This is not a merger.

This is a total consummation.

The truth about Juanita is: God knows the truth about me and for me to hide behind my wishes about myself...my beliefs...my gifts..my callings.. my roles..my faith....to hold onto MY LIFE... is not living at all.

No more...

My focus is shifting: from others ((the other 5 billion 999 million and so on others))....from myself... to the ONE..the only ONE...

Who IS truth.

Who does LOVE.

Who does KNOW.

I want to want to risk it all.

The truth about me is that I have always been his... human...broken...questioning...avoiding..hiding..running...

The truth about me is that HE has always been mine... waiting..watching..knowing...redeeming..loving

The truth about me is that I need the truth of who GOD really is to set me free...

and knowing it...

believing it...

walking it out...

is the only freedom there is.

I want to be free in-DEED.

I want the TRUTH...I was made for the TRUTH...

I can handle it Jack.

Environmental Change....

I have four sons.
Ranging in age from 12-17.
You do the math.

Ok...if you hate math and you just entered a black hole of inadequacy,
I'll do it for you:
We had four kids in a five year span.

Let's pause for a moment and let that sink in.

I can actually say those figures out loud now and not twitch.

Not much.

My 14 year old just spent 45 required minutes on the exercise bike.
The timer shrieks through the house and he bounces off and starts running from the living room..through the family room, up the stairs, through the kitchen, down the hall to the den and back again, pausing only to declare that he feels like he can run faster now and sets off to prove his analysis.

I know the feeling.
After 45 minutes on the bike, upon standing, my legs feel light.
This is the feeling you get when you've been at sea....from what I hear.
My experience at sea is limited to the ferry trips between Nova Scotia and PEI, before they built the bridge and the trip across the strait between Vancouver and Victoria.

I think I'll write a book.

Yeah well...I know some sailors...
hmmm....
Moving on...

(((grin)))

Coming back to land after months at sea, sailors must regain their "land legs."
Heading out to sea after shore leave they must get their " sea legs" back.

ewwwww...

Kind of sounds like there are vaults of lower extremities stored somewhere convenient in the bowels of the ship.
Would make a good CSI show if you ask me.

Coming out of one environment into another requires a period of adjustment.
The effects of being immersed in a specific environment carries over into a new environment until the body relearns or assumes new knowledge to sustain it.
Case in point: the staggering walk of a person who has been at sea for a long period...or the reverse.

Balance.
Realignment.
Leveling.

Habits acquired in one environment, necessary for survival are not necessarily transferable to another environment.

We all have environments we grew up in, moved out into...married into...divorced out of...applied for...studied in...work in...fell into...and some were inadvertently visited upon us...

Some good.
Some great.
Some not so.
Some beautiful.
Some liberating.
Some ugly.
Some fascinating.
Some captivating.
Some painful
Some deadly.

Planned and unplanned.
Some we have Chosen. Created.

Others were Inflicted.

Some we bask in.
Some we are still ensnared in.
Some we have escaped.

All influencing.
Impacting.

Environments change like seasons.
Pass like storms.
Thaw like winter into spring.

We carry over residue from one to the next.
Like sailors needing to regain their land legs.

I have people in my life who are staggering out of one environment into another.

Staggering.

Me too.

M e T o o...as in also....as well...moi aussi....


It's not all bad.
There are many rooms inside me filled with different pressure systems...different environments.
Music and laughter seep out from under the door of one room, while tears and groans filter down the hall from another.
We are multi faceted human beings...
Joyous and grieving.
Loving and hating.
Complex and simple.


It's ok.

We are under the watchful care of One who is the Master of Inconvenient TRUTH.
He is the highroller in the Environmental LOBBY.
He doesn't recycle:
He RE-MAKES...
RENEWS
and RESTORES...
He RECLAIMS what has always been HIS.

me.
you..
us....
ALL of us...

even them...

you know them...

...the ones staggering around bumping into us and bruising us
...and sometimes even knocking us down.

The ones with their own environmental woes....

them too...

I am never going into environmental law.

But I have decided..If I can hug a tree..save a penguin...a seal or a rare double striped twickerdoodle...

Then when someone in environmental chaos emerges...
...and it may be me staggering onto your horizon someday....
I want to do what I see my Father doing...
and put on an extra layer of grace...
a blanket of compassion...
and a helmet...with high speed connection to my Father's voice...

Just in case the first two get a bit shredded.

Cause I know me.

And sometimes that truth is DAMN inconvenient.