tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52877353116115521572024-03-12T22:17:31.612-04:00NOD(ish)s.i.m.p.l.eGregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-12095614203240881632009-07-21T13:34:00.004-04:002009-07-21T14:55:28.873-04:00Questions 1It's semi-annoying and semi-typical that when I sit down to do a little studying, it just never gets done. Honestly, if I want to do work then I either have to lock myself in my room alone or skip town so I can go somewhere nobody will know me. Pish-posh though. It gets done.<div><br /></div><div>So I was reading through the first chapter of Proverbs. Something I've done many times over. Can't really say that I have any new insights to what it all might be saying. Nothing. No new truth. No new facts. No revelation. But what I do have are emotions attached to this passage.</div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe it's the rainy day and the silence it's been dragging me to. All the contemplation, dreariness, blahness, zoning-out-ness, and just dreaming of going out and playing in puddles-ness.</div><div><br /></div><div>Side note to all of this: Why don't we ever let go of the norm, get out from indoors and play ferociously in the rain like when we were little kids? </div><div><br /></div><div>Getting back to the Proverb at hand.</div><div><br /></div><div>Okay, whatever with the reason for the emotions being attached to this passage. But I was reading through it and loads of questions started circling around in my mind. Like, "Why does it seem like there's a limit to God's grace?" "Why will God sit back and let bad things happen to people when they are gleaning for him?" "Why will God mock his people and laugh at their calamity? That just seems mean."</div><div><br /></div><div>And obviously the answers to those questions are right in front of me. Proverbs says that Wisdom was crying aloud in the streets. That she was speaking at the entrance of the city gates. That she was poured out for the people. That she was made known. But no one cared. No one heeded her words. No one answered her cry.</div><div><br /></div><div>The only time people turned to God was in their crisis. He was their scape goat. They only need him on their time. But when all the skies were blue, well, he just wasn't a part of the picture.</div><div><br /></div><div>I can see how God might be put off by that. I would. But still, here I am having been raised thinking that God's grace is endless and Proverbs just isn't telling the same story. Of course his grace is never ending, but if we're in this strange abusive type relationship with the creator of the universe where we use and abuse him on our time, then yeah, I can't imagine his grace would go on forever in that case. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's like, "Well God, we can only be cool with one another when it's convenient for me." "God, sure, provide for me when I carelessly throw my money away. I need you now more than ever." Well, what about that time a few weeks back when you had plenty of money and didn't need help? Was God a part of your life then? You might figure, "Of course he was," but your lack of acknowledgment of him says otherwise. </div><div><br /></div><div>And this is what Proverbs is leading me to think here. We can't just have a relationship with God when it's convenient. But this verse still bothers me. Because there have been plenty of times in my life when I've basically forgotten about God. When I've gone through life dilly-dallying going about my own business not caring an ounce about God. Not praying. Not reading my Bible. Not going to any sort of church meeting however that meeting might look. Not doing anything that is God-related at all.</div><div><br /></div><div>So shouldn't I be cut off when life doesn't go well and I start calling out to God?</div><div><br /></div><div>So it begs the question of, "What does it mean to have a relationship with God?" I mean to ask about the deepest regions of our being having some sort of relationship with God. The places we can't even travel to most of the time because they're so out of reach but somehow God is in touch with them. Make sense? </div><div><br /></div><div>In closing, I can't imagine God just cutting us off if we truly have a relationship with him. But still, what does that relationship mean. I don't know. I think we'll all come up with our own personal answers. So this Proverb is a good reminder to us to keep our relationship with him in check. </div><div><br /></div><div>Don't use and abuse him. That just can't be good to have the God of the universe laughing at your crisis. Not cool. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-3387357356325853412009-02-21T14:25:00.001-05:002009-02-21T14:27:33.132-05:00Day 2: Handbreaths<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">When it rains all the world seems a little smaller.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A little more claustrophobic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Little.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The world shrinks with each raindrop instead of each raindrop shrinking into puddles and oceans and rivers and soaked coats walking around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And we all shy away from the streets and avoid the puddles like the Wicked Witch of the West melting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We don’t enjoy a closet-sized world.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Maybe it’s because we are more apt to notice the world for what the world really is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But what are we focusing on?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There’s a rose sitting on a windowsill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sitting like you and me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Stem for feet bent into the waters like time spent out on a dock not wanting to dive straight in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So we sit there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Swinging feet back and forth, crossed, skimming the water’s surface, barely submerging our toes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s always the shock of the water being too cold even on July’s hundred-degree days.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The world could boil over and we’d still shiver at the thought of diving straight into the pool.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In all her Mother Nature patience the rose waits there, on that old windowsill, for a little light to break from the heavens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She never speaks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She barely moves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She simply remains half sunk in a bottle of water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Her petals could be plucked but I’d still not know if I were in love or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because I don’t think love relies on chance, but nevertheless love is a chance that we must all take at some point in our life.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“She loves me not.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t think that’s true, but I’ll pluck the rose petal anyways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because I’m wanting to get onto the “She loves me” bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I must work through my indecision weighing the pros and cons.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And weighing them so quickly that the list doesn’t amount to much beside the shallow surface of all that I barely know she is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Though what can my lack of knowledge bring?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“She loves me not.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It only furthers my indecision.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Like I’ve come upon a brick wall blocking me from moving forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And that brick wall is an arm’s reach taller than me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I jump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I swing at the ledge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Fingertips clasping a road-rash-capable surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Soon, sure enough, they’ll begin to bleed because I can’t hold myself up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So I fall.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And the wall grows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I walk to the side it extends further.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It won’t allow me to see what’s on the other side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Love is my own Great Wall.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It runs for miles and miles and stretches higher than the heavens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It doesn’t matter how much I struggle to see the other side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Even though I want to know her more, I can’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Phone lines don’t tell me her history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They don’t let me watch her life in rewind, pause, playback again and start at the beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I could call and I could call and I could call, but our conversations always start with “Hellos” like it’s the first time we met and end with “Goodbyes” like we’ll never meet again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then I pluck another, and “She loves me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But the wall is still two feet too high and three feet too wide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can’t see her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can’t know her.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But I can still love her?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Pluck another. Pluck once more.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And soon that rose wouldn’t be that rose in the old windowsill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It would be a stem, a weed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How can we possibly justify taking guesses for what love might bring?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How can we prune the edges of love by chance of “She loves me” or “She loves me not”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Love doesn’t make sense.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But one thing it does, is it waits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It waits for that hole in the sky to appear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For that light to filter through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And luckily, that rose got placed on a windowsill where it can take in what little life it might know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Breathe what stale air there might be with a window closed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Too cold in February.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The wind is dictated by the swing of the front door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Gusts pushed round the room upon entering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But air, regardless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So heart beats and breaths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And petals on stems, in full bloom, breathing it all in.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Behold, you have made my days a few <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>handbreaths...<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Psalm 39:5)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I breathe in the rain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Breathe in the mix of fire chimney smoke, crackling inching embers nearing ends and warming houses along with whisps winds whispering gusting gaining speeds and showing storms in small amounts as though it were flexing.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The world is small when it rains.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So small that Creation’s details are as art in a gallery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>New exhibitions open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No cover charge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just our natural tendency to understand the world a little better when all is boxed up a little more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But that tendency always surprises us like it were a natural responsibility to be more intimately connected with Creation.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And it’s in moments like these, moments when I can’t help but notice a simple rose simply sitting on a windowsill, that I ask my God:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>“O Lord, make me know my end<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and what is the measure of my days;<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>let me know how fleeting I am!<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Behold, you have made my days a few<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>handbreaths,<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and my lifetime is as nothing before <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><i>you.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Surely all mankind stands as a mere<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>breath!<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Psalm 39:4-5)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Because when the world is smaller I tend to be more introspective.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I pray that you evaluate your life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That you see the beauty which may be sitting right behind you on a windowsill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And know that love is a chance worth taking.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then go for a walk in the rain.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And intimately enjoy the world around you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Breathe it all in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Repeat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Do it again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-7239816913763298652009-02-17T20:32:00.005-05:002009-02-17T20:41:02.307-05:00Confession XLXIX<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">The coastal roads dive with the waves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They crash going right and left and this way and that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They merge pavement with light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They blur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Reflector passing onto reflector hinting that there’s a trail, which even leads travelers home in darkness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They follow cliffs and follow stars and cut through February airs with little ease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They drive on with no drivers driving on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And a carousel of lights spins round giants in the air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Zigzagging lights blinking fast and slow depending on a driver’s speed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But speeds are always slow at night.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There’s no rush home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No rush to any destination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Only below 30s mimicking colds and their frozen bogs or what’s left of the skating ice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So pop your collar to hide the chills from your neck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And rewind the song like it’s an old cassette tape so you can hear your favorite lyrics again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then find yourself not in the light anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">She sings while the piano plays.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And you’re struck by the chord.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Staring off to figure out how life as a tire might be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Going round and around, spinning pedals pushing harder to the floor to spinning faster and faster and faster some more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Till you find yourself back in the light.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s like quick glimpses between sun and naught, moon and dark or any apparent opposition.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But you’re drawn to both, like a film that never ceases to reel the picture forward on the screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’re drawn to progression as it swerves and licks the corners of the road making your heart stop when you look down that cliff to the ocean bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And you doze off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And your head nods, neither yes nor no, just the indecision between sleep and wake.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And its accompanying necessity to drive one more mile till whatever destination you have in mind is reached.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s then that you realize you’re playing in a silver screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The kind that continues on after the credits stop rolling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The kind that brings you back home at night imaging the next scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You play it out in your head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You say the lines as your prayers beside your bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Knelt down before your God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Moon through the window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Blinds left open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Eyes shut.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All alone in your room.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mystifying the night like Odyssey’s and Hercules’ and all fantasies from the heavens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You are as Mars fighting for his one love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Battling against armies numbering the sands of Dover Beach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Overwhelmed and at your last edge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ocean foam circling your feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Coursing tides molding your last steps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Fighting cowardice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Fighting your heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Fighting all of life just to stay alive.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You cycle through every emotion till all escapes you, till you find yourself gazing into flashing reflectors outlining the column you drive in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They blink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And blink.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Blink, blink with less pause.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The lights above flash, blurry flashes, like old cameras leaving smoke residue in the air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Foggy photos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Moments caught slow but continuous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You string them together like pulling elastics over the tops of each telephone pole making some geometric shape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But be careful how far you stretch the elastic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It might break.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Snap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Shoot the moon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And make the coastal drive home that much more memorable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Will you really remember this moment?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Or will you just stay lost in it?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately we don’t last that long when it comes to holding time in an hourglass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because even hourglasses constantly drip sand for sand grains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One after the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Slipping faster than second for second, counting the most miniscule of time increments like a second is the smallest conceivable idea for time we understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I drove that coastal road home last night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I caressed every curve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I jump-roped the hills and broke keeping from losing control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Driving down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Driving down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Down in and out of light and dark then back and forth till I noticed the reel as a series of still photographs strung together in some purposeful way.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And sometimes the purpose doesn’t matter because you’re not focused on the still frames.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’re looking at the moving picture as a whole.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Trying to figure out the grand scope of your life as you drift in and out of the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But it’s not even the understanding of life that we’re concerned with.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We merely enjoy the moment for the moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And we drive on our way for another twenty minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And we let ourselves get carried away as our body directs us home taking the same roads we always take home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s like we’re a passenger even though we’re driving the car.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So we’re able to stare out the windshield and see a never dying horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Able to hear the crashing waves ‘gainst distant stone throws for old old giants skipping boulders on the water and counting the number of skips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We’re able to enjoy the simple of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The little that God might grant us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But that little is quite enough.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Better is the little that the righteous has<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>than the abundance of many wicked.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Psalm 37:16)</p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-26989861039881347372009-02-15T21:23:00.001-05:002009-02-15T21:25:47.896-05:00Confession XLXVIII<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Tie your shoelace.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sit down.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Stare at a sunset.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let twelve o’clock be your new start.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Run as fast as you can as fast as you can as the world spins swirl wind-whirl passing stars on both sides upside-down right-side of the sidewalk out of the water whistle fall gallons upon gallons of rain collected storms and sunshine and picturesque models for life all strained through the same heavens into two-eye sight looking glass; it’s all about perspective.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I went for a walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Out back in the woods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Walked on the last snows Christmastime left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Slipped on the ice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Caught my breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Fell down a hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Kept my step.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And regained my walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Out back in the woods.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I went alone. Left because I couldn’t let the day pass without experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Experiencing the day for all its fullness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or its full-of-potential, if you look at it that way since its fullness depends on your meeting the day to experience such magnitude, weight, burdens, relief; the day holds so much, but it’s what we’re looking for that we’ll get.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I went looking for God.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I went to places I’d never been before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Walked steps I never stepped before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Left my house a way I never left before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t afford myself the freedom to be random enough of the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I play by schedules and routine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s always an underlying agenda to the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s never just me and the day like we’re two separate entities meeting up to complete what is only natural: living.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Wash your hands.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Turn on the radio.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hide under the covers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Stop to breathe.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Today I went to stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I sat on a boulder set off the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The sun glared in my eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As I looked around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Breathtaking.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Wonderful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Broken brush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Old trees folded like linens, but not with as much care.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Dead grey branches flung flopped over more like laundry still in its basket after a wash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The wind never moved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Planes in the distance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Engines sputtering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Cold on my neck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not cold enough to see my breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Button up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Take a step.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Climb a hill.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Find yourself miles from home.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And call it your home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And find that you’re always at home.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And let life live as it was born to live: limitless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Without bounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No fences.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No borders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Die when you’re seventy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Feel alive the moment before you die.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Realize your heartbeat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Realize your breath-beat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Realize the sun beating down.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Realize beading rain on rainy days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Realize beating your lethargy will wake you up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Realize “hellos” and “goodbyes” as a never-ending cycle to your moving on, growing up, gaining wisdom, insights, knowledge, acknowledging that life continues even when you don’t continue on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So stop a while.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Do something you’ve never done.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Check the box marked “Not Ordinary.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And see what you’ve signed up for.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">Commit your way to the Lord;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>trust in him, and he will act.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">(Psalm 37:5)</span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes life doesn’t look the way you wanted it to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Let me rephrase that by saying <i>most</i><span style="font-style:normal"> of the time life doesn’t look the way you wanted it to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But one thing is for sure: if we give over our everyday to the Lord, he will remain faithful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Today I took a walk out back in the woods and returned home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It wasn’t normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And it was new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I needed a change in life and that change was a dirt road right behind where I sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s always been there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I just never ventured out back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We need to come to the point in life where we are aware of our surroundings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And if we are not aware, then we need to adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We need to explore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not for the mere sake of becoming aware, but for the simple fact that as human beings breathing some possible seventy year life, we need to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And how can we ever truly live if we don’t change the rhythm of –</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Untie your shoelace,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Stand up,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Walk into the sun –</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">May you find God in a new way today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And may you change your life if even in the slightest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then may you truly understand what it is to live.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-13888938436533617612009-02-13T17:36:00.001-05:002009-02-13T17:42:48.231-05:00Confession XLXVII<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I did nothing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">[Silence]</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He stood there slumped over.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His trousers rolled half way to his knees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With frail legs for old stumps holding him up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He slouched, bent forward by too many years walking from door to door.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He was no peddler.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No evangelist decked out in shirt and tie going from door to door trying to save a world from fire hell and brimstone.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He belonged out at sea centuries earlier in the hot beating sun chasing after Moby Dick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not in Boston with a chill that licks your skin and makes you squeamish because springtime is tempting, but winter’s still here.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And he belongs better dressed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And housed, yes, I bet he needs a home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>His lack for attire screams street monger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>His rolled up cuffs, his wandering eyes, his confused gait; does he even know where he is?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">[Pause]</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I did nothing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">[End]</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And for a second I think I caught his stare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He noticed that someone was watching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Whether that someone was me or the hundreds of others walking into City Place.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s then that I was judged.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then that I was caught apathetic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then that I was caught indifferent, save my sympathy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then that I was caught in a selfish adultery where I chose to walk through the Starbucks door, buy my black Americano, and proceed to walk away with only one thought in my head:</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Why didn’t I do anything?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">[Silence]</p> <p class="MsoNormal">That man wasn’t there the hours later when I walked back to City Place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe he found the door he was looking for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe he blended into a crowd of the housed and the homeless.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t know where he went, but I know that half a day later I’m still thinking of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’m condemning myself for my pathetic apathy, for my criminal lack of care, for my infidelity with fellow flesh and blood, heart soul mind and God’s beloved; he is just like me, human and loved by God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now why can’t I love him just the same?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You read this and say to me, “No, no you can’t care for everyone in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You can’t worry about every homeless person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You can’t keep letting your heart break over the man sleeping on a street vent to keep warm during December.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You just can’t think on it as much as you do.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“But I did nothing,” I plead and I plead and I regret and I guilt.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And you keep going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You keep telling me, “It doesn’t matter how much you give her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She’ll still be homeless come tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why do you waste such amounts of money of them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You know they’ll buy booze.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You know they’ll go back to drugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You know they won’t get the drive enough to sustain themselves.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You say it like you’re shaking me with a breath pause between each word accentuating your point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You yell at me, but it’s slow yells.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s like your convincing yourself that indifference is the only way to survive a sin-ridden world while you’re trying to convince me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That sometimes you need to turn a blind eye.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And we argue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And we disagree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because, then, why am I a Christian?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">How do I claim Christ as my Savior, Christ as my first love, Christ as my one hope, and then not care for the needy?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">How am I a Christian without displaying Christ’s love for the world?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My sacrifice of a few coins, maybe some bills even, will never compare to Christ’s sacrifice for my life.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Maybe I’m ridiculously extreme in saying that I failed Christ today by not giving to someone in need, but in all honesty, that’s what happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I failed my Lord and Savior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I failed to love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yet, love never fails.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s we, in our display of love or the lack there of, who fail.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Because I did nothing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">[Pause]</p> <p class="MsoNormal">May you love when it is needed to the extent of the need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And may you never stop loving.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them.</i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Acts 3:5)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">[End]</p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-53538719073324220842009-02-10T22:12:00.001-05:002009-02-10T22:14:48.812-05:00Confession XLXVI<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">On nights black as these I wonder how I’ll ever find God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>God way up in the clouds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Gone past Jupiter and all the biggest of stars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Moons orbiting stardust, dus-ting split-second light trafficking from miles away and finding me where I sit.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes light in the darkness are far away stars, but that seems like enough to get me through the night.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can’t imagine constantly living in the light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I mean, that summer daylight, the kind that gives you sunburns even if you’re out for less than an hour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was always the kid who slept with a nightlight when I was younger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know when I kicked that habit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I let go of that safety net.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I couldn’t sleep unless it was completely dark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And now I leave the blinds on my window open because I like the natural nightlights filling my room while I sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I like the thought of being able to find God among the stars right before my eyes shut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Why else are those stars way up there?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If not to let us dream of playing among them?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So I will continue to take liberty and dream of where my God is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dream of finding myself among those stars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Of finding that perpetually perfect life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That life that continually chooses to shine, but only for a certain time after dusk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The kind that masquerades around during the day hiding behind clouds and sun.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The kind that sometimes stumbles out during the last minutes of a sunset as if to say, “This is how life is meant to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Don’t worry.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’ll always have some sort of light to read your books by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No worries, okay?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And it’s those sunset fumblings that usher in a comfort for a night easing itself into another hour of existence.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So how can I not find God among these black-black nights?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, it’s all that we bring into the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s those last minute conversations with an overseas love before she goes to bed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">She let out a sigh and I could hear the letdown in her voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I could hear the way she didn’t feel appreciated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The way she didn’t feel loved.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And she was tired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And she said,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Oh...I guess I won’t be getting any Valentines card this year.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Said it running out of breath.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Depressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Like a sad-ness overcome her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I really had no words to say back to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No way to comfort her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No little white-colored lies because what was the use?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Her card would probably reach her door late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And if I send flowers then they’re not natural.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They’re some reproduced little cyborg monsters for flowers that grow on Dr. Moreau’s island all steroided-up so the arrangement can look exactly how the advertisement posed it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Maybe she was tired, but I thought she was going to cry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thought I could hear the tears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thought I could hear her heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Crying.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">Into your hands I commit my spirit;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>you have redeemed me, O Lord, <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>faithful God.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Psalm 31:5)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But one thing still remains: God is faithful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">Whether we understand God the most when we’re standing in the spotlight of day, floodlight, high-beaming drive-by highway light or whether we understand God the most when the sun’s settled in for a night on the other side of the planet; we still see his illuminating presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We still see his faithfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We still see his redemption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It doesn’t matter if we’re staring into the sun or staring through a pinhole in a wall.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Light will flood in to even the most remote areas of life.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That is why those far away stars at night are enough for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because they’re still a light in the darkness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There’s still light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That’s it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So bring to the night what you will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Bring a love separated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Bring a cancer discovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Bring a great wall blocking your way back home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And bring the everyday emotional ebb and flow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But just know that your God is faithful.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">For he has redeemed you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-15189077445601669922009-02-06T10:33:00.003-05:002009-02-06T10:37:39.202-05:00Confession XLXV<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Have you ever played a song over and over again, till you just smile and want to play it one more time?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s one of those days.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I just keep pressing the back button till the guitar kicks its smooth elegance, then drums with a beat to make all dancing illiterate feet to dance, and lyrics singing “Wash away, wash away the sound of all these sad days, the sound of the wind blowing, say we’ll be here always” (Nizlopi).</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And my beautiful sweetheart ain’t here with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I’d play her this song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And we could sit in my car right before the bay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Watch the waves break from all frozen morning. Watch them through filters of reeds blowing, moving, how can they not be frozen with snow at their feet?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Cold.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Maybe we’d take up the two chairs that are just perched at the edge of the rocks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Stolen from someone’s house like someone had the thought of the world being their house; like God’s creation is the only place to ever live, not houses as we know them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’d sit out in an open-air shelter so wherever we go in life will always be home to us.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So that no matter how far she is from me, she’s still at home when she walks to work, walks out her door, walks anywhere where God has already been.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We’d sit and watch the grey horizon grow dimmer with the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sit and wonder how this far away, this – I can’t picture this future when I’m not with her, but it’s days like these sitting before the bay listening to songs over and over again, play: “Wash away, wash away the sound of all these sad days, the sound of the wind blowing, say we’ll be here always” (Nizlopi).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s times like these that no distance can tear me from her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because... </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>The heavens declare the glory of<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>God,<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>and the sky above proclaims his <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>handiwork.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Psalms 19:1)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s when I’m sitting here, away from all the hustle and bustle of our modern society, that I’m able to see my God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I have the sun breaking snowy clouds and making me squint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When</p><p class="MsoNormal">I stare off and see blues mixed with whites, grays, pales like some kids upstairs had fun out in their winter tundra building castles in the sky, with clouds for sand and sky-sands for pale-formed towers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When I’m able to see the world as still, with trees barely holding on through the winter, but I bet they’re really used to this because it’s nothing out of the ordinary.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I mean – God is still God.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The same God I’m able to enjoy in the most simple way: when I’m sitting cold in my car, playing the same song over and over again singing “Wash away, wash away the sound of all these sad days, the sound of the wind blowing, say we’ll be here always” (Nizlopi).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s the same God who orchestrates life.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">I mean – the every single little minute detail of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The way I notice foot-tread snow with hole for hole leaving evidence of every pedestrian having passed by similar sites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The way my eyes pull together the entire scope of this morning’s reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And how creation acts all of one accord like some secret unheard language whispered from plant to plant, waters to horizon, giving way to miles and miles; she is so many far miles away from me, but this same God is so many more miles far greater than all distance between me and her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because... </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Day to day pours out speech, <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and night to night reveals knowledge.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>There is no speech, nor are there words,<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>whose voice is not heard.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Their voice goes out through all the <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>earth,<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and their words to the end of the<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>world.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">(Psalm 19:2-4)</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I am able to watch the day evolve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Watch God land a group of ducks and stir others to whist and whirl and spin in the air like some carnival ride with no strings attached.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I am able to see God in his perfect nature.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is here in nature that I am comforted about every turmoil, trauma, trial, hardship, longsuffering, anything that really plagues my living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because it’s here that I see God and I keep playing over “Wash away, wash away the sound of all these sad days, the sound of the wind blowing, say we’ll be here always” (Nizlopi).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So today, may you look for God under the heavens and have eyes wide-open to his handiwork.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And may you revel in his glory.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">(...today you are not far from me.)<o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-21400228735622040002009-02-02T23:32:00.001-05:002009-02-02T23:33:20.908-05:00Confession XLXIV<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I sat at water’s edge watching a sunset trapped frozen in waves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Stared through the horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">She sighed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Let out months separated, March May, she came in July and left before August turned October November new year, one year gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Let it all out like depression depressed, unpressed traveling back in time to when they first met.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And all the two years gone became more breath for the wind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Her long sigh ended when she said, “Goodbye love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Come soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Good.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Love -Bye.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There was no trail to her words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The phone cut all ties.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And their separate lives went on separated still.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He knows your going through this great wilderness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These forty years the Lord your God has been with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You have lacked nothing. </i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Deuteronomy 2:7)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">If the world can actually look cold outside, then it’s seemingly cold right now and I’m glad I’m by a fire.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But if the world can look cold for other reasons rather than a wintry cold, then it still looks cold outside.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Cold because a love separated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Cold because she’s not sitting in the next seat at the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Cold because I’m up while she’s sleeping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Cold because – well, because I’m missing her.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And there’s this theme of trust playing out more and more in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This theme of “Yeah, things will get better soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Things will work out soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Things won’t always be gone like phone calls – gone; time together – gone, where holidays aren’t holidays any longer and the everyday of life, love and God are here to stay.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That sort of trust where it’s like, “God, you know I’m always up for a good thrill ride, but what’s with this whole long long line waiting?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And what’s up with those people cutting me in line way up there?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why does that door magically open for them? and I’m here – here, still.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Each one of those questions is rooted in this idea of trusting God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This idea that God has it all sorted so I should just relax.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This idea that God’s in control and I should be happy with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’m not just talking about being happy, contented, or cool with God being in control of one miniscule situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s a matter of constant serenity for life, for situation after situation, for hours of line waiting.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>He knows your going through this great wilderness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These forty years the Lord your God has been with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Deuteronomy 2:7)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">With you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The Lord your God has been with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These forty years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With you. <i>These forty years the Lord your God has been with you.</i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I sat at water’s edge watching the seagulls fly in a roofless shelter. Silent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sunsets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mixing day tonight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And night to moon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Looked at how it all works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How Creation constantly creates recreates, revels marvels, marvelously reminiscing and never missing a key stroke when it comes to progression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I looked through a horizon and knew it works.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">God simply works and we must learn to simply trust in his workings.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>You have lacked nothing.</i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Deuteronomy 2:7)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-24072040213943512362009-01-30T11:34:00.002-05:002009-01-30T11:36:27.651-05:00Confession XLXIII<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen...”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></i><span style="font-style:normal">(Acts 1:24) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m out late at night thinking of her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thinking of when I’ll be back in England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thinking of my two-week home at Drayton Gardens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That view: when the world was fogged over, distant industrial buildings outlined an imaginary castle like fog brings magic and magic brings thoughts of knights saving fair maidens and the fantastic lives just outside plates of glass when clouds fall or when morning dew ascends the heavens or when life is just simple again.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The night’s done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And now there’s a different window to keep me from the fantastic nature of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I wonder how well she sleeps at night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Wonder if it’s as cold there as the snows are piled here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Wonder if the moon hangs its crescent upside down over her latitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Wonder, I wonder how all of this mess for a separation can come together.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Wonder, I wonder do you remember? the heatless nights on the coldest nights where rivers and even moon light froze like lit cigarettes stubbed out under quick walking side walking feet pushed under pavement to soils, center of the earth: nicotine burials.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen...”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></i><span style="font-style:normal">(Acts 1:24)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">For the first time the disciples had no one with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They had no incarnate God in front of their face leading them on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No Son of Man calling them to a new life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No Rabbi teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No All-Knowing Being giving them the answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So they <i>had</i><span style="font-style:normal"> to pray.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“But God, how do I tell her, say to her, “Hey, it’s going to be okay.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No, it’s not like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No, I can’t do that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because God, sometimes I just don’t think that it’s going to work out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because God, I live so many more than 3,000 miles away from her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because God, I haven’t been able to speak to her, call her, phone talks long talks repeating simple “I love you’s” in days now; and You know how we thrive on our communication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>God, how do I do this, this whole long distance relationship preparing for marriage thing?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I say it all tired like.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All strung out of breath.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All gone for words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Seeming like life’s all gone for nothing, there’s nothing like hopelessness stole all of who I once was.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all...” </i><span style="font-style:normal">(Acts 1:24)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all...” </i><span style="font-style:normal">(Acts 1:24) </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>And they prayed <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>and said, <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>“You, <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Lord, <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>who know <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>the hearts of all...”<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">(Acts 1:24)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I get so wrapped up in the imagery in front of my eyes that I can’t see past the fog outside the window.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And that’s what most of life is, a fog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We live from day to day not knowing what the next will bring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And when life is perfect we see all castles and romance like sleeping beauties waking up and damsels being rescued from doorless towers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We don’t remember that the reality is those castles we think we see are not castles; they are smoke stacks and brokendown flats, graffitied busted up roofs and all of the Projects lining what might be coined by most as a sad-sad reality for life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But horizons are never sad because they always lead on into tomorrow, the next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">See, life is not about what we know, it’s about accepting what we don’t know, accepting what we don’t understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We need to come to grips with the fact that we’re completely ignorant of the next second of our life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We seriously don’t know. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ask yourself, honestly sit back right now and contemplate your future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yeah, you might be able to say something like, “Oh, I’m going to graduate from University by the time I’m 22, then I’ll be married within two years of graduating; maybe I’ll have kids when I’m 30; and of course I’ll be minted working on State Street in a window office with my Starbucks coffee in hand and a secretary at my beckoning.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Nice try.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Tell me the plan for your life and I’ll tell you, “Good luck kid.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Don’t read on till you come to terms with your ignorance about the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’m even talking about your <i>immediate</i><span style="font-style:normal"> future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then enjoy the brevity that life brings.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s so completely unnatural for us to say to God, “You know my heart.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because in saying that we claim not to know ourselves as well as an Omnipotent Being does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We admit ignorance even when it comes to the most personal or personal – me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We admit a lack of control over even our own lives – me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And most humbling of all, we let go of all our dignity and ask for help because we’re even saying that we’re incapable of helping ourselves – me. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But we need to come to this point.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We can’t live our life without realizing that the castles are sometimes not castles at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That life is not always beautiful, but that it’s horribly dirty, broken down, graffiti drawn on, messed up in all degrees and so completely confusing; that’s not all.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Knows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hearts.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So may you understand that your Lord knows your heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And may you even admit that because God will show you the next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He will lead you on even though He might not be right in front of your face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He will have life sorted; it’s already sorted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Realize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Relax.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Trust.<o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-46120558161998669462008-11-21T21:14:00.001-05:002008-11-21T21:17:21.470-05:00Confession XLXII<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:24.0pt;font-family:Baskerville">enough</span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:HiraMinPro-W3"> |i</span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Monaco">ˈ</span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:HiraMinPro-W3">n</span><span style="font-size:16.0pt">ə</span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:HiraMinPro-W3">f|</span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville">adjective & pronoun<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville">as much or as many as required <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:LucidaGrande">• </span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville">used to indicate that one is unwilling to tolerate any more of something undesirable <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville">adverb<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville-SemiBold"><b>1 </b></span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville">to the required degree or extent (used after an adjective, adverb, or verb); adequately : </span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville-Italic"><i>before he was old</i></span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville-SemiBoldItalic"><b><i> enough to </i></b></span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville-Italic"><i>shave </i></span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville">| </span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville-Italic"><i>you're not big</i></span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville-SemiBoldItalic"><b><i> enough for </i></b></span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville-Italic"><i>basketball.</i></span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville-SemiBold"><b>2 </b></span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville">to a moderate degree; fairly : </span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville-Italic"><i>he can get there easily enough </i></span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville">| </span><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:Baskerville-Italic"><i>he seems nice enough.</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.</i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Acts 1:12)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My breath is caught in my chest.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>High up in my chest, like I need to yell, scream, shout, rant, rage, run away till I’m out of breath and out of land and out of sight from everything that is me in this world.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to be alone.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The roads are wet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Nighttime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Lights on flashing, spinning going all crazy-like as cars speed through intersections at rush hour home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The weekend, but nothing’s really ending at all; it’s merely all being put on hold for another day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Monday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Two days coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The weekend’s never <i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I would have given anything to be back with my love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To have her in my arms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hold her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But life won’t allow that for me right now, it’s not like that right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I know I’m not the only one.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.</i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Acts 1:12)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Long distance relationships are tough,” she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“They wear on you emotionally. They get under your skin, you know.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I said, “Yeah, I know,” and returned to my work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I said it like some scientific expert on some way too tough to even pronounce disease.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Said it like there was no breath left in me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I didn’t even want to be at work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Said it semi-depressive, but I don’t even know who I can turn to, who I can tell.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Said it like I’ve had <i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The phone calls aren’t good <i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal"> anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For the first time, the letter writing made me sad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The talking online, the emailing, the communication through waves and clouds, oceans and skies, and all that’s in between; it’s just not good </span><i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal"> anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I need to be with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I need to see her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I need her to know that whenever she’s having a “freak-out session” that I am right down the street and will come running to be beside her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I need her to know that we’ll work out fine when it comes to daily life and sharing close quarters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I am miles away, and that’s not good </span><i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.</i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Acts 1:12)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I am not the only one that feels this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m not the only one who’s lost a love to distance and time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m not the only one that’s ever wanted to quit everything so I could go be with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m not the only one who’s felt depressed when I realize the reality of “I can’t.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But then again, what’s holding me back?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Really, I could just drop everything and go be with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I could risk the flight over, risk the detention at Heathrow, risk the interrogation again, risk the 7 hours of sleeping on chairs, and risk the possibility of not being allowed into the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because, when it comes to following love, what is <i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal">?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Maybe the question should be phrased, “What <i>isn’t enough</i><span style="font-style:normal">?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“What am I not giving?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sacrificing?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The question doesn’t include, “What am I called to give?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or, “What’s expected of me?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because love itself, for no other reason, simply loves; it does not expect and it does not have a quota to meet.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, you say to me, “No – I can’t get through this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can’t do this – no, no it’s not me; it’s? It’s way too big for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This whole situation I’m stuck in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This whole life story down in the digs – this thing that is me and around me...I just can’t.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And you say it after you’ve lost all breath like there’s no other way, like you’re actually not getting through it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And for a moment you’ve convinced me that this one time God’s not going to pull through and give you just <i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal"> grace to make it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Because to God, what is <i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal">?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.</i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Acts 1:12)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Even after Christ was taken from the disciples, their first love, their passion, their reason for living – even after all of that was taken, they still went on with life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because Christ himself was not <i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal">, but Christ in this world – well, that’s it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s like, now the disciples weren’t just meant to be with Christ, they were meant to live as Christ did.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They were meant to continue.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And the Sabbath was the beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The washing themselves, the making themselves clean, the removing the evil of their deeds from before their eyes was the start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The ceasing to do evil, but learning good; the seeking justice and correcting oppression; the bringing justice to the fatherless and pleading the widows’ cause – that, that was the very beginning of Christianity (Isaiah 1:16&17).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And today’s Christianity is still not <i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My “Christian walk” is not <i>enough</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m meant to continue even though I’ve seen my love off.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m meant to journey that Sabbath.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m meant to do right by those who’ve been wronged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’m meant to love for no other reason than to love.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I told her, “I love you.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then hung up the phone.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Love itself doesn’t end even though your love’s gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So continue on.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-9274045978749957422008-11-13T17:47:00.001-05:002008-11-13T17:52:09.391-05:00Confession XLXI<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I find myself always thinking of her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe all of this thinking could be coined obsession, but is an obsessive love truly a bad thing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A love that says, “I will always be with you, no matter what, till the end.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A love that says, “Even if you’re thousands of miles away from me, you’ll still be stepping close on my mind and on my heart; I will always be remembering you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A love that says, “ I don’t ever want to leave you.”<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But then that day came.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The drive to the airport should have been never-ending, but it ended all too quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And my love left me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I drove away from her.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?”</i><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Acts 1:10-11)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">If only I could have run after that plane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Stood on the other side of the fence at the end of the runway so maybe she could see me waving goodbye. And I’d stand there till the plane was out of sight so maybe she would be able to look down and see me fade with the distance.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But that only happens in the movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">For those of us who do not live in the movies we must bring our eyes down from our lost loves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We must realize that life doesn’t end in that one moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That the music does not crescendo playing sweet lullabies leaving us lingering in tragic happiness.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>“Why do you stand looking into heaven?”</i><span style="font-style:normal"> (Acts 1:11)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Even in the most unfortunate circumstances, we must move on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m not saying we move on from our love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That we forget our love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That we leave it all behind and act like the past seven months never happened.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes">No, I’m saying we should constantly think on that love knowing that in the end we’ll be re-united.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Knowing that when tomorrow comes we will not be left staring forlornly into the heavens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because if we are caught with our eyes set to where <i>we</i><span style="font-style:normal"> </span><i>think</i><span style="font-style:normal"> we should be, or to who </span><i>we</i><span style="font-style:normal"> </span><i>think</i><span style="font-style:normal"> we should be with, or to how </span><i>we think</i><span style="font-style:normal"> life should be lived then we will miss a God-given reality.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Seriously, the real tragedy is not losing your love, but it’s losing all that your love’s left for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yeah, your love was amazing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She left you wanting more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She gave you the fondest of memories.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She aroused you to live life like tomorrow might never come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She challenged you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She loved you back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was your best friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was more than you could have ever dreamed of.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But wait – wait, why are you still staring into the heavens even though her plane’s no longer over the eastern seaboard?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why aren’t you doing something with life?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why aren’t you preparing for the future?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why aren’t you living out that hope to be back with one another?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">See, we live in an obsessive culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We see what we want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We go crazy saying things like, “I got to have that.” “Bro, doesn’t that blow your mind. I wonder how much it costs.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When someone asks us if we want more or if we want a larger size then bring on the next round because the words “I’ll take it” slide off the tongue so gracefully and easily and so quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And we get what we want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But when we don’t get it, then that’s all we think about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We obsess about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We crave, craze, gaze, wish-for, <i>need</i><span style="font-style:normal">, </span><i>must</i><span style="font-style:normal"> have like “</span><i>must </i><span style="font-style:normal">have” were the last words we knew to say because it comes at the moment when we think we’re completely dehydrated and water is the only thing that will save our life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But that’s only what <i>we</i><span style="font-style:normal"> think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then that’s only what </span><i>we</i><span style="font-style:normal"> do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We’re wrong.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We may think we know what we need, but there is something so much greater than we could have ever imagined out there for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We don’t need to be staring into the heavens, picking out all the constellations, squinting to see the farthest of regions the Universe has to hold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Our world is at our feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Our future is at eye level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And tomorrow is just a reach away.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Tell me that the heavens hold the key to changing the world and I’ll tell you that our Savior God let that key drop, fall to the ground, find it’s way to your stoop, and hid itself under the door step claiming “WELCOME.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So please, go outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Look at that mat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Lift it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Pick up the key.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And change the world.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“WELCOME.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To the reality Jesus left for us.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-1992406133180613792008-11-06T17:51:00.002-05:002008-11-07T11:32:03.462-05:00Confession XLX<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">“I’ll see you sooner than you think.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">She was silent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She barely even looked at me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I’m not sure if she could look at me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It wasn’t because I upset her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It wasn’t any malicious act against me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She just stared out the window and I bet she knew the airport was approaching quickly.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The sunrise was beautiful.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As it aged the horizon kept dropping, but the clouds stayed on one level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There was a clear divide between cloud and sky then sky and horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And the sun shone with all the brilliance of thousands of years of practice.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I have hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’ll see me again in January.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">She looked over not even knowing what to say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>[Silence.]</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I watched my love walk into Terminal E.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I drove away.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or season that the Father has fixed by his own authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”</i><span style="font-style:normal"> (Acts 1:6-8).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know when I’ll see her again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know why it has to be this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know how to change our not being together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I simply don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’ve asked the Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve sought him out for all of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Asked, “Why me God?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why can’t we be together?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why couldn’t I at least live in the same country so maybe I could just walk to her house?”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And it seems as though God’s been silent on the matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or maybe he’s re-focusing my outlook on life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe he’s taking my eyes off my own plight and heartache so that I can see the famous “bigger” picture of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">All too often I get caught up in my own affairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s all about me:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t have enough money to go out tonight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t have enough time to go to the gym.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can’t take two hours out of <i>my</i><span style="font-style:normal"> time to sit down and write or study the Bible.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then I pass the homeless man in Boston.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He asks me for change. And I say, “Sorry, I have no change.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Well, that’s true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But there’s also probably an ATM right around the corner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s probably a McDonald’s, a Tedeschi’s, or any sort of food-carrying store right behind where this homeless man stands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And of course there are American Eagles, Macy’s, H&M’s, J C Penny’s, and plenty of places to buy him a pair of socks, or shoes or even a jacket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><i>But no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can’t give to another human being when he asks me simply for a little change.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And in the end I am appalling.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or season that the Father has fixed by his own authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But...”</i><span style="font-style:normal"> (Acts 1:6-7)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Don’t focus on yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><i>But</i><span style="font-style:normal"> don’t merely concern yourself with your own situations and your own walks in life and your own mistakes and failings and happiness, sadness, hurt, tears, joys, wonderful moments, lasting memories – don’t merely consume yourself with you.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”</i><span style="font-style:normal"> (Acts 1:8).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I couldn’t stop thinking about her as I drove away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I kept wondering when I’d see her again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Kept wondering if this is truly the way it’s meant to be for now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Kept wanting to go back to the airport and stop her from getting on the plane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Wanted to make our goodbye longer so it would never turn into a goodbye.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wanted to be with my love.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s all.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But God immediately took me in another direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He didn’t have to tell me I’d be all right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He didn’t have to tell me everything would work out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because he already did that in the three weeks he gave me to spend with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But he had to tell me to look elsewhere, to look to the ends of the earth.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Just like he took the disciples’ eyes off their passion, he took my eyes off my love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And he placed them on greater things to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He showed me the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He told me I would go out and change the world.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He told me that I had the power to do so because he had given me the power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And he reminded me of his promise to never leave me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes life is way too much to handle and too easily we get caught up in ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But God’s got something so far beyond the magnitude of our troubles and our self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And it seems like the grand scheme of life is to go, and to serve and to simply do.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So may you set your eyes not on yourself, but on others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And may you find that God’s given you the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>All that’s required of you is to do something and to do it for the sole reason that you <i>love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself </i><span style="font-style:normal">(Luke 10:27).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-88374981046775154472008-09-06T15:06:00.002-04:002008-09-06T15:07:55.609-04:00Think<div>Think about this: my life for the Gospel.<br /></div>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-4334429413766293462008-09-02T21:28:00.003-04:002008-09-02T22:00:24.610-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part XIV<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know how I found myself in that detention hall that night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I knew I was going to have some troubles getting through the border, but I didn’t think I was going to be treated like an international criminal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But God had some crazy plan for me through all this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He had his reasons behind allowing me to go through such trials.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Honestly, I don’t know how I came to be in such a predicament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I thought I did everything the right way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I thought I procured all the documents they needed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Thought I proved myself to them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Thought it was going to end up all right in the end.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I mean, I wrote so many letters to the government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There was no way they could turn me away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had everything they needed, or so I thought.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Okay, so my original Volunteer visa was refused because I was missing one single document.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I furnished it later when I sent in my Visitor visa application.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I figured I could just send in those documents and re-apply without actually paying the $220 cost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Figured I could go to England and finish sorting out my immigration troubles with their Home Office.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I wonder if they would believe me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wonder if they would actually realize I just wanted to help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wonder if anyone would understand...</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dear Sir or Madam:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Tonight I am before you to speak to you with urgency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I <i>need</i><span style="font-style:normal"> to tell you a story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s a story of a man who’s been thrown to the side of the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s not one of those Hollywood blockbusters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are no pirates, no knights rescuing their maidens in distress from dragons then gallantly riding off into the sunset; there’s not even any shooting, any guns, any war or anything remotely resembling a pop-culture hit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But this story is about life; it is about the culture we’re immersed in.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And it is sad.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Please promise me you won’t feel guilty after hearing it because those are not my intentions.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I struggle to tell this story, but I know it’s my duty to let the world take a glimpse at a man they pass by every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They don’t even notice – <i>we</i><span style="font-style:normal"> don’t even notice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We skip by him merrily on our own way as he sits out in broad daylight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He sits at the top of Main Street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He sits in a garden, a park the size of a sand trap at a golf course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He owns no luxury of a golfer nor does he even resemble a grounds keeper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yet he keeps a bench for two or three by himself – alone.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He said to him, “What is written in the Law?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How do you read it?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Luke 10: 25-27)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But John’s not our neighbor.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He resides on a bench in Plymouth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He sleeps on the porch of the Church of the Pilgrimage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He uses public toilets for his own privacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He has no home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He is not my neighbor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have no call to love him as myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>None.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I mean, I’m in Middleboro, or you say to me, “Well, I live in Carver.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or “I’m from Lakeville.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“You know, it takes me 40 minutes to drive from Brockton.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And still others might travel from even farther away.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Luke 10:30)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Leaving him half dead.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>John sits on that bench with tubes protruding from his nose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They make their way to a green oxygen tank that he wheels around wherever he goes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tubes that allow him to breathe, but not <i>our</i><span style="font-style:normal"> air.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><i>Our</i><span style="font-style:normal"> air is too good for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><i>Our</i><span style="font-style:normal"> air is free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><i>Our</i><span style="font-style:normal"> air is something that we don’t think about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The God of the universe has given us breath for life and we don’t even think about the gallons of oxygen we hoard every single moment of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s not even every single waking moment; it is </span><i>every</i><span style="font-style:normal"> moment including our dreams, when we sleep, and when we are ignorant of what’s going on in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We breathe the breath of Yahweh.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">Some pronounce the name ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Yahveh,’ although in many traditions the name isn’t even pronounced, because it’s considered so sacred, so mysterious, so holy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In fact, the ancient rabbis believed that these letters actually functioned kind of as vowels in the Hebrew language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They believed that they were kind of breathing sounds and that ultimately the name is simply unpronounceable because the letters together are essentially the sound of breathing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Rob Bell)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You see – John collapsed in my store over two years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hands shaking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Never steadying, though you could see he tried to hold his coffee and not spill it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then he sat down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sat down like a normal customer with a normal job and a normal place to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was normal till the coffee went splashing to the ground like waves over a levy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And his drink beat him to the floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The table rocked back and forth, metal screeching on wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>John didn’t get up.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Those moments were like a reel of film caught on its slowest gear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The scenes played back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Repeated over and over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But John still lay on the floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The ambulance was called.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We tried to get him up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tried to pick him up and put him back in the chair.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was a mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Luke 10:31)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I passed by John the other day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I like to call him Old Man John.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He gave me that same smile he always gives me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I don’t know how he still has the will to smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t know how he can smile given the circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe he smiles knowing he beat cancer two years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Knowing that even though the doctors told him he’d only live up to another six months, he got to prove them wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or maybe it’s the simple reason that I visited him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That I stopped to sit next to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That I didn’t pass him by, but I’m most likely not even one percent of the world he sees everyday.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Luke 10:32)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">All too often I don’t give the homeless a second thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t give another human being room to dwell in my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I just don’t think about him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But homelessness is not a cause, it is a people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And this group of people is compiled of individuals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And these individuals are just like you and me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The only difference is they’ve fallen on tough times.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Being poor means being an illness, an accident, or a paycheck away from living on the streets” (NCH).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">John’s lived on the streets for the past two years since he collapsed in Kiskadee that day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He’s fought cancer and won, even though he still smokes a butt every now and then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He still smiles every time I wave at him, or bring him company, or buy him a coffee with loads of room for cream and sugar like he’s trying to regain some of the sweetness about life in a cup of <i>House Blend</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I don’t think the coffee warms him up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He says he has no feeling left in his hands, that’s why he never takes the sleeve for the cup.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think he drinks it for the satisfaction of feeling normal again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Feeling like he’s actually a part of society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Part of the town he helped to build.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The other day he turned to me and said, “I was like you one time – a young 26-year-old coming up in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had a life and a job and a home.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>John eventually had a wife that he loved as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And boys that he fathered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He said, “You know, I worked and I worked hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The others were always screwing around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was like life was a competition then.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think John’s still competing for life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Possibly waiting for someone to notice him.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Luke 10:33)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now “Compassion” as defined by the Oxford American Dictionaries is “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings and misfortunes of others.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That definition mentions nothing about the homeless.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It doesn’t mention foreigners.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It doesn’t mention anyone who could possibly be grouped as someone different from our-self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It merely says “the sufferings and misfortunes or <i>others</i><span style="font-style:normal">.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Those others include John.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They include the man who fell among robbers and was then stripped and beaten till he was nearly dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Those others mean you and me at a time when we may fall by the wayside, maybe even into a place where people just pass us by on the other side of the road.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had <i>compassion</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Luke 10:33, emphasis added)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the Latin that word “compassion” or “compati” means to “suffer with.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You see – John always sits to the left side of the bench.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I guess he keeps that extra space open for others to sit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But no one’s going to sit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No one ever takes up the offer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To the world he’s another homeless man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He’s just one of approximately 750,000 men, women, and children who on any given night are homeless in the US (National Alliance to End Homelessness).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To us, he’s the less fortunate, the beggar even though he never asks for a dime; he’s the man who can’t breathe for himself, who has tubes for extra facial features, who’s losing hair all matted in clumps underneath that old baseball cap of his, which looks more like an American turban falling apart at the seams; he’s that man whose stomach is bloated because an ulcer is ripping at his insides; and he’s that man who, no matter how hard he worked in the past, is still homeless tonight.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And somehow, he can manage a smile.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To me, John is a statue on that Plymouth bench.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>John is the reminder of the life I lead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And he is a reminder of the life God’s made me to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because God – the God of the summer that’s gone, of all the good times we’ve had at the beach with our friends, of all of our laughter and those times we will never forget, and of the adventure that comes when we run wild into the ocean on that first hot day in June is the God who’s still at play in John’s life even as he’s finding it tough to tread the waters he ventured into.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And that same God prompts us to ask the question, “Well, who actually is my neighbor?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But figuring out who is your neighbor, is only the first step.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We then have to love our neighbor.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">But a Samaritan as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring oil and wine.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(Luke 10:33-35)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You see – love is continual.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s the type of love that says, “Okay, so this guy is a complete stranger to me, and he’s not looking so hot.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wonder if I should help?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I’d say that most of us get to that point where we question what we should do, if we should do anything at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But God’s prompting us to take it one step farther.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>God’s saying, “Yeah, he is a stranger to you, but don’t leave him that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Give him all I’ve given you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Love with what little love you might have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You’ll still have me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ll always be here for you, but now it’s <i>your</i><span style="font-style:normal"> turn to be there for that man who’s struggling to stay above the waves of life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Don’t worry, I’m with you on this one.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Henry Alden, an early 20<sup>th</sup> century journalist for <u>Harper Magazine</u>, put it this way: </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">Even His Almightiness is eclipsed by His All-lovingness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He is the father, and we are to recognise Him as such, chiefly in that we love all men as brethren.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He ministers unto us and not we unto Him; we serve Him only in serving all men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In loving his brother whom he hath seen, man loves God whom he hath not seen.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The loving human fellowship is the real diving communion...In loving one another we find God.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Not only do we find God, but we also find life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As Jesus said to the lawyer earlier in verse 28, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was referring to first loving God and then showing that same love to your neighbor.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I realize none of you know Old Man John, but I bet you can think of your own John that you see in the every day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I bet you can find that less fortunate kid at school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe he’s the kid everyone picks on, you know, the less popular kid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or, maybe he’s the most popular kid, but somehow you can see it’s all a facade and that he’s hiding something really personal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It could be the quiet kid sitting in the back of the room not really paying attention to the lesson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It could be anyone really. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">But you have the responsibility to ask the question, “Who is my neighbor?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And then you must act accordingly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because, let me say, the most “recent study, published in 2002, reported there are an estimated 1,682,900 homeless and runaway youth” (NCH).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And “according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, five to seven percent of American youths become homeless in any given year.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The homeless are individuals just like you and me.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You know, I can’t explain homelessness, but that’s not what I’m called to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m called to help – <i>you’re</i><span style="font-style:normal"> called to help, to do something for another, to love your neighbor as yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In this respect, the reasons don’t matter much; it’s what you do to change the situation that matters most.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because you have the ability to help the homeless gain a home, especially youth.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in">Living in shelters or on the streets, unaccompanied homeless youth are at higher risk for physical and sexual assault or abuse and physical illness, including HIV/AIDS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Furthermore, homeless youth are at a higher risk for anxiety disorders, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicide because of increased exposure to violence while living on their own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Overall, homeless youth are also likely to become involved in prostitution, to use and abuse drugs, and to engage in other dangerous and illegal drugs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(National Alliance to End Homelessness)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Do you get it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You have the ability to save a life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And it’s simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It only takes a moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m not downplaying the work that might be involved in bringing aid to someone in need; I’m merely trying to show you that it takes a split-second decision to say, “Hey, I’m going to love on someone else just like God’s done with me.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You will be that Samaritan who showed mercy.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You will be that person who helps a homeless youth out of a shelter because “in 2005, a survey indicated that prior to shelter 79 percent of homeless youth were attending school on a regular basis” (National Alliance to End Homelessness).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You will be there for the 2.5 to 3.5 million people who will live either on the streets or in an emergency shelter over the course of this year (National Alliance to End Homelessness).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You will be that person who fills the empty seat next to John because even the most simple of acts can be a life changing experience for someone else.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And you will love the God of everything you know “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So may you question who you neighbor is, today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And may you not pass him by the next time you see him.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">(Note: This message was shared at Merge Youth Ministries)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-37464890275102409022008-09-02T00:46:00.002-04:002008-09-02T22:01:06.436-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part XIII<p class="MsoNormal">It seems like just yesterday I drove you home from the airport.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I made a playlist on my iPod for you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wanted the ride home to be perfect.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wanted you to have your own soundtrack so you could remember each moment in song.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I waited anxiously in the lobby.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Terminal E.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I got there way too early; I didn’t want to be late.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I forgot flowers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They were at home waiting for you in your soon to be bedroom-for-a-month.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>With a card.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And then there was the story I wrote you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Orange polka dotted journal with poems and dreams and hopes and life and – well, I waited to write, “I Love You” till the very end because that’s the one thing I wanted you to hold onto the most.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It didn’t matter if you forgot the whole story because soon we’d get to make it up as we go.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I always wanted you to keep those words in mind, on heart and hide them deep in your eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No other words would fit.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I waited for months to tell you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I tested the world with those words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I fought to find out if I really meant them; I found it was all true.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I tested them in prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And God gave me more love to give to you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I tested my tongue and kept patience, kept silence; I wouldn’t let love arouse itself before it so desired.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And now I wait again to tell you in person.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“But we have to wait my darling.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My love.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The timing isn’t right for us to be together, walk together side by side and each in hand till...”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved,<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>behold, you are beautiful.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Words seem worthless today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I try calling you, but it fails; you didn’t pick up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wait for you to call; you never called.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I try writing you, but all I write over and over is “I miss you.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And words are worthless because they cannot convey how heartsick I am for you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They cannot show the struggle of being without you but only wanting you – here, with me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They cannot yell as loud as my lungs let loose when I realize I’m here without you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And that realization haunts me every day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot capture your beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot hold your hand for me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot kiss you goodnight.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot wake you up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot tickle you when you’re ticklish after some wine.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot laugh with you and joke with you and poke fun at you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot watch you as you walk up to me – slow motion, near motionless with your dress dancing in a breeze, flowered and summer-sun-lit like you are the main attraction.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot hug you, hold you, squeeze you till you laugh like it’s all a reminder that I’ll never let you go.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot run fingers through your hair.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot make millions of faces at you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot pick you up and swing you around.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot bring you out for dinner.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot walk you home at night.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot listen to you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot lie with you in the sun; try protecting you from sunburns even if Marconi beach burns your bum to the point that you cannot sit down without a blanket.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot carry all of your belongings for you or shoulder your burdens or be there like a friend, one of those friends who stays up with you all night to make sure you dream sweetly even if the next day brings you an excess amount of stress.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot bring you to coffee shops or out for tea.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot pack a picnic, drive to the beach, then sit in the car like its our blanket because we’re acting like the day is perfect even in the rain.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot play truth or dare with you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot play cards with you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot watch movies with you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot nap with you on the couch.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot go for long drives with you, alone on back roads through forests and round the lakes up to <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Maine</st1:place></st1:state> and back again till you get sick of it, but I hope you never get sick of me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot be intimate with you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">They cannot love you like I love you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Behold, you are beautiful, my love,<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>behold, you are beautiful!</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know if you’ve ever been so heartsick that it keeps you awake at night.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Like a restless insomniac.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or like a person who just likes looking at the stars.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I keep the blinds open at night.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sometimes I lay there looking out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Tonight I wandered into a field.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I fled from all the lights.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I traipsed into the unknown till it was me and the heavens shooting their rocks like marbles flaring through the moon’s veil.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I thought of you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">You are altogether beautiful, my love;<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>there is no flaw in you.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I thought maybe I could catch her a star.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But the stars seemed out of reach tonight.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And yet I couldn’t get over the wonder and awe of a God who’s created constellations to connect the dots from adventure to life – a life in the wild in the raw naked sky.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I got lost looking up.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This might sound like gibberish to you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You might say I’m out of my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But when you’re in love there’s nothing else you think about.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You spend your days waiting to go home and see her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You keep spinning your phone in your hand just in case she calls.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You sit down to write her letters but you never finish them because you tell her what you wrote before you send it off.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Love is a continual action, an obsession of sorts, but healthy in every degree.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">You have captivated my heart...<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>you have captivated my heart with<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>one glance of your eyes.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">She told me once, “You can’t help who you fall in love with, but you have to choose what you do about it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I told her I missed her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Said I’d be seeing her soon.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Said I’d bring jewels and wonders from far off lands.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">She laughed and thought I was crazy, but she said, “I love you.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I was content to wait one more day.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">How beautiful is your love...</i></p>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-6748504133226050182008-08-31T22:14:00.001-04:002008-08-31T22:16:00.227-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part XII<p class="MsoNormal">Michael Kane escorted me back to the holding room.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was the longest walk.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, that night all the walks were long.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I kept pushing a trolley, which held what material life I decided to hoard.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When was I going to be there – <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>, you know?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When was I going to arrive at my destination?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Before going into the detention hall I had to get forcefully introduced to a not-so-nice guard.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She was totally in a state that night – that not-wanting-to-be-at-work type state.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, she had to put up with me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The Christian kid who really wasn’t looking for any trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The one who actually only spoke when spoken to.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The one that cooperated during the whole ordeal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The one that was not holding a bomb or any sharp object as one might suspect.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The little Anglo-Indian guard asked me to hold out my arms.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To put them in that “T” position.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe she was measuring the size of the cross I’d have to carry.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t think she realized the cross I already carried.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But to be honest, I don’t think I fully understood the weight of that cross either.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s not like I held the weight of the world on my shoulders.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not like I was shouldering someone else’s burden or like I was shouldering anything for that matter.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My intentions were pure that Monday; I wanted to move to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region> to work in ministry.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wanted to help people.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Choose the humanitarian act over the selfish.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Choose the God who pulls a dark blanket over the twilight sky, but leaves holes for stars so I’m guided on those long walks into tomorrow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I chose that God that night; I chose the love from my youth.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You know – side story – I sat in church today and realized the complete and utter joy of being in God’s presence.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wasn’t the first to realize that ecstasy though.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There was this little boy bobbing up and down in his father’s arms during worship.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The music blasting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Amber singing to a God who weather’s all storms with us, a God who is both the definition of grace and the experience of magnificence; magnificent grace, such unexpected love.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was alone with God in a crowd of people.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Fellowship.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Intimacy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Faithful love.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can’t really explain how God caught my eye in that moment.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or how he focused me on heaven, eternity or even on himself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But this little boy reminded me of the pure untainted never-been-jaded-before pleasure of being with the love of my youth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The boy’s simple smile.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Giggles galore.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Eyes wide open.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Hands bashing and clapping without any rhythm or rhyme or coordination at all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was a sight of pure happiness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I fell in love with my Lord again earlier today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because he showed me the hope for life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I kept eyes wide open to see it all.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Ponder the path of your feet;<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>then all your ways will be sure.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Proverbs 4:26)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">That night back in detention, I never asked anyone where I was going or what was happening to me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It never occurred to me that they’d answer me back.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To me they were machines doing their job.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I guess that’s how I detached myself from the situation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They were simply characters out of Orwell’s <u>1984</u> and I was not at all expecting to disappear into the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Ministry of Love</i> like Syme.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I never disappeared, but everyone else did.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was alone again.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Nervous for the impending decision and thinking about nothing else.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Even though I say I should have had my mind set on God at that point, I think it would have been a bit too overwhelming for me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I mean, how can a person think on the God of completely everything that’s ever existed and does exist and will ever exist while going through complete chaos in a foreign country?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s in this place that I noticed a separation.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I was literally separated from everything that I know.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My telling people prior to my trip, “I’m leaving everything I’ve known for 23 years,” held true during those 36 hours.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had the clothes that were on my back and the prayers that were in my heart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And that’s the second separation: my heart from the rest of me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I prayed because I didn’t know what else to do.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I rocked back and forth like a mental person in a psyche ward.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My hands shook and never steadied.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I couldn’t sit still.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I paced the tiles and with every loop I thought the nightmare would end, that I’d be taken back home like some male version of Dorothy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It never happened.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Each time I turned the same two cups and half eaten sandwich littered the one little table between the chairs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I prayed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I asked God what was going on.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“God, what the hell is going on?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Come on God, let me know something, let me see something; give me something Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m freakin’ out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>God, come on.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Help me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Please.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>God.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And the words just kept shooting off my tongue like chewing tobacco to the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was an addiction of sorts talking to the God who’s overcome the world.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I knew nothing else in those moments except him who saves.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Ponder the path of your feet;<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>then all your ways will be sure.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Proverbs 4:26)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I wasn’t sure what was happening.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why was I alone?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What was God’s purpose for letting me go through this whole thing?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Where was God in all of this?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’d sit frantically, then I’d get up frantically.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe I sound like a skitz or a spatz, some kid on ADD or shooting coke or coming off a high and trying to get sober.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Time never skipped so slow, never dragged so far behind, never breathed a breath like holding it under water and watching the world cough with the waves till your faced swelled a red and you couldn’t hold it any longer – one second.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I wasn’t calm when I was alone.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Ponder the path of your feet;<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>then all your ways will be sure.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Proverbs 4:26)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You know, I found reason to praise God this morning, to return to the love of my youth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve found a reason to praise his name for the past two weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And tomorrow it will most likely be the same story.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because even though I was unsure of life for 36 hours and even though it took me days to adjust back to an American lifestyle, God made all of my ways sure.</p>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-26734983845587015822008-08-30T22:52:00.001-04:002008-08-30T22:54:13.580-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part XI<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor and let non of you devise evil against another in your heart.<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span></i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Zechariah 7:9&10)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Night’s come.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wonder where John is.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I bet he’s sleeping on the porch outside the church.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That means he has to get up early tomorrow; it’s Sunday.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t think he’s the religious type, but he has that exposure every day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I mean, God’s got to see the man.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He’s got to know about Old Man John’s situation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I wonder if anyone else notices him?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All they probably see is some helpless homeless guy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But John’s a fighter and none of them know that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>None of them know that John beat cancer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That he was only meant to live for six months and the doctors said that over two years ago.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">No one knows that he hates breathing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve never met a person that doesn’t like breathing. Someone that actually abhors breathing. Let alone, someone that thinks about breathing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a task for him, a mission.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s nothing that comes natural any more; he lives by the oxygen from a tank.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And he lives by a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">purchased</i> tank of air – John, a poor man having to use his social security check to buy air just so he can breathe when he doesn’t even want to breathe any more.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He purchases the very physical essence life, while it’s free for the rest of us.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">No one should ever have to buy their own air, their own breath, their own life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No one should have to buy their own life from a pharmacy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No – no one should have to buy their own life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No one.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No one should have to buy their own life support.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then live on a bench.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then sleep on a porch.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then have to wait for the public restrooms to open just to excrete what bodily fluids you have left.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I don’t go in public.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There’s something messed up about that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All them kids from the bars piss in the graveyard or in the alleys.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s messed up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You don’t s*** in public,” John sternly told me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I’ll wait.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ll wait till it’s morning and those restrooms over there open.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even if it hurts, I’ll wait.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t know what to say back to that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There was nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I never even thought about the toilet matter before.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It just didn’t occur to me whenever I gave a homeless person some change.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What a simple need.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You know, I take that for granted – going to the bathroom.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My house has 2 ½ baths in it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That means I have three toilets in one house.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>John – John waits on the town.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We’re all the same.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We all have the same needs, but most of us don’t even acknowledge those needs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Right now I’m sitting with a full glass of water.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I’ll probably be running to the toilet soon enough.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I can.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have those facilities at my disposal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You know, I remember having to hold “it” when I was younger.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I remember those infamous family trips.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You know, the ones where you drive for hours on end without ever reaching your destination.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I was totally the kid always complaining, “Are we there yet?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The one that never shuts up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The one that could come up with a million-and-one noises to keep myself occupied.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And “holding my horses” was never fun.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Being patient and waiting for the toilet was literally a pain.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To the point that sometimes we did have to pull over.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s only peeing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s only a simple matter of peeing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But it’s not so simple to John.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Someone who still holds his dignity in life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Someone who knows manners to a certain extent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Someone who knows the difference between defacing a hallowed piece of property with your own fecal matter and respect.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And that someone sleeps on a porch, resides on a bench, and watches the world pass him by while he struggles to breathe taxed air.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve lived 23 years with hardly acknowledging those less fortunate than me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sure, I’ve gone on mission trips to the poorest cities in the world – the City of the Sun built on a dump.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve emptied my pockets for a beggar – another human.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve given to the poor contrite silent man standing outside the Vatican walls with his hat out hoping to hear a clink.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve bought little meals for the poor – bought them waters, and sandwiches and said a quick “God bless you” then moved on with life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve bought the Big Issue they sell so they might have the chance at earning a small living.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ve sat with them before and talked, but only if I knew them like I knew John.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then I’ve called myself a man after God’s own heart.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But there’s still something wrong with this.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The switch in thinking I’m pursuing God while leaving others in the dust.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They’re two different mentalities clashing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <ol style="margin-top:0in" start="1" type="1"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .5in">Pursue God.</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .5in">Give to others.</li></ol> <p class="MsoNormal">Those two walks in life seem like they should be on the same road.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think they are.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">What do you think?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-52456861825233440272008-08-29T13:46:00.002-04:002008-08-29T13:48:27.842-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part X<p class="MsoNormal">Michael Kane took his time with the paperwork.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t know if I was daydreaming or just too overwhelmed, but if you looked at me you’d probably think I was a crash test dummy waiting for the car to hit the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s like those moments when you don’t want to get up in the morning. You keep hitting the snooze button.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A late eight o’clock came way too quick.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Each five minute interval between the hospitalizing beeps you lay there, tossing and turning, struggling with the bed sheets and the sun and finding the right sleep position again – that perfect mold of you in your bed – just so you don’t have to wake up on Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It doesn’t matter what day it is.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is one of those re-occurring, almost ritualistic things you do every morning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I was stuck in that state between sleep and awake.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That state where you’re conscious of everything, but you don’t comprehend it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In a way, that’s almost how we walk around from day to day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yeah, we are conscious of the day and we go through all the motions, but I can’t say for sure that we’re actually living the day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Okay, okay, we’re living; I don’t doubt that, but I think there’s a difference between merely going through the motions – having your heart beat millions of times – and living each second of the day like it’s a new time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">To the pure in heart, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Titus 1:15&16)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I found Old Man John sitting on his bench.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He always sits right at the top of <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Main Street</st1:address></st1:street> in front of the stone church.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A little park the size of a sand trap on a golf course is there.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It has maybe three trees, which are all starting to become burnt from the summer sun.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There are two benches.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>John always sits on the one facing the road.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think he likes to watch the world pass him by like it’s some sort of masochistic routine.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He usually sits to the left side of the bench.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s very inviting, but only if you knew him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If not, he just seems like yet another homeless man.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Just another homeless man with his hair disheveled and falling out from under his baseball cap.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think he’s had the same baseball cap his whole life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It resembles more of an American turban caving in at the seams and flopping over like a rag doll in a little girl’s arms.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He sits there with his stomach bloated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I only thought John put on some weight while he was away on the <st1:place st="on">Cape</st1:place> at the hospital.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But when I was talking with Jaresiah, he told me John had an ulcer that kept expanding and ripping his sides.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Said they can’t operate because he’s not healthy enough.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know how John came to be a statue on that bench – the lonely man with a tank of air always as a companion.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The tubes are merely another part of his body at this point.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And to think, he still smokes a butt every now and then.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He’s still addicted to the one thing that I know helped him come to live on that bench. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You see.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I used to know John as a customer of mine.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I used to serve him his small coffee with plenty of room for cream and milk.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe that was the only way for him to sweeten life a little bit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe life had become too bitter and the black coffee reminded him of that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was always House Blend.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No sleeve; he says there isn’t any feeling left in his hands so it doesn’t matter anyways.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And he’d join the Mensa group like a normal person.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At least, what we think of as normal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You know, a person who brings home a paycheck, has a place to live and goes about life like the rest of us.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s what normal is, right?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You and me, we’re normal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But what about that man begging for change?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What about that drunk stumbling out of a bar right before noontime?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What about that obnoxious kid in school always having to stay after for detention?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or that kid who buys the porn mags?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or that girl everyone calls a whore because we all believe what others say and they say she gets around?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You know, that slut, that prostitute, the killer, murderer, kidnapper, thief, business man, athlete, lawyer, doctor, that person with AIDS, HIV positive, that churchgoer, Jesus lover, that woman sitting across from you on the Tube all dressed in her black hijab, cripple war vet, mentally retarded person, preacher, or that nigger, chink, cracker, red neck, that Bible-basher, gospel singer, Jehovah’s witness walking to your doorstep, or your neighbor; what about anyone you see on any given day, are they normal in your eyes?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">To the pure in heart, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Titus 1:15&16)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I almost passed by John that day and proved the point that he truly was just another person in my eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Someone who I don’t have to say “hello” to even though we both noticed each other.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I couldn’t walk away because I knew he saw me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m not sure if I could even walk away if he didn’t see me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There would still be something in me saying, “Turn around.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Go back to him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Say hi.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At least say hi.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I sat with the man.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I took that inviting seat to watch the world with him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And he told me about everyone he saw.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I saw that guy grow up.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>John was talking about this man who came back from getting his coffee.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A young business-looking man driving a nice Porsche.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“He’s going to own all of Plymouth one day, just like his father.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“John, seems like you know most people in town,” I said to him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Well, that’s what happens when you help to build the place.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You know, I wasn’t always like this.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was like you before – a young 26-year old building these buildings.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had it all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The others f***ed around.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>John was never the best with his words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He always had the tongue of someone who’d seen too many winters out in the cold.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He knew life for what it was, but somehow he still managed to smile.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“But I had it all,” he kept saying.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I dare not ask his definition of life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I didn’t have to; I saw the effects of such a cruel world on him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>How they sent him to the streets.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>How he went from living above the old court house one day, to collapsing before my eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">His hands were shaking that day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He couldn’t even hold his cup of coffee.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And his cough was something I’d never heard before.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Like he was coughing up his insides.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His whole heart trying to escape, gasp for air.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He went to sit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Coffee spilled.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The metal table screeched like it was dragged across the entire floor as it rocked back and forth finding balance.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Next thing you know we were calling for an ambulance.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I never saw what happened.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was more like a reel of film caught on the slowest setting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The point in a movie when everything goes black and white because there’s too much reality to take in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The point when the music builds and builds to a deafening silence.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I saw a movie play in front of me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Reality was too much to handle.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And that’s how it hit me – only as a film.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You see.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My heart breaks for Old Man John.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t know why.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe it’s that he is less fortunate than me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I asked him where he’s sleeping now.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He pointed over to the Church of the Pilgrimage and told me it was on that porch.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Said he was waiting for his social security check to come so he could find a place.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He didn’t want to stay in Plymouth anymore.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But it was nearing 7:00 and I had to get onto work.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He was telling me of this little bird who’d been making its home in a nest above us.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Talked of this bird like it was his best friend.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Couldn’t believe that the other day it had sat there next to me,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And now I found the real reason why he always stayed to one side of the bench.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You know, with this story I’m not saying you should go up to every homeless person in your area and sit a while with him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Talk with him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s more that we should still approach any person as a person, as human.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Okay, so he’s homeless.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He’s a little different from me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Oh well.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He’s still someone who purposefully leaves that extra part of a bench open for someone else to sit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I mean, how pathetic is it that a homeless man is more open to relationship than me, a Christian, a person who’s supposed to be showing the world this great and magnificent life that God provides?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I can’t get over this fact.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I can’t get over the idea that I’m <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">meant</i> to show the light of the world to people, that I’m <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">meant to be</i> that light for them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">meant to be</i> their neighbor.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">meant to love</i> them like I love myself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And what do I do, I have the gall and selfishness to pass by someone who’s probably looking for nothing more than a simple “hello.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We all want to be acknowledged.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We don’t want to be passed by.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We don’t want to be left out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That feeling of being ditched is horrible.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yet I have the choice to make someone else feel that way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have a choice to either sit next to Old Man John or just go on my way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I have the choice to either live for God or not.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So what am I telling people I choose when I pass by someone in need?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Whether their need is for something huge that I could never possibly provide or whether it’s for a simple “hi” or searching around in my pockets for whatever change I have to give.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We have a choice today to give everything over to God.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To live for God.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To bring glory and honor to the One who’s somehow created the clouds suspended in the skies, who’s somehow created us in his likeness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We have a choice today to accept those who are different, and to be ourselves, different.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We have a choice to say, “You know, I only have eight dollars, I can still give that to someone who needs it more than me.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or to say, “This eight dollars will get me a coffee and a scone from Starbucks.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s not a choice that’s meant to guilt us, but it’s one that’s meant to show us the reality of the world we live in and the God we pursue.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-67360230681288113182008-08-28T19:21:00.002-04:002008-08-28T19:24:01.908-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part IX<p class="MsoNormal">She called me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The woman I love.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She called me while I was driving to a place I haven’t known for four years.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A room I haven’t stepped foot in on a Wednesday night since college began.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She called me and made sure I was happy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She wanted to say goodnight.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Just seconds before my phone rang I was struggling with the thought of calling her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Do I call her?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Do I not?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I should call her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I should tell her I love her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I don’t want to make her sad.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I want her to fall to sweet dreams.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I never called her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I put the windows down.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Turned the music up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And raced around every corner Tremont held.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I prayed for God to keep her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I prayed that he’d tell her how much I truly love her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I prayed and seconds later she called; only a few turns, a straight away, and not even 100 feet progressed and my prayer got answered.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s crazy how God orders things.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I say this because that statement is becoming more of a reality to me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Like back in 2006 I decided to move to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region> for a year.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I went to study abroad or as my old boss used to say, “Are you sure you’re just going to study one broad, or many broads?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We used to joke about that a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So corny.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I actually went to <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I up and moved over 3,000 miles to go to school.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I found it quite fitting since I was an English major.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Figured, “Why not just study English in <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region>?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That was the only logic behind it all.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I turned 21 the summer before my trip.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was a summer to remember.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I played ball once again for an amateur league in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Boston</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Swung the bat for the Tigers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Wore number five.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then I worked between 40 and 60 hours on most weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The best thing about work that summer was how I used to rush to <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Whitehorse</st1:place></st1:city> every morning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’d wake up extra early just so I could find a parking spot easily, head down to the beach, and finish my sleep there.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was the best.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then I’d go straight into work all gunked up with sunscreen and still shaking the sand out of my boxers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Nothing could beat that summer.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s like I had finally topped off and reached the peak of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was a complete beach bum managing to bring home a pay check and play a sport that only kids should be allowed to play.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I mean, I dressed up in a Tiger’s uniform and played for stands filled with parents.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There was no difference between me and a five year old.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Just instead of bringing all the pales and buckets to the beach, I brought a radio with Jack Johnson albums and a book.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">September rolled around quick that year because I was so busy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Before I knew it I was on a plane by myself heading to some far off unknown territory.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had only read about <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region> in history texts books or in stories like <u>Le Morte D’Arthur</u> and the <u>Canterbury Tales</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I knew the Beatles and Shakespeare and Manchester United.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I didn’t know what to expect; I traveled without any expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And, I have to say, that’s the best way to travel.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Within the first week I was really partying.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I met all sorts of new people.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>People from all over the states, people with funny accents, people from <st1:country-region st="on">Turkey</st1:country-region> and <st1:city st="on">Holland</st1:city> and <st1:country-region st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>; I met the world while clubbing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It wasn’t the clubbing that proved to be the problem; it was the after party.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One night, luckily, I did go to an after party.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It wasn’t anything huge.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There weren’t any strippers there.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No poker games.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No strobe lights and fog machines.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not even a couch or a TV could be found in the room.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was just a bunch of chairs with people chilling and talking.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We relaxed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, I drank.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I put back Jim Beam like he was my best friend.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And this was after I already had plenty of beers in my system.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then this kid walked over to me from across the room.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had met him earlier that night through this girl Susan.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He came up and re-introduced himself like he thought that I wouldn’t remember him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I mean, it’s not like I was some sort of fool and social whore, but he probably realized I had plenty to drink and was one of many I met in the club.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His name was David.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“You can hold your liqueur pretty well there my friend,” he said to me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He spoke just like John Lennon or Paul McCartney.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If only he found three others and started singing Back in the <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">USSR</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course, I probably would have copped it off as my drink being laced with some crazy English drug.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Don’t think I’ve ever really seen someone just keep throwing back shots of whisky straight from the bottle like that.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think I offered him the bottle out of kindness, but he returned the favor by not accepting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Probably noticed I was slobbering all over it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s my friend’s.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She’s over there, across the room.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She told me to hold onto it for her.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was just awkward then.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I really didn’t know anyone in the room.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So I was sitting, well, trying to stand, but that proved near fatal for me a couple of times.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I chilled in the corner near the door that way I could make my quick get away and not be around people anymore.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But then we got to talking.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t know what we talked about, but we somehow got on the topic of church and that’s all I remember.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I told him I went to church back home.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That I was hoping to find a church here, but hadn’t been able to.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s not like I was searching for one that hard; I just flew in the week before.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So you know, I was still exploring.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That was probably more of an excuse at the time, but I really did want to find a church.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was the first thing on my to-do list.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He told me that he went to church as well.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That there was a church right up the street.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And then he actually invited me along to one of the services.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course I accepted.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was ecstatic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, I was drunk as well, so anything sounds fun at that point.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“God, woo hoo, yeah.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was thinking something like that of course.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It went together well, drunk kid and God that is.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In all seriousness, it did though.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s insane how God turns things around.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>How, even though I was being foolish and drinking way too much, God still kept me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>God still remained faithful even with my unfaithfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He still remained constant in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And he never let me go.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You see, I’m not proud of that moment or any similar moment, but God was there.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He still used the bad for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">his</i> good.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And it’s changed my life ever since.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I won’t advocate for drunkenness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I will advocate that God is in control of life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even though I’ve gone against God, even though I’ve made mistakes, God’s still been like, “No, you’re not meant to do that, but I forgive you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now try walking this way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Try to get up again.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There’s no reason to feel guilty.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’re just not meant to do that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’re meant to live a life that’s so much grander and better than you could ever possibly conceive.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Follow me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m here for you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ll be here with you the entire time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No worries.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And so I’ve walked on and I’ve learned from those mistakes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes I do revisit those same mistakes I already made.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then I notice God saying the same thing: “I love you and I will always love you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now come with me again.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">And I will betroth you to me forever.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I will betroth you to me in faithfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And you shall know the Lord.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Hosea 2:19&20)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">How life can take a 180 in the blink of an eye baffles me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>How one instant I can be worrying about a relationship and the next saying goodnight to the woman I love and sending her off with all I can give from miles away; it will never make sense.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>How God knows my heart through and through is wild.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Being held in detention, back that night in <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>, was a trip.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I still stood in Michael Kane’s office for two – awkwardly standing and trying to rub the ink off my fingers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It didn’t come off.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I washed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I scrubbed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I scratched my fingers with the paper towel roll, but it never came off.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was like I was branded.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They took my identity.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Copied it at a copier machine.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And thought nothing of it really; it was only procedure.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t sit down until another man came in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He was more of a portly fellow.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Short.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Grey hair, not neat at all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Came in with a big smile on his face.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was just another day at the workplace for him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He told me to please take a seat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So I did.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I did whatever they said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I can’t imagine what would have happened to me if I disobeyed them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I mean, was I going to be thrown in cuffs if I didn’t listen to them?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Were they going to just keep me there?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Would I never see my home again?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The paranoia was obviously sinking in more and more.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But let me say that through and through there was this peace about the night.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There was this peace that carried me away from my thoughts where I wrestled with the ridiculous of not getting home.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because you see, God was with me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>God was with me the entire time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He never forsook me.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">And you shall know the Lord.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Hosea 2:20)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My mind wandered around that room.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Blank stares.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I kept nothing to the imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I took in every crack in the wall and how it flowed jagged then smooth and back again like a river running through a map.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My eyes based jumped the thick depth between each tile; they were meant to be complete squares, but some were broken off.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe someone before me flipped out, started going all crazy and making a scene.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Tried punching Michael Kane or the other portly fellow.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They probably cleaned the blood strains on the floor before I got there.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Came up with some excuse like it was spilt wine.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And went on with the job of carefully stealing a person’s identity, copying it and supposedly keeping it only for immigration purposes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m not sure if you’ve ever been put in a difficult situation and I’m not sure of your life or any of who you are.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But God knows you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He’s known you since the beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He’s known you through and through.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s an intimacy only he has a way of constantly coming back to.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Though, “coming back to” really isn’t the right phrase because I’m not sure the Lord ever really leaves that intimacy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s not like he walks out on you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Turns his back to you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s not like there’s some revolving door in your life with the God of the universe acting like some squirrel never really knowing, “Should I cross? <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wait.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Wait, maybe I should cross.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But there’s a car coming.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Cool.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Cross cross cross.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No wait, back the other way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Car’s closer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Umm.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If I could read a squirrel’s mind that’s totally what they’re thinking when I’m driving 40 mph toward them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And it’s hard to believe the God who’s conceived of making a setting sun glint in my eyes and making me squint at its power has the possibility of thinking like a squirrel in the middle of the road.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">No.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This God who’s made a cherry tree reflect the light of the heavens is a God who in not even one second can make life turn on its heal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This God who’s created a red spectrum in a small tree leaf is a God who’s concerned with the welfare of you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then you get to catch the sun as it shines and lowers into an ever-inching-forward night.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And hopefully getting caught in that moment makes you smile.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Hopefully the realization that the Creator of the heavens and earth is actually intimate with you makes you smile too.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So I drove down Tremont to help out at youth group when Sorrel called.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I caught the sunset just above the tree line.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And God caught me like he never left me at all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Like he is with me forever in mercy, in faithfulness, and in steadfast love.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">And I will betroth you to me forever.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I will betroth you to me in faithfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And you shall know the Lord.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Hosea 2:19&20)</p>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-30582916786667863622008-08-27T13:35:00.003-04:002008-08-27T13:41:58.351-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part VIII<p class="MsoNormal">Have you ever wondered why God was allowing something to happen to you?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I bet you have.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I bet you’ve been put in some situation, say, where you can’t see the one you love.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Where all you want is to see that person, to hold that person, to kiss her, to talk with her, to walk together; it doesn’t even matter where the road leads or what time it is.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’d simply do anything for that person.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’d give anything to have July back, that one month where you were actually able to spend with one another. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">And yet, God let your life slip into this place where you’re unable to be with each other.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a place where talking on the phone actually hurts because you don’t like the thought of talking over wires.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You hate the fact that you can only hear her voice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No eyes to get lost in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No one to embrace.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So the conversation ends depressingly.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It goes from not even taking a breath because you have so much to say, to near complete silence.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sighs substitute for words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The words “I love you” are hard to come by.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yet you know it’s true.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You know all you want to do is make the other person believe in those words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To believe you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s a place where you have to force yourself to be happy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The days are so long without her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You find it hard to be around friends.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All they do is try to cheer you up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Their efforts are hollow.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s a place where she shouts at you for not being there with her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She’s actually angry at you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She’s frustrated with how life’s worked out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She doesn’t understand why it’s taken such an awful course.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And all you can do is be silent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You have no words to say.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Trying to comfort her seems worthless.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She rejects those words like they’re cop outs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But you keep repeating them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You keep trying to make her believe them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“It’s going to be all right.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I’ll be with you soon.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Don’t give up on this.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I love you.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Each comforting phrase resonates with the underlying theme of, “I love you.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Each sentence you string together attempts at saying, “God’s in control.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He’s watching over us, keeping us.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It all hints at a steadfast love enduring forever (Ps. 136).</p> <p class="MsoNormal">God’s allowed this course in life to occur where when you hang up the phone, you lie on the couch because there’s nothing else to do.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’re almost sick at the idea that you can’t see the woman you love.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And the day drags on slower than it did before.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The day becomes plain.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mundane.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even though the summer flowers still hold their bright pinks and purples.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even though the day’s illuminated by God’s glory.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even though the humming bird hovers magnificently about the flowers searching for food, for some heavenly provision.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And even though there are the millions of reasons for life to be perfect on this late August day, you still acknowledge none of it because the one you love is not by your side.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s like life is worthless at that point.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You don’t know why you’ve been teased with a month together and five months apart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And then you start thinking those scary thoughts you don’t want to think.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You start questioning your love for one another.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At least, that’s what she tells you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She tells you she’s scared of those thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That she doesn’t want to be thinking those thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Telling you that you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">should</i> be here right now.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That others are angry because you’re not here.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I’m doing all that I can babe.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“It’s a waiting game at this point; we’ve got to wait on the government.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I don’t like this either, but...”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Your words trail off into the thin air.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They drown in the oceans between you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The <st1:place st="on">Atlantic</st1:place> is too far to swim, but you’d swim it if you had to.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’d sprout wings if there was a magic bean you could eat so for one day you could fly.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then you’d be with her.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’d fight back every prevailing wind if it meant you’d get there sooner.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There’s nothing you wouldn’t do to be with her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You wonder if she actually understands the amount of love you have for her.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then you wonder why God allows this to happen to you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But maybe we’re not meant to understand.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe we’re meant to get on with life, to weather the storm as it were.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe we’re not meant to get caught up in the details, but instead focus our attention on the living God.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For he is Lord over this situation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Timothy 4:10)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You see, we’re meant to hope.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We’re meant to say something like, “Cool God, I’m with you; I believe in you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For you give me hope that tomorrow I will be with the one I love.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You give me hope that no matter what comes against me I will prevail.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You give me hope because of your steadfast love enduring forever.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You simply gave me hope the moment I let you into my life.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Have you forgotten about that hope?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Have you lost what remembrance you have of this new life, this life which is meant to be focused on eternity?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Take up hope today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Regain what you might have lost.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Look around you and know that your Lord is truly alive.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That every breath you take is a reminder of the living God within you, about you, and for you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Change your perception of life today so you come to know and understand that you live intimately with your Maker.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So that part of the framework of your relationship with Christ is one of hope, a hope that lasts forever.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now ask yourself if you honestly – just you in the raw with no one else influencing your answer – have set your hope on the living God “who is the Savior of all people.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There will always be hope.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You just need to search for it as much as you want it. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-6149266238007020422008-08-26T17:42:00.003-04:002008-08-26T23:17:16.885-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part VII<p class="MsoNormal">“You can wash you hands there, at the sink.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There’s some soap and when you’re finished make sure you dry your hands.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Here’s some roll on the desk.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I was slow to move.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He brought me into this small room.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was crammed with printers and scanners.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It looked a mess.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Papers cluttered all surfaces.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Dirty tile floors.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A drop ceiling that had one too many holes in it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Two ancient looking digital cameras hooked up to some rod sticking out from the desks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wonder where the other man was.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The room wasn’t just Kane’s office.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Someone else had to be coming along.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Okay, let me see your hands.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Are they dry?”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He tore off more paper towel from the roll and really scrubbed my hands.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was like those Indian Sunburns you give friends when you’re younger. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I never knew the point of them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some sort of childish torture.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That and noogies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or headlocks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or swirlies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or monkey bites.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or a charlie horse.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or pantsing, but that’s more psychological humiliation for all the world to see.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I guess you’re allowed to do that to people when you’re younger because you don’t know better.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Plus, if ever your friend got you really bad, you’d just let out that high-pitched yell-scream-thing that kids orchestrate from their vocal chords.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe you even jump up and get angry saying something like, “I’m never speaking with you again Mike Flynn.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But really, you just make amends five minutes later and you’re back to the same non-sense as before.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The immigration officer began wheeling paint over a small rectangular metal surface with a paint roller.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He moved the ink back and forth like a painter on his canvas.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He was sure to miss no spots, to apply just the right amount.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Okay.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He always started every sentence off with “okay.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I’m going to take your finger prints now.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Try to be as relaxed as you can.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And let me do all the work.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wasn’t relaxed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I couldn’t relax.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I tried shaking my hands, loosening them up a bit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I know it was his job and all to tell me to relax, but really, was it necessary?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The mere request of relaxation at this point was fruitless.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">He is a shield to those who walk in<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>integrity,<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>guarding the paths of justice<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and watching over the way of his<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>saints.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Proverbs 2:7&8)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I never relaxed during the whole stay.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I should have.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I should have known that it was going to work out for the best.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I should have realized that God was in control.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I never really gave complete control to God.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I kept trying to.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I kept saying, “Lord, take this from me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I give you everything.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I give you my life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I give you this trip.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I give you the whole of who I am.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Take control, Lord.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Those prayers are tough prayers though.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because they can’t only be words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There has to be more to the prayers than the vocal tones of each word.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A person might pray similar prayers till he’s blue in the face, but it won’t make a bit of difference.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You have to mean those words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You have to believe what you’re saying.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’ve got to realize the power that language can hold.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And you’ve got to understand that the Lord already knows your affliction.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He’s already heard you long before you spoke a single prayer asking for help.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And you’ve got to realize that indeed he does have things under control.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">And watching over the way of his <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>saints.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Proverbs 2:8)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s a concept that hard to grasp.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I mean, how can the God of the universe actually help me, a man, a mere human being, someone who is here for maybe 70 or 80 years tops?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Come on now, are you seriously believing this stuff?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But it’s true.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Don’t ask me how.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Don’t ask me why.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I really can’t comprehend it, but I believe it with all of my heart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When it comes down to it, my questions about life really don’t matter.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because things will always be this way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This crazy massive God that’s formed everything I see, perceive, witness, interpret, question, stumble over, step on, breathe in, get into, become angry with, cry with, get happy for, ecstatic over, frightened at, scared of, hurt myself on, run through, drive by, wave at, wonder about actually takes every second of my living, breathing, feeling, touching, experiencing life as far as I know it to continually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">be with me</i> (emphasis added).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">He is a shield to those who walk in<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>integrity.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Proverbs 2:7)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I managed to relax enough for the officer to take me fingerprints.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He took my hand and went finger by finger pressing down each equally to the ink.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then he’d take the finger and roll it over a little square on a piece of paper.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He explained that he was going for the surface of the finger.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then he was going for the profile of each.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I still stood nervous though.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Silent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These people really weren’t too good at making me feel welcome.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s like they were all giving me the cold shoulder.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Their looks just told me that I did something wrong.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">He is a shield to those who walk in<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>integrity.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(The verse hasn’t changed.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Okay.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now don’t worry.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Your fingerprints won’t be used for any other purpose than for the immigration office.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The police won’t have them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We just want to make sure you haven’t forged any documents.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m glad they were so confident in my honesty.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But they were really only doing their jobs so I had no reason to get upset.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s not like I was being accused of trying to sneak through their border to sell drugs or anything.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As far as they were concerned, I was.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was just another incident to them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Someone who at two in the morning was getting his fingerprints done by a guy with the same name as a <st1:place st="on">Hollywood</st1:place> actor.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I never sat down.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I didn’t want to be impolite while he was filling out more paper work at his desk.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I didn’t want to do anything out of order.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The paranoia started to sink in even more at that point.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">He is a shield to those who walk in<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>integrity,<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>guarding the paths of justice<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and watching over the way of his <o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>saints.</i><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Still the same as before.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The God of all that’s ever been and ever will be was fending for me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The one reason I had to relax and I never realized it as I stood there awkwardly off set in some chaotic office.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was being watched over, guarded, and shielded.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Not to downplay it or any thing, but life’s taken care of.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Relax.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-37053463690859283672008-08-25T14:31:00.005-04:002008-08-25T14:52:24.144-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part VII didn't realize it at the time, but God had prepared me for this moment. I kept praying for grace to make it through the night, but that grace was already prominent in my life. That grace was given me by the way my parents raised me. That grace came during those 40-minute drives to school when I had nothing else to do, but be with God. That grace was a culmination of 23 years of growth for this one moment when I was being detained.<div><br /></div><div>And that's not a conclusion that you can come to while you wait out the storm. You will experience the storm. You will feel the heavenly deluge sweep you away drip by drip. It doesn't matter if the deluge comes in the form of simply failing some school exam or if your best friend gives up on you and walks away from a relationship you've known and loved for years. Strife and sorrow can come in any form. And it <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">will</span> affect you.</div><div><br /></div><div>So your mind will be set on the day and the hour of your plight. But you will make it through because the Lord's given you the means to get through. He's prepared you. His grace already saved you. It's a grace beginning at your conception, beginning at the mere loving thought of the possibility and potential for you being formed in the womb. And grace even began before that. Don't try to comprehend it. Go along with it. And praise God for the simple fact of praising him.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've been through plenty in 23 years, but nothing like my immigration problems. I've known the hurt of losing a grandparent. I've known the tears that don't stop when you walk up to the open casket and see a woman who loved you and believed in you and spoiled you with as much Gold Fish and M&M's as a child can handle. I've known the heartache of never being good enough to make it with the college baseball team. I've known the fights and arguments with a father who loves me so much that I take it for granted; the arguments that always ended in me blaming the entire situation on his not being a Christian. I've known the fear of disappointment when I come home with yet another speeding ticket. But I've also known God.</div><div><br /></div><div>The one defining factor throughout the night was God.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was late into the morning when the immigration officer finished her questioning. She offered me a drink from the vending machine before she went on her way. Told me I could have a sandwich if I was hungry. I wasn't. I was near sick to my stomach at the idea of not knowing what was going to happen next.</div><div><br /></div><div>I went for the vending machine. Just a water. Nothing else appealed to me. All the fancy bells and whistles operated at my request. I thought, only in England can you get a cup of tea from a vending machine. That would never fly in the US. Maybe coffee, but I think most people would choose to go to the nearest Dunkies of Starbucks. Oh, if only life was as easy as pushing a button on a vending machine and out pops whatever you want. That would be grand.</div><div><br /></div><div>Only when you're older and grown up do you think like this. It's blasphemous to think such a thought when you're a kid. Then all adventure is thrown out the window. There would be no more play time. No more cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, or any sort of space adventure. There would be no adventure at all. Summers off from school would transform into some sort of uniform-still-wearing-piece-of-work for eight weeks.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know when I lost my sense for adventure. And this trip was trying to reclaim it for me. Not many people can say the government's detained them before. Not many can say they've sat down in a very Hollywood-esk interrogation room and been grilled for hours. </div><div><br /></div><div>God was working in me that night more than I could fathom. And he was doing it in the only spirit-quenching forum possible - adventure.</div><div><br /></div><div>Adventure leaves you with only the next step. It drags you and pulls you. It's the not-knowing-what's-going-to-happen feeling, which is the quintessential adventure mentality. Sometimes you won't have a place to rest your head. Sometimes you will just collapse because your muscles ache so much. But then you will get up. You will always get up. It might not be by your own strength, but it will happen. Because you are called to take one more step - one more step into nothingness, into wild, into eternity.</div><div><br /></div><div>I live by a verse in Psalms, one that I found three years ago. It tells me that God's way is through the sea, his path through the great waters, though no footprints were seen. That is the adventure I live for. I experienced it within the course of 36 hours. And I may only be sitting at home now, writing this story, but my soul longs to take another step.</div><div><br /></div><div>That night in detention I never realized I was living adventurously. I never stopped to think that I needed to take one more step. I collapsed.</div><div><br /></div><div>I barely got any sips of water before another immigration officer came to get me. He was a bigger fellow, the type that suits a uniform. He introduced himself as Michael Kane. That was an easy name to remember. I definitely wasn't starring in a new Austin Powers movie, unless it was some sort of premier Reality TV show where random people get stopped at Customs and made to go through a night of paranoia.</div><div><br /></div><div>And I was off again. To where, I didn't know. You never know where the next step will take you. But your duty is to take that next step.</div>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-17334436056097865612008-08-24T14:51:00.008-04:002008-08-25T00:18:12.393-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part VAt some point I snapped out of my stare and attempted paying attention to her questions. She had me in an interrogation room. There was one metal table we sat at in the middle of the room. Four metal chairs. Everything was chained to the ground. I guess the government was weary of a detainee grabbing a chair and getting away with it. <div><br /></div><div>I looked around and was walled in. She sat closest to the open door. I couldn't believe I was being interrogated. All I wanted to do was chill with friends and worship at church. I looked forward to spending my Saturdays at any of the various art galleries. I wanted to sit at the Tate staring at paintings for hours on end then writing my responses. Poetry.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead, I sat in a room with windows that had wire in between the glass panes. There was nothing poetic about the experience. Not like I'd write my entire Cantos within an eight-and-some-odd-hour span in detention. I wasn't some traitorous ex-pat speaking out about the Iraq War after abandoning his homeland. But if anyone else saw me, they'd probably think that. </div><div><br /></div><div>"Are you okay?" She asked, meaning something more like "Are you healthy enough to proceed?" I simply answered yes. But I wasn't "okay." My being "okay" would view something like cramming into a tiny European car with four grown adults, five life-sized bags, screaming all the way home because - as I hear it - Tom's driving is more like a Six Flags roller coaster. </div><div><br /></div><div>So no, I wasn't okay. I wasn't okay in the least. I was detained. My private life became public. I was beginning to become paranoid. I didn't know what time it was. I didn't know where anyone was. And this lady had the procedural gaul to ask me if I was okay.</div><div><br /></div><div>You see - the tough part about any seemingly-life-threatening situation is that you can't think about the situation. There's no room to dwell on your circumstances. If you do, that's when problems start.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I sat with mom earlier I prayed for grace. My continual prayer was for more grace. Then more grace. Then even more grace to make it through the night.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.</span> (1 Cor. 1:4)</div><div><br /></div><div>I wasn't just given grace for that one single night. God wasn't saying, "You there, kid, here, I'll help you to walk only one more step, but that's all you get." He wasn't leaving me with a time-limit for his grace. And he didn't even limit this grace in any sort of way. It was near scandalous the amount given me. An obscene amount. When you look up at the stars, that's the vastness to his grace. Completely unbelievable. When you drive a never ending road, that's the freedom of grace. That's the I'm looking around and all I see in front of me is a world wide, wide open. You question when it will end; it won't. You wonder its endless amount; it's incapable of comprehension. You exhaust all your resources; grace remains. </div><div><br /></div><div>My voice shook, nervous. She asked me to be specific because she had to write verbatim. She went through the motions at first. Asked me the same questions I already told the other guy. I wasn't quick with responses. I laughed to stall. To think. My future hinged on those answers.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge.</span> (1 Cor. 1:4&5)</div><div><br /></div><div>When she asked me why I was in England I told her, "I'm here to visit with friends, to re-connect with the church I worshipped at while attending Middlesex University and to pursue my newly acquired writing career after graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth."</div><div><br /></div><div>When she asked me what my itinerary was I blanked. I didn't have a strict schedule. No trips planned. No nothing. It didn't occur to me that I should have told her something like, "Oh, I'll be going to church on Sundays." Or, "I'll be going to the grocery store at least once a week." Or, "Well, the queen invited me over for some afternoon tea on the 15th of September 2008 at 2:18 sharp so I mustn't miss such a grand occasion."</div><div><br /></div><div>She kept questioning. Kept poking and prodding and trying to figure out if I was incognito or if I was real. She never hinted at whether I answered sufficiently or poorly. She was immovable - a statue. Why didn't the British just hook me up to a polygraph with some mysterious agent all decked out in black, no wrinkles, fedora to cover the top of his face, smoke ominously making it's way out of a shadow from where he stood then to a vent in the ceiling; the meanwhile I'd be sitting there under a half dangling light swaying back and forth, sweat beading from my forehead, wetting my tongue as I pulled out some syntacticly mixed up sentence for an answer? It would have been easier.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nothing was easy that night. Not even answering small questions as to my comings and goings. Not even waiting between the silence of my answer and her next question. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was a waiting game we played; one that I didn't like. But one that continued for the next several hours.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge - even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you - so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end.</span> (1 Cor. 1:4-8)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> </span></div><div><br /></div>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-43419780135991860782008-08-23T13:58:00.006-04:002008-08-23T22:11:31.626-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part IV<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>She introduced herself, but I never caught her name. And she explained that she had some questions to ask me. So I did as I had to, and I followed her.<div><br /></div><div>The last text I received told me to not worry. Told me that I need to accept any decision with grace. And told me not to show too much emotion. Essentially, I was to be a man about it. I was to be that typical boy out of the 50s who never cries, who wears his letterman jacket around, who gave his girl a pin, and who only knows how to shake hands - no embracing allowed. I was asked to be more mechanical than human because even if tragedy strikes, oh well; I <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">should</span> be able to tough it out. </div><div><br /></div><div>But honestly, I'm not sure if Audrey actually knew what she texted me. Of course I was going to accept any decision with grace, but I was going to need a lot more grace to merely accept the answer. And I was going to need some sort of supernatural strength to make it through. Some sort of realization that this wasn't the end of the world. I needed something - something to get me through.</div><div><br /></div><div>Making it was possible. And I knew for a fact that things weren't the best, but they weren't the worst either. Many before me, many now, and many later will be caught in situations far worse than my own. And the one classic story that reminded me of this is found in the first chapter of Job:</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and there came a messenger to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you." While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you." While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you." While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you."</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshipped.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> (Job 1:13-20)</span> </span><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div>I walked with what dignity I had left. I carried my head as high as I could. I kept silent, moving with the confidence that everything was going to be cool; it was going to work out. I'd be seeing mom soon. Sorrel was flying in the next morning. So I planned on returning to the airport at 7 AM to surprise her. To hold her. To laugh with her. To carry all of her bags. To smile. And to walk hand-in-hand trusting God with our futures - together.</div><div><br /></div><div>Everything was going to be all right.</div><div><br /></div><div>We came to one of those doors you see in spy movies. The kind where one person needs both a pin number and a card to get in. You know, those high security doors. She swiped her card and plugged in the code. Then the door clicked.</div><div><br /></div><div>I never stopped to wonder where I was going. That didn't seem important to me at the time. I just went where the UK Border Agents told me to go. It never occurred to me that I might be brought down to some secret layer. An almost Frankenstein layer with chains on cold stone walls, each chain holding remnants of past prisoners. Little skeletons left as reminders that when traveling you should always have your paper work in order.</div><div><br /></div><div>You know the doors labeled "Employee Entrance Only" that I'm talking about. The type in those old black and white Hitchock films or any of the government's hidden rooms from Ian Flemmings' books. Maybe I'd meet the revered "M" or get to talk with a Sean Connery-esk double-O-agent.</div><div><br /></div><div>But when the door opened, it didn't reveal anything special. Nothing cool. No armed guards. No odd looking scientists scurrying around. No telegraphs receiving Top-Secret information. It was just a hall ending very abruptly. Dimly lit and barely wide enough for my year's worth of luggage.</div><div><br /></div><div>The immigration officer told me to leave my bags at the end of the hall and come with her. She led me into another room, but she wasn't even able to enter it without verification. The security guard buzzed us in.</div><div><br /></div><div>The room looked like an empty doctor's office. There were rows of chairs neatly ordered. Plastic chairs. The cheap kind of chairs you get for cookouts, except they didn't fold up. The one thing this doctor's office didn't have was a set of building blocks. I always loved playing with those wooden blocks when I was younger. I'd make castles and stack towers higher than the clouds. I'd demolish the architecture and begin again, attempting more daring feats.</div><div><br /></div><div>I could tell it was going to be a lonely night. They didn't even offer me the pleasure of getting back to my childhood. They left the room barren. Only a small bookcase of random selections collected dust in the corner. A vending machine that seemed overused and somehow made full cups of tea with milk and sugar along with Nestle's rushed version of a cappuccino. And a pay phone. Maybe later I'd get the infamous one call.</div><div><br /></div><div>For now, she brought me into the interrogation room. But she kept the door open as if to say, "Go ahead, be my guest. Try to escape. You know you want to. You know you want me to let you into <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">my</span> country without any hassle." Or maybe she just trusted me enough to sit still and not be a bother. </div><div><br /></div><div>I stared through that door like I knew things were going to be okay. Like that was some sort of sign telling me I'd make it through and be able to live in London. Like that one open door was <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">the</span> open door to my new life.</div><div><br /></div><div>But it was just one more door in the whole line of doors I'd need to walk through in order to reach my destination. I needed a miracle to get out and get on with things.</div><div><br /></div><div>That miracle never came the way I wanted it though. I sat there still. I think everything was motionless at that point. The whole world stopped. </div><div><br /></div><div>And I wasn't sure how to worship God. I mean, how can a person actually worship, actually connect with an intimacy so far beyond description during such a trying time? And I'm not sure what I did, or if I even worshipped God in the slightest at all. But I know that I began answering her questions honestly.</div><div><br /></div><div>Maybe that was my little bit of worship to God - to stand firm in how I've been raised; to keep my integrity by not letting a lie pass my tongue even if the answer's not sufficient for the lady interrogating me. </div><div><br /></div><div>I had to worship God even if it meant not getting into the country.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5287735311611552157.post-56474491814749637082008-08-22T14:41:00.007-04:002008-08-23T13:41:12.995-04:00UA Flight 922 - Part III<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Lord is a stronghold for the </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>oppressed,<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> a stronghold in times of trouble.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">And those who know your name put </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>their trust in you,<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> for you, O Lord, have not forsaken</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>those who seek you. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> (Ps. 9:9&10)</span><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div>I was escorted back to Customs after my bags were magically put back together. This time they were hardly sorted in any logical fashion. Instead, my luggage was chaos.</div><div><br /></div><div>And the two ladies went about like this was normal for them. It was merely procedure. They talked of their having to get paid more. I think that was all I really heard. The rest was a blur to me. I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't concentrate on anything. The amount of thoughts beaming through my head meshed together into one lump.</div><div><br /></div><div>I tried thinking of what was going to happen to me; that didn't work.</div><div><br /></div><div>I tried thinking how everything would play out. Would I be okay, you know? Would I make it through and Tom and mom and Josh and Kai would all still be waiting on the other side?</div><div><br /></div><div>I tried thinking of, "Okay, if someone asks me why I'm here I'll just say it's for tourism."</div><div><br /></div><div>"Wait, I can't just say it's for tourism." - <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Thought 1</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div>"Okay. I'm here to go to church." - <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Thought 2</span></div><div><br /></div><div>"Yeah right. Who's going to actually believe that I just traveled over 3,000 miles just to attend a church service?" - <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Thought 1</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div>"Fine. I'll make it clear to them that I'm not here to do any sort of charitable work since I was refused a Voluntary Worker visa." -<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Thought 2</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">"</span>Cool." - <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Thought 1</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div>"Sorted." - <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Thought 2</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div>I was holding a very discombobulated argument inside my noggin. I couldn't believe that I was actually arguing with myself. It's like I had some out of body experience where I overheard my thoughts trying to sort them selves out. This was messed up. Life should never cause you to hold arguments within your head. It's not like I was going crazy. I was just utterly confused about the situation I found myself in.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">And those who know your name put </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>their trust in you,<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> for you, O Lord, have not forsaken</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>those who seek you. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> (Ps. 9:10)</span><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div>My thoughts and prayers intertwined. Because when some crazy circumstance overcomes you, you will not lose sight of God. You will not cut off that connection you have with him. If anything, you will pull harder and harder on the line like you're ringing bell towers to get in touch with your Rock, your Salvation, you're Everything-that-you-could-possibly-ever-want-or-need-during-this-troubled-time.</div><div><br /></div><div>Josh was right; I was screwed. And that realization made me run to God quicker than Usaine Bolt during the Olympics this year. It makes you run faster than a bullet train because you have no other possibility of being rescued. Superman is just a figment in your rearview mirror at this point. You have one destination and that's to find yourself in the Lord's arms. Nothing else will do.</div><div><br /></div><div>They sat me back down on those chairs my mom and I were at before. This time I was alone. I only had my discordant mind to keep me company. I tried not to worry. I tried not to think about all the bad that might come; their not letting me through; their not letting me say a proper goodbye to Sorrel when she flies in the next morning; their not letting me see anyone even if they're all on the other side of the arrivals door waiting for me until two in the morning. I tried not thinking about how I was American and this shouldn't be happening to me. I tried not thinking about home and going back to a job I've known for four years. I tried not thinking about how I'd have to explain this to everyone. How could they possibly understand anyways?</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Lord is a stronghold for the</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>oppressed,<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> a stronghold in times of trouble.</span> (Ps. 9:9)</div><div><br /></div><div>And I waited for whatever lay ahead. I texted everyone. Told them I was being held at Customs. Asked for prayer. The responses came pouring in. Even though my friends weren't with me in person, sitting in that row of chairs with me, they were still there in spirit.</div><div><br /></div><div>So that sounds cheesy and cliche, but it was true. Their simple responses helped get me through that night. The texts gave me confidence. It's like my friends were standing with me. Like they actually did have my back on this one.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's probably the first time they actually saw Greg take a chance in life. That same Greg who likes everything orderly, who never really stepped out of line, who rarely challenged conformity and the normalcy of life.</div><div><br /></div><div>I took a chance. I flew to another country without an entry clearance visa. I said, "You know God, you've put England on my heart. You've re-ignited something where all I want is to work with the youth of London. You even gave me the loveliest girl I've ever known in life and you let me find her in London. So I'm going for it. I'm going to make that move. I'm going to leave everything that I've known for 23 years. It doesn't matter that I'm going over there with less than $300. It doesn't matter that I might get turned away at the door. I'm going on faith, Lord. And I'm going on trust. So let me learn to trust you."</div><div><br /></div><div>And it's been a process. This whole trusting in God thing is quite the process. It's one insane journey filled with newly paved roads, potholes, bumps, car-wrecks, the whole nine yards. But God is still seeing me through.</div><div><br /></div><div>This trusting in him comes day after day. It's the kind of trust where straight away in the morning, before I've even stepped foot out of my bed, I have to say, "Lord, I trust you." It's a trust that says, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">No matter what</span> comes my way, I'm sticking with you God." That "no matter what" phrase is the toughest of all because any sort of circumstance cannot change your thinking; you must be resilient with trust.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you were to lose your job tomorrow, then you must trust in the Lord's provision. Even if you have bills to pay, gas to put in an empty tank when it's near $4 a gallon, or whatever the surrounding circumstances may be; you still have to trust.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even if you wrap your car around a tree and find yourself waking up in a hospital, you just have to say, "I'm trusting you, God." Go ahead and complain. Go ahead and ask all the questions as to why God let this happen to you. But in the end, just make sure you're trusting him, the One who has overcome the world. He has overcome your troubles, so take heart - trust.</div><div><br /></div><div>I sat in that chair for some time and realized my circumstances. I learned about trust just that much more. I still don't know the ins and outs of what trusting in the Lord actually is, but I know that it takes my whole heart. So I gave my heart. And I gave my self.</div><div><br /></div><div>I was completely at a loss for control.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some lady was walking my way now. Another immigration officer...</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Lord is a stronghold for the</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>oppressed,<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> a stronghold in times of trouble.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">And those who know your name put</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>their trust in you,<br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> for you, O Lord, have not forsaken</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>those who seek you.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"> (Ps. 9:9&10)</span><br /></span></div>Gregory J Kellyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14258632529104573139noreply@blogger.com1