Knowing and being known... When you should have been "afraid" for my "soul," you weren't....

I told my good  friend about the planning for this post. I told her what it felt like to be thinking about writing this one. I showed her pictures, I told her stories and I cried.





These pictures are almost exactly a year apart.

What is obvious would be the weight that was lost.  What isn't as obvious but the same words could be used is the weight that was lost.


I won't go back and rewrite a history that was lived.  What I have come to begin to touch is that the journey of life takes us upon a very wild ride.  What I will believe about myself is that I attempt to live as honest of a life as I can day in and day out with the understanding and revelation I have in the season and time.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would ever emerge as the person I am today.  Never in  my wildest imagination would I have been able to conjure up the life I am living and loving and relaxing into.  Never in my most far out thoughts of myself would I have ever thought I could be on the brink of touching such a settled feeling in life. Never.....  But in a year's time I am awe struck at what possibility, hope and just plain not giving up can do.

The best comments I have gotten back recently is you like the "How tos.." I get that. The nuts and bolts of how this all works.  The thing is ... one of the wisest people I have met this past year doesn't give me as many of the nuts and bolts that I would want and that has been the greatest "How to," I have ever learned.

So here is a story for you....  We all have seasons in our lives that feel like the earth is shaking and the landscapes that we have known and trusted are shattering.  What I have learned isn't new to anyone and is a tad more cliche then I care for.... But simply put, if one just keeps going, relaxes as much as possible and breathes.. the day called tomorrow will come and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that.....

If one wants change. If one wants something to change and is willing to stick through the actual process when the wanted change starts to come (one might realize that the change that was seemingly wanted isn't wanted as much anymore.) BUT...

I knew I wanted something different
I didn't know exactly what that was
I didn't want to live in the negative.... Like when I was thinking, "I can't do this anymore,"  I knew I didn't want to live in the what I couldn't dos I wanted to discover the what I could dos.
I knew I needed help
When I quit or wanted to quit or when I did quit I learned humility and found my way back to the journey and unquit. I have had very gracious people in  my life who understand that it is a process that takes time and the pacing out of that process is what it is and that that is ok, more than ok.. it is as it should be...

I want to use a futuristic story that is written in the Christian gospels.  I want to use that story and a conversation to give you the foundation for change.

So as the story goes... Jesus is teaching

Do not judge.
Keep precious what is precious ie don't throw pearls to swine .. (your heart to those who won't understand)
Be one who asks
Be one who seeks
Be one who knocks
Treat people the way you would want to be treated
There are few who will spend the time to find the ways of life, most want a quick fix.. spend the time. The way is narrow.. few people go there but be one who journeys upon that road of discovery.
Be aware (Beware) of those who teach falsely.  Good things can not come from a bad tree. Examine the fruit of one's life. There are the proverbial and not so proverbial wolves in sheep clothing.. I've met too many of them. They look like sheep, they smell like sheep.. they even sound like sheep but they will never bear baby sheep and the flow of their lives will eventually tell you what's what.

Then comes this story...

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me,

Ok.. there's that story from the book, Matthew.

Here's another story.

I sat at a table in a coffee shop.  There were three of us.  There was a conversation.  I listened. They listened. We went back and forth talking different points about what it might mean to live a life of Christian faith.  I had been on this journey where I knew that I had been influenced by culture in a way that was not as true to the heart of God as I wanted.  Living in America and being part of this culture as a Christian we have a very different "gospel," at times.  At times I would say the "christ," that is followed is no different then the Golden Calf idol formed in the desert in the times of Moses.Making a version of a god that is more palpable and golden delicious then the actual Divine Man that walked the face of the earth as the age of the world went from before Him to after Him.  I wanted something different.  I didn't know what, I just knew that after twenty-two years of serving in churches and para church organizations something had to be different.

I listened to concerns about listening to empty philosophy's of men and different Pauline teachings. But what was rattling in my heart was the other story I just told you.  Whatever your beliefs are I had spent what seemed like a life time, since the age of 19, walking one certain road.  What that gave me was wisdom and depth and breadth of experience.  I knew some of what I was talking about.

While not verbatim, this would be the gist of what I would say...

I would express that I heard what was being said, and then I would share that my deepest concern was that there will come a day according to Christian scripture that all will stand before the Christ.  Some He will have known and others He will have not.  In our audacity at times as Christians we want to say who that is and who that isn't....  I took this moment to share that my largest concern was this, I had spent a life time in ministry, aka... "casting out demons, healing the sick, etc."  And I thought that the who that is and who that isn't might be very different than anything we have ever thought.

You see what I realize now is this... When you should have been afraid for my soul you weren't. That is what I wish I would have said succinctly.  When you thought I was doing all the right things, and living a life that people thought was godly and full of spirit and gifting and life, I wasn't knowing nor was I being known. But in the West, and in the American culture we care more about the doing and the results. I could prophesy, foretell the future, speak over and into the lives of many. HOWEVER  I was more on the road to a proverbial hell and not being known by God during a time when the church and the religious faithful would have said I was sold out and wanted to emulate my life and the way I flowed in the spirit.

Hear me on this... especially if you are of the Christian faith AND even more especially if you are in ministry or want to be in ministry.  I was doing all the right things.Except I wasn't
. 
That day at that coffee table what I would say is I get that in Christian belief there is an idea of many will depart from the faith, aka "fall away.".  What I said is I think that that has happened and I believe it has happened with more of the people that stand behind the pulpit then sit in front, and we are those that that story I shared speaks of.  I gestured to the three of us sitting there at the table, including myself.  I knew that I had spent decades dangerously and precariously doing all the right things and yet in being busy and being in the business of the doing of the ministry, I wasn't being known.  I was setting the agenda. I needed to be doing and thinking that I was building  for God, maybe more of what I was doing was keeping busy for self.

The greatest difference between those two pictures I first shared is I lost a life I thought was what I wanted only to find the way to Life and living in love in such a way that grounds me into Spirit and humanity in ways that I have never known.

I found stillness
I found silence
I found quiet

Again both Christian and Hebrew scripture will emphasis rest, trust, quiet... those concepts are NOT just beautiful truths lived out by those more of the faiths that come from the East.

Cease striving and know God
Be still and know God

Meditate upon the things of Creation and Spirit.
Separate from the events of the day and go to lonely places and learn to be just with self and Creator.. The Christ we follow or say we follow did... (Even if it starts with 2 minutes... learn to sit with yourself. A prayer I have told you about that has filled out my journey these past two years is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.. Lord, my God who are you and who am I?  ) I have sat, paused, struggled, wept, laughed and fought for the answers and some I get, the more important ones I don't for they are to be lived and trusted in the mystery that they are... Again in the West/ in America.. we want to KNOW.. we want to be CERTAIN.. we want to have the answers....  It is in the unknowing that we can learn to know, it is in uncertain times that trust is grown and in the lack of answers comes living.

Again some simple how tos... they too come from Hebrew text...

Love Mercy
Do Justly
Walk humbly


Sometimes I  shake my head these days because in the midst of concern that I am dabbling into things that are taking me away from orthodoxy of belief I have actually found the most true expression I think I have ever walked in the twenty three years I have followed the Divine Man, The Christ.

Maybe we should take a very careful look at when you should have been concerned for my soul and you weren't, are the care takers ( ie pastors, priests etc, ) of your souls taking care of their own. If such a day does occur do you really want to watch as they were told they weren't known? If such a day does occur do you really want to have lived  a life of  correct religious activity only to hear you weren't known?  This is important t and it has caused me to tremble and work out what does it mean to live a life towards Spirit, what does it really mean? And then what am I going to do about that...