Hard work and empty hearts

I’ve seen life from many angles. And what I’ve discovered is that most Americans are extremely proud people. They take pride in what they do, and are mostly conscientious of their image to others. They know how to work hard, whether it’s trading on the stock market or building houses, and they are hard at it 5 -6 days a week. But many are empty. Their hard work pays dividends, but not the kind that makes a body happy. They have trappings, but inside their souls are broken down shacks; a perfect example of average life and overtoil: if life lives you than you won’t live life.

I think that if we fail to plan ahead and be diligent, poverty comes knocking. But if we are unable to truly rest a little from our work, life lives us and we’re left with an empty shell to fill with charade. What’s the balance?

The Sabbath lifestyle. Not the hard line religious legalism we associate with the phrase, but a true reflection of God’s heart. The seventh day, month and year should be set aside for rest and refocus if we are truly set on living in God’s Kingdom.

So here’s a rave for all the hard working people who are able to properly balance work, family, God and rest into 7 days: YOU ROCK! Don’t listen to the lazies who say you work too hard. Labor is holy and necessary; do the best at what you do! But if you forget the seventh day (i.e. rest) watch out for the rock wall of burn out!

Plumbline Ministries, awesome stuff

Check out Arthur Burke's stuff. Great revelation and insight into current happenings and seasons!

Plumbline Minsitries

Okay Democrats, now what?

In a sweeping victory that made the White House cringe in disbelief, the Democrats have taken control of the House and are looking to do the same with the Senate. The overwhelming moral mantra of this year's midterms was homosexual "marriage", abortion and the Iraq war. We all know their chosen course for the first two, but I think we're in for a real comedy show when it comes to the latter. With few exceptions the Dem's sole view on Iraq is to get out ASAP. Unfortunately that isn't going to be as easy as they think. I think we're going to see a whole lot of blushing going on as newly elected Senators become acquainted with the inner workings of our war on terror. I firmly believe that our country needs to present a unified and impenatrable front to these rogues, and I honestly don't think it will be done right in the next four years. What I forsee is loads of petty bickering, increasingly malicious battles over key issues and no real progress on any of our "fronts". So there's my oppinion, send me yours!

Baby Parts for Profit?

Do some research for yourself on this subject. As for me, I'm going to hurl...

Baby Parts for Profit.

That's unborn babies, by the way.

Deleted myspace blog comment...

Here's a reply I wrote to a well known preacher's myspace blog on dating. I couldn't help myself after he made home-schooled people out to be some kind of zit infested, socially inept creatures. (Well, maybe not quite that bad) It got deleted as soon as he read it.

"Okay, first, just to get it out of my system:

Yep, I was home-schooled; all the way through graduation in my early teens. And guess what? I’m normal! I’m not mad at you for taking a shot at us in fun, but it’s only fair for me to return the favor. The non-profit organization I work for is faced daily with our society’s failure to educate, raise and mentor children whose parents pass the buck on to the state. I am consistently challenged to bring some form of sanity to pre-and early teens whose lives are a wreck from the public school system. And that’s not anywhere near my job description! I get to watch as an artistic boy is mocked and beaten up by classmates; and then ignored by teachers who are so afraid of not being politically correct that they’re paralyzed. I grieve with a family grappling with the fact that their 12 ydQ� old girl was raped repeatedly in the school auditorium by a group of 13 year old boys during school hours. Go ahead, tell me it’s better to be socially suavethan tt have real relational skills that just need a bit of polishing. I’m listening…

Whew! Now I feel better.

Mr. xxxxx, the definition of dating varies greatly from person to person, even believers. What I consider pure, honorable and fiery romance is to another downright immoral; and vice versa. You are writing from your perspective and background; and I’m sure you’ll agree that not everyone is in that boat. There’s another perspective on this topic; many, in fact.

I’m impressed with your dating blogs so far and happily agree with most of your points. Legalism isn’t worth the pain. Never! But, neither is recreational romance. What bothers me is synthetic intimacy and the lifelong pockmarks it leaves on our point of view. I’ve looked on as friends of mine have gone through one heart wrenching breakup after another, looking for the right one in just the same desperate manner as a lonely homeschooler dreams about “the one” all night. What’s the difference? They all come out of it less emotionally whole than before.

We all hunger for love, an intimacy that can’t be gained by hiding behind a mask. And we’re all human, with different personalities and basic needs.

I think that the very core values of a society can be found in its romantic culture. One only has to do a bit of history study to find the results. Yes, we are free to set our own boundaries, and thank you for releasing us to do that ;-) We can have fun! I think God takes much pleasure in seeing His creations happy. But there’s still the lex generalis Dio. When we inadvertently set our boundaries below HIS, we fool ourselves and skid into the sham of quixotic never-never land.

And there you have it: it’s not about methods at all. It’s about real life and our core values.

Into-Me-See, Part II

A word to the reader before getting into this article; this is for serious Christians only. It also helps if you’re familiar with the writings of Brennan Manning and Bill Johnson. However, if you haven’t taken the plunge yet and are wondering about what this stuff is all about, you’re in the right place! If you don’t understand any of the terms and clichés here, contact me and I’ll explain. My heart is for you have a true encounter with the King of the universe and I hope you can see Him through what I write.

It’s been about eight months since my New Years resolution – and what a trip it’s been! I thought I would let you in on how my experiment went and the consequences I came upon as a result. If you haven’t read “Into-me-see”, go back and read it before reading this article.

At the beginning of this year I set out to:

1. Learn extravagant love.
2. Allow the charity of God to extend to my secret place, and
3. Do everything except that which I would regret.

Sounds good, eh? It was good. But it turned out the motives behind those resolutions weren’t exactly the best ones. I thought that if I could cold-cut my persona into what I perceived as reality, life would become more meaningful and fulfilling. The thought was basically “This world sucks, my boring life sucks and God feels too familiar. I need excitement.” Wham! Real life demolish my naive outlook of many things in two short months. I literally walked out what’s called “abstract occurrence” in the psychology field. The openness I enjoy in relationships became an endless drudgery of heroic efforts by my inner imposter to keep up the façade of togetherness. I slid into pretense and lame excuses, skipped over momentous events and lost precious God-time in the pursuit of what I thought was truth. Instead of shedding the biggest earth-suit of them all, Pride; I unknowingly embraced what every human should spurn: the essence of theoretical arm-chair moralizing. I found that reality in the worldly sense of the word is still fantasy.

No, I haven’t learned extravagant love. In fact, I think I’ve realized the exact opposite: extreme selfishness. And by no means have I totally allowed the charity of God in to my inner sanctum. Ever the scheming fellow, the inner imposter plots new mazes to block the Sonlight out and keep intimacy at bay. No, I’m afraid that one failed too. And to do everything except that which I would regret? C’mon, Solomon tried that 3,000 years ago and it didn’t work then either. So what now? What about all those nice resolutions that sounded so good? I thought for sure I was on to something there!

I was; I just had the wrong veracity.

Jesus is reality. The Holy Spirit is reality. The FATHER is reality. The FATHER is extravagant love! To hell with all our puny earthling mindsets and sickening self righteousness! Blessings to all those things that keep us from Him; for without them we’d be boorish slops and lazy spectators! HE is the reason we breathe and exist. This whole world was created solely for us to reach the end of our journey and for that end to be in His House with all those who were redeemed because of our life.

God’s Kingdom is much more real than we can imagine. It’s here, right now, all around us. When we praise Him, He comes and listens. When we pray for a blind man to be healed, a new set of eyes are right there waiting for us to grab and install! He makes legions of angels available to those who are locked in a struggle with the evil in their lives, gives the dove of peace to those who long for comfort and touches the wounded and abused and they’re restored. You want reality? Tap into this Kingdom and let these heavenly realities transcend your earthly castle-in-the-sand and see what happens!

I think we’ve been duped by our intellectualism into assuming life can be reasoned out by rational thinking. This walk we live is truly a mystery and only a Divine revelation (which is easier to get than you think, but not that easy) can disclose what’s really in our hearts and bring us into a new era. How blind we’ve been to be living in the yellowish glow of the first heaven when the crystal clear weather in the third heaven above is beckoning us to alight on God’s favor and live the real life! I stand corrected in my assessment of humanity. Without the renewing of our minds we are annoying fog horns in the middle of Kansas; and of no use whatsoever for the betterment of our fellowmen.

The good part of this story? We can be jovial again! And satisfaction is starting to sink deep down inside this man, too. It’s real, unassuming and straightforward. We can release our facades now and be real! This is where true life happens; I like it, I want to live it and I’m never going back.

My conclusion:

If you claim to be a Christian and aren’t satisfied with the end product of your life, maybe it’s time to let go of yourself. Let the weight of imitational performance slip from your shoulders. Quit trying to prove how good you are! How can one live a life of success when their whole persona is built on pharisaical sham and artificial conquests? Take a step into the heavenly realities and try God’s Kingdom on for size.

The first time I was obedient to a prompting from the Holy Spirit from my heart and not external pretense was the happiest day of my life; and I want to continue that way. This walk is about love/passion, it’s not a discipline. The discipline you hear about so much is to protect that passion, not vice versa - and you know what? This life of sanctified reality is crazy fun when you let yourself live it!

Do I have to be ripped to be a hunk?

"DO I HAVE TO BE RIPPED TO BE A HUNK?"

A funny thing happened at the bookstore the other day... I was on one side of the store and had to go through the women's section to get to the music section. Holy Saint iPod! There was a whole aisle of books just for women! The men's section? "Oh, just a few books here and there", said the manager. As much as I may like to think its because women have so many more issues than men, I know better. We just dont bother to figure out how to be a man. "You just gotta know" as my paternal Grandfather used to say.

True manhood as God sees it is the most misunderstood and underrated feat in our culture today - and the bookstore proves it. Recently, I learned this old Jewish prayer that goes; "God, today I thank you that Im a man and not a woman". While Im definitely not a chauvinist and support women's equality in our culture, I think a little "Huahhh" now and then is just the shot in the arm Christian guys need in this overly unisexed culture.

True manhood is under attack in the western hemisphere. The watchwords of the feminist movement are empowerment, freedom and individuality. But anyone whos spent time in Abbas House sees right through their Jezzabelic haze. Basically, they want the abolishment of gender differences. Pardon me while I take a short guffaw... Good luck. Im tired of hearing their meaningless rhetoric and think its time for a few good men and women to stand up and prove their hypothesis wrong.

A few years ago I wrote a full piece on the traits of healthy manhood for a friend. It was long, had a lot of "Huahhh" in it and made you feel pretty bummed. I've since come to see that true manhood doesnt have much to do with machismo at all; it's really depth of character and prowess that counts. See, manhood is more than just being a male. Manhood is a fraternity open only to those whos hearts have been fired by adversity and are still standing. To really understand this phenomenon, you have to break it down in to plain aphorisms.

The five ingredients that we need to become Gods men are in order:

Conviction
Legitimacy
Autonomy
Liability
Prowess

Conviction:

The basic ingredient of an individual is conviction. It defines who you are and for what you stand. Another word that could describe it is boundaries. To become a whole person we must have a defining factor in our lives that sets us apart from the rest of humanity, something we can believe in and die for.

Legitimacy:

I've mused over this one quite a bit. It really has to do with genuineness. It also has to do with us living in the function in which we were created to live. It has no bearing whatsoever in how you were conceived. God expects different things from men than He does from women. Both roles are equally important in His eyes and each have a part to play in this film called life. If you happen to be living outside of the role God intended, He cannot bless you with the contentedness and peace that comes with this legitimacy.

Autonomy:

This has more to do with individualization than self sufficiency. What I'm trying to get across is the fact that you cant depend on what others say, do or insinuate to guide your life. You have to have the resources to make your own decisions in order to be autonomous.

Liability:

While it might seem that this is the opposite of autonomy, it is in truth complimentary. You cant have only one of these traits and be a healthy individual; you must have both. Liability in the insurance world basically means that an insurer or person assumes responsibility for accidents. It infers the willingness to cover for others shortcomings, no matter how you disagree. This is especially deficient in a large part of western society. We want all the perks of being an alpha male, but are unwilling to bear the scruples of the weak because they detract from our bigheaded persona.

Prowess:

Sometimes, when its rainy outside and I have nothing else to do, I meditate on humanity. I like to discover analogies that exist between heaven and earth and apply them to my existence. One day I was thinking about African Lions, how the oldest or most mature male lions are the ones that have the largest prides. The younger ones that dare to challenge these hardened old warriors pay dearly for their timorous performance. Is it the same with humans? In a way perhaps You dont have to fight in any way to prove your prowess, but there is a strange sense of satisfaction that sweeps over me when I conquer something or someone that I perceive as a challenge to my well being. So often in the Christian world men feel emasculated by the so called godly trait of turning the other cheek. What I'm finding out though, is that it takes more guts to give grace to shrill, supercilious jerks when everything in me is screaming Fight! Fight! Fight! than responding in the typical male fashion. Every male needs some sort of battle to fight and win, but if he has no prowess on which to stand, what does he have left? (An interesting thought here: could this be the ever elusive missing factor in the equation: Conversation + Chocolate + ? = what women want?)


These five intrinsic values above set a man apart from boys and pretenders. And pretenders are just that: they tend to think that being a real stud has to do with hyper-aggression, when in truth it's just a cover up for immaturity, fear and insecurity.

Conversely, with honest male maturity comes a seventh sense, I call it "Hurkin Acumen". It makes others feel comfortable around you and gives the wherewithal to plot your course in life; without it you are adrift and tend to follow every finicky worldly current.

True manhood is something thats grown inwardly, manifested outwardly and reflected by womanhood.

So the questions are: What traits define a man? Do you have to be ripped to be a hunk? What are some things that weaken manhood in our culture?

I am a part time artist. My music, photos, films and writings consume a good part of my life, so consequently I hobnob with a number of fellow artisans. What a bunch of melancholies! Moodiness, frivolity and astounding creativity flow richly through their veins. The sad thing is that many of them are shunned by the Christian church; one reason being that some of the male artists are labeled either as too effeminate for comfort or not choleric enough. The burning question in the churchs mind is often: a"t what point do you draw the line between simply arty and abnormal tendencies?" I say simply look for the five traits. If they are ALL present, then all should be well. If there are grey areas, then there could be a quandary that needs healing.

That said; Im going to lay into every male that reads this, including this one. Its time we stand up and be counted as a real man and nothing less. We need to stop simulating adulation to every fad and get a backbone. A man has to be worth his salt, end of story. But please dont think that performance is the way to manhood. All these things come from being honest, theres no way that you can fake a bunch of experiences to speed up the process. Its alright if you are not an alpha male, you dont have to be one at all. All you have to do is realize that manhood is not an art, its an identity. There is a place of validity for you in this world and you dont need to create your own new movement to find that niche.

This really is all about living in your real identity! The Creator had you in His mind's eye when He struck the foundation of the world; he knew you as who you really are, not by what feelings youd have. When we try to be someone other than His blueprint which is clearly laid out in His Word, theres no end to the problems. Manhood is not something that can be bought or imitated; its something that must be slowly grown into, step by protracted step.

And no, being ripped doesnt make you any more of a hunk than being a scrambled egg makes you a hot chick.

(c) 2006

Ravings on Domicile

I was pondering the other day on the subject of domicile. As I allowed my mind to explore the many double meanings contained in humanity's need for physical shelter, I came across some interesting Kingdom principles. One of our most basic needs is for shelter, and if that need is not met, we either lose some of our personhood or a bit of sanity. Most of us have a special place to call home, mine happens to be an 8 X 15 submarine-like quarters in an RV/Cargo trailer, yours is probably some form of permanent or semi permanent structure. We make this place our abode from which we base our entire lives.

I know some people who have lovely homes, ornately designed and richly appointed with the best money can buy. Yet, some of them are hardly ever there. They flit from one social function to the next, fly from one business meeting to the next or are just too busy to do anything at all but sleep there. They sorrowfully mourn lost opportunities for relationship that they bypassed in their quest for fulfillment. They are homeless within a house.

David on the other hand, can pack all he owns on his bicycle trailer, lives wherever he can find a place to park and erect his tent and is as at home in a posh hotel as he is beside the railroad tracks. He never complains about his lot in life, its all an adventure that must be lived as close as possible to the action, according to his philosophy anyway. He likes people, but isn't enamored by them. However, many a widow, poverty stricken family and helpless old men owe there very contentment to his existence. See, he is at home wherever he goes and is not burdened by our smug ideas of what life is supposed to be like. He can walk into a situation and see clearly the solution without having to filter it through a performance orientated lens. He is at home without a house.

What I see here is that things are the same in the Spirit. Weve been given so many things by our Heavenly Father, things we havent even dreamed of yet and still we never use them. I sometimes find that Im still trying to prove Im worthy to obtain what I already possess! I was homeless in my Fathers house until recently. A new consciousness of sonship has descended on this man and he's reveling in this newfound inventiveness of rest. Its really cool to be able to look at life from inside Abba's house rather than the butlers shack out back!

My friend, there is treasure between your ears; there is a pot of gold under your own bed! Our inheritance has been given to us to use as we see fit, we have only to step up to the plate and swing the bat.

Into me See (This is Reality)

Into-me -see

My computer is my companion, I shall not log off.
It makes me stay up late and lie down with bugged out eyes,
It restores my old photos; and leads me to url’s of world renown.
Yea, though I click through websites a thousand, I will fear no spy ware; for my firewall protects me; my mouse and my flash drive, they comfort me.
My hard drive provides an endless chatter, my virtual paging file runneth over.
Surely merciless spammers will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of free WiFi forever and ever.

Oh, the joys and sorrows of my technology! I’ve been pondering the Western Hemisphere’s growing dependence on the net lately, and can’t help but notice how much even I am reliant on it’s vast resources. It’s a bummer. Why? Because there’s no face to face interaction anymore! How easy it is to lose that interpersonal edge when one spends too much time engrossed in html code. (For me, it’s css in case you want to know).

Connectivity has given us a great gift: long distance relationships. We can keep in touch with friends the world over from our computer desk, without breaking a sweat. Needless to say however, is the distance and immunity we posses gives us the ability to create an internet persona that is contradictory to who we really are offline. It is after all, as easy as altering our Myspace to appear a bit more polished!

Father has gently been prodding me of late in this area and revealing certain motives in my life that hinder genuine intimacy with Him and with you. The first New Years resolution I’ve ever made was this year and it was: To allow the charity of God to extend to my secret place, to begin to learn extravagant love and to do everything except that which I will regret.

Too often we get so caught up in the ambiance of this world that we forget that life doesn’t revolve around the natural; we get ensnared in the alter-reality of our synthetic élan and start to believe whatever we perceive. However, technology is only a manifestation of what is happening in these days. Men and women are “virtually” dying every second because their lives have slipped from restful reality into frenzied fantasy; and they need no new ipod to skid into this periphery.

Our Western Hemispheric expertise has blinded us into a visual lifestyle. We have to see things to believe. And we believe all right; the skinny, blonde girl touting the diet plan of the century that worked for her (no it didn‘t, she never had a problem with obesity), the colossal hunk advertising the weight training equipment (he takes steroids), the man with a delicious look on his face biting into a juicy hamburger (he‘s really a vegan and spits every mouthful into a bucket when the camera quits)… you get what I’m saying. These are all visual images marketed as reality, but in truth fantasy. We have become non persons! We have pushed ourselves to a place that after we finish our tumultuous days we just want to zone out. We daily repeat the cycle of trying to ease the stress of a frenzied lifestyle without putting our standard of living in jeopardy. We now need caprice and immunity just to survive. It’s vicious. Intoxicating. A killer for sure.

I’ve decided the only path to a life of function is intimacy. Into-me-see. So what if you see what’s really in me and it’s embarrassing? Let’s trash our bogus facades and get down to some wholesome living. Lets be a doorway, not a closed frosted glass window.

Care to join me?