I Just Want To Go Home

Compacted many times by feet not too unlike mine, scurrying to get out of the cold and into the colder office, the snow underneath me was more like ice moguls and less like a fine powder for skiing. I kept careful watch on my ankles as they rolled slightly with each step in response to the tiny valleys caused by someone before me. My warm breath crystallized before me haunting everything in my sight making it a little less like the downtown I knew and more like a Narnia that I wanted it to be. 

My hands were buried in my pockets and the collar of my black wool coat was up around my neck, keeping me from the bite of the Erie winds. I tucked my chin for good measure in hopes the wind would play off of my hatted head and leave my nose alone. 

I glanced up for a moment to survey the traffic light at the intersection ahead. It was red heading west bound and so I had a chance to meet the intersection just as it would turn green allowing me not to wait in the wind tunnel of Ontario Street, whose mouth opened into Lake Erie and greeted the Alberta winds.

Before I put my eyes back to the sidewalk I noticed a young girl walking toward me. She was in boots, indigo blue jeans, and a black coat with the hood up over her shimmery black hair. She dragged in her right hand, a pink backpack equipped with wheels and a telescoping handle, not big enough for a a fifth grader. In her left a black garbage bag that was slung over her shoulder. At about fifteen paces from me I heard her mutter with a meekness that almost made me cry. 

"Excuse me?"

I raised my brow to meet hers and and widened my eyes cheerfully, "Yes?"

By this time she stopped right in front of me and I can see the youth on her face. Her skin was coffee and cream and not bothered by days gone by, as there couldn't have been more that 16 years worth of them. Her eyes were wide, firmly brown, and forlorn, welling up with whatever it was that was brought to her this day or week. "Can you tell me where Tower City is?"

She asked the question like she had asked it three or four times already and wound up no closer to any towers at all. Before I could answer I felt compassion toward her because I thought her best efforts were over and over again just short, to no fault of her own.  I glanced up over her shoulder in the direction from which she came, and I now went, and nodded. "It actually right there."

She turned to the buildings on the opposite side of the intersection she just traveled and he shoulders sunk. I saw her exhale and thought I heard a whimper. The traffic light turned green.

"Is there some place specific you're trying to find?" I asked, not wanting to leave her to her own vices again. 

And with that she turned and looked at me, overcome by the whatever it was, and formed puddles in her eyes. She dropped her head and rolled the puddles down her innocent cheeks. "I just want to go home."

She quickly composed herself enough to raise her head to me once more. "To Canton. I need to catch a bus at Tower City."

"Well, I am going that way. Let me walk with you."

She turned and began with me toward the intersection and I pointed out where a number of buses pick people up, including the one I thought she needed. We waited in the wind tunnel which was noise enough to keep me from an uncomfortable silence. I didn't know what to say. There were probably things I ought to say, but those were hardly the things I felt. For in times like these I have come to respect the capacity of them and not add to it with my clumsy wisdom. So I asked if I could carry something. She looked the the garbage bag in her left hand and then at me. I reached for it and she swung it embarrassingly to me. 

The light turned green and we crossed in silence. I glanced at her occasionally and wanted so very much to know what it is that brought her to Cleveland from Canton and what it was that is now driving her back. I thought of the Prodigal, and of Nouwen, and I thought of Lazarus. I thought of John asking the Lord to come quickly and I thought of Judas fixing his own noose. But in the three blocks we walked I couldn't bear to ask her to relive whatever it is that caused her this pain or what was in her garbage bag. So we walked and at one point she met my glance and I cocked a half smile and placed a hand on her shoulder as a quiet reassurance. I let it slide down with our eyes and felt more helpless than at any point in my recent life. 

I handed her bag back to her and she crossed the street to where I pointed. I turned and headed in the opposite direction to catch my train. 

I swayed with the train as it galloped through the west side of Cleveland and thought about that girl, her plight, and her ride home. Over and over again I watched her tears form and heard her plea, "I just want to go home." And I repeated those words and listened to them echo heavenward, hoping that my Almighty would let them fall into his ears. I just want to go home, too. Abba, can I come home? 

To live is Christ, yes, but to be both Christ and the folly that is me is difficult to reconcile. I wobble through this life sometimes with the vibrance of ten burning lamps and others with the specter of guilt or condemnation such that I find it better just to lay on the couch. But home, yes home, is where I long to be. I long for my pilgrimage here on earth to come to an end, for the circus of it all to be violently interrupted by a legion of angels ripping the metal roof off of this train and grabbing me under my arms and taking flight heavenward where the hand of the Almighty will touch my dirty cheek and take my tears away. Just to walk with my bare feet thrillingly down a street of gold to where your altar is and to collapse under the weight of your holiness in worship with tongues that I have never known. I just want to go home.

But to live, and I do indeed, is Christ. So I sway with the rocking of the train past West Boulevard and turn the foggy gaze of my heart to Christ and with a meekness unrivaled ask him to take my hand and lead me as I toddle through life. I live and live only with Christ until he returns or calls me home. 

A Good Read

I have a new post brewing for this blog, but until then, I stumbled across this this morning:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/02/an-element-in-my-ecclesiology.html

Scot McKnight addresses a lot of what this blog is about very eloquently and gracefully in that post. Definitely awesome read, agree or not.

An Action of Mercy

"Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven - for she loved much. But who is forgiven little, loves little." And with that he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." - The Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 7

I am not other people so I cannot speak for them. But I am myself, and on better days I am someone a little less myself, so I can speak for me. And for me, I can tell you that I scarcely knew what it meant to be a Christ follower before I knew what it meant to receive mercy. And before mercy I never knew love.

Becoming a Christian seemed like an end in and of itself, like one becomes a millionaire. The balance of life is for lavishing yourself with the rewards of riches. I walked with a sense of entitlement, albeit garnished with sincerity and humble thanks. After all, salvation was mine because I asked, much like ordering a pound of bologna at the deli counter. So then was wisdom. And grace was given to me, receiving what I didn't earn, like boxes wrapped in colorful paper complete with ribbon on top and toy inside all for me on my birthday. And such was my Christianity. It carried me to the pulpit where I now know that I was more comfortable with the power of influence and gratitude people expressed to me for it. It all came natural to the flesh and ego: esteem, attention, authority, the conductor of an orchestra. As my baton went, so went the ibids in the cushioned, high back chairs.

I was in no position to warrant forgiveness because my sins were seemingly so few and immaterial. Confessions of those became a badge of false piety and a display of the righteousness I had achieved. Mercy? It was for those who were beyond mere confession.

Until.

Until I was plunged into vileness so that I hold my breath when the specter of it arises. I don't speak of it, but in generalities, and never unsolicited. I found myself undone and having lost all the prestige that I had once held proudly atop the mantle. Beyond confession, postured face first in the stye I awaited the only thing that I could possibly expect: God's swift justice. And harsh at that.

I find the above account of the words of Jesus so dear to me because of what the story surrounding them tells. A woman, who all we know about her is that she is a "sinner" and can do nothing but expect God's swift justice, does the worst possible thing. She enters the house of Pharisees, the self-proclaimed executors of God's righteous justice. They were quite likely to drag her out into the gutter by her hair before prying up chunks of asphalt with their pristine fingers and hurl them at her breaking skin, bruising flesh, breaking bone, until her breath left her body.

Instead she finds an action. An action of withholding the justice she is due. An action of mercy. A mercy so ferocious that it chases down and consumes her sin before it can draw another breath. An action of mercy that has satiated wrath and lulled it back into slumber. Mercy. A mercy I have felt and for that I am forever changed. I will carry it to the throne room of the Almighty one day and lay it as his feet, much of it, in fact. I shall return it to him as an offering for carrying that mercy with me has allowed me to know what it is to follow him and what it is to love. And I suppose now that I reflect on it, those mercies that are nothing short of Lucullan are all that I might carry with me to glory.

You see, I am still a bad Christ follower. I am a liar and a cheat. Selfish and gluttonous. I am sloth and vanity, a coward, a pig, a failure, a self-saboteur. But I know this now. And I carry those, shackled to my ankle, down the searing skillet of the asphalt avenue to where this Jesus reclines. I limp, with my throat collapsing on itself and tears in my eyes, through the courtyard of the home of my executioner, interrupt his meal, and collapse at Mercy's feet. My neck shivers with the expectation of cold, swift steel taking my head and am unaware that my tears have chased the dust from Mercy's feet. Mercy, sweet Mercy. Be mine. And I will hold fast to you and you shall be my song. New, new, new, every morning you are to me. Sweet is his name on my lips and his name shall be called Mercy.

I'm not a C. I'm not a C-H.

About 8 years ago, I dropped out of college, and joined a Christian metalcore band. I was super involved in my church and campus ministry. I was super in love with Jesus. But at the same time there was something going on inside of me, something that seemed liberating at the same time that it seemed terrifying.

I was done being a Christian.

Let me rephrase that. I was done being CALLED a Christian. I was not done with loving the way of Christ. I was not done living out God's story of ultimate grace and love through the resurrection of His son. But as far as the title goes? No way.

“I don't want to be associated with THOSE people,” I often said, “they don't represent the Jesus I know.” Then over the next few years, I've had a series of ups and downs with this very subject.

I know that this is an issue that many Christians like me struggle with. We grew up in a traditional conservative Christian church, then came of thinking or reasoning age, and (in my case) got liberal, or postmodern, or whatever you want to call it, and then just got plain disgusted.

One thing I've been learning over the past year or so is that that disgust easily leads to a rebellious and sinful attitude towards the bride of Christ. I'm really happy that in one of Bryan's initial posts he mentioned that the point of this is not to tear down the church. Too many times in our "we just want to be real" circles, we end up with a major "screw you" attitude towards the church. It runs rampant in our 21st century churches (and contrary to popular belief, its not just in "emerging" churches).

The emotion is not unwarranted though. Although I think a lot of the action that is taken is rebellious and unhealthy, I'm not letting the church off the hook here. We have done a lot of disservice to our neighbors. And we've done a lot of disservice to ourselves in the process. Galatians 5:15 says "if you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other." Or you have the whole passage in 1 Corinthians 12, talking about how we are dysfunctional parts of the body when we don't work together as one. And in 2 Corinthians 5, Paul talks about how we have been given the Ministry of Reconciliation. How are we going to reconcile the world to Christ if we can't even reconcile our internal differences?

There's a popular saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I guess that's the attitude I want to have towards the church. My pastor was saying something yesterday about focusing on what IS working, which really resonated with me. Why do we always focus on the negative side of things? We are fixers. We see things that are broken, and we (try to) fix them. The way I see it, if we keep on pushing forward the things that ARE working in our communities, then Christ will help us fix the broken things along the way, and I guarantee He'll fix them in a lot more constructive way.

Our center is—or should be—Christ. Everything else, all of our theology, all of our stupid arguments, all of our humanity, it all pales in comparison to the glory and mystery of Christ. Let's keep it that way.