HEY EVERYONE!!!!!!

This is the way my heart works...when I think I look good....I feel good.  And I am always evaluating if I look good.  Not just physically (obviously) but all aspects of me...who I am and my place in the world, how important or profound what I do is, even how un-self-centered I aim to be is a hugely self-centered activity itself.   The bottom line is that I am always looking for something good to come FROM me that validates or affirms something positive IN me. 

Ron Burgundy is so blatantly consumed with himself that it is hilarious...nobody would be that crass and narcissistic in such an open way, it's hysterical...that and the mustache.

But my heart is not so dumb as to shout "Hey everyone, come and see how good I look"...or is it?   This blog, my facebook, the books I have on display on the coffee table, the words I use in speaking to someone, the way I feel magnanimous when I let someone in front of me in traffic or have a wave of compassion for the homeless guy I just passed by the highway...a whole lot of conscious and unconscious decision making connected to how I feel about myself based on what the world will see from me.   It isn't a trait that I choose to move away from or somehow change in myself...it is a condition that my heart is in that cannot be eradicated by self-effort....that would simply be attacking narcissism with personal willpower...a delusion at best.    It is simply my nature to be self-centered...to be at the center of my deepest motivations, even and especially when I am totally unaware of it.   I think that I am looking at the world when I am living my life, but I am only looking for the reaction to me that will give me the validation, identity and things that my heart cannot live without. 

The only validation (which is love, acceptance and value) has to come from an outside source which means it is completely disconnected from what I do in my life.  The only thing that pulls my heart away from looking at myself and what I do is when I see what I need being given to me from a source other than myself.  And it is very difficult to do when I am looking at my own performance in life as the source of meaning, profundity and affirmation.   "What I do" is then very often the thing that keeps my eyes and heart focused on myself even when the outward activity seems directed towards something else.  That is the way my heart works because that is the way you EARN love....but love is only ever given as a gift and it must never be earned but only accepted.

I don't do this very well, by the way, in fact I feel pretty proud right now in myself for writing all of this...so there really is never a time when I don't need reminding of this.  And that is what my life is...a dead person...whose greatest need is to be deader...to exist less...to not do but to believe...to lose my life in the hope of finding it...in order to be loved as I truly am and not as I should be.

Feel the burn....

 

 

 

The Floor

---

I search the wood of a walnut floor

that spreads a homely plain between

walls of white horizons.

Door-less openings frame

my view of empty rooms,

like corpse-less tombs,

their windows angling light

into fragmented shadows.

The scars and furrows made by

disdainful human moles

chafe my hands and knees.

Its eminence betrayed,

it's a forsaken landscape,

still bearing the soil of its fate.

Where is the hope of rain,

the crown of fauna

in this unheralded valley,

so vital to the mountains

it lay beneath, gracing the paths

of all people while absorbing the

runoff from their missteps?

Death by servitude; life hidden inside

the luster of a gentle wash.

Reds rising, warmth returning,

blood flows to cold limbs.

I walk hopefully across arms and legs

amidst the painful cries of protesting nails,

searching for the acceptance of my sole.

 

The Good News

For Christians who have made non-Christians feel hurt and judged and have made other Christians feel they aren't doing enough...The Gospel says you aren't better, rather you are just as bad.

For non-Christians who think Christians are hypocrites and look nothing like their leader...The Gospel says you are right, they don't look like him, they need him.

For people who talk about the Gospel but emphasize performing the law...The Gospel says you are replacing Good News with Good Advice and need to make first things first.


The Good News of the Gospel is something different than I have heard most of my life and it comes as Good News only when I believe I am screwed up and need charity rather than I am good now and am realizing my potential.


 

and now for something completely...different?

My first video on here is an attempt to do something other than write and put links up etc...but to try to use video (which I have a lot of fun doing) and try to express thoughts verbally...something which is easier said than done....hahahaha....see, that completely didn't work...oh well..

so here is the first video...I'm quite confident that they can only get better from here on out...they certainly cannot get any worse...




Here are some links to the book Grace in Practice and to the mbird.com site where you can find Paul Zahl's teaching series Notes from the Underground (River) : A Course in Grace in Practice

Here is a link to mbird's publications...a highly recommended selection.

What is so amazing?

I   accomplish, do, work for, put forth effort, get done, put my nose to the grindstone, carry my weight, earn my keep, prove myself, take pride in, step up to the plate, shoulder responsibility, walk the walk, man-up, own it, am a stand-up guy, am accountable.

I  receive   

my salvation from God completely without all of the above and in spite of it all.

That is.