The Furnace

I'd challenge the lions
and the giants
fight past despair
face the burning furnace

but I am crammed inside
the tight airless dark
of a candle snuffer
choking on ash

The Poor in Spirit

I am not a very good Christian any more.

I used to think that under it all, I was doing the things right and that counted for something. That it counted for a lot.

I wanted God's blessing and God's protection, and to get those one must do all the things just so, or try to. God forgives those who are trying to do the things just so, but fail, so still protects and blesses the trying.

Now I don't do all the things just so. Now I don't try.

Why?

I don't really know. I got exhausted somewhere in my soul, doing right and finding no harvest. No protection. No blessing.  All this doing the things right got me exactly nowhere and I feel betrayed. The soil is poisoned.

Doing the things just so made me feel better than those who didn't. I tried not to let it but it did.
Doing the things just so made me feel ashamed when I failed, which was all the time.

I can't do the things that make God love me; can't show my love by obeying. Someone tells me he does anyway, that he always did.

These theologians. Spiritual pundits. These writers and speakers and church-leading-noise-makers teach me how best to manage the shame of failing to be like them - that is to say, like they say they are. I do the things they tell me God hates, and I wonder if he loves anyway. They predict doom for me. They do. I do. It's easy to believe in doom.

All the things they say are so intertwined with lies and shame that I am too weak to separate and pull out. I have put all their shaming out of my mind.

The shame makers taught me that faith is a thing in itself to amass. They taught me to hope in a mirage. That love is made perfect by shame.

I can't sit through a "worship service" - that glorious production of music and exposition - because I am exhausted from the work of shame. I came to find community, not a dissection of God's rules about who is in and who is out. I can't watch the show. 

I need to find people who know how it feels to have love exchanged for abuse and shame. When I find them, I know I find people who know how to love. 

I Am Not

I am not a lighthouse
     High on a crag
Aloof, untouched
     Impervious to the storm

I am a seashell
     Pounded, dragged,
        broken by the surf
Indistinguishable
     From the sand.


March 1, 2015