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God and the Jelly Fish

Tonight I am fighting being angry. I stood at the edge of the little creek a few blocks up from our house with a clove cigarette burning my fingers and lungs brown. It was somehow reflective of my mood. Brownish.

I have not written, or even wanted to write for a long time now. It is kind of frustrating. I have justified it to myself by telling me that I spend my day creating, so I have less energy to do it in my off time. The truth, i think, is that I spent two hours tonight watching television. I hate television. I feel insulted by it, and yet there i was thinking about how much I hated television watching television. How did i get here? Creating things bring change, and I don't want to change right now.

As I stood next the stream, I got to talking to God. It started off like it usually does like 'Dear Jesus, what is going on?' and 'Oh God, help me in my hour of brown-ness', but from there it shifted. After a long wander back through the last few years in my brain, I got to telling God off. The last few years have felt like a proverbial desert time for me and God. I wander, I wait, once in a while I build a golden calf in hopes of provoking God to react... but mostly i just wait quietly. What I have discovered is this: Manna is not so good. I can kind of sympathize with Israel as they scooped up predictable bowls full of this flavourless stuff. This? Again? I don't think I can take it.

Sometimes when we christians talk about God, we imply that we are shutting God out of our lives with our actions. I understand the metaphor, and I do it constantly, but I saw another side as I stood there in the dark: How is that possible? Truly, how can we shut God out? Is God so polite that he whimpers and mews outside, hoping for a saucer of milk? Can I really hold God at bay if he wants to get ahold of me?

I really do believe that if God wanted to get ahold of me and my life, not me, nor George Bush or Bono or all the legions of this world and deepest space could stop him. And then I can't help but wonder this: well? What are You waiting for?

I am not waiting for a sign. It is not a matter of 'do i believe' anymore. I used to tell my friends who were doubting and wondering about the existence of God "Give Him a chance, give Him a dare, what have you got to lose? I believe he will show you what you need". And I really did. All my life God has dealt with me gently and faithfully, growing me carefully. I felt welcomed and nurtured by God. I felt like I learned some big lessons, made some bad (and good) decisions, became more dependent on him and then...

*cricket sounds*

Nada. Nix. Nil.

I think I have been patient. I think I can continue to be patient, but more and more I feel this thing creeping up in me, this thing that i've never really felt before like a set jaw or balled fist. It makes me want to lash out at God and say "what the fuck" and really mean it. It makes me want to do rash things to provoke God to react so at least I can hear what he has to say. It makes me want to light my spiritual house on fire, pull the plug on my boat of faith and count down to when God comes barging through the smoke and shouts "get out you asshole, get out!". I want him punch me in the gut, or light a fire in my heart or under my ass or I don't care... but something.

Instead I try to do some right things. Good things. Lead worship at church. Pray with my kids. Talk about, and even get excited about God at bible study. I see them as opportunities for God to push the door open. I can't hear the knocking, but I assume He's out there on the step and I am disarming the alarm, throwing the latch, and putting the dog in the back-yard. He knows I can't reach the doorknob, so why does he wait still? Did I hand-cuff him to the handrail? What are hand-cuffs to God? Why would he give me that power? Bad move Big Guy, I'll abuse it every time.

As I turn in the darkness and hear my light footsteps echo off the fence, I start to think about the almost-fight i got into with Anie tonight. Sometimes she gets in these moods where she talks, and I listen, and I can't hardly keep up with the move from topic to topic, and then I think she resents that I'm not responding, and she tries to needle me into some kind of reaction. It's like she's saying "Stand up for yourself, jellyfish-man", but when I say something I feel it is the wrong thing, or not what she expected, so she prods a little more "Why did you say that?" or "Why do you always say 'yeah...but' when you respond to me?". After a while I feel like a mouse in a corner and the cat is closing in. I want to fight, but see no good in it other than to fulfill Anie's belief that I should return her verbal sparring with retorts of my own. Don't want it. I don't mind a knock-down drag-out fight once in a while, but I hate feeling like a mouse in a corner being played with by a cat.

Ironically, this is exactly how I am approaching God lately. Stand up for yourself, Jellyfish-God. Give it to me, I'll give you one free shot. Now I wonder how he feels to God to be in that position, if I want to slither out under the door to get away from a feisty wife. Intellectually I understand that I can't goad God, or put him in a box by assuming he'll react in a given manner to my prods. Emotionally, I think I will continue to berate him about the ears.

If i'm honest with myself, which I cannot always claim to be, all I really want is for God to tell me he loves me. I want his approval and support. I want him to stop side-stepping my questions and look me in the eyes, or at least, look where my eyes would be if I weren't staring at my shoes in shame all the time.

I also suppose, as an aside, that these are the same things Anie is looking for from Jellyfish-man. And the same thing's I'm looking for from her: Love and Response. The cat and the mouse, tangled in this complex dance, the man and the God toe to toe with no pattern drawn on the floor. How will it play out?

I am not really sure who this letter is for, in the end. I suppose it's 50% for me, 24% for God, 22% for Anie and 4% for a couple of important people in my life, just to continue trying to be vulnerable and open for opportunities. Please pray, although I still feel in the end it will be up to God, or to me, to unlock the hand-cuffs for a while.

Sincerely,

Jellyfish-man

Give Way to White

These are strange times
Whispers, movement
Out of the corner of
an eye

Standing still to listen
hands wound up
Heart bent full
to wishing

Praise be the days
flashing, flowiing
Not living, but
not ready to die

Small feet in shoes
bigger eyes than
The earth, full
of hues

Century goes quick
slowly, coming round
To stop, to wait,
to sit

The leaves, the fall
give way to white
To grey, to I don't
care at all

Heaven has lips, and
speaks of things
Distant, melting ice
and chips

I can hear
among the things
Send me spring and
take fear

Open hands closing
palm of dirt, grass
The face of flowers
throwing

And bring me
bring me. Again.
to home

That Sacred Stone

What has become
of the holiness
That sacred stone
The jar of bones

Cast aside
Not out of sight
But out of mind
My head pressed
Up against the breast
Curled up tight
By myself
But not alone

Where has the
Water run?
Jordan has come
Wound its way around
And then gone

What have I left
But this pile of stones?
Not a single tree
But me
I am done.

Some Days

Some days are just hard.

Chapter 7 - Clarity

Note from the author: You may wonder why I skipped from Chapter 5 to Chapter 7, and there is an easy answer for that: Chapter 6 is not finished yet.

I think I gained an insight into myself tonight. There is a group of six saints from our church that meet on monday nights to sort out the ups and downs of life, love and faith. We have been meeting, some of us, for nearly three years. These people have become real stolid people in my life and the life of my budding little family here. Tonight we met for the first time since the summer, and were going through some faith updates, finding out where each of us is at with God. I was trying to figure out what to say.

You must know that I am not known as the most talkative guy. It’s not that I don’t like talking, or socializing, or even being the center of attention, on the other hand, I just like to wait to have something important to say before I say it. As we went around the circle sharing, there were some struggles, some high points, but mostly it came to the fact that almost all of us are tired. Our little mountain church is having a personality crisis right now. We don’t know who we are, exactly. We are sort of all standing around looking at each other, knowing something is missing, but none of us can quite put our fingers on it. When I got talking, I told them about the blank canvas. I told them about wanting to teach my son true things. I told them about my struggle to find meaningful things in the weekly service, and then I had this revelation: I still love God.

I know it is elementary. But this is a great thing to find out when you are trying to re-define your faith. As I talked about my desire and my longings, I felt the spirit of God stir somewhere deep inside. It stirred just enough to tighten my throat and dampen my eyes. Just enough to give me hope that somewhere there is a wee little fire burning, waiting for it’s chance to flare up again.

About two years ago, my wife Anie decided that she wanted a wood stove. We are not super rich, we are not rich at all, though we certainly feel blessed every day to have our cute little house, our two running VWs (nothing short of a miracle there) and our beautiful garage. I am particularly happy about the last one. When we bought the house, people would come to visit for the first time and invariably the guys would make a bee-line for the garage and say 'Nice shop!'. It is a nice shop.

I agreed to the wood stove, though I knew it would mean more wood chopping for me, and wood hauling, and fire starting. Well Anie saved and saved, and when our little band played gigs, she would squirrel away the money, and when the taxman blessed us with a return, she would add that to the sock under the mattress. By May she had saved enough for the stove, the pipe and part of the installation. Good work, babe.

Once the stove was installed, we waited for a nice cool day to fire up the stove and enjoy the fruits of her labour. If you have ever tried to start a fire in a wood stove, you know it’s harder than starting one outside. There is several things you need:

1. Good, dry paper. Too much ink and it won’t burn fast enough to get the fire going. It has to be dry and well crumpled so that the oxygen can get around it. If you roll it too tight it won’t light.

2. Kindling: This has to vary in size from toothpick size to wooden spoon size. The small stuff has to catch, burn hot enough for the medium stuff to catch, and then get really blazing hot so the actual logs catch.

3. Then you need good wood. Pine burns good, but fast. Larch does well, but so far my favourite is Fir. It is still a bit green when you put it in, but it burns hot and long, and will keep the house warm all night.

4. You also need to set all this stuff up just right, or you will use a whole box of matches and a whole lot of breath trying to get your fire going. Who knew that there was such a trick to lighting fires?

Once you get everying set up, you light the fire and watch the paper curl into multi-coloured flames, hoping the wood shavings will catch, nursing the lick of fire gently with soft breaths, praying it will come to life. When we first got the stove, it would take me two or three tries to get it right. Now it’s first time, almost every time.

Then, once you get it lit, you have to decide where to leave the damper so the wood doesn’t overburn, or fizzle out. It’s a real committment, this stove.

Tonight I discoverd that my little flame of faith was still smouldering. I was encouraged to know that if I lay the paper down right, and set the logs just right, that I can again begin to turn this ember into something more significant, more warming. I want to begin looking for opportunities to add some fodder to the fire, to turn my soul just right so God’s breath brightens the coals. I want to again feel like i’ll have some warmth to offer my friends and family, and most importantly my God. Whom i love.

Chapter 5 - Come Home Judas

Here is my next foray into one of the grey areas of the gospel, The Gospel according to Judas.

Judas has been a seen as a black sheep by Bible readers, churches, and theologians for millenia. In a lot of ways he is. I know that he was the one that took a bribe to turn Jesus in to the authorities. I know he was money-focused, and blind to the true message that Jesus was trying spread. I know all this. I can imagine that he was a hateful, mousy man, full of confusion and torn between his new life and his old. I can imagine all that. And even knowing all that, I cannot force this thought out of my mind: He sounds a lot like me.

I don’t know how we have ignored this story so utterly for so long. I can’t shake it. I am Judas. He is me. When I decide to look at his world from his perspective, things change for Judas. I know we are all responsible for our own actions, but think about this for a second: Jesus chose Judas. Likely he knew from the beginning the role that Judas would play in his downfall, and yet he didn’t exclude Judas from any of the teaching, any of the trips, or of the company of his presence. Then think about this: The day after Jesus’ death, Judas went back to the High Priest and threw the money down, muttering something about I have done a terrible thing. Sounds sort of repentant, don’t you think? Then he went off and hung himself from a tree. I can’t imagine what a frightful state of mind he was in for those 48 hours or so.

I am sure he may have had a different outcome in mind for his betrayal. Maybe he wanted to force a political confrontation and settle this thing once and for all. Many of the Jews wanted a saviour so that they could rid themselves of the Romans. Regardless, I wonder what Jesus would have said to Judas if Judas had survived the three days, when Jesus returned to his disciples to personally tell them it is finished. In his book The Gospel According to Judas, Ray S. Anderson tells the story of how he came across this bit of graffiti in a San Fran bathroom: Come home Judas, all is forgiven. From that bit of writing, Ray is inspired to write a book imagining conversations between Jesus and Judas after the resurrection. Come home Judas, all is forgiven. It applied to Peter, it applies to you and I, why would Judas be excluded?

The more I think about it, the more I feel akin to this tortured man. I myself have blatantly betrayed Jesus for personal gain. I betray him daily. That is the reason I need that forgiveness, it is most certainly not the reason I am excluded from it. All we need, the Bible tells us, is to repent. Judas did. He just didn’t stick around long enough to feel the forgiveness wash over him. Just a couple more days, Judas, and you would your world would have been a different place, like mine is. I suppose Judas knows this by now, but I kind of feel the need to stick up for him.

I told you that to tell you this: I am trying to sort out the dos and don’ts, the shoulds and the shoudn’ts, the traditions and the expectations that have been placed on me from my various experiences in churches left of center and right of center, of Bible College cultrual experiences, of mystified readings of the Word. I am trying to make for myself a set of beliefs that I can stand behind, but allow for openess and characterize the lack of judgement that Jesus has shown. I want to learn to pass on forgiveness freely. I want to teach my children true things. At a time in my life where I feel more akin to Judas and the the tax collector than any other character in the Bible, I hang my head and beat my chest and tell Jesus have mercy on me, for I am a sinful man. It is at times like this that I hear those words ringing through my head, rumbling and unstoppable like a midnight train outside the window tand my world shakes: Come home Judas, all is forgiven. I must forgive Judas because to exclude him from God’s forgiveness excludes me too, and Peter, and mostly everyone in the world. Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.

As I pull down the walls of my church, looking for the cornerstone, looking for a foundation to build something lasting on, it is here I find the raw materials for the new building: the vast, solid, and profound knowledge that no matter what, I am forgiven. I am home, all is forgiven.

I heard the rooster’s call I threw the silver at the temple wall I couldn’t wait, but that was the first day. I don’t know what I’ve done But though death was on his face, There was forgiveness on his tongue. Halleluia.

Chapter 4 - Everything Changes

I am wondering if there is a time in everyone’s life when responsibilities outweigh the simple pleasures. Somtimes when I think about what lies ahead I get this feeling like a ball of concrete forming in my belly. Some might call it dread, some might call it fear, some might call it an ulcer...but i think it might actually be something I’ve never dealt very well with: reality.

There are mice in our house right now. The pest control expert says that traps don’t do anything. Sure, he says, I might catch a mouse now and then, but it won’t control what he called a population explosion of mice in my house. To be honest, I didn’t really like the sounds of that. That sounds like a lot of mice. The reality of the situation is that there may well be a lot of mice. I don’t really want to find out. The only thing that works, he says, is poison. They have this really powerful poison that dehydrates the mice so badly that they dry up and crumble into dust. Ouch.

So there are many things going on inside me right now. It’s like standing under a tree full of monkeys dodging banana peels. Look up, move, look down, step, look up move, etc. I feel like I am searching for this gritty, real thing with my faith right now, my family is only just gaining complexity with some interesting new situations, and my life has two beautiful redheads that require my attention and affection from time to time. How do people do this? Eventually I am going to step on a banana peel. Actually I think I am smeared with banana pulp already. Whoosh. Down I go. Again. Just when I feel I am getting my feet back under me enough to deal with some of the backlogged life-waste, I get broadsided with something new. Is this what life is like? Is there some other way? I am looking for a manual or something that tells me what to let go of and what to hold onto for dear life. I have friends who seem to know how to live like this. One time we visit them in Edmonton, Alberta, and the next we get an email from them and they are teaching english in Korea. When you move that much, you learn to live with what you need and not one thing more. I have never been so transient. I hate moving. When my friends move I try to arrange it so I am out of town or sick. Not only that but I am sentimental. Memories attach themselves to things and I think I should keep this, it reminds me of my first band...or my first car...or that time I went for a walk downtown by myself...mostly really inane memories, really.

In a spiritual sense, I am the same way. I have a difficult time sorting through the mire and deciding what I need to keep and what I should throw away. I often find myself thinking I might need that someday, i’ll come back to that thought and so I write this stuff down, or file it away. You know how the scientists tell us that we only use 10% of our brains? It’s a lie, the other 90% is landfill. Useless fact storage, like those huge warehouses deep in the catacombs of the Pentagon that have crates of files and military weapons projects that never quite worked. Why keep it? We might need it someday.

How do I decide now what I might need in ten years? This is a very difficult question to answer when I am dealing with bits of personality and spirituality. In a conversation with my friend Graham the other day, we were discussing church services, mostly protestant, and how we have nearly exorcised them of meaning. The protestant church has gone through great pains over the last decade or so to cast off all the trappings of tradition in an attempt to contemporize the message of Christ. It’s not about the medium we said...It’s about the message. The problem is that in doing so, we have cast off the meaning associated with those traditions, such as liturgy, ceremony, and silence. It is true that the message of Christ is not about the medium, but with out medium, the message has no meaning. What do we have left that has a real thought-out meaning? In my experience, services are more often geared to comfort than meaning. Now that I have come to know Christ enough to know I am lost when I am comfortable at church, I long for meaning and challenge.

In the same sense, when I am comfortable in my own skin I start to get complacent about sorting through the junk. When the junk piles up higher, it is harder to get to the core. The bigger the pile, the bigger the backhoe, if you catch my meaning. My problem now, I think, is that I have let the pile grow much bigger than I can handle myself. I can no longer get my bearings because the horizon and the sun are blocked out by my mountains of crap. I can no longer remember the criteria by which I evaluated each piece of junk and cast it onto the keep pile. There are these mice that are running around nibbling at things, leaving half-thoughts and poorly worded prayers and holes where once had solid truth or doctrine. I need help. I need some spiritual mouse poison. I am not sure where to go from here, but I don’t think there is a better place to start as i turn and face that reality:

O God, I need help.