Together

I love Together. I hate Together. I love the part where we all look out for one another, have campy sing alongs, and help each other bring in the fire wood. I hate Together when I'm cleaning out the refrigerator and other people are catching up on Netflix, Twitter, or Facebook. Truth be told, I pretty much hate everyone and everything then. Together is complicated.

I'm in no way shape or form ready to think big thoughts this morning. I'm a fractured and fragmented thing today. Pulled in a dozen directions and having difficulty finding my voice. And somehow, all of a sudden, that makes me feel more Christlike than expected. Everyone pushing and pulling at him to be who and what they needed, and him just moving along, hearing something else entirely. He was much better at standing his ground though. I'm a stick in a rushing river.

As a child, I was taught that Jesus was G-d Incarnate, born knowing his whole purpose. This isn't strictly scriptural, but it turns out to be the sort of thing one can make so if they pull the quotes. I don't know though. Every other Biblical  hero was called by called. Tapped. A regular, ordinary person stepping into being holding sacred space for the Living God. Hands and feet. It's out of character for Jesus to be the exception.

I wonder if the last boy Jesus story is him, forgotten in the Temple(Luke 2:41-52), spouting off quotes and chatting up the elders is because that's the last time the elders felt they knew where he was headed. He was Containable. Manageable. Together.

And then nothing for a long time. As an adult, I've read a lot more speculation on exactly where and what Jesus was doing during this time. And I still don't know. Wherever and whatever it was, I know he fell down a rabbit hole too. Because it seems like one minute, he was holding up a few thousand years of tradition, giving the adults warm fuzzies, and the next he was being run out of his home town (Luke4:29). Despite the miracles and good works, they decided he was just a little too out there. He wasn't Together their way. Evidently, together their way wasn't enough for a full life though.

I like to think Jesus took all those traditions and meditations, all the thoughts of G-d, kept aside for him by Holy men and women, ordinary saints, and nurtured by that same G-d, and it took him to a vision he couldn't shake. Together.

A living banquet then and now.
Community. And to do that, we've got to be both Insignificant and Expansive. We've got to move over and make room. Pull chairs to the table for unexpected and uninvited guests. We've got to see the burdens that our brothers and sisters are carrying and grab an end.  If we're buckling under the weight, we've got to be able to say enough and know someone else steps up. That wherever we are and whatever we've got, its enough. Together.

Together runs counter to American push of isolation and competition. Competition, isolation, and structure didn't save Ancient Israel, and it won't save us. Together. Because life is too hard for anything else.

Sanctuary

  I turned 40 this year. This means it's been almost 10 years since I started this blog. It turns out, I  know both less, and more, than when I started. I expect that to be even more true 10 years hence.
I figure I've spent about 70,000 hours living inside my head and working out my musings. Sorting. Sifting.

The world seems less black and white, shiftier. Not in a bad way---an I can't trust anything way, but in a maybe I don't see and know as much as I thought way. I don't care about being right as much as I used to, but still enough to get in the way of good relations. Pretty much every day as it turns out, so let that color how you take the rest of this I guess. I'm working this out the best I can, and it's messy.

It's been said that in Medieval times, anyone on the run, in need, or in defeat, could take refuge in a church and be treated with care. They would be offered Sanctuary. I need that to be true. Desperately. Church as a refuge. A place to lay down and be at peace. To catch a breath. To be.

It feels like that got lost in translation somewhere. It could have been, but never was. It was, but now it's not. Except, every once in a while, I see glimpses that keep me in the game. Like finding afour leaf clover. My granny once found one; so did my daughter. Not me though. Yet I keep looking because I know it can happen.

I do see Holiness. I have seen love; safety, and resurrection. Not all the time, but enough to keep my going. Like skipping rocks. Or a song played just so.  I also see the bickering, the exclusion, the need to be gatekeeper, to define G-d for the one who said they were nameless and undefinable. Perhaps the local churches are hemorrhaging not because of watered down teaching, lax believers, or secret sin. What if one of the primary purposes of the church was to be Sanctuary? To provide grace in a graceless world. To BE Bread and Wine for the needy. What if, having no desire to live out the invitation to restore, we are instead picking one another off slowly? We are devouring one another in righteousness.

I don't know if we can't get there because we don't want it, or if we're scared we can't afford it. It's no secret the mainstream US churches are dying. I'm grieving, but not surprised. I'm too old to choose oppression and guilt. It seems the antithesis to the Gospel. Trust me, I keep trying though. It's hard to shake off the need to fix and convince. I need the church, the supposed Bride of Christ to be the sanctuary of the broken. I need it to link arms with me and say let's fill the house. I need it to help me be the man Jesus was. Sanctuary. Healer. Friend. Savior even. Because when you have nothing left, and there's only one way shining light, you follow that light. G-d help me.

Life can be brutal. Without extravagant grace, without refuge, the Church is just like every other striving place that pushes and pulls us into something and someone we were never meant to be. It's holding up a false idol. It's Big Church and a little sanctuary.  It's hard for me to believe that's rest David sung about. It's even harder to believe that's the Good News for which Jesus was willing to die. There's a whole world that wants to tell us how to be better. How to fit in. How to prove our worth. That's nothing new.

A G-d who doesn't say I'll love you better when, or if? A G-d who says, "Come in. You look like you've had enough. Like you could use a break. Or catch your breath. Or dance. Or be."
Now that seems like a message that could be enough to lead a body right to exile and punishment.
A Golgotha kind of place.

I used to think I wanted to be a preacher. It turns out I'm ok to be a door holder. Maybe a musical door holder. I'm not here to fight, prove or justify right now. I'm here to hold the door, and cry Sanctuary. For myself and all those who wander in.  Because, heaven help me, I have scars, and I need to catch a breath.

On letting go

  I wouldn't have let go if I'd truly known the cost. Getting rid of stuff wasn't the worst of it, although on a bad day, I'll cry because I left the playset that had harbored a hundred pirates, explorers, and dreamers. I cry for the window that oversaw it all. I'm wistful when I remember how I once had an unshakeable standing in a community that loved me.

  I don't know that there was one moment of abandonment either. More like a slow unraveling of every idea that was precious and true and then realizing they were true and not true. In doing that, I lost my footing. Sometimes, I say I fell down the rabbit hole of grace, and I'm never going back. Because I can't. It turns out my old life is not the safest place for someone like me. I feel like I'm constantly searching for my people, for refuge.

  I am a stranger in a strange land, and on those occasions when someone tells me I am enough, I want to collapse upon them just for a moment. I want to rest. The desire to extend sanctuary compels me to keep unraveling. It's a drug, and I want to give it away.

Reacquainted.

It's been awhile since I came out of the Bat Cave. I'm due for a reintroduction I think. Hello, Self. You look like someone trying to claim their spot in a noisy world. Like someone trying to create and protect sanctuary in a war zone.

Tell me, how's that going? You moved two years ago. You lost your soul almost 4 years ago. And then you found it. Like rip Van Winkle, you woke up and remembered you're still breathing. How awesome.

I love that for you. That you're ok.

Me? I'm not always so sure actually. I'm constantly scrambling and trying to fit everything in. I dream a hundred dreams in a day. I switch between self, mother, lover, warrior, and pilgrim. I try to coalesce them all. As I said, I scramble. But you, I remember you, now. It's good to meet you. Let's see if we can hash some of this out together