What conversation does God want to have?

What are the conversations you hear? What are the conversations you take an active part within? I've sat more recently paying attention to these things. What are the conversations I want to have? What the conversations that are good to be having? What are the conversations that just fill up the air ways?

More recently I have continued upon this journey; touching the hem of silence, of listening. More recently I sit back wondering if I ever really heard myself before, so many words spilling out of so many mouths, making me wonder what is really being said. More importantly what is really being listened to? So many voices, so many words, so much information. Not a new conversation within the twenty-first century. The lost art of listening. The lost art of paying attention, of watching, of looking. The conversation, itself, happening so often in so many different genres, making the reality of how much it is talked about a tad bit humorous. Maybe less talk, more practice?

Stillness.

Silence.

Quietness.

I hear the political conversations. Those will only increase as the year continues. The force of angry words filling the air waves. The push to hear all the words that are being spoken. I hear the social justice conversations. The thoughts about people, race, economic issues. People taking to violent measures. Some say its a charade. Others are living the reality. Every where there is a message. Every where there are sounds. Every where there is a stirring.

People feel it. It is in the hearts of women and men. It is in the air. An explosive uneasiness at times.

I sit back more now than I have in a very long time, possibly more than I ever have. Pausing, listening have become a huge part of my life. The psalmist encouragement towards, “Selah.” It has captured my heart. My attention. My focus. I know now that my being was always conditioned as a watcher, a listener. I just didn't value those qualities. Who does?

These have been a couple years of major adjustment. Shedding skins that were never mine to wear. Touching their dried up shells as they lay strewn across the landscape of my life. Moments where I thought I was so smart, or where time spent and expertise acquired gave me something seemingly important to say. Seemingly now foolishness. I will admit, as I'm still in this process, I am not then in a place to accurately describe the last couple of decades. Time and healing and stillness will help me to tell one day.

Yesterday, in my personal journal, I found myself wondering about conversations, communication; words. Yesterday I sat back, looked up into the heavens, and thought about the reality that every idle word spoken is recorded set aside one day to be judged. I take the Christian scriptures seriously in my life. I believe in it there is much life found. In a particular chapter and verse, Matthew 12:36, it is written as it is believed to be spoken by Christ. “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in that day.”

I thought about that verse. I thought about many things yesterday. I thought about many times. I have met too many people who want to say, “the new thing,” “In this season,” etc etc... the words Solomon shared with us contain statements like there is nothing new under the sun and for everything there is a time and a season. There is an allowance always made for such talk however, a lacking of accountability for our words spoken or articulated in a revelatory type manor.

I lose focus somewhat.

I was thinking about the political conversations people of Christian faith enter into, I was thinking of the social justice conversations that people of Christian faith enter into, and then I was thinking of the words that Christ spoke. Then I thought of the things Christ did and didn't do. Then I thought of idle words. Then I thought of Jesus only doing that which He saw being done by He who He loved, His Father.

So here are some of the things that circled in my mind. Ah before I go there... I would like to share that grief overtook me. Personally. Places where I thought I was getting somethings so “right.” Wondering now how “wrong” I was. Places where I hunger to know, to see, to act, to be intrinsically the way I was wired to behave and no longer contort or morph myself into some version of me that isn't true. I did those things. I made choices. I want a different way.

Back to the thoughts...

Do we think about Jesus who was transfigured upon a mountain top with a friend and a man who had been dead for a long time? Do we think about that occurrence? What it means about time and space and life in general? Do we wonder how that affects us now? Why would the transfiguration matter? Why wouldn't it? What social, economic, political implications would a supernatural happening have?

I thought about how Jesus, Himself, expressed that the poor would always be upon the earth and there are some times when acts of extravagance aren't wrong. I wondered how my social justice friends touch that scripture.

I thought about how in the times Jesus' feet walked the soil of the earth, there was the Roman government. I thought of all those that wanted Jesus to be a political force in the way that they could understand. I thought of their agendas. I thought of a bunch of my own. I thought of their behaviors. I looked at my own.

I thought of Judas who stole money from his friends, but had a heart that the Roman rule would be overturned. He had deep hunger for that reality. In his eyes, within his heart; Judas wanted Jesus to be something very specific. Judas didn't have much room for that reality not to be so. Before we throw Judas under the bus, I want to make sure in that arena I look thoroughly into my own eye and remove the pole before taking a glance at the dust in Juda's.

I thought of political conversations. I thought of social justice conversations. Then I was glad we don't have television. Then I thought of Christ. Then I thought of Him weeping over Jerusalem. Then I thought of Him feeding the people. Then I thought of Him receiving the children. Then I thought of Him receiving the gift of expensive perfume. Then I thought of His rebukes to friend and foe. Then I thought of His life, His habits, His sorrows, His joys.

Then I thought of Him weeping over the death of Lazarus, His friend. Then I thought of Him needing John as much as John needed Him. John reclined but Jesus received. I thought of Mary and Jesus. Both His mother and the woman whose life He utterly changed forever. I thought of Jesus and culture and people and Heaven and Unseen realities and seen ones.

I thought and I thought and the pictures and ideas swirled within my head.

Why?

Why so much thinking?

I want to know Him as He is and NOT as I have made Him.

These are the words I wrote in my journal:

“With the conversations that take one side of the spectrum either social justice; that the church at large or people in general don't recognize the needs of the poor, the fringe, the destitute enough. We, especially in America, certainly have more than just our mats and our one cloak. The morality side of Christian life and/or politics, conservative agenda type things, examines our lives to see if they conform enough to whatever acceptable standards of righteousness the religious elite dictate as being “righteous” relegating whole people groups into “sinnners” who are going to burn in “hell.”

So many conversations. Politically. Socially. We are comfortable with those.. We/I have picked and chosen the “Jesus,” we/I want to follow.

But I find myself wondering about Jesus of the transfiguration. What about the Jesus of the Spirit?

What about Jesus being comforted by the angel in the garden? What about angels who would comfort people now? What about Jesus cursing the fig tree, turning water into wine, creating a meal for thousands? What about the reality of Jesus saying the Meek will rule? What about Jesus saying the last will be first and the first will be last? Do we see people that way? What about in our weakness we are strong? Do any of us gladly embrace weakness to touch His strength?

I love the passions people who love Jesus hold as the passions Jesus has, and that is not a sarcastic statement at all. If social justice is a passion, let it be a passion. Jesus did love the widows, the poor, the foreigner. He also withdrew to quiet, lonely and isolated places to be alone with His God. Whatever one's passionate path leads them to love and serve humanity as one desires should be followed. Making, then, the adjustments as life moves forward. Stagnation and inactivity aren't the answers. Silence, stillness and rest aren't in my heart nor vocabulary synonymous with “stagnation,” “Inactivity.”

I came to the place where holding in tension as many things as I could, I went to touch the hem of Jesus' garment. He is and was and forever will be all that He is, and for as long as I live I will hear multitudes of conversations. It's the depths of my desires to listen for the ones that Christ listens to, it's my deepest heart hunger to look for the hearts', that exist within the bodies ,who also have a mouth that speak with authentically held values, beliefs, and passions. Then it is my ultimate hunger to be one who like the elder man, Simeon; waits, watches, believes for that which will be done. One day seeing events hoped for unfold before his very eyes; touching and holding realities deeply within until the day there was an actual baby in his arms.