Punching in a Dream

What is the nature of the fight I’m in? It’s real enough, but just that. Not real beyond. Real within limits, in the same way as a game or a show. My constant struggle to meet expectations placed upon me: to get a job, know it, and do it. The world is “do”. And yet, and yet.

How many jobs must I take, how much hay shall I make, before I understand that my job is not my work? This may sound like the rant of a slacker on payroll, and perhaps it is, but what is the nature of what am I leaving slack?

Was Mary leaving her work undone? Did not Martha learn something of faithfulness from her sister? Was it not Martha who waited for him to raise her brother, and served him once he was raised (John 11 & 12)? Do I begin in work, or in rest?

There is such a vital impulsivity in His behavior – he knew where he was destined yet his ministry was almost entirely itinerancy. Was it not in the nature of His work to wander, and make people wonder? To wander and wonder is not to will and work – and yet, what is our work? Is it not simply to believe? What is it, but to wonder about Him? What is it, but to wander after Him?

Behold, the night cometh, when no man can work. I must work while I can to prepare for the morning.

Plying the Game

Some time ago, I wrote of the lie of the blank page. This white screen ripe with false potential, as if nothing had yet been written, as if our screens weren’t utterly blackened by all that we have seen, our etch-a-sketch minds shaken and ready for more. There is no proposition that is more eminently tenuous. And yet, I wake in the morning, every morning, as if it’s a new day. This third iteration of an almost entirely unseen record awake, alive – waiting. It’s a new game. Do you want to play?

Yes, of course, who doesn’t, right? Who doesn’t want a new game? It’s not new, of course, and I am being played, but that IS the game. Let’s pretend. Let’s follow a new configuration of the endless rules and shifting stories. Let me follow my fancies, pretend these bits of light are stone. The game provides it all, yet the molten heart seeking this land of make-believe knows I must force myself to believe. Without it, without this shiny lie and my compulsion to remain in it, what would I have but the truth? A darkened screen, one long night, and the promise of dawn.

I must work the works of Him that sent us, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work, says our Lord of His L-rd. I wish to abide in him, we are commanded to continue in him, yet I refuse to rest in him, as an unclean spirit (Matt. 12:43). I return again to the home my empty soul, taking spirits with me even more wicked than myself, in worse shape than my first escape. My G-d, what have I done?

How do I move though my days, darkened by sin, haunted by regrets? How can I even live and breathe?

Again, the game asks, Are you sure you want to be saved? All progress will be lost.

I toss and turn. I know, in a deep way, this is my struggle – only my struggle. My constant shifting between I and my and and we and and us and our (I constantly must go back and hunt them down), is a royal schizophrenic evasion. Even as I go back and edit, replacing “we” with “I,” “our” with “my,” still thinking “we” and “our”. As if “you” were with me, wishing “you” were here. Instead of me. Wishing “you” were a real friend, instead of being what “you” are, a little ring of power, my precious.

L-rd, what is this? Let it be stolen and lost. Bring me to You, lead me and help me follow, lend me Your strength, show me Your face.

The Dawn Before The Dark

This is the record of my recent rising, woken by the shaking of the Capitol.

Is there anything that is required of me?

Well, Joshua, you could write.

In other times, men first witnessed, and then they testified of what they saw, and reflected upon the meaning of it. Now, we testify the witness. The old way is this, first, consider thy speech. So, L-rd, in your name, and with your blessing, I need to offer up this for consideration.

It’s Monday, January 11, 2021, five days after “Wednesday”, as some are calling it – fitting enough. Remember Wednesday – never forget. Humorous, ominous. 9/11 was, of course, Tuesday (Tyr’s day, Mars’ day), another day of war. And, of course, next comes Thor’s day – twenty more years? Maybe. 2041. Lines up, but that’s not why I’m writing. 

Today is also the day after COVID was found in my mother in law’s nursing home – hasn’t yet hit the news. Around the time Mainecare may be taking over and the cost of her care is “out of our hands.” Right now, I should be grading – I will be grading – but it just seems like this is actually what I should be doing.

I just heard Ken Graves at Calvary Chapel in Maine use his sermon to remind his people of the covenant Washington made at the first inauguration, placing his hand on Deuteronomy 28 with the blessings and the curses upon Israel, that their blessings and their curses would be for us our blessings and our curses.

 Then his sermon made a segue – hardly missing a beat – to his church and their brave defiance of the usurpation of authority by those who “capitalize on the pandemic” -that our religious freedom was taken, and most often, forfeited, to the godless powers that be. He ddi this without a pause to consider that it may be exactly this defiance which is the curse (“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord G-d, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the L-RD.” Amos 8:11).  

Christ, whom I follow, did not resist when betrayed by his own and offered up to the godless empire. Famously, after healing the wound inflicted by Peter, his most devoted and double-minded disciple, He said, “Suffer ye thus far.” In plain English, or even plain Trumpian – “Trust the Plan.” Not the Presidents plan for his own eternal authority, Caesar’s dream of eternal rule in Rome, his eternal city, but our L-rd’s plan of salvation under His authority, in His city.

 Yet, some feel not only entitled but even obligated to resist lawful authority in His, and the President’s, name. Some feel entitled, and perhaps obligated, to storm our own centers of power, that lawlessness may endure in freedom’s name. When will we  both hear and understand, see and perceive (Mark 4:12)? How long, L-rd, how long?

Of course, then I post that. Silence will come, but perhaps now is a good time for truth. Now I just need to listen to Him and love the source of any wisdom I may have, or even it’s apparent immediate result. Soil, after all, expresses no gratitude for the seeds planted in it. It’s always the yielding that provides the fruit.

Do you really want to be saved? All progress will be lost.

The post surfaced, was perhaps noticed, left unmolested, and submerged into the archive. I am slowly learning that the rebellion is deeply organized – we speak obediently, act obediently, think obediently, without will or intent. Natural as staying in the lane, scrolling our playlists, sipping corporate coffee with organic milk. It is only when our obedience shifts that there is even a ripple of actual discontent. Then we try to put the old skills to use – only to find they have no real bearing. So, we continue to rebel, lacking any authority to do so, or even an authority to resist – having been quite deeply deauthorized.  In the wilderness, I wander, moving when I am moved – in the night by what I see, in the day by what I don’t.

What do I see, but the consuming fire, moving my tabernacle to His pillar of flame? A man with a  house in search of a fire, hoping it’s Him.