Floating or Shame

My ideas are presumptions about reality, but they remain imagination until tested.

I try to create out of them, build upon them, and change with them, but it does me no good. Each time I try I have not made it. I’m no closer to reality. Nothing has changed. What good to me are these ideas? They do me no good and so I see, yet without reflection I’m back at it like OCD. So here I am.

Floating.

Hovering above the reality I see, my ideas mix as they look for a match where they might land. But I look down and there is nothing there. The color is not right. The shape is off. What am I missing?

There is something here…almost…it is so near I can feel it. I will try a different way.

Shame.

Ah, I see what I’m missing! It’s so clear! There it is! I can taste the color. It’s in my hands. True in a way I did not comprehend. Shame has brought me down to reality.

Wait.

My ideas do not match. They shatter on impact. I do not like this. Reality is so awful. How sick I feel…has my imagination been tested?

But without being above, I cannot reflect on it. Shame has brought me into the rough of it, but that is all it has done. My ideas cannot be tested without a view. I’m desperate to know is my imagination proving me true?

There is a place and I know it’s true.

I have heard of it in times gone past. I’ve sung its songs, danced its dance, and eaten its eats. Good as they are, we all know the best things come in threes.

Was I only imagining? Is there hope for when I’ve yet to reach my goal? What is my goal? They are both the same.

Reality is truth. Truth is reality. They cannot separate. Then what is hope? Hope is taking both in time. Hope is when imaginations ideas match with the true place. The true place comes down to this round ground. Better than a touchdown.

Truth does not depend on my floating and shame. Round and round I need not go. My distance nor my nearness cannot change truth. Truth stays the same. It is here. It is coming. Now and not yet.

New ideas are what is needed. No, wait. That cannot be. Because truth stays the same so what is needed cannot come into being. I must have something old, tested. But that is not quite right either. For just as the new ideas won’t do since they have changed in their coming into existence, so the old was once new and I’m back to where I began. What to do…

Perhaps I’m being pedantic. Often I am. An idea that is true will fit with reality and thus position my imagination even higher than floating yet more grounded than shame. An idea that is true will fit, not shatter, as it matches onto the map of reality.

Yes, this is the place and it’s true.

An idea new to me does not mean it’s new. An idea the ancients knew does not make it old. Truth is outside of time. But then how can I know it? How can I taste it? I can both know and taste it because I can taste and see in mind that truth comes from what else but its place: The true place.

I want to float above and get a look at this true place come down, but I fear the reason why is I’m able to live a lie. Safer to stay off the ground. Out of reality. Up in the air. But this is the same as being on the fence. I need not, must not, muzzle my imagination in shame either. I see now that while in shame I come into contact with the true place, my ideas are not true, for they are reactionary to shame. A reorientation must occur. What can I do with my shame? I’ve abandoned my floating, but the ground is hard and hurts my feet. This will take time for my imagination to catch up with how things really are. For the first time I see it; reality is truth and truth is reality. It’s a place familiar with here. It’s similar like the garden before the fall. I’m starting to remember the taste and color.

The true place has come. Now and not yet. It’s here.

No more floating or shame.

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More than Friendly Gestures

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“If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. . . For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:8,11).

Spoiled.

How many of us seek the riches of God and yet assume the absence of his correction? We cry out for deliverance from our troubles thinking it was not our hand that pulled the trigger. Continue reading

What Sort of Heaven

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In the movie A Few Good Men, Colonel Jessep (Jack Nicholson) responds to Lieutenant Kaffee’s questioning saying, “You can’t handle the truth!”

We’ve all heard that quote before. And while we may want to feel the indignation and righteousness that Lieutenant Kaffee does, I believe we stop short of the truth in our own lives.

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Fictional Memoirs: Communion

I, by myself, am not a person¹

Living here and not yet. Communion acts in opposition to individualism. For a Christian the idea that religion and spirituality are private matters, is as biblically illiterate as the goalie presuming she does not need her team. You need all the saints and they need you. That desire for perfectness is sifted out by being with others. When you see the bigger picture, you notice how small your selfie really is. You cannot truly participate unless you have a full team. Do you see the opposition to individualism when communion is taken as a family?

The Christian life is complex.

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Fictional Memoirs: Bad Christian

I’m a beggar telling other beggars where to find food.

Real food is needed. Real truth is where unction meets function. Disciples will not be made until our pride is reduced like hide.

Life is built upon life. Cheap tricks won’t save a life lost in a cave.  We won’t use banana splits or any other gimmicks that are only counterproductive and destructive.

How many times will the youth pastor shave his head before he saves the spiritually dead? Continue reading