If you had told me when I was 15 that I would be this person in ten years, I don't think I would've believed you.
In fact, I think my head would've exploded.
Not because I'm any thing grand or significant as far as the world knows. But something has happened to my brain.
I say, sometimes, that I spend a great deal of time at the metaphorical deep end of the pool. I'm almost always spending my time in the deepest, coldest parts of the proverbial sea when most people are perfectly content to float around on the top...maybe letting the water run over their faces once now and again, to keep cool.
I just can't stay up there. And maybe I have just stayed down here too long. Maybe my brain is lacking in proverbial oxygen... whatever that means.
See, I just shoved the words "metaphorical" and "proverbial" along with some huge analogy of my life into a tiny paragraph and quite literally expected you to follow me without a second thought.
There must be something wrong with me.
You know I would work. I would go where you wanted. I would be your voice the very moment you wanted to use me to be heard. I would.
And yet, you calm me in the midst of my terror and angst and say
just
enjoy
me.
I do.
I enjoy you.
And yeah, I'm working on it.
the intensity that people find so exhausting.
the passion that gets so often misinterpreted for anger or cynicism.
the aching in the softest parts of my soul for the sound of your voice in this world.
the tendency to tear up at any mention of your name.
the pain of self analysis.
Righteousness is expensive. And Jesus is demanding.
But it is because He is faithful. He is demanding because I love Him. And the part of me that would ever hold anything from Him intentionally is slowly dying. I will kill her myself. Because I have been made new...as if she never existed.
Either I am completely out of my mind, which is a perfectly logical possibility (at that, it has yet to be disproved or dismissed), or I can see things that matter. Surely, in all these years of organization and governmental hierarchy within what we so quickly call "the Body," someone, somewhere, has seen this. And said to themselves, "What the hell are we thinking?"
This can't be it.
You come here. You come to this ailing, dying planet that you sang into motion and existence. You look us in the eyes and heal our aching bodies. You washed your hands when they got dirty, you felt the scorch of the mid-day sun and thirsted for cold water, you spoke a language with an accent, you hummed or whistled the songs of the angels while our deaf ears sat trying to put you in a tiny, rational box. You show up here to love us in our faces. We could see you. We could touch you. We could smell you when you needed to bathe, we could brush the dust off of your robe when you'd been sitting in the dirt... you were here. You came to be with us. You came to show us how to be at all. Then you came and finished it. Settled the debt, satisfied the wrath, set right the cosmic order of righteousness and justice. And you simply said for us to be witnesses of what we know of you and the God you mysteriously are. You wanted us to just be like you.
And somehow we ended up understanding your commandments and life on this planet to mean we meet together twice a week, pretend we don't have any real gut-wrenchingly humiliating problems, sing a couple songs, listen to a moral story (which, let's face it, is more often than not one of the dumbest things ever allowed to be spoken) and called it participating in "the Body."
In the South (where American culture is backwards and inside out)(not to mention about 6 years behind), it's a social necessity.
just whatever it is you are doing with all of this beating around in my head, it would be awesome if you'd let me know.
Just whenever.
1 comments:
whoa. we are a lot alike.
i spend most of my time down there too. most of the time when i think or write, i can just imagine the blank stares.
how can we not get it after this long?
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