I think that people who have suffered greatly often fall into two traps regarding self-identity and understanding. Not that that is their fault – it seems to be one of the inevitable results of trauma. Trauma leads to brokenness, one's world is shattered, and often, one's self is shattered along with it.
I find that people who have undergone trauma often:
(1) define themselves by the wrongs that have been committed against them.
and/or
(2) define themselves by the wrongs that they themselves have committed.
In both of these definitions there is a way in which the past maintains an iron grip over the individual. Something has happened in the past that is inescapable, the past is that which defines oneself and there's no getting out of it.
Now, I think the way in which we understand a seemingly abstract concept like the flow of time becomes surprisingly relevant in this regard.
I think that the common understanding of the flow of time is to see things moving from the past, into the present and then the future. We were, we are, we will be. The past moves into the present, the present moves into the future.
I would like to suggest (and here I am indebted to Moltmann… as always) that time actually flows the other direction. The future breaks into the present which then becomes the past. That which will be becomes that which is, and that which is becomes that which was.
So why is this significant?
This is hugely significant because if this is true then we are not defined by our past but by our future. If this is the case I can live a hopeful existence, not trapped within the realm of the wrongs committed against me, or the wrongs I myself have performed. Not only that but, because I have some sense of the nature of the hope that I hold, I am able to live a liberated existence in the present. Because it is this future that defines me and can start to live within it now.
And if this assured hope is one that consists of love relationship and an ever deeper movement into intimacy then I will not define myself by any type of wrongdoing, whether my own or somebody else's. Instead I will come to know myself as Beloved, with all the beauty, freedom and joy that that entails.

I was talking with one of my brothers last night and he said to me,
“You know, it seems to me that in your writing a lot of anger comes through. It seems that in your writing I see a lot more of your 'righteous rage' than of your love and grieving… But when I talk with you, when I see you, I never see any anger, only the other side, the love and the broken-heartedness.”
Now there was nothing negative in what he said, he was raising it more as a question or a neutral observation, and even said that maybe it was just in response to the recent entry on Psalm 137. But it's gotten me to thinking…
I think that love and grief and anger are often deeply intertwined.
The thing is this is a journal. Journals tend to reveal internal struggles that never surface. When faced with injustices, especially when one sees one's loved ones abused or worse, rage is a feeling that naturally flows out of love. However, rage is not the feeling that conquers because, ultimately, love means being able to love both the oppressor and the oppressed, even it if that means standing in opposition to the oppressor. You do so not because you hate them but because you recognize that they too have been dehumanized by the acts of violence they have performed. Love desires to break cycles of violence, of sin, and of death, not further exacerbate them. Therefore, although there are times when I write angry words, I believe a grieving love wins out every time because I have never resorted to violent praxis. Nor have I lost hope. It is this oft neglected hope that enables us to continue in love.
Anger is often the first gut-reaction that love produces, hatred and violence do not have to be a part of it. They only become so when we give in to the negative side of anger. As Paul says, “be angry but do not sin”. I find my rage always gives way to tears. If that is not more fully expressed in my journals it is because it is hard to write of grief without sounding melodramatic. I like to think it does, however, fully express itself in my living.

I have two friends who, last week on their wedding day, said to me,
“You will always have a home with us.”
Pause.
“We mean that.”
That's all.
There was no need to say more.
I think that it's only those who have been homeless that are able to understand what lies behind such a statement. I never knew what home was until I was without one. Like they say, you never know what you've got until it's gone. Home, one's place of belonging, is not found in physical places but in love relationships.
My friends knew what they were saying. It is rare to find friends who understand love in such ways. I think that I have never been offered a greater gift of love. Indeed, this is the gift of love God has offered to us. To find such love in another friendship is truly marvelous.

“Apart from the fact that they prostitute their daughters, the Lydian way of life is not unlike our own.”
– Herodotus
Dearest Lydia,
Once again I find myself writing to you.
We have become intrinsically connected. Perhaps there was once an 'us' and 'them', a 'you' and an 'I', but in this mad storm of passion all things have blurred together. I have gone into you, and you into me and we have become one flesh.
And what is this talk of prostituting daughters, Lydia? Slanderous, slanderous! Those who tell me I am blinded by my love… fools! It is my love that allows me to truly see. Let me cast out the one who speaks such words. Let me speak of your beauty, let me speak of the longing the fills me when I am apart from you. I pray that I will never be parted from you again.
“let's grow old
and die together
let's do it now”
– Ani Di Franco

I often feel like Jesus' disciples before Pentecost.
It's as if I'm starting to get it but there are a lot of things I'm missing. Like Peter confessing Christ one moment and then completely misunderstanding what that means the next moment. That's why the story of the blind man who was touched twice proceeds Peter's confession. Peter understands Jesus' title but misunderstands the implications. He thinks Messiahship is all about victory, conquering and glory when Jesus is trying to tell him its about victory through suffering, conquering through sacrifice, and glory in humility. The blind man represents the disciples. They have started to see, but at the time, only see people that look like trees walking. It is only after Pentecost that they fully see and understand.
I think I am that blind man. My vision has been partially restored. Whereas before I was blind I now can see. But something is still off, people look like trees, I'm still waiting for the picture to be made clear.
I'm still waiting for Pentecost.
How can I still be waiting for Pentecost?
How can I be a member of the people of God and yet feel that I do not possess the Spirit of the new age?

You see, it breaks down like this:
The church looks out on the world and sees a mass of people who are blind. The blind leading the blind to their own destruction. And so, remembering her call to be a light in the darkness, she wades in proclaiming, “I have found the light, I am the light! Follow me!” Some of the blind hear and disbelieve because all they've ever known is darkness and they have no frame of reference for light. But others hear and want there to be something more. And so they follow. But they're blind. It's hard to follow a light you can't see. Relationships breaks down. The blind wander off, the church gets frustrated and jumps from one to the next. “No, just trust me,” she cries in desperation, “I really am the light.”
Before long everything is a mess.
This is the problem, the church is claiming to be a source of light and asking people to follow her… but she's not bringing people out of darkness. She says she's the light, but everybody is still just as blind as they were before they heard her summons.
Instead of trying to lead the blind the church needs to give sight to the blind. Understand the difference? It's monumental.
The problem only gets deeper when we realize that if the church has not broken through the darkness of the world around it, maybe she's not actually a source of light. After all, when light comes into contact with darkness it can't help but illuminate it. That's just the way light works. You can't bring light into darkness and have the darkness remain. Maybe the church is blind as well and only thinks that her darkness is light. Having never seen the real light she mistakes her version of darkness for something it is not. And the blind lead the blind to their own destruction.
Jesus said he was the light of the world and restored sight to the blind. Somewhere along the way the church has lost this. And I, I'm looking for it like a blind man groping for the colour. Only not entirely. More like a person in a deep, deep hole, who every now and again has seen a shaft of sunlight break in. I've seen something. I know the light is there, and as I scale the walls of this pit I see more and more all the time. The grey of the mud and rock giving way to browns and greens and blues and whites. What I don't know is how to help others to see, how to become the light and not just observe it.

“And he [Jesus] said to him [a lawyer], 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
–Matthew 22:37-40
For as long as I sought moral perfection I was unable to attain it. The more I tried the more I failed. Even in the simple things, the most clear-cut and obvious things that were impossible to rationalize, I found myself unable to create any lasting positive change. There were moments of conviction, moments of passion but they were fleeting and inconsequential.
I have given up the pursuit of some transcendent state of moral perfection.
After all, that's not what we are called to as followers of Jesus.
Christians need to give up the pursuit of moral perfection.
Instead we are called to journey in love relationships with God, with others, and with the rest of the cosmos. We should be pursuing love relationships, in particular we are to pursue love relationships with those who are most vulnerable – those who have been abandoned, abused and shattered.
It is only after we have begun to prioritize love and journey in those relationships that we discover that love truly is at the heart of the law and prophets. Suddenly we discover that the morality we were incapable of attaining as an end of it's own is something that occurs as we are transformed by intimacy. Things that always seemed forced become natural. Actions that seemed alien, that seemed to belong to the character of a transcendent God – and certainly not to the character of a finite being like myself – suddenly are the only actions that seem to be true to who I am.
When we journey in love relationships the sayings ascribed to Jesus and Paul suddenly gather a whole new coherence. What once seemed a poetic phrase about love and Law, or an abstract theological argument about grace and Law, suddenly make practical sense. Increasingly I find myself thinking, “Of course that's the way it is. Of course.” It just makes sense.
The problem is that the church has prioritized moral perfection, often at the expense of love. Not only is love neglected but by making morality the foundation of a Christian ethic the church gives itself an impossible task and dooms itself to failure. It is only on the foundation of love that any sense of moral perfection (or understanding of what that even looks like) becomes possible.
I've given up on perfection, in the end I think that whole idea has a lot more to do with Greek philosophers than with the God of the Bible.
What I have not given up on is love. It is love that lies at the heart of the Triune God.

I think I am more self-conscious than I used to be.
That is to say, I have become more self-absorbed.
Whereas before I could care less about what others thought of me, I became accustomed to being liked and even admired. As a result I have come to lose the very characteristics that produced those relationships in the first place. I have come to care greatly about what others think of me – and I have come to expect them to think highly of me.
Now, I've always been a shy person, but for the last half dozen years I've been able to hide that fairly well.
To be shy and arrogant, that's when the trouble truly begins.

He says, “God is good!” but what I think he means is that God helps those who help themselves. I don't know how much he realizes that he has blurred the line between the two.
It's as if he is playing a game so I play along:
“God is good!”
“Yes, he is.”
Only I know it's a game. The problem is that I think he's played the game for so long that he's lost track of the deception. The illusion has become increasingly concrete. The game has become his reality.
And I really don't know how to tell him that. Or even show him that. Really, I don't think it's possible for me to. It was a passing meeting and I don't think our paths will cross again. So I respond affirmatively but, in the end, I mean something completely different.