A Girl Called Kelly

Once upon a time....there she was... hair all around...in your face...raw..real...
She was just there..on my landscape... and she took up a lot of space.

Moving from Nova Scotia to British Columbia is not for the faint of heart.
Moving with two boys under the age of 2 is not for the sound of mind.
Who ever said I was sane?
Maybe that's why we get each other so well.
There she was...there I was..there we were..the rest as they say...is history...
Or more like...eternity!

15 years later I am reading her blog Spontaneous Deliberation and I am barely breathing.

Truth teller.
Crusader.
Sojourner.
Prophet.
Friend.

When is it time?
When do we get it.
Life is about telling the truth.
Bringing out our secrets.
Turning on the light.
What are we afraid of?

This is not about a trade off.
We don't keep it all together, maintain our reputations...for God... or each other.
He is not a vending machine.
He is not a gum ball machine.
We can never put in enough coins....
Where do we get the coins anyways?
Counterfeiting is against the law.
We do it all the time.
We make our own currency:

Forgiveness for healing:
a trip down memory lane forgiving 4 that I can remember, for 10 years pain free...please

Tithing for Wealth:
10 % investment for a profit of 300% PLEASE!

Worship for a renewal:
5 songs of intimacy on Sunday morning for a "get out of my depression for a day" card....

I'll have combo 5 please...super sized!

Let me just get my wallet.

God... we have turned you into a drive-thru.

Why don't you just do another Sodom ?
Fire and brimstone anyone?
Re-runs are the thing now-a-days.

What do we think?
He's withholding?
Why?
What can I give him?
To change his mind?

God is not me...he's not us...
He's not on a power trip...trying to make a little profit on the side.
He doesn't need anything else.
He owns all there is.

Our view of God is screwed.

But ... that's never stopped him.

Kelly?

His.

Totally.


I see things.

All the time.

I know that I know that in spite of all my crap... he still shows me things from his point of view.
It's like I am standing with my face right in his and the deeper I look into his eyes, the more I see from his perspective.

Kelly.

I can barely breathe when I think of how he sees her.

Beautiful.

CAPTIVATING.

Passionate.

ReAl....real.. r E a L

Her limitations. Facts. Have no bearing on the truth of who she is.
Her humanity. Fact. Has no influence on his design....
His commitment to her remains.
He is undaunted.
His lavish love overcomes.
...she lives...and moves and has her existence in LOVE.

Love NEVER fails.

Never.

Fails.

Us.

Even if we think we are failing him.

The two are mutually exclusive.

Kelly?

She's my hero.

And I can hear her laughter, all the way over here in snowy, cold Manitoba....

She's my girl.

Hanging by a Moment

It's that time of day.

Actually, when I think about it both 3am and 3pm have a lot in common...in the winter at least.

At 3am, the night is spent yet still hangs on for dear life as if threatening to stay forever, refusing to relinquish itself to the dawn... refusing to give way to the rising sun...
...but the dawn will not be vanquished...it cannot be held back.

At 3pm...especially in the winter...it feels like the day is spent....evening approaches as the sun seems to struggle to remain above the horizon, but the dark encroaches from the east ever advancing...as the light ever retreats to the western horizon.

The same goes for the tides..and the seasons.

Enacted in amazing imagery all around us is the dance of death and life.
Light warring with dark.
Winter with Spring.
Summer with Autumn.
Birthing with dying.
The past with the future.
Day with night.

Life is amazing..full of second chances.
Chances to get it right.
Chances to regroup.
Chances to reform.
Chances to reclaim.
Chances to renew.

The cycle continues.

The cycle can take years.
Or weeks.
Or a day.
Or a moment.

a moment

yes

Eternity can be captured in a moment in time.

I had such a moment today.

In that moment something shifted.

I have no words to tell you why, or how.

It was unsought.
It was unearned.
I was unprepared.
I am forever changed.

It's that simple.
That easy.

It is.

I realize that as a performance driven individual I miss so many of these moments.
My reason gets in the way.
My intellect obscures.
My pride prevents.

Winter is a great month for introspection....but even that can get in the way.
Self interpretation...still focuses on self.

I am realizing that in the flow of life more is accomplished in me when my focus is not on me.

More is accomplished through me as well.

The big picture is comprised of a million little pitures.

Life is composed of millions of moments...eternity filled moments

Believe.

Let it be.

Enjoy your moments.

They are larger on the inside than they appear.

My God...Your God

These days my inner life resembles a battlefield.
My mind is constantly under assault.
Old habits die hard.
Old enemies, a familiar presence, entertained with a twisted sort of intimacy.

I feel like Much Afraid on her journey to the High Places(Hinds Feet on High Places) as she stares at the path in front of her that leads into the desert....this is not what you promised...this path cannot lead to your promises! The Shepherd asks her to trust him implicitly even when it looks like he is lying.

My problem is not so much that I think God is lying.
It lies in the fact that my definition, my persepctive, my portrait, of God... is twisted and distorted.

Re-building the fire each morning is a job I enjoy.
The coals can be tiny and hidden among the mounds of ash....but it only takes a few and a breath of air to bring the fire back to conflagration.
As I add kindling and breathe on the coals and pull out the damper to allow more air in, the fire leaps into being again. The difference between the winking embers and the roaring blaze is less than half a minute.
Food for thought!
Daily.
My despair can melt away in the face of such imagery.
Breath of God breathe on me.

Recently I realized that the coals in my heart were burned down to almost nothing, and that a cycle was emerging: Inspiration, passion,waiting, hope,wearying and despair.

Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.

What was missing is: ACTION

Why?
It is killing me.
Slowly but surely.
This cycle is chronic. terminal. fatal.

This morning before the fire I realized why.

The fault lies with the God I serve.

Shocked?
Please don't call.
I haven't fallen off the edge quite yet.

Repeat.
The fault lies with the God I serve.

Kim Clement has a book: Call Me Crazy But I'm Hearing God.
He talks in this book about the difference between God's intentions and his actions.

Intentions.

Actions.

Separate and distinct from one another.

Why?

Why does God not do what he intends?

Because the key to them being one and the same lies with me.

ME

me

mE

Me

Moi.....

It is all about me....Rick Warren was wrong...((grin))

Choice.

I choose.

From the beginning it has always been so.

God intends.....man chooses....God acts.

Confession time.

Today I saw the God I serve.
He is a teacher.
He has a big pen.
He has a big score pad..a big measuring stick....
He doesn't grade on a curve.

I live like I have to measure up.
I perform my heart out for good grades.
I need to make the deans list to be worthy.
I create a series of standards in my own mind... and am immobilized unless they are reached.
The God I serve cannot accept anything less.
Than perfection.

And I am not.

Perfect.

God.

It is so sick and twisted.
It is so arrogant.

I'll allow that God can use anyone else in any form....but me.
See I know me.
I live with me.
I know my humanity.
I am failing.
I am fallen.
I can't get up.
But I try.
On my own.
To be my own savior.

I live guilty. Of underachieving.
I live fearful. Of failure.
I guarantee both.
I choose.

It is never enough.

IT NEEDS TO STOP.

This is my God.

It is NOT God.

Thus are God's intentions thwarted.... in me.
His actions however...bring me round again...back to his intentions....thank God.

He remains constant.
Faithful.
Sacred.
Waiting.
Loving.

I need the furnace of Shadrach..Meshach and Abednego.
I need Daniels's lions den.
I need Paul's Damascus road.

My God is killing me in the name of GOD.

So here I am.
40.
Forty.
Four ZERO.
Yes forty years old!!!!
The New Year approaches with alarming speed.
2008.

I am done. undone.

Will the real God please step forward.

This model is counterfeit.
I surrender it.
Gladly.
With relief.
There will be no more command preformances.
The show is cancelled.
finito.

Repeat: will the real God please step forward.

The God who made me.

He doesn't do bad art.
He doesn't accept the critics reviews.
He uses what he makes.
He loves what he does.
He finishes what he started.

He never FAILS.

my GOD?

Exactly.

He...is all about...me.

The wo-MAN in the Mirror

I write from life.

Difficult not to, when life is just begging to be transcribed.

The good, the bad and the underbelly of life begs to be reiterated, regurgitated and re-constituted into something of value. Something lasting. Something truly beautiful.

Who am I?

The question begs asking from the first moment an infant gazes into the eyes of its parent.
A mother carries a child in her womb, under her heart for nine months.
Simply put: they are one...and yet they are not.

It takes a while for an infant to focus after birth.
Dazed and confused doesn't quite cover it I imagine.

Out of the comforting womb where there were no demands whatsoever, the baby arrives abruptly into a foreign environment. Senses engage. Synapses fire.
The quest for identity begins.

We humans see everything around us as reference points.
Points that tell us where we are, what we are and who we are.

That is that so this must be this..not that.
They are there, and those others are over there...so I must be here.

Navigating life becomes kind of like navigating by the stars.

The problem is...and a big problem it is...

...is that the reference points we use are not fixed.

Not anchored securely.

Not constant.

They are always moving, changing..transforming.

They are unreliable, even at the best of times.

This causes major disasters on the journey of life , as you can well imagine.

Put it into a nautical framework, or an aeronautical framework and watch the flaming infernos fill the seas and skies.

The ancient scriptures tell us that:

"Those who compare themselves, among themselves, are not wise."

And yet we soldier on, plotting our courses by the "stars" in our heavens:

Our parents.
Our siblings.
Our friends.
Our enemies.
Our colleagues.
Our heroes.
Our teachers.
Our selves.

Self discovery is devastating.
Either way.
Discovering strength can devastate excuses.
Discovering limitations can devastate arrogance.
Discovering compassion can devastate ambivalence.
Discovering truth can devastate perspective.

For us it will always be the struggle for self expression, the unveiling of our true selves.
The peeling back of our skins, layers, petals.

C.S Lewis displayed profound wisdom when he described Eustace being freed by Aslan from his Dragon suit.(Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)
Eustace, ( who up until this point had been an arrogant pain in the ass,always complaining or whining and never having a problem recommending himself as an expert on every front to anyone who would listen) has transformed into a dragon and was asked by Aslan if he wanted to be free. Eustace affirms this as his hearts desire and Aslan proceeds to dig in a claw and strip Eustace layer by layer.
The last layer is the most excrutiating... agonizing... and incapacitating, yet it is in that moment that freedom is gained. Eustace is reborn, still retaining some of his aggravating qualities...but reborn none the less.

All that to say this.

We cannot liberate ourselves.

We are never done.

And neither is the person in front of us.

To compare our positions and chart our course from one another is futile and more likely than not to cause a major collision. Our interpretation of information is flawed. We are walking wounded. We need an ever fixed mark from which to navigate.

We need a clear line of vision.
We need a different reflection.

We need our maker.

Self loathing, self hatred, self confidence, self worth.

All generated by self.

All self imposed.

All inherently flawed.

We are visually and physically and spiritually impaired.

If you need assistance press * for more options.

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Eustace saw himself reflected in a pool of water.
He was a dragon.
Aslan saw the boy underneath.
The boy believed Aslan, not his reflection.
He turned from the pool.
Gazed into the face of the Lion.
The reflection changed.

Love is NOT blind... it truly sees... it sees...TRULY!

What do you see?
Where are you looking?
What manner of looking glass do you gaze into?
To whom do you compare?

Mom?
Sister?
Friend?
Yourself as you once were...are now or imagine yourself to be?

Somedays...all I see is the dragon. I can almost smell the smoke.

But I am learning to navigate wisely.
I am learning to gaze into the eyes of my maker and allow him to reflect back to me: his view.

Mine is too subjective.
Too indeterminate.
Too inconstant.

Self discovery is deadly.
Painful.
Liberating.

More and more frequently I am finding my true self mirrored in his eyes.
Authentic.
Whole.
Beautiful.

It is a challenge daily to change my point of view.
It takes incredible effort.
Deliberate actions.
Concrete decisions.

Who am I?

I am who he says.

And I am her NOW and forever.....