There are ghosts from my past that own more of my soul,
Than I thought I had given away.
They linger in closets and under my bed
And in pictures once proudly displayed – Jennifer Knapp.
Sometimes I feel like Russel Crowe's character from “A Beautiful Mind.” Only instead of seeing fictional characters I am stuck in a city full of ghosts. Ghosts of a relationship. Everywhere I go is full of memories of her, memories of us, things that used to be but are no longer. We were here once, we sat in this place, we passed through here, I once traveled this way knowing you were my destination. And I feel like I'm taking a step back to come out and admit that. I feel like I'm losing the battle by even acknowledging their presence. So I stumble through, try my best not to make eye contact, try my best not to remember, not to let old emotions flood back into me. I mean, how long has it been? Shouldn't all these things have dissipated long ago?
This weekend at camp was a lot harder for me than I thought it would be. I didn't expect everything to hit me so powerfully. Here is her house, here we sat and talked, here we first walked beside each other, here we kissed and she rested her body against me… the memories fly passed my eyes as I lower my head and try to feel like I'm free.
It's funny that I once prided myself on being a good lover. I really thought I was good at all that, at sacrificing, giving, devoting myself to another. I did all those things eagerly. I thought it was one of my greatest strengths. It's only after I've moved into trying to know God as Lover that I've begun to question myself in that regard. It's only now I've begun to realize how much I need to grow in that area. When I met my second girlfriend all thoughts of the previous one disappeared. There was no longing, no wondering, no wishful thinking. I was so passionately in love that such thoughts were completely foreign to me. So what kind of lover am I to God when I am so suddenly moved by a chance encounter with the ghost of a memory? How is it that so much rushes back on me and I'm left feeling this longing?
I've got to be honest. As long as I refuse to face these ghosts they will gain a substance they do not truly have. Once I look squarely at them I may notice that I can pass right through them. In the midst of it all I feel like I've only just begun a journey. It's as if God gave me hints in Paris so that I would have the strength to push through the rough beginning, so that I would have strength to truly get to that place I glimpsed. Like a honeymoon – a beautiful moment of sharing, of passion of intimacy, the memory of which can go a long way to get you through the first year(s) of marriage. I will not always be unfaithful.
Firelight through the Trees
Last night I dreamed this dream.
I was in a forest. Not an old growth forest but a new one, full of alders, the undergrowth was thick, the ground was treacherous. It was night and the foliage was so dense that no moonlight was able to makes it way through to the earth. I was struggling to find my way through the trees. Every now and again I caught the flicker of firelight in the distance. I knew that I had to make it to that fire. I knew that the person I was looking for was waiting for me there. So I rushed on, branches whipping across my face, brambles cutting my shins. Sometimes I fell down, sometimes I stepped into bogs of water, but always I picked myself up and carried on. Gradually the firelight became more visible until I finally broke free into the clearing.
Jesus was sitting by the fire. There was a meal he had cooked for me, and something warm to drink. He looked at me and smiled. It was gentle, and knowing, welcoming and sad all at the same time.
“Sit down,” he said. “Rest your head on my shoulder, talk with me, let my run my fingers through your hair.”
And I wanted to so badly. More than anything I wanted to… but I couldn’t.
Suddenly I was filled with rage.
“What are you doing here?” I cried. “What are you doing preparing a meal, resting yourself, sitting by a fire, when so many people out there are bleeding and suffering and dying? Why aren’t you out there? How can I sit down and rest when I know there are so many who are desperately lost around us? No, I can’t sit down. They need somebody, and I will go.”
And so with tears of anger, desperation and confusion streaming down my cheeks I raised my arm in front of my face and rushed back into the trees. I ran further and further from the fire, until I was once again surrounded by brambles and twisting vines. I plunged so deep into the darkness that no matter where I looked I could no longer see the light of Jesus’ fire. Only the darkness, everywhere the darkness.
Then I woke up.
I guess this all goes back to my question of exile – where is God in all of this? – and my question of vocation – how are we, as the people of God, to be used to bring light to the world? I think I’m still learning what it looks like to trust God with other peoples’ lives. I’m still trying to learn how to rest. And in the midst of all this I think there is a warning – beware of the road that leads away from the rest God offers. How easy it is to say we are serving God, sacrificing for God, taking up our cross, only to discover we have traveled a road that rejects God’s rest. How easy it is to say we long for God’s presence, only to discover we have been so focussed on his absence we can no longer recognize when he actually breaks in.
False Cops, False Prophets
And he [Jesus] was also saying to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out. And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out. You hypocrites. You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?” – Luke 12.54-56
Recently there has been a lot of press about an apparent clean-up in the Toronto police force, particularly the notoriously corrupt 52 division. And I talk with Christians who tell me this is a sign of God breaking in, a sign that God is moving in Toronto.
I disagree. I cannot agree.
It’s all related to analyzing the present time. How do we discern a genuine inbreaking of God from a human patch job? Well, I don’t know the hard and fast rules (after all it seems to be a contextual exercise) but I think the case with the Toronto police is pretty clear. We’ve seen this kind of clean-up before. A scandal leaks out that can’t be covered up (although they certainly try to do so). After the cover up attempts fail then a few low-ranking officers are pegged to take the fall (unless the scandal gets really big, then a major official may have to go down). Of course, those officers only go down after a lengthy hard-fought battle (where they are supported by tax-payers’ money). Of course at the end of it all the system that produces corrupt police stays firmly in place, as do all the serious players. But the media has put on a show that appeases the general public and so it’s business as usual until next time (the book “The Story of Jane Doe” has some great insights into the workings of the Toronto police, especially in this type of situation – Jane Doe sued the Toronto police and, after 11 years, won her case).
And this is God breaking into our city?
“They have healed the brokenness of my people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace. Were they ashamed of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; they did not even know how to blush.” – Jeremiah 6.14-15a
There, I believe is the appropriate Christian response to the ‘clean-up’ that is occurring right now in 52 division. And really, the verses that follow scare me.
“‘Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be cast down,’ says the LORD.”
It all goes back to repentance. Repentance that results in personal and systemic transformation. That is what is lacking. On one hand it is what is needed for God to break in, on the other hand it is the first sign that God is already breaking in.
To Our Glorious Dead*
Recently a suicide barrier was erected on the Bloor Street bridge. It’s a monolithic structure of glass and cable and steel girders that look like crosses. They span the length of the bridge. Both sides. There was some outcry about building the barrier in the first place, something about the bridge being an historical landmark, something about the barrier being an eyesore. But the city went through with it anyway. There had been too much bad press about the Bloor Street bridge being the hottest spot to commit suicide in the city.
To me the barrier seems a sort of tragic memorial. Giant steel crosses speaking of lives lost and hearts broken. It speaks of a busy city, full of people, everywhere people, yet in the midst of it all there are those so overcome by loneliness that the find themselves on the edge of a bridge ready to jump into the Don river… or onto the highway below. The crosses mark an uncountable number of anonymous graves and unknown lives. It is not intended to be a memorial for those we wish to remember, but it has become a memorial for those we do our best to forget. That after all is why the barrier was built in the first place. Not to prevent suicide but to force it out of the public eye. “Take your life, but take it elsewhere.” And so they go and we forget about them. Not only in their dying but in their living as well. “Too needy, too raw, too broken, too awkward. There are professionals to deal with people like these. Not me.”
Yet I will call them glorious.
Not because of what they have done but because they are children of God.
And I will call them beautiful.
Behind the too eager conversations, behind the awkward silences, beneath the scars, they are the handiwork of God.
And I will call them Beloved.
On that final day we will be much more to blame for their actions then they. A child beaten, scarred and driven out, abandoned and exploited, jumps from a bridge. Will such a child be condemned? I think not. Such a child will finally discover comfort. Such a child will finally discover what it means to be home. Such a child will discover a God defined by love, a warm embrace and a gentle hand that weeps away all tears and heals all wounds.
—
*Taken from a memorial in front of Old City Hall dedicated to soldier who died in both World Wars.
Loving Money and Slaughtered Sheep
It’s funny how I can find out little things that seem to add a whole new sense of coherence, depth – and even urgency – to my understanding of some of the things the New Testament says.
One of the most famous lines from the Bible, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
Well, I’ve always thought, “Okay, that’s really pretty obvious. You know, I should be careful about loving money cause then I might become greedy, I might become proud, I might become self-absorbed.” As if the entire range of evil spoken of here refers simply to the range of personal vices. But now I’ve begun to think that “all evil” here refers to ALL evil – that is, it is addressing not so much personal vices (although these are certainly included) but rather systemic evil. Read a book like “No Logo” (Naomi Klein) and you start to realize that not only does the love of money produce greedy self-absorbed egos, it is also responsible for genocide, the destruction of ecosystems, slavery, child labor, and pretty much every form of oppression and exploitation whether of people, animals or the natural environment. Suddenly there are concrete social, political and corporate references that make this verse hit home with a magnitude I’ve never really considered before.
The other (famous)passage I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the verse that speaks of Jesus looking out and the crowd and seeing them as sheep without a shepherd. I’ve tended to interpret that as meaning that the people were sort of lost, sort of confused, sort of helpless (you know, in a cutesy kind of way). Then (and here I am indebted to N.T. Wright’s “Jesus and the Victory of God”) I realized that that passage is actually a quotation from a prophet in the book of “Kings.” Looking at that passage I realized that “sheep without a shepherd” refers not to people who are sort of lost and confused but to people who are being slaughtered, absolutely massacred. In it makes so much sense in light of my experience. I talk with so many kids at the drop-in, so many adults at the shelter and they’re trapped in a life-style that is killing them – and they don’t need us to tell them it’s killing them, they know, they feel the effects in their heart, mind and body. What they don’t know is how to escape, how to do anything different. Like sheep without a shepherd. Getting slaughtered. Then last winter when I was doing my sign campaign at Union Station I realized that the Bay Street crowd, the big shots in corporate business in downtown Toronto are in a similar situation. One day I held a sign that said, “Are you free?” and so many people stopped and talked to me about how they didn’t think they were. “Maybe I was once upon a time… You know the ball’s rolling and I can’t stop it now…” And they also know they’re trapped, but they don’t know how to do anything different so they keep doing the same thing day in and day out just living for those moments when they escape. Just like the street kids. Sheep without a shepherd. Getting slaughtered. It breaks my heart. Where are the shepherds?
Somewhere along the way the church has gotten off track. It’s become intimately involved with a culture that loves money, it has become just as guilty as anybody else out there, and as a result it can’t prevent the slaughter that ensues. And sometimes it makes me furious but mostly it makes me want to break down and cry.
Here Be Dragons
Last week I had a dream.
I was standing by a lake in an underground cavern. The water was fierce, the waves were foaming and crashing and a dragon emerged from the chaos. There was a sword in my hand and I knew that that dragon was trying to eat the person who was with me. And so I fought. I remember it well, the swirling darkness, the swirling water, flashes of teeth and scales and fire. I don’t know how long the battle lasted by eventually the monster retreated back into the depths of the lake. Well, the dream progressed and the cave was left behind up until the scene after the last scene (can a dream have an epilogue?). I was older, a lot older, and once again found myself by the underground lake. Only this time things were totally different. The air was still, and light had penetrated the darkness. The water was as smooth as glass and just as clear. I could see all the way to the bottom of the lake and there was no sign of any dragon. In fact there had never been a dragon at all. At that point I realized: all the things I had thought were my greatest victories were only figments of my imagination. For a moment there was a sense of sorrow (“Oh no, I’m not the hero I thought I was”) but that was quickly replaced by an overwhelming sense of calm. Although I had lost my hero status the monsters had not only lost their power but their very existence. This cave was not a battleground, it was a place of beauty, a place of peace.
And then I woke up.
Somewhere in there I think there is a lesson about what it means to be humbled by God. It’s a liberating humility, one that is accompanied by a sense of peace a feeling that, “yes, this is okay, this is how it should be” because it recognizes God’s sovereignty. It frees us from carrying the world on our shoulders and allows us to recognize that God is, after all, in the business of making all things new.
Of Jonah, Jeremiah and other momentous Losers
I think I’ve finally got a glimpse of what Jonah was going through. I never could understand his reaction… sure I knew that he was going to a people that he perceived to be corrupt, even personal enemies but wouldn’t that be all the more reason to rejoice after the entire city of 120,000+ people repented and turned to the Lord?
But then I look at Toronto and all I can see is corruption, selfishness, oppression and heart-break. Surely, I say to myself, we are living in exile. Not only is the city defined by these things, but those who claim to be the people of God are equally guilty and equally involved in a culture of violence and greed. At the same time I make these observations I talk with friends who tell me that “God is doing great things in this city… the Spirit is moving in new and exciting ways.” And that’s what made me think of Jonah. Perhaps he was so focused on the corruption that he was absolutely unable to understand how God could so quickly act compassionately. How could such a city be the place God chooses to show his grace? It makes me wonder: am I like Jonah? Am I unable to see that, in his grace, God has already begun to break into this city? But, at least in Ninevah there were signs of repentance. The city fasted and prayed, it humbled itself and (most importantly for this is what lies at the heart of repentance)they changed the ways in which they were living their lives.
So perhaps the parallel is closer to Jeremiah. I’ve always thought, from a pragmatic Western perspective, that Jeremiah must have been one of history’s biggest losers. Here was a fellow deeply in love with his people, his city, his nation and his God. He was broken hearted by the state of affairs in which he found himself and devastated by the consequences he knew would inevitably result. So he does everything he can to bring home his message – change the way you live your life or we will go into exile. And he really does try everything. Running around naked proclaiming, “this is how you will go into exile!” Building models of Jerusalem with tiny siege engines, “This is how our city will fall!” At the end of it all what does he have to show for it? Nothing. The people he loves are killed, raped and led away, the city he loves is destroyed by fire, the nation he loves no longer exists, and the God he loves turned them over to the consequences of their actions. Jeremiah dedicated himself to showing the people of God how they had fatally compromised themselves with the culture around them and in the end he accomplished nothing. And so I am left wondering, “Is this situation more like Jeremiah’s?” Is it that the people around me, even the people I love and respect, haven’t recognized the true depth of our complicity with our culture? Boy, that’s a scary thought. It sort of adds a whole different human element to the rejection Jeremiah faced. After all (to quote Isaiah this time), “my people go into exile for their lack of knowledge.” A prophet, it seems, faces an amazingly lonely road. Maybe I’m just beginning to realize how lonely that road is.
All the more reason to focus on God as Lover.
At the same time I can’t help but wonder if these reflections are founded upon a pride I have been unable to root out. I could have a serious Messiah-complex. Who am I to compare myself to Jonah, let alone Jeremiah?