dawkins, gervais, and mythologies

So….the atheists I know have gods.  They tend to be egoism and stimulants, pride, and vanity along with other garden variety idols.  I find these side roads into idolatry particularly sad when dealing with atheistic myopia.

I wonder, do they really not see how important it is for the world to revolve around them?  When you are an atheist this is particularly sad because your life (by your faith’s disposition) has no more significance than a bit of plastic jetsam swirling around in the Pacific.  Idolatry of a plastic toothbrush, let’s call it.

By contrast there is Jesus.  His words are deep, warm, incisive, ironic, profound, and true, often all at once.  His voice resonates over the course of recorded history.  He is the antithesis of egoism.  There is no, “and then Jesus sat down to a satisfying breakfast of fried eggs” verse in the Bible.  There is some interesting stuff about Him NOT eating and casting out demons…oh, and raising the dead.  The dead.

His smallest words matter.  His weeping, His silence, His unbearable pain.  And then there is His advice–keep the eternal, lay up treasure that will not rust or rot.  He shows us how this is done

by dying to our egos and ourselves

by purchasing with our money, our time, and our hearts

treasure in Heaven.

treasure in Heaven…

What does God treasure?

Us.

we are His precious treasure

and just in case we did not see it, He makes His mark on the center of the map of human history

with a Cross

 

Forgiveness is not the same as lying about the past

A friend asked me, do you put the kids to bed and at least get five minutes to yourself?  No, I say, not really but I like them all…

Hours later I realize how strange that must sound, how incomplete.  What I see in my head is thirteen years of eidetic episodes of unlikable events–bullying, tantrums,  swearing, violent protracted rages, physical assaults, homicidal imaginary friends, routine larceny, and lies, cursing of the most egregious kind.  Some stories so awful I do not want to write about the hurt.  And all of this before the years of C’s sexual felonies were dragged to light.

Most sane and normal people would have known better, right?  We believed if we did not give up on m and c they would be good, or at least better because of love.  Because of Love.

Jesus said, greater love has no man than he lays down his life for his friend.

Somethings are easier than others to lay down, I say beneath the shadow of the Cross.

Those 13 years took things that did not belong to me from the most precious people I know.  To say I like my children is an understatement.

They are my heroes.

insomnia

The house is quiet. I can hear the wind outside but inside it is warm, almost safe. My house would feel safer if the world was safer. If police officers were brave. If money were no object; instead: justice.
I can see Him look at me when I begin to whine internally.
His expression is wry when He has every right to be fierce
you know this belongs to Me, He says
I know.
I know it is His because of the pain
the plunge into darkness
swallowing the abyss whole
He returns to us
if this were a poem
instead of survival
i would call it
“unfair”

i am broken

Many of the traditional Christian catechisms define people as being totally depraved. It is archaic for us–we are used to seeing people through the rose-colored glasses of publicity and media packaging.
I remember seeing a famous person on tv telling an interviewer that she was a wonderful mother (or something like that).
I had a vociferous critic of my parenting so I thought about what the woman was saying. Even without my mother’s voice in my head I knew the catechisms–I am not great, good or wonderful. I am broken. My whole life is broken. The only way it works at all is when I let God in to the broken spaces. He is the antidote to my sin, fear and selfishness.
Jesus was utterly forsaken so I would never have to be.
I used to think that His story could have been more humane–we politely give Him our gratitude and stand by broken by His death on the cross.
Now I realize that the horror of every lonely place and abuse in His story is the way He walks through and bears the trial and death I have earned.
And in return He gives me my life back.
I give Him death, He returns my life to me.
For the first time whole.